I’m a cold weather person. I’m compact, fleshy, red-faced, HEARTY as you would expect a Midwestern Mutt to be. Were I a bird, I’d be a fat feathered black-capped chickadee smiling into my suet. I delight at the end of summer, as I know, especially after my seven years in southeast Georgia, My Body Is Northern.
So when I saw yesterday (Halloween) would be in the 40s and snowy, I wore a long-sleeve button-up shirt AND a v-neck sweater, because I’m me. And while I thought my ensemble was the most masculine thing I’ve worn since ever, I was certain it was warm enough. My mistake. How cold was it? It was your-dumbass-needed-a-coat cold. Cause y’all, it was 40ish at lunch, but by quittin time, it was 33 feels like 24 and the wind was blowin so hard my eyes watered!
I’ve long contended there’s always a freakishly cold day in October — one that makes you panic about whether your kids’ winter coats still fit. Halloween was that day, right at the very end. Fortunately, everyone’s coat still fits. And more fortunately, today’s forecast is 47 and sunny.
I love this time of year. I know it’s such a basic bitch thing to say, but fall is the very best, and when I was homesick, missing fall almost killed me. I wish this time of year was more static than transitional — if only this part of October lasted four months. Instead, they say our foliage colors will peak next weekend.
I have been busy. I have been run-down. I have had nightmares about fleeting time. I decided to take a four-day weekend to recoup. I decided to love myself better I could sincerely benefit from some outdoor time and down time. The girls had Fall Break. The Mister took some time off as well. It was THE BEST.
Sassy and I went to the orchard and did the whole hayride-corn maze #thotumn thing. We were veritable sun-kissed goddesses of the corn. Ridiculously happy, really.
Moo had gone with her friends and we found them while we searched for the scarecrow in the maze.
Then I told The Mister, “I wanna go to the fowwest.” So we goed. We walked, we hiked, we rested, we played. Tromping about in the leafeses of autumn is utterly joyful. You probably won’t believe me when I tell you, but my husband not only stopped to watch ducks, chipmunks, squirrels, a woodpecker, and a baby blue jay, but he also hugged a tree. Witches’ honor. Saw it with my own two eyes.
There were other good things, too. While I had lots of time to snuggle babies and furbabies, we were also allotted many hours alone as a couple. I caught up with an old friend, enjoyed a rainy day in pajamas, and slept peacefully. I enjoyed Count Chocula, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cupcakes, pulled pork, and a caramel apple.
Yes, I still taxied kids, shopped, cooked, laundered, and even got some sewing done, but I had a wonderful, beautiful long weekend because so much of it was done at my leisure.
this lil spot is right close to home, and for deborah, i’ll show you all four seasons of it
I needed that. I am restored. I am extremely grateful. It is well – with my soul.
Which is good, because tomorrow morning will find me taking a deep breath before I click on my work inbox.
WordPress email be like, “Don’t just look at your stats” or whatever, but also, “Check out your competitors.” My what now? Competitors? Who the fuck is competing with this blog? What would that entail? She’s more neurotic? She finished her back hallway the year she started it? She doesn’t have to slide her knee skin up to shave? Does she post every day? Well la-ti-fucking-dah, good for her.
I really shouldn’t blog when I’m in a mood, but here we are.
Yes, I have actual problems like everyone else. However, I shall blog to you about all my petty annoyances and worries.
