little things #157
Bring On The $6 Gallon Of Gas
Oh Mark Morford. How I love thee!
little things #156
Family portrait artists
Make your own pop-art portraits with these easy how-to
Photojojo - the best photo tips, products, and projects in the whole wide world
They find the coolest photo shit ever
Spring Break 2006
Robb and I decided early this year that we would take March Break off work together, so that we could spend some time hanging out, maybe snag the small people from day care a little early, tidy the house and generally do some of the things that we wanted to do when we first moved in, but hadn't yet gotten around to. A nice little relaxing vaca, with not a lot planned.
Oh, yeah, and I was supposed to start writing again.
Sadly, it took Robb and I a number of days to figure out how this vacation thing works.
Vacation Rule #1: Avoid Montezuma's Revenge At All Costs
The key to a successful vacation is to not have one small person pooping her heart out on the first official day of your vacation. By the time she came over around dinner, Bea had sat at the clinic with her Mom for something like 3 hours. For a pre-schooler, that might as well be eternity. She was tired and cranky and feverish. And she had pooped no less than a dozen times since she woke up.
One the 2nd day of our vacation, we had a very short-lived hope that Bea would be able to go to daycare on Monday, as we made it out to the park for a couple of hours while her fever was under control and she was awake. Sadly, her fever returned as soon as we got home and she fell asleep again.
One of the secrets to the kid thing, I'm learning, is to keep them awake at all costs during the day if you want them to sleep through the night. Bea woke up before we were even in bed, and ended up sitting with us, feverish still, watching the X-Men. I think the fever and the sheer amount of meds means she's not likely to remember a thing. Which is good, because she sort of frowned at the screen a lot, as if she kept thinking "this is a weird movie".
Vacation Rule #2: This Is A Cookie Tossing Free Zone
Another point to consider in planning a relaxing holiday is to dis-allow cookie tossing by anyone you may have to clean up after or otherwise take care of. In the early morning hours, after a not so restful night trying to keep Bea's fever under control, Liam decided to toss his cookies twice before 6 AM. Once in the bedroom and hallway, once on our bed and the floor.
Oh God. Shoot me now.
Bea, however, was wide awake at 5, so I trudge downstairs to watch TreeHouse with her and let Robb and Liam get some rest. I think we watched Big Comfy Couch (a show which I will undoutedly be forced to watch over and over again while in Purgatory) and something called the Biddles, small muppet-like creatures who seem to make books. They reminded me of Fraggles, though their song was much more annoyingly pop-like and therefore catchy: "We're the Biddles! We're quite little! We have back and fronts and middles!" I sang this song for the rest of the week, much to Robb's dismay.
The end of Day Two and the beginning of Day Three blurred together in a haze of TreeHouse and vomit. This is where my memory gets a little fuzzy. Bea was slightly less feverish, far more tired and cranky and a larger pain in the butt. Liam puked a couple of times but handled the cookie tossing like a pro. 'Oh, I puked. Yeah, yeah. Whatever.' They napped for a couple of hours, which they both needed. Without hers, Bea would have been bored silly. And we would have started to go mad (der), since she starts talking the minute she wakes up (5 AM, remember?) and doesn't stop until she's asleep. Sigh. I took the day off for this?
Vacation Rule #3: Sleep Is Good
Sometimes the problem with naps is that you wake up really early in the morning, like when it's still dark. For this reason, Liam was wide awake at an ungodly hour. In this case, that means before 5 AM. He said, "I'm awake!" and somehow convinced a still groggy Robb to get up and watch TreeHouse with him.
Signs of good health started to appear, though they were hard to see and mostly arrived in the form of extremely cranky children. While they seemed to enjoy staying at home and not going to daycare, they've had to be sick (really sick), stuck inside, and feverish to do it. It was becoming obvious even to them that this sucked.
At some point, while the kids were getting stoned on TreeHouse, Robb and I managed to steal away a couple of hours to clean the basement. Yippee!
Vacation Rule #4: Folks Whose Bums Hurt Do Not Make Good Company
Beatrice's mood degraded not at all gracefully. She decided that her bum hurt and would indicate this by throwing her head back and screaming and crying at the top of her lungs. I have to admit I've never seen anything like it. She was so upset that her little body shook uncontrollably. The only thing that calmed her was Rescue Remedy, hugs, napping and oatmeal baths. Robb and I didn't even know what the problem was... (does she have to rocket shit again and is holding it in for fear that it will hurt when it comes out? is her skin so irritated that it hurts even when she pees? is she bunged up and trying to poop but it won't come out?) Her temper tantrums started early and continued all day. The only small benefit was they exhausted the poor kid so much that she fell asleep. While she napped, I headed out to the drug store for supplies (who thought I'd be buying Zincofax and steroid cream? shouldn't you have a baby bag for this stuff?)
