NPM Day 3

Last night, the Grandpa proposed an interesting communal poetry idea to me. I'm in. I'll tell you more about it when I know more in case you want in too. Plus, also. that will get the Grandpa back online!

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Energy expended
on endless envisioning
is exhausting.

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That's not my NPM poem. I'm just saying.

NPM is below. Remember: NPM isn't about polished poetry...

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Spring Shower

She's getting soaked to the bone by
Fat, refreshing sundrops, and

Splashing in puddles of light
Shimmering through
Fluorescent green leaflace.

An umbrella would be simply
Useless on a stormy day like today.

Just Wondering...

Here, in The South, when there is the threat of "winter weather," everyone (except us and our level-headed friends) rushes out to the grocery store to buy milk and bread and eggs. What is the point? I mean, aside from the fact that winter weather here is often ice, resulting in power-outages and no refrigerators and the potential for the shiny new milk and eggs to spoil, why eggs?

Are we supposed to make French toast?

Soccer Shots

One nice thing about living in the South is that it’s not unreasonable to sign your 4 year-old up for soccer in January. I do miss real winter, but Lulu absolutely had a blast yesterday afternoon running and dribbling and making penalty kicks and scoring goals. One time, when the yellow team was headed toward her goal, Lulu took off running toward them and her coach yelled, “Way to play some defense, [Lulu]!” She glowed later when I shared that with Husbandguy.

Also, my little girl is the ONLY girl in this little group of potential future soccer players and she doesn’t mind at all!

Today I Am Wondering

• How to make a boring dialogue-driven story into something compelling to read.
• Whether the story is actually compelling.
• If it is possible to lose talent!
  
• Whether we've scheduled Pete for too many activities this fall (it's really only Tuesdays that are full...).
• Why it has to be 90º+ after Labor Day.
• Whether 2 Honey Buns and 3 cups of coffee is really a good breakfast.
• Whether Lulu's potty regression is only because of all the changes in her little life or if she needs a doctor.
• Whether Pete's warts will clear up before her self esteem suffers and/or before Follies.
• Who's going to clean this house.
• Why I'm not motivated to work on my story (maybe see the first bullet...).
• What I could work on instead.
• How to work on the computer but stay offline.
• Will our "free" roof really be free?
  

Not Cool Enough for School

The weather, I'm talking about. It's supposed to be in the mid 90's all week (it's Wednesday - so far, so good), and that is just too hot for school. It's September today, for goodness sake. That's not what this post is about though. It's really about school. And little people who are uncertain about whether they want to be there.

Lulu has had 2 days of school. According to the one of her teachers I keep bumping into, she is having a great experience. And immediately after school, Lulu expresses the same thing. As she was climbing into the car yesterday afternoon, she said, "I had so much fun today, Mommy!" but by the time I pulled away from the curb, she couldn't remember what had been so fun, and by the time we left the parking lot, she didn't like school anymore. Then she proceeded to reminisce, the whole way home, about what it had been like when I picked her up from school last year and we went home and had a snack and waited for Pete to get home on the bus. "I wish I could go to my old school again," she said. As fantastic as that experience was for both of us, it's time to move on and grow up and learn the 7's times tables and to write in cursive (oh wait, that's later...).

Fortunately, being Lulu, she hasn't had any trouble making friends or finding someone to play with on the playground. Her teacher said a few of the bigger girls drag her around with them when they're outside. I commented that that would probably change as Lulu gets more comfortable and that she'll eventually be the one calling the plays.

But (hopefully I'm not kidding myself) I think Lulu is missing being with me, just hanging out, doing whatever, Mommy's monkey. I miss that too. It's a lot quieter around here, and after the busy of this week and the shortness of next week, which is only a 2 day week with the holiday and teacher workdays, it's going to be really strange here. I imagine I'll go through a little remember-when-ing too. Probably right about the time Lulu gets used to it all.

Last Day at the Beach

We watched this storm roll in from the west and then we sat on the porch while it raged. It was beautiful.

HG Says:

The other day I was talking to Lulu about living in New Hampshire. She decided she would rather live there than here (NC) because there it actually snows. A lot. Then Pete got involved and the talk turned to the 2 weeks of mud and lilacs that people in NH call "spring" and how beautiful the fall can get, but they were both still intrigued by the snow and didn't mind at all that it can get really, really cold there in the winter (although not as cold as some places, I know). Then Husbandguy said, "The cold lasts a long time, too. It stays cold there for as long as it stays hot here." Like that was going to change anyone's mind. HA! The past week or so, the high temperatures have been in the high 90's with heat indexes in the 100's. It's miserable. I hate it. It's awful. And it's not the humidity that's the problem either; it's the heat. Yuck.

Sadly, HG's job pays exactly the same in NH as it does in NC, dollar for dollar, in spite of the substantially higher cost of living so I suppose we'll be waiting to make the move north until I've had something significant published. Sigh.

For now I'll just stay inside and wait for October and hope it snows at least once in January for my girls.

Storm Coming

Back Yard

Summer storms are so much more interesting when you can see the usually lazy creek at the bottom of the hill raging and threatening to overflow.