It was Monday and I had to go to work and therefore I had to take my pajamas off and put on a bra and shoes and make sense of my hair. My poor mother had a procedure today and I had trouble not checking my phone every 15-20 minutes, waiting for an update. Only half our swimmers made it to practice and my whole family napped off their sick all day. Reception had a plumbing crisis that kept her home. It was raining, which, let’s face it, is fine enough when you’re all workee workee indoors, but then, when I thought I’d work late, and was about to wrap up, the rain decided to intensify and so I worked more late, because work is preferred to anxious driving in rush hour, with poor visibility and the floody right lanes. The Mister thought he would help out, and tried to order quesoeverything takeout. Well the phone at the restaurant wasn’t working so he went to the place and it appears to be closed. Twenty-five years of nom, all gone? We are fairly devastated. So he went to the … more… the … less… our place was kind of an authentic dive and the other place is sorta … it’s not a dive, it’s… standard, common, pedestrian, predictable, cliche, even. It’s not dark, there’s no tacky bad art. The tables aren’t old as me and they don’t serve drinks in red pebbled plastic tumblers. The food doesn’t arrive remarkably fast, even for takeout. It’s not our place. We ate some of it, but it’s just not our place. Bleh, there was no comfort in that food. My mother is reportedly in a great deal of pain but she’s OK and we’ll know more after her appointment tomorrow.
I have got to go put on some jammies, eat a Dreamsicle, and sleep my face.
I’m reluctantly pinning a lot, ALAWT, of hope on Tuesday.
“And we never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do.”
I heard this song in a show last weekend and since then, I’ve been playing it and humming it and singing it all the damn time, which is starting to drive my husband a little bit insane.
I was trying to figure out why I’m obsessing. Obsessives are good at obsessing about why we’re obsessing.
Music is usually a good way to identify relevant moods and emotions and meaningful memories that go with it. I got nothin. I got a lot, but not a pinpoint on why this song, why now.
It’s Crosby, Stills, & Nash, which would have been played at my mother’s house, but not at my father’s house, so I wondered what on earth I was doing in 1982, on those weekends at my mother’s and I thought really, really hard and came up with a lot of nice memories, but it was real life, so like this:
I was into Strawberry Shortcake dolls who lived in a gazebo in Barbie’s back yard. I also had a Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake, but it was artificially colored like whoa, bringing about the first time I threw up alone. And strangely, after that, I threw up by myself until I was 29, until I had morning sickness and my mother-in-law came in to rub my back, and I realized it was weird when people stopped accompanying me to vomit and strange when people began to accompany me while I vomited. Life is like that. It doesn’t matter, cause vomit.
I was into the books of Beverly Cleary. My mother bought them all. I read them all.
I had the Crayola Color Caddy, a lazy susan contraption for containing all of one’s crayons, markers, and colored pencils, intended to facilitate a neat and careful transfer of one color for another, which, as it turns out, stifled my creativity, as I preferred to pull as I went into art chaos, and then to put it all away after. I am still like this. My creativity is in the mess. Can’t be messy before or after, but in the middle, I am painted, covered in flour, wearing string, sitting in the paper, whathaveyou.
I had these adorable corduroy overalls with a pink penguin turtleneck and when things don’t fit you anymore when you’re nine, it’s because after the turtleneck became a midriff, your mother said that was okay because the overalls covered your tummy, but you grew up even more and one day, the overalls sliced your whohah in half and you got the sad. The first of many bodily betrayals, amirite, ladies?
As for the song’s meaning, well, I don’t sail, fraid of sea monsters for one, get the vertigo, too pale to enjoy the sun…trade routes would be a big NOPE for me.
And it’s a ballad! I don’t really DO ballads. Romance is so ooey gooey and sticky and sappy. Crescendo into how romance is human fly paper and can trap a bitch for 20 years. I’m not complaining, just amazed.
Do you know The Mister and I used to sing the NightLight Love Songs of WENS 97.3 in the backseat of his parents’ car when we were teens? Ballads, y’all. Sad bastard music. Which contradicts his aversion to my obsession. You’d think he’d like it.
So I dunno. Let’s listen again though, cause it’s so damn good.
Has this happened to you? Did you figure out why? Any insights here? I have failed, which was the easiest thing to do.
Happy Friday Everyone! (My apologies for the earworm.)
I’m not sayin I’ve been busy, I’m just sayin — Last night I had a dream that my dog was bleedin to death and there was nothin I could do. I was helpless. Only a matter of time. Her death was imminent. And yet — In my dream, as I lay beside her, I was impatiently thinkin I don’t have time to hold my dog while she bleeds out — I got too much shit to do.
