There’s a lot to be said for feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Go Jules Go writes about posting a video clip of her singing on her blog: Hitting The Right Note Please do click on the clink in the post of her singing- it made me really happy.
Renée A. Schuls-Jacobson wrote this really cool and disturbing piece that stuck with me. Not a Tale for Children.
I loved this post too– it’s funny-yet-poignant-but-not-in-a-way-that-makes-you-want-to-strangle-kittens-or-kick-babies: Life- The Yelp Reviews on Byronic Man. I gotta work on my own review.
If I really get on a roll writing today, a bunch of things won’t get done.
That’s been the theme of the last six months for me. It seems like CC and I had a month’s reprieve from being in production at the same time (read: a shitload of overtime for both of us) and then it kicked back up for him.
Huh. I just checked the calendar and there’s no “seeming” about it, that’s actually how it happened. Nice to know I’m not crazy. About that, anyway.
He’s been out of town a lot. Like, for weeks at a time. Many. Weeks. I’ve been running the household.
I can hear many of you married moms going, “So?” or “I wish my husband would go out of town!” and the like. Well this is a very risky post for me, not only because I am revealing online the absence of my husband
-I interrupt this post to inform you that I am, indeed, armed, and while I’m not as good a shot as him, I am decent enough and I use a bigger gun
-but it’s also risky because I am revealing the fact that my husband does everything to run the household. If the women in my town knew exactly how amazing he is, they’d be plotting against me, five kids or no five kids.
He does all your typical man stuff. But he also cooks and cleans and does laundry and makes the kids’ lunches and lets me sleep in. He can sew, and he can wire the furnace into a generator when the power goes out. He has power tools and one of his greatest joys is teaching the girls how to use them. He grocery shops, which I totally suck at.
And most of this year, he’s been working like ninety jobs’ worth of hours out of town and I am trying to fill his shoes here at home, and every day I sit down at my computer and think, if I really get on a roll writing today, a bunch of stuff won’t get done. Because while my husband can get a tasty meal for seven on the table in twenty minutes, it takes me half a week of planning to make that happen. If I don’t plan to run this household, I’m screwed. Or they are, depending on how you look at it. Not a damn piece of it comes naturally to me.
Like, I made cookies. Chocolate Chip and a few White Chocolate Chip. They were really good too, because I added cinnamon. Because I add cinnamon to everything. The kids were not impressed, but I knew that when they got hungry enough they would eat them. Particularly since there wasn’t much else to eat in the house. The next day I was outside engaged in a life and death struggle with the power washer power washing the house. The puggles were on the couch at the window watching me. They disappeared. I figured they just didn’t like water aimed at their faces through the window. But actually they were gettin’ busy.
What was wrong with these four?
That’s two dozen cookies that you don’t see because they’re in dog bellies.
I like what you did with the cinnamon
I feel guilty enough for both of us.
Here are some other highlights from this week:
I never restocked the refrigerator after we had to dump everything from the power being out for a week. We’re still eating out of the pantry.
I entirely forgot to pick up two of my children from school on Thursday. Never even entered my mind.
I managed to get an entire month behind in paying my babysitter. I may have to take out a loan to get current.
We now have to bring the dogs with us on our upcoming road trip and board them when we get in Indiana, about a 12 hour drive, because I couldn’t get all the details squared away in time. Though in my defense, Jack had a strong hand in it by spontaneously developing an upper respiratory infection the night before he was supposed to get shots.
What’s that? Road trip? Indiana? Why, yes! Which is why again I say if I really get on a roll writing today, a bunch of stuff won’t get done. There’s a lot to get done to prep five kids and two dogs and me to head out. We can’t wait! We get to see my whole famdamnily, and CC has Thanksgiving Day off so I get to retrieve him and bring him back to my mom’s.
Maybe when I get back I can restock the refrigerator.
*****
Meanwhile, back in New Jersey and New York, cleanup efforts continue. I got to see a former co-worker of mine yesterday who lives on Long Beach. We saw pictures and videos of the sea busting through his foundation, of the water rising up to the ceiling. His neighbor drowned in her home. And though he lost nearly everything he owned, including all the years of custom work he had done on his place, he said he sees so much good coming out of it. Before, he said, nobody would speak much to each other on the street. He only knew a few of his neighbors. Now everybody knows each other, they ask how they’re doing; they pitch in and help out.
More train lines are back up and running. Oddly, it made my commute worse, as there are now no trains between 10:14pm and midnight to where I’m going. I’m sure there’s a valid reason for it. I mean, the freaking land that many of the tracks are on washed away. The people along those lines were scrambling every day to try and find a way into work, and many of them still are. A friend of mine who also commutes explained it to his little boy like this: You know how you have your toy trains on your train table? And sometimes the tracks get moved and you have to put them back so the trains will run? Well, here, the train table washed away. He said his mouth dropped open.
And say what you will about Snookie, but she and her guidos/ettes raised a million bucks for their shore town. She was also at the telethon we performed on, early in the morning, answering phones. In Snookie-shoes.
Keep those positive stories coming. We all need them. I opened up the Sunday paper last week and just wept.
By the way? The gas rationing thing totally worked. Granted, getting more stations on line with power and more gasoline helped. But in a week we went from waiting in a line after midnight for two and half hours to no lines.
******
Here are your links:
So my babysitter (the one I owe all the money to) informed me that I really should investigate whether there was a seatbelt law for dogs because she saw something posted at the pet store.
I just spent an hour looking for an article about gratitude that conveyed what I feel about it (that’s the equivalent of two loads of laundry started, for those of you playing along at home). I found it: Giving Thanks from Woman’s Day.
And let’s close this Sunday post out with a link I found on The Bloggess to a 1984 video clip from the Today Show about a toaster possessed by Satan. It Makes Good Toast.
******
PS: If you are, in fact, going to break into my house, could you please throw a load of towels in the washer? They’re going to moulder while I’m gone. Help yourself to the lemons in the fridge. There’s like, forty in there. Lemons are unfazed by power outages. They’re lonely.
We got Jack and Casey as puppies when they were seven weeks old.
They spent a lot of time in the kitchen because it was the only room we could completely make safe and secure. Plus it had a tile floor for easy cleanup, if you know what I mean. We gradually enlarged their inside world by blocking off larger sections of the house for them to explore while we were with them.
One night I was home with the kids and we had movie night. I made popcorn and milkshakes. I don’t remember what we were watching. The puppies were sniffing around the living room. At that time, they still fit under most of the furniture so there was a lot for them to check out. We had a green trunk that we used as a coffee table. Some of us set our milkshakes upon it.
The thing about puppies, unlike kittens, is that they’re not normally quiet. Stealth is a quality dogs generally lack. I rely on my hearing more than anything to make sure my dogs aren’t getting into something they’re not supposed to. It’s not rocket science; even small dogs lumber.
But this night? My puppies were ninjas.
I got up to go back into the kitchen and turned around. There, on the trunk directly behind me, was a heavy glass that had formerly contained a milkshake, lying on its side. The contents spilled across the trunk and two puppies were silently slurping up the dregs. Chocolate, of course.
This was the first of many times to come where we were hipped to the teamwork that is possible between a couple of puggles that bonded in the womb.
The only two in the litter. Can you tell?
In my mind, I picture Casey getting Jack to crouch down while she tipped the glass over onto him so that it didn’t crash. Then licking up any milkshake that spilled on his back. It sounds like something she’d do.
I can only imagine what it must be like to have twin humans.
JM Randolph, accidentalstepmom 