Make-Up #1

I believe I owe you 4 poems for flaking out at the end of National Poetry Month. Here's one:

July

A distant fire engine siren,

drawling lazily,

echoes the carpenter bees

hovering, droning

by back yard pools

waiting for rare, languid splashes

from sticky, popcicle-painted kids.

Breathless, oppressive air binds,

blinding, unbending,

thick and wet and hot

like a bathroom

after a long shower.

Even a long rain wouldn't change this,

only leaving more steam

and sulphur-colored heat

in its wake.

6 april poem

Spring

One
Weekend
Away and
It's like the gray-
Brown dullness of the
Winter months has been swept
Under a new carpet of
Pale clean greenness and lacy light.
Spring snuck up while we were turned away,
And we are startled by nature renew'd.

This Is Not What the Sunrise Looked Like this Morning

(In real-time, it's Spring-ish.)

Finally Winter?

Nuh-uh! All through December, Lulu kept denying that it was winter. It couldn't be because it hadn't snowed. Even when December 21 came and went (without flakes from the sky) it was not winter. "Mommy?" she queried, "When is it going to be winter?" Sorry, sweetie. We live in The South. Sigh...

But Maybe There is a chance of winter starting this coming Friday, though. Keep your fingers crossed in your mittens for us, okay? It's nearly February, afterall, which is the month when we usually start our tomato seeds and realize in a few weeks that we waited too long and the month before spring starts (the thermometer starts heading back up consistently on March 1) so our time to have winter this year is running out.

It All Depends on Your Point of View

Two Takes Yesterday (or the day before), I commented to Husbandguy how strange it seemed that exactly 1 week before that we were at the beach and had been for several days. He agreed that it did seem strange. "But also nice," he added. I didn't answer immediately with a vigorous, "HELL YEAH!!" (probably because I didn't feel like it) so he went on about how relaxing our vacation had been and how good the girls listened and blahblahblabbityblah. First of all, I'm not sure whose girls he was talking about and secondly, I think our definition of what is relaxing is more different than I previously realized.

All in the Family One explanation I've come up with for the difference in our experience is the fact that we were there with his parents. I know that I have a much more relaxing and enjoyable time at TG and Meme's than he does. Our families are different. There are times when I find watching television "relaxing" and diverting but not when the first thing you do when you get out of bed or come in the door is turn it on and then leave it on and drool in front of it until you go out again or until you pry your eyes open to stumble off to bed. When it's on constantly, it's just irritating! Also, I personally wouldn't choose to watch football and FoxNewsick all the time (although I didn't mind the Rose Bowl - I did mind that HG's mom wanted Oregon to win but couldn't tell me why she chose them over OSU, but she did change the channel from FoxNewsick when Mike Huckabee promised to talk about abortion and I said, "Can we turn this to something else?"). And I think HG's memory of the girls not fighting, etc. has a lot to do with the fact that they figured out they should ask him if they could turn the TV on in the other room instead of me because he always said yes, even after I'd said no. Of course they're quiet; THEY'RE CATATONIC! Bleh. I wish the condo had been bigger. Or the weather had been warmer.

Plus, Also HG had to go back to work when we got home. Me too, I guess (although technically I was still "doing my job" on vacation), but my work is more rewarding than his most of the time.

But no one got sick and they only made me go to 1 buffet. So while HG may have had a better vacation than me, I wasn't miserable.

Wednesday

I love the day
Gray.

We move the plants
From under the gable,
Watch the rain glance
Off the leaves, not able
To find the dusty,
Dry crust
Of soil below.
"It was your turn to water, you know."
"I am."

The sky
Moves by
On gray days.
Flowing,
Blowing
Fluffy puffs
Of laundry lint
With just a hint
Of denim
In them.

The Air Literally Vibrates with her Excitement

Oh, I loooove when Lulu gets excited about something. You'd love it too. I know because strangers witnessing it have stopped and commented on how adorable it is. I got to see it again just the other day.

It was raining and the sun was shining at the same time, and as all hearts-and-unicorns as I am not, a sunny shower gets me all worked up. "Oh, where's the sun? Is it raining hard enough? Everybody look that way. Do you see one? There has to be a rainbow. Keep looking!" This time my persistence paid off, and I found one. And I showed it to Lulu.

It was her first rainbow. And it was awesome.

She instantly stopped walking and became perfectly still. And her whole body clenched up with the thrill of it all. And then she squealed and exclaimed, "A rainbow! I seeee it!! A REAL RAINBOW!!!" And her whole tiny body began to tremble. There she stood, glued to that spot, frozen in the moment, chin raised to the sky, quaking from her blonde hair to her purple flip-flops with excitement. "A REAL RAINBOW!"

Oh, it's fun to watch. You've got to see it.

That's Not Right!

Okay. I live in The South, you know? But I used to live in The Northeast, grew up there, really. I learned to drive on snowy streets and am familiar with snow in March, even April, possibly early May. However, I have been Here for almost 16 years and have been comfortable with spring coming early and winter weather ending the instant we change the calendar from pink hearts to green shamrocks. I have even declared, out loud and confidently, that "winter" is over on March 1st around here.