Lemme just take a moment to count my blessings.
I am home, bathed, fed, comfortably adorned in pajama pants and a sweatshirt, sittin on my sofa. And there’s this:
You know how people say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead?” Yeah, I’ll retire when I’m dead. And then, after I’ve been given the answers to all my questions and have been shown where the ice cream parlor is, I’m sure I’ll take an afterlife job. I dunno, maybe teaching young eager souls, growing supernatural flowers in a weedless garden, or mediating land disputes between lap giraffes and miniature sheep. It’s really anyone’s best guess, but I guarantee you, I’ll be busy not makin monies.
Anyway, my point is I generally don’t think about retirement. I generally think about how to do all, all, all the things.
Except, recently I thought about retirement. Lemme tell you why.
I met Benson for lunch.
When I arrived at Texas Margaritas, Benson, hep cat that he is, was already seated.
righteous red converse on his feet
He had not been at work, on the phone with the big corporation and their infernal muzak, running the gamut of the five incompetent people one must explain to before reaching that sixth magical person who is smart enough to understand the discrepancy.
While I was doing that, Benson was ordering some chips and salsa and a margarita.
blurry and hungry
deliciously blurry
By the time I was peeking into my shrimp quesadilla, he was ordering his second margarita. I ordered a Mr Pibb. And I loved it. I did. But it was not a margarita, because I am not retired. And given how blurry my pictures are, I really didn’t need the caffeine and I prolly could have benefited from a margarita because I’m spazzy and frenetic enough. When my Pibb was all gone, I drank my water like a good workhorse should.
Cause it was not a weekend. It was not vacation. For me. For Benson, it’s all weekend vacation margarita time, and so I envied him just a teeny tiny bit because margaritas are delicious.
Y’all, I dunno what I’m doin this weekend, but Imma try to wear my Converse and drink margaritas. If you’re able, I highly recommend you do the same.
I’ve been working at my job now for … near seventeen months. My job is splendid. The people I work with are wonderful and the people I work for are good, honest, and best of all, interesting — dare I say amusing? I lurves me job.
Anyway.
You know how you work alongside people for near seventeen months and you feel like you’ve got a good sense of who they are and what they’re all about?
You think you know a person.
You know your boss is a woman of action. You love how she takes charge and commands attention. She regales you with stories and inspires you with her phrasing. She’s forthright. You admire her and are grateful she hired you because every day she increases your knowledge and challenges you.
You think you know a person.
She’s a mom to humans and animals. She likes strong indents. She prefers hot chocolate to coffee. She’s got impeccable taste in shoes. She takes photos of doors in Paris.
See, you like her now, too, don’tcha?
Cause you think you know a person.
And then she tells you she’s a Patriots fan.
I give almost zero fucks about football. Except that.
The boy one moved out and into his apartment, with lower rent than he was told, with a fireplace that wasn’t in the unit he toured, and with two outdoor chairs left by the last tenants. Quite nice.
As for us, we’ve put our house back in order. I have always taken pleasure in clear surfaces, but oh my goodness, it’s even better than I remember. We sit at our dining room table with delight. We enjoy open doors and pantslessness. Our dog has stopped stress-chewing her paw. Everyone has an agreeable shower schedule. It’s a grand time for the Motterns in their yellow bungalow. The yellow bungalow is not situated on Easy Street, but it is shaded by pretty trees and filled with love. Right now, it sounds like football and smells like banana bread.
My sense of structure was dramatically displaced. It’s humbling to be reminded our behavior is so incredibly predictable. It’s how we accidentally train our dogs, or you know, how our dogs train us. I forget how long it takes to form a new habit, and I sure don’t know how long it takes to return to old ones, but I’m trying, so it might be the same timeline.
I have gobs of stories to tell you. My go-with-the-flow may be runnin low but I’ve still got my bounce!
Every time I think I will post about Labor Day 2001, I think I will do it over Labor Day (duh) and yet, here it is, late on Labor Day…
No time like the present.
