happy halloween

Oona was a kitty once again but instead of being bad princess kitty (what she deemed last year's cat costume which had a shredded Stevie Nicks type gauze skirt) she was pretty kitty, the costume was a bit racy for a 2 - 4 year old with a pink collar that had a heart shaped tag with Meow in script, but Oona doesn't do collars. She doesn't usually do barrettes, headbands or masks of any type, the kitty ears stayed on for about a half hour which is very good for Oona.

Unfortunately this was shot at a party we went to on Friday. It was a great party; my friend went all out with the food, decor, everything. But Oona still seemed rundown by her flu. She wasn't the perkiest cat & kept asking to go home (when she wasn't taking her hands out of her underwear to grab apple slices. My hygenic daughter, coughs in her elbow when she doesn't have her hands on her butt) so we were one of the first to leave, at 7. And she was still not feeling well for Halloween. Toby took her to a few houses but she just wanted to come home and lie on the couch. Her eyes get very glassy and sort of hangdog looking when she's sick, poor thing. Oona likes to snuggle when she's healthy, she's very huggy and kissy, but when she's sick she snuggles even more. She acts like my cat, Sam, trying to get on my lap whenever I sit down. Thank God my kids are affectionate snugglers. I love that I can hug and kiss them with abandon. But Toby called me earlier this evening to tell me that Oona is running a fever again, I hate when my kids are not well.

H- made a headstone for Owen and a couple other lucky friends. He had an awesome wolfman costume on. My friend's got a rope swing in her backyard, that was the hit of the party for the kids, you should have seen the line for it. But that swing can make my anxiety go into overdrive, what doesn't really? I went on it over the summer and the combination of the swing with the slope of the backyard, you can get some major height on that thing and I'm always holding my breath when I see Owen fiercely clutching the rope with both hands, saying 'woohoo' in a tight voice, like he's as adventurous as H- when clearly the kid got my anxiety genes.

Candy please. Let me tell you when I found Owen and told him we had to leave the party early because his sister wasn't feeling well he was not a happy camper. He had a mini moody tantrum but I stood firm. I've got to be on him with his recent hissy fits. I don't yell but I'm not backing down and I'm making it clear that the behavior is unacceptable, hopefully drilling this into him will be a good preventative from any teenage moodiness - I can hope. Fortunately, after his bath he was happy to have me lie next to him in bed while we read My Father's Dragon.

Hope everyones Halloween was happy & healthy!

catastrophic thinking: pencil impalement

Oona got this in a gift bag from a birthday party awhile ago. I was holding off on letting her use it because I was thinking it looked like the graphite equivalent of a syringe. Okay, now I realize it's not as long as a typical syringe but that pencil tip looks pretty darn pointy to me, maybe the pencil equivalent of the epipen? And with the way my children fight in my presence, which is especially difficult for me since I'm an only child and have trouble knowing what's typical and what's not, I don't want to make a trip to the ER with the pencil tip impaled in some body part.

sick

My Mom came out to visit last week and she wound up rearranging her flight back because Owen & Oona both got struck down by the swine flu. I was so grateful I could have cried, yeah Mom! I had 3 houses to clean this week but the one lined up for tomorrow has been rescheduled since the woman is pregnant, I emailed her about my sick kids because I didn't want to be the swine version of typhoid Mary, so we're on for next Tuesday unless I suddenly get sick. Cleaning these house I realize that if I was to describe myself in one word it would probably be fixer. I love to fix things, try to make things better, it probably explains why I'm going into nursing and my compulsion to learn things, so I can know how to fix it myself. I cleaned for this older Mother and son on Tuesday, the son smokes A LOT, when I walk in I feel like I'm entering a bar. But they are so nice and the Mom is so darn grateful for the work I do, she said I was a superb cleaner and worth every darn penny. She was about to hug me when I left but just squeezed my shoulder instead. I would have hugged her but she has fibromyalgia and I didn't want to hurt her. Oh, my heart swelled. I think how genuinely grateful I am for when I get positive feedback from the people I clean for. Yeah, I'm not changing the world but I'm happy that they're happy and it's much better than being in some corporate job where professional relations can make getting positive feedback so, well, weird and stressful and bureaucratic -ugh!