We managed to sit down and started eating our lunch before Bea totally lost her shit again (no, not that way) and demanded we cover her bum in cream. Sigh. Then she had to go to the bathroom. Sigh. Then she wanted more cream. SIGH. Her fuzzy, buzzing, Rescue-Remedied self sat on the toilet and almost fell asleep before relieving itself of another watery b.m. After a few more tears, Robb and I convinced Bea that we really should go for a walk, bribing her with tales of Toy Stores and Hot Chocolate mostly because it was sunny outside and we needed to get the f**k out of the house.
We eventually dropped Bea off at Mom's and at some point later, Liam too. Ending up at home on the couch after all that in a finally quiet house, Robb and I were too tired to move, talk or think. Eventually, it was our stomachs that made the largest protest, propelling us out of the damn house. We ate, staggered around, drunk with freedom, yet headed to bed before 10, too tired to care that there were no puking or pooping kids to keep us stuck at home on our vacation.
Vacation Rule #5: Remember to Sit Down and Relax
As Robb headed out early to grab Liam and take him to school. I, miracously, did yoga for the first time all week.
We'd finally figured out what to do on vacation: be out of the house and virtually unreachable. Robb and I were at the Starbucks before 10 and walked all over the city, ending up in my old 'hood, where I got my hair cut. We needed to pick up the kids, so we wimped out and took them to McD's - which I know is terrible, but they hadn't eaten anything all week and really needed the encouragement that food is something which you should eat and doesn't normally make you poop till your bum hurts or come hurling out of your mouth hours later- and get takeout. Kids stay over and at some point in the night, everyone ended up in the same bed. I should have bought a King.
Suddenly, it was St. Patty's Day and as another special treat (for me? for Robb? for the kids?) we took the kids out for breakfast before school. (Why no Shamrock shakes?) Admittedly, the kids thought it was cool but weird, and gave Robb the strangest look when he told them to brush their teeth when they hadn't eaten breakfast.
After some mild protests of "I don't want to go to school," Robb and I went to Pottery Barn and PB Kids, where we looked at all the too cute baby stuff at PB Kids (!) and bought Liam some sheets and repeatedly said "oh look how cute!" to everything around us.
We walked and walked and walked and then went home and thought the house was too quiet and Robb said, "I miss the kids."
Clearly, we went insane during the course of our week off, and should be seeking some sort of therapy.
I guess I spent my Spring Break preparing to become a stepmommy blogger.
HammerTime
Because you do a mean MC Hammer. Truly.
little things #155
How to hire a product manager
Good read.
Observations on watching the grammys
While watching Kelly Clarkson in that ugly red dress:
Him: [speaking to tv] Do you have a nose thing? Ewww!
Me: You don't like nose rings?
Him: No.
Me: What about me? [pointing to labrette]
Him: It's different. It's you. You came with it. I never notice it.
Me: Oh.
Him: It's like a hood ornament.
little things #152
DailyCandy Kids - Nature Versus Nurture
I need to remember to do this. It would be soooo much fun.
Yeah, yeah. Still pissed.
Yes, dear brother. In case you were not aware (and I need to spell it out for you) I am still really, really, really angry.
You suck. Big time.
little things #151
Skype - The whole world can talk for free.
While I love iChat, this looks kinda cool.
Why I married you
Because you run over to the fridge magnet that I bought you, the one that says "Because I'm gay, that's why!", and take a sharpie and write "part" in front of the word "gay", mostly because Liam is learning to read.
The pain is in the details
Like when you are hunting for an email and you find the last email your brother ever sent you. And you realize that it's the last email your brother will ever send you.
Or when you finally remove your brother's name from your cell phone because you don't think you can handle his name displaying under "missed calls" one more time.
The Things I Say
It's best not to talk to me while I'm sleeping, especially if you expect me to say brilliant, insightful things.
Him: It's Monday and I'm trying not to give in to the horses of despair.
Me: Are those like the Four Horses of the Apocalypse?
completely blank stare
Him: What on earth are you talking about? I said forces of despair. Forces.
Me: Oh.
God. I used to be smarter than this. I swear.
A serious case of D(ead) B(rother) S(tuff)
Terry Alan -
I know it's been a while since my last letter. I've been thinking for a few weeks what I would say to you. I'm not sure that I've come to any conclusions or that what I'll end up writing here will make any sense. But Robb and Angie both seem to think it's important that I write this and I trust them to be able to clearly see what I need when I cannot.
I don't want to blame you for the accident, but I need somewhere to lay the blame and I can't think of anyone else. Seems a cheap shot, I know, blaming the dead guy. Sorry, dude. That's just the way it is. There is a part of me that feels you were irresponsible to get in your car that night. That you didn't properly understand the risk you were taking. That it didn't occur to you that it was more than your own life hanging in the balance. As a son, brother, husband and father, I think it was a shitty thing to do to the people you love. And yes, I realize that many people fall asleep at the wheel and never understand how tired they are because it's just a few seconds and there are no consequences. But that's just an excuse and right now, I have no room for them.