On the Friday preceding Labor Day of 2001, The Mister and I found ourselves childless for the weekend. We threw stuff in the trunk of our car and drove northeast. We left with important things, like a cell phone, a map, some food, and a tent, but without a plan. The idea being we would find a place to camp, what with road signs to campgrounds and all that.
Spontaneity — before smartphones, it was a bit of a risk.
After dark, we pulled into a campground somewhere. The campground’s proprietor said they were full and it was illegal for him to let us camp without a designated spot, but if we were open to roughing it, he’d find us a spot. We were open. We set up camp. The Mister roasted weenies and I toasted marshmallows and we enjoyed the evening staring at fire. Goodness, we do love to stare at fire. We crawled into our tent and slept the good sleep.
We awoke early and as I wandered about while brushing my teeth — who can just stand there?! — I roamed over a bit to a drop-off, to see what was there, and HOLY CRAP! IT WAS LAKE ERIE!
We had no idea we camped next to the lake. And in case you’re not knowing, I should tell you Lake Erie is a Great Lake. It’s big. Lake Erie is one of the smaller Great Lakes and it’s still frickin huge.
Maybe maps aren’t the best way. I mean, when you look at a map like this, you may think Indiana and Wisconsin are pretty close together, why don’t Joey and Mary meet for lunch in Chicago?
Anyway, we woke up next to Lake Erie and that was amazing luck. What a view!
We went to Niagara Falls, spent the day walking and hiking, taking in the falls and the gardens. Then we checked into a hotel and drove back the following day.
We had a right good time.
We’ve accumulated heaps of travel and Labor Day memories over our twenty years together, but few surprises have been better than waking up on the shores of Lake Erie.
I lived through Bubba bein eight. If you have had an eight year old, you may recall. YMMV. If you know parents whose children are eight, you should probably do a kindness for them. They need it. Eight is a terrible age. Eight is the age children realize they know everything and regardless of their age, adults don’t know anything. They actually, literally say “Literally” “Actually” and “Whatever” all the time or whatever.
All summer long, patrons of the pool told Sassy “Never have children.” The first time it happened, she told me, “This woman yelled at her kid and then looked at me, and said, ‘Never have children’ and I oop!”
“Was he eight?” I asked.
“Yeah, probably.”
“Mhm.”
At eight, Bubba engaged me in psychological warfare every damn day. Daily deliberate defiance, constant debate, unrelenting attempts to negotiate. I prayed and I prayed. I’d wake up in the morning, all tra-la-la, today is a new day, tra-la-la and then by 8am, I’d wave to him as he boarded the school bus and I’d mumble, “Good riddance.” God Bless his second grade teacher, Mrs. Roth. God Bless all the second grade teachers.
And living through Bubba being eight is how I know I can live through two more weeks of him living on my couch, cause this is better.
I love him dearly, but he’s on my couch. Now. Later. All. The. Time.
Lemme be clear, it’s not like he’s doin anything wrong, he’s just THERE.
At this point, I’m not sure who could be on my couch this long without disruption. I mean, after eight weeks, even Winnie-the-Pooh would annoy me.
“The couch smells like bear. Pots of honey fuckin everywhere. Sticky, icky, eww! Honey pots all over the coffee table and the dining table and on my kitchen counter, takin up the refrigerator, spillin out on every surface of the bathroom! I can’t hear myself Think! Think! Think! because you’re always over there exclaiming, Oh Bother! All we do is talk about Heffalumps and Woozles and I cannot possibly endure another game of Poohsticks and for the love of thistle, put some pants on! Do you hear Tigger calling for you? I think I hear Tigger calling for you!”
Sometimes the smallest things grow up to be really big and tall and live on your couch.
In case you’re curious, at eight, in addition to literally actually whatevering all the time, all my girls fully embraced their inner bitches and got smart with me. I, like my own mother, had grown into my breeches and had the good fortune of being an older, smarter bitch and that shit did not play.
But the boy one? So hard. So hard for Joeys. I know as parents we don’t always know what we’re doing, but I’m tellin you…
joeyfullystated 
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