Life's a mother

Snakes and snails and jellyfish tales

2011-08-11T13:30:00.003-04:00

My son Nick and I went to Fort Clinch State Park on Tuesday, joining other home schoolers for a day at the beach. It rained most of the trip up there (Fort Clinch is an hour north of our house, just outside of Fernandina). Nick was driving, which gave him lots of opportunities to practice not hydroplaning and also gave me the chance to practice not putting my feet through the floorboards in a

I'm an asshole

2011-07-09T07:06:00.002-04:00

The following is a short story about what it might be like when everybody in the country has a robotic car. Whoopee!The alarm goes off and I leap out of bed. I'm going to work today! I hit the bathroom, get dressed as quickly as I can, run into the kitchen to grab cold pizza, slip on my shoes, and then fly out the door. I run to the garage, key in my code and jump in my car. Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Mr. Coffee haiku

2011-04-18T13:20:00.001-04:00

The coffeemaker is my friendFaithful dispenser of caffeinated warmthI don't deserve you.

A Modest Proposal to Help Our Libraries in the Form of an Imaginary Conversation with Sue the Librarian

2011-01-25T06:43:00.000-05:00

"Eight thousand, six hundred and forty-two dollars," Sue said, looking expectant. I stopped in the act of pulling out the debit card from my wallet and gaped at the librarian. "That can't be right," I said. "I mean, I know I have some overdue books, but they can't be more than a day past due. Could I see…?" I craned my neck, trying to peer around the monitor in front of her. "I can print out the

Alice TV

2010-12-13T10:19:00.006-05:00

I click the phone icon in the Skype window on my laptop and hear the funny bloopity blip noise as it makes a call. One ring, two rings, and Alice picks up. "Hello?" "There's no video. Are you decent?" "Not quite." (Panicked pause) "Are you alone?" (Laughter) "Yes, I'm alone! I'm just not camera-ready!" "Oh!"The video comes up and I see my daughter hastily smoothing down the sweater that I sent

I'm posting to a different blog

2010-10-06T15:31:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone, anyone. I've begun a new blog called Runs, Shoots and Leaves. The link is on the right here. It's more of a photo blog than anything else. I've been taking lots of pictures again and just wanted to share them. So take a look, if you like and let me know what you think. I've been having some difficulty writing. The pictures are kind of a way of getting back to writing without

The Dog's Breakfast

2010-06-20T08:40:00.003-04:00

Oatmeal, gravy, evaporated milk, leftover burger or meat of that ilk, steamed green beans, seasoned with dill, a mess of corn mush piled in a small hill Nasty to look at, but a pleasure to eat, the dog's breakfast is served. Bon appetit!

The Gift

2010-06-11T11:18:00.002-04:00

I stare at the candle holder squatting on the table like a malevolent imp. Red and blue beads glare out from behind shrouds of black tar. It was supposed to be a cool-looking, hand-crafted candle holder. Instead it has turned into something nasty. It is "The Candle Holder from the Black Lagoon". I dread showing it to my son. Nick is going freak out. This morning when I woke I walked into the

The sweet smell of spring

2010-04-08T16:08:00.004-04:00

This past winter we had to replace the motor on the furnace. Of course it happened during the coldest winter on record in northeast Florida. After that, I decided that we should have someone come out to look over the whole system. I didn't want to be without air conditioning in the middle of the summer. So I called the number on the handy magnetic ad that was on the furnace/ac unit, and the

I'll have whatever he's cooking

2009-12-30T15:21:00.007-05:00

My favorite dish is anything that can be prepared in a half hour or less and that my family will eat without complaining. Cereal tops the list, and then yogurt, pancakes, waffles, eggs, scrambled or boiled, tuna spaghetti, although slicing olives is the sort of fussy prep work that I loathe most of all, and pizza. I can get a pizza on the table in a half hour, just. Cooking is destined to be a

Hygiene!

2009-10-29T17:55:00.003-04:00

On the way to the community college this morning I caught a whiff of something unpleasant and leaned over to sniff at my son who was riding next to me in the passenger seat. It wasn't him. Sam looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "It's me, isn't it," I said and he nodded. It's finally happened. I have worse hygiene than my kids. When I was young, in my single digits, I showered as infrequently as

Announcing Drawing 101

2009-09-27T17:17:00.003-04:00

I'm pleased to announce that Drawing 101, a basic drawing skills course that I'm doing for Not Your Average Homeschoolers, is up and available for your drawing pleasure.I'm shooting for a new lesson every week, so bookmark this link Drawing 101, and check back often.