I am so angry, I positively vibrate with it. I wash dishes, clean floors and scrub tubs with it. I think I've been angry since May and haven't wanted to acknowledge it for fear that it meant I was angry with you, which would somehow make me a bad person. I'd like to say that I cannot allow that anger to be buried any longer. Truth be told, I don't feel like I have a choice. The anger isn't staying put. It's on the move and coming out whether I like or not.
I'm angry about losing a summer feeling lost and alone. Or feeling numb or so wounded and raw that I could scream or cry for days on end. I am tired all the time and half want to waste the last days of this dreadful summer sleeping because at least I'd be oblivious to the pain inside me. This makes me pissed, because I'm still alive and have much to be thankful for and I should want to get up every morning and face a new day. But I don't. I hate the fact that I feel guilty for how I feel. I'm angry that I feel I need to put on a brave face. And I'm pissed at my lack of willpower, at my inability to pull myself together and go to yoga, take better care of myself and stop eating at Dairy Queen.
It's true. I am hooked on DQ Oreo Blizzards and it's all your fault.
It will come as no surprise that I am angry and hurt that you are dead. That you have been taken away from me. But as each day passes, I get more and more angry with you. If I feel alone, abandoned and betrayed by you, I can only imagine how Jen and Mack feel. It's a sick feeling. I am frustrated that I keep trying to make sense of this, even though I said I wouldn't, even though I know it's not possible. I am angry that your death will never make any sense, may never have meaning, may never have answers: why me, why you, why now, why why why.
I am angry on behalf of Rhyen, who will never know her Daddy. I am angry that she didn't even get one birthday party where she was Daddy's special girl. Her first birthday was such a sad day for me. For Jen. Sadder still because I know that you never would have missed that day. Unless something was terribly wrong.
Which it was. Is. I mean, I guess you were there, but I didn't expect it would be in some fugly marble urn sitting on your own mantle in the basement. I am angry for how much that bothered me. We should have brought you outside.
I am angry because I see how much this has changed Jen and Mack and I can see the hurt and sadness in their eyes when they look at me. I am angry that Mack looks and acts differently, that he has to experience such piercing pain at an early age. I am angry that he seems so full of rage, a rage that no amount of pirate band-aids or wrestling matches can alleviate or take away. I am angry that I cannot fix this for him or Jen or Rhyen or Mom and Dad or Adam or even myself. I am angry that I haven't been able to find anyone who can fix this. This is unfixable and unfair. I keep searching for the phone number or email address of a higher power but haven't come up with anything. Doesn't help that part of me has stopped believing in goodness.
I am angry for how much this hurts, for how long this process is taking, for how sick and tired I am of feeling this way. I am angry at my inability to put these feelings away for even a few hours so that I can concentrate and get my work done. I am angry that I feel like I am slipping. I cannot seem to hold on any longer.
I am angry that I no longer know how to refer to our childhood. Sentences beginnging with "the three of us," seem incorrect or wrong because I never know what verb to use. "The three of us look(ed) so much alike." It pisses me off because I stumble over my words all the time and I should be able to figure this out.
I am angry that I keep dreaming about you. Not because I don't want to see you but because these dreams upset me and I don't know what they mean. I know that I told you that you could, you know, visit me while I was sleeping, but I just wish you were more direct about what you want to say. Just don't give me any bullshit about how I have to take care of myself because I have been doing a fairly good job of that over the past few years.
And if I've fubared myself over the past 3 months, that too would be your fault. I just don't need to get paranoid right now about my body being unhealthy, since it's clear to me that Adam and I no longer have the luxury of dying anytime soon. I think we've both been given 75 year sentences. And yes, I realize that means I'll be roughly 107 years old.
I am angry about the amount of money I'm spending on therapy and massages and trains to Windsor and cabs to Robb's because I cannot stand to spend time alone in my apartment. I had a present from a fairy godmother and that has given me some breathing room and I am most grateful, but I'm angry that your death has forced me to accept a gift that I wouldn't have otherwise accepted because that acceptance is a sign of weakness and I hate being weak and vunerable. It's ironic that you were always concerned that I never had enough money to live in a big, expensive city like Toronto and yet your death has caused this huge financial burden. And it's not like hep-c wasn't one of those in the first place.
I am angry at people who don't understand when I'm tired in the morning and slower or later than normal. Believe me when I say that grief takes a lot out of you. I am supposed to be treating myself as if I had a triple bypass in May. Gentle. Non-critical. If the reality was heart surgery instead of losing you, what do you think I'd be expected to accomplish each day? Not a hell of a lot, likely.
To be clear, I'm not trying to get out of the work I need to do. I'm not using your death as a way to shirk responsibility for my life. On weeks when I don't take vacation time, I put in my hours. I'm angry that people can't take their heads out of their asses long enough to realize that grief is like an episode of depression. And that means that there are a lot of mornings when I don't want to get out of bed. Or do, briefly, only to end up back in bed after breakfast. The day ahead is too daunting.
I am angry that this is as good as it gets. I am angry that people can't figure out for themselves (and need to be told) that I am doing the best I can.
For right now, today, it is enough.