Now, check the date on this post. See? It should be spring, right? If you go by me. Tonight, though, my seasonal truths have been shattered. Smashed. Crumbled into a million tiny pieces. Look at that picture. I took it just now. The white specks aren't dust on the lens. Those are more snow falling. And it's going to keep falling for the next 6 to 7 hours! Today. The unofficial first day of spring at my house.

And tomorrow will be an honest-to-goodness snow day, for sure (not like last time). At least that will be fun. If not quite right...

Snow Day? Really?

I've been here 15 "winters" now and am used to the schools closing for minimal winter weather but even I think they may have overreacted to the "snow" this time.

Have You Missed Me?

Sorry. Nothing particularly interesting has been going on. I mean, I had my birthday and got a Nintendo DS and the Grandpa and Meme got a puppy and it snowed (I think I mentioned that) and I went for an ECHO stress test this morning because I'm particulary sensitive to PVCs, apparently, and they've been bothering me recently (the cardiologist said nothing is wrong with my heart, though), but other than that? Nope. Nada. Oh, and Poppop got laid off, but he's handling that fine. And Pete went with me to church this week and really liked it and will be coming with me next time, too. And the dog stinks, but I can't bathe him until tomorrow afternoon. Also I think he's started eating poop. We might need to talk more about this later. I had a dream last night that I said out loud that I don't want him anymore, which isn't true, exactly, but in the dream it didn't feel wrong to say it. Let me think about this a little more and then I'll try to clarify. Don't worry. Unless Husbandguy insists, we're not getting rid of our puppy. Just day-to-day stuff really. I did find out that President Obama is planning on giving a weekly address and posting it on whitehouse.gov every Saturday, which is the closest thing I've found to the Barack Obama Show so I've bookmarked it. You should check it out.

What have you been doing?

Vaca Do-Over

You may recall that we went to the beach at Christmas time last year (if not, click here) and that it wasn't a ton of fun for me because Lulu was sick the whole week. We tried again last week and it was way better this time. Sometimes do-overs work out great. Like one time when we were newly dating, Husbandguy and I were playing pool and I totally miffed a shot and I batted my eyes at him and asked for a do-over and he, being all in love with me then and whatever, said okay and then I cleared the table - that was a great do-over. And this one was pretty good, too, but not great. I'll just tell you the not-great stuff up front and then we can move on. Okay?

Nana showed up at the beach with a cold. Nana is not a particularly healthy person in the first place so this cold, which would have just been a nuisance for most people, sent her to urgent care our 2nd full day there. They gave her a breathing treatment and a prescription for an antibiotic and Mucinex and sent her back to us with the instructions to come back 2 days later for a follow-up and to go to the emergency room if she got worse in the meantime. Well, she got worse, like didn't-get-out-of-bed-all-day worse, and I thought she should probably at least go back to urgent care early if not to the hospital, but it wasn't my decision. So the day she was supposed to go for the follow-up, Poppop and HG took her as soon as she was awake (and I took the girls to breakfast by myself - more about this later, probably) and the urgent care doctors sent her directly to the emergency room where she was fairly quickly (for an ER) admitted with congestive heart failure and pneumonia. And there she stayed. For the rest of her vacation. We went to visit her a couple of days later, well HG and Pete did while Lulu and I saw the ER doctor ourselves about croup. In the meantime, though, and croup aside, the rest of us had a pretty nice vacation.

We ate at a couple of buffets. HG and his family like buffets. I do not. I DO NOT. Meme very astutely pointed out that my quality over quantity preference probably has something to do with my dislike for them. There's more to it, too, though. Like, they're expensive and I don't eat nearly enough for them to be cost effective because I don't like to be uncomfortably full. Especially not uncomfortably full of fatty, lukewarm, overcooked, salty food. Buffets just don't seem sanitary, either. In fact, one time I watched someone who worked at a buffet (not at the beach - this was a long time ago) wipe lo mien noodles back into the pan from the counter thingy! EW! We haven't eaten there since. Or at any buffet, really, except for last week. Because apparently you have to eat at a buffet or 2 when you're at the beach. Bleh.

But that was it, really, for the not-great stuff. Everything else was cool. The weather was pleasant pretty much the whole time. We stayed in a nice condo on the 21st floor with an ocean view from the balcony. We played on the beach several times. I found some pretty sea shells, and Pete took some great pictures (that's hers up above there). We went swimming in the pool. The breakfasts were all good, for the most part. I drove the girls to breakfast once so HG could help his dad with his mom. Then the 3 of us went to the aquarium, and I realized that a year ago I wouldn't have been able to do all of that as easily as I did this time because I would have been all anxious and neurotic about driving HG's car in a strange town to places I wasn't familiar with. Turns out vacation is nicer if you let yourself enjoy it instead of worrying about everything. Pete had an early birthday dinner at Planet Hollywood on New Year's Eve and then there were fireworks. And there was shopping and coffee and other wonderful things.

I think I might see if I can talk Poppop into renting a house for next year instead of the condo so high up. But if we end up there again, I won't complain. Unless we have to go to more buffets...