Mother on my mind

2009-09-19T07:14:00.002-04:00

Woke up this morning thinking about my mother and wishing she felt better. I told Steve last night that the worst thing about watching your parents decline is that it makes you re-think everything you thought you knew about them. He said, "Not me," and then he said, "Wait. Yeah, it does." I guess that's not as tragic as I think it is. I mean, I spend most of my life re-thinking what I think I

I can stop whenever I want

2009-09-15T06:13:00.003-04:00

I used the blue cup today for my coffee. Sometimes the blue cup is dirty and I have to use the white cup with the black handle. The white cup used to have a picture from Alice in Wonderland on it, and the Cheshire Cat disappeared (all except for his grin, of course) whenever you poured hot liquid in it, but I put it in the dishwasher one day and the whole thing just flaked off, so now it's just a

Grounded

2009-08-30T16:59:00.002-04:00

When I pick up the phone it's my mother. She asks me if I can reach my daughter, Alice. She says to tell Alice not to come today because she's not feeling well. “Is Steve there?” she asks. “No, he's still in Michigan. Do you need something?” “Does he have a gun?” “No, he doesn't.” After a moment, I say, “He's got an airgun, Mom. It would just hurt you, not kill you.”

Making allowances

2009-06-29T08:01:00.008-04:00

The experts say that giving your children an allowance helps instill in them a sense of the value of money. It encourages them to establish spending priorities, set goals and save up for what they really want. With this in mind, I dutifully offered my children a dollar a week when they were young and then waited for the miracle of fiscal responsibility to take root in their brains. It would have

Epitaph for a nasty vegetable

2009-06-23T09:40:00.004-04:00

Here lies okra,pulled out by the roots.It tasted like crap,so now it's kaputs.

Joe College

2009-05-11T06:02:00.004-04:00

It's almost noon on Wednesday morning and I'm driving my son to the community college campus where he's dual enrolled for the summer in English Comp and Introduction to Sociology. He doesn't seem very enthusiastic about this latest adventure in learning. Maybe it has something to do with the layover he's got between his classes."What am I supposed to do for 2 1/2 hours?" he whines."Explore, why

And now for something completely different

2009-04-16T08:09:00.002-04:00

(The following is a story by my sister, Mary. She's my favorite.)I went to Lafayette, Louisiana and all I got was this lousy black eye.It started out innocently enough; a long weekend with friends filled with good times, some tennis and a slumber party at a fishing camp. What more could a girl ask for?The original plan was to fly down to join my former tennis comrades and good friends for a

Apology to my CPA

2009-04-16T06:30:00.001-04:00

Sorry, Tim, that I didn't fax back my permission slip for you to file my taxes electronically until the day they were due, but your package was hidden under a stack of bills on my table and I kept putting off looking at it because I knew what I'd find when I opened the envelope and that's a return stating that I owed the government seven hundred fifty seven dollars and the state one hundred

I'm awake

2009-04-10T11:35:00.008-04:00

It's 1:15 in the morning. I can tell this because I've squinted hard at the clock on the shelf next to my dresser clear on the other side of the room. It would be easier to tell the time if the clock were on the bedside table, but my husband needs it to be farther away from the bed so that when the alarm goes off in the morning he has to get out of bed to hit the snooze button. He usually does

It's raining

2009-04-01T08:09:00.004-04:00

You know what the best thing is about rainy days? I don't have to go running in them. If I were a ninja jogger, I'd be out in that mess right now, slogging around the trail down at Bartram Park, but I'm just an amateur runner, someone who runs because it's just a habit I've got into, and not because I was silly and made some promise OUT LOUD that I'd run every day no matter what. Thank god I've

Nick Armstrong, boy of steel

2009-03-24T11:39:00.002-04:00

One day, when Nick was a sixth grader in middle school, he came home and I asked him how it went."I'm sore.""Really? Why is that?""Well, we had to do the President's Physical Fitness test today in P.E. and so Coach told us all to do 25 push-ups. And I said, 'Twenty-five? That's not hard. I can do fifty!' and Coach said 'Oh, you can, can you?' and I said, 'Yes, I can. As a matter of fact, for

Dreaming

2009-03-04T05:58:00.004-05:00

I distinctly remember dreaming about talking to a credit card company on the phone and explaining why I missed a payment