Owen has been back in school since Wednesday (he was putting his books away in his locker and a classmate ran over and gave him a hug, awww) and I think Oona can go back tomorrow but even with my Mom's help those two have sucked the life out of me. They're over their illness but still sort of tired and whiny and add to it my Mom being here, does anyone else's children act up when extended family is visiting? Last night Toby stopped over while we carved Funkins (I had such high expectations but the funkins aren't so fun) Owen flippped out over having to finish his homework; he ran into a corner and said he was going to strangle himself as he placed the back of a chair against his throat. I was like, is he being overdramatic? or genuinely experiencing suicidal ideation at 7? or is he really that fed up with grammar homework? I feel so ill equipped to handle their meltdowns, and they act up so much with me. Everyone will say they're fine until I walk into the room. I don't know you here the palaver about how kids let loose with those they can trust the most but then I often wonder if I have some bizarre malevolent force the unleashes the inner Chucky in my children. When I picked him up at school today he was great, until we walked in the front door; then he was alternately railing at me for being the worst Mom ever, whining for my help and bawling over the slightest provocation. I took an hour nap just to recover.

hooked

Or maybe I should say needled? I guess the hooked title might be more appropriate if I'd just learned to crochet, which I would love to know how to do. As it is I invited some friends over for beer, cheese and knitting on Sunday and learned the basics of how to knit. Monday I went online and found a youtube video to figure out how to cast on and this is what I've managed to do since Monday. I have had this yarn lying around forever, seriously it has a price tag with a date stamp that says 05/97. It wouldn't be my first choice in colors for a scarf but I figured this is my scarf protoype and once I feel good with my newbie knitting skills I can graduate to the prettier yarn that I just purchased. I should not have started knitting when there's so many half finished projects in my house but, oh well, it's too late now, I've succumbed to the addiction that is knitting.

I have no qualms in telling you that I photoshop the hell out of most of my pictures, at least when the photo calls for it and I allow myself this wonderful method of procrastination (which is what I'm doing because there is a baseball game on when I'm supposed to be watching House, why? it's not even the Pirates, so I don't know why a new episode of House got preempted. Anyhoodle, up top is a new banner for fall pending any better shots I might take when we go to get pumpkins this weekend. I love this tree in Highland Park, the thing is in my mind's eye I'm able to block out the surrounding tress and focus on the beauty of this one, not so easy even with photoshop. And I'm totally annoyed that the upper left hand corner is burnt out.


The biggest reason I photoshop is to try and recapture the light in my photos, it never looks like it does to my eye, try as I might fiddling with the various modes on my camera. On fall days like today the leaves almost glow, the way they're lit by the sun and I wanted to show that but can't do it justice. My absolute favorite light play in fall is when it's grey and rainy but the leaves look lit, amazing but I've never come close to recreating that effect.


Mais non. Oona, my breathen, told me that she doesn't like fall, the horror. On the way to Ikea yesterday, when I was pointing out the amazing colors of the trees by the side of the road she let out this bombshell, in a deep, well for a four year old deep, foreboding voice. She had her arms crossed over her chest and said that she didn't like fall; she doesn't like the leaves off the trees and the punched leaves (the brown ones) which, she says, look like they've been bruised.

name the song

you'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw,
because there's nothing else to do.

Oh my God, they just summed up my twenties - kidding.

hint: it's on my ipod shuffle so it's a song that is good for dancing/exercising to.
No googling to get the answer!

Personal record for posts in one night, I'm just a blogging fool. Actually I'm procrastinating from doing any home renovation projects that beckon; my bare windows, the stripped doors to hang, the paint waiting to be put on walls & trim. Not tonight. I was daydreaming, thinking that I'm going to get pumpkins next weekend with Toby & the kids, we can't go this one because Toby has to go out of town for work on Sunday. Anyhoo I was thought maybe I should wear something like this. How much flipping therapy do think this poor child will need having a trollop like this for a mother. The thing is, take out those implants, bring her hair back to a natural shade, scrape off 90% of the makeup and put her in sneakers & for God's sake an actual top and she'd probably look pretty, at the very least appropriate for pumpkin picking. Oh but this is Hollywood pumpkin picking, what am I thinking, I guess heels and stripper tops are de rigueur. In these photos this woman looks terrifying and I wonder what sort of psychiatric disorder she sufffers from to need attention from paparazzi that badly, my guess is narcissistic personality disorder. I used to poke fun at the Left Behind series of books Toby's Mom, Aunt & cousin read, never to their faces, but I found the whole series, well funny, especially when the video game of the Left Behind series was spoofed on the Daily Show (which I've spent the past hour trying to get a link to but it's been removed from everywhere). But looking at magazines in the checkout at the grocery and the crap on tv, I'm wondering if the rapture has already occurred .

sibling rivalry

Being an only child I really feel ill equipped to deal with some of the routine struggles that occur daily with children. The constant fights and jockeying for my attention, then the tears when I show I don't love them as much as the other. I don't know how to handle it, brush it off? ignore it? I usually wind up explaining, to Owen, that he should be nicer to Oona because she basically worships him and will do pretty much anything he wants to do, she's like the ultimate playmate for him. But he frequently can't be bothered to play with the likes of her, especially in my presence, or God forbid, if I ask him to try and get along with her. Are most first borns the hothouse flower of the family? I'm sure I'm to blame having fussed over him too much, pruned him into this high maintenance despot who whines his every command. But Oona is like those weedy flowers that break concrete. Owen can tease, taunt, pick, and hit but if Oona wants she can easily overthrow him.

I can't read this book and I was so looking forward to it coming out. Lorrie Moore hasn't written a book in eleven years, my hopes were unbelievably high, but I just can't do it. I'm on page 50 and it feels forced to me. I want to like it, really I do, but my head and heart just aren't caught up in the story. I feel like I've let Lorrie Moore down or she's let me down, are we breaking up as a reading couple or just going through some tough times. I'm having trouble reading much of anything lately. I am way too scattered. I just can't focus enough for it. The home renovations, my Grandma, my separation, the economy, my finances . I just try to stay busy until I go to sleep and then I wake up and do it all again. I miss books. Michael Chabon has a new collection of essays out that I'm dying to read, if my mind was on 'reader' mode. I start worrying about lead paint exposure or maybe I have ADD, but I think it's something much more pedestrian, stress.

happy october

It's my favorite month! So I give you this link of Terry Gross interviewing Michael Chabon, another man who makes me all gooey inside. Okay, but this is not the most flattering picture of him, he looks sort of jaundiced or the orange saturation on the photo has got to be calmed down. Honestly though, if you listen to his interview what's not to love; he's bright, funny, engaging and also so kind. Needless to say I'm a total fan. So my dream man is a little bit Michael Chabon, and a little bit Atul Gawande, couple bits of Tim Roth, Hugh Laurie and Gary Oldman, with a dash of Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart and Rick Gervais, oh, and a sprinkle of Nick Drake on top, the non suicidal part please. More is up but I'm scattered right now. I cleaned another house yesterday and went through another vacuum bag, man I'm just working the dust out of every nook and cranny. My back has been acting up since yesterday morning, when Oona threw a fit and I then had to lug the 22 pound vacuum a 1/4 acre to the house I was cleaning. The people are so nice though and the house is amazing. It's the perfect job for a compulsive interior decor voyeur. When I lived in Park Slope how I loved to take evening walks and look at the homes through the windows. The real irony with my recent foray into housecleaning is that my own home looks beyond bad, there is crap piled up on every available flat surface on the first floor. But I've got two dear friends from out of state coming to visit this weekend, I'm so excited I'm like Hammy on caffeine, so I've got to start cleaning up soon. But not tonight I'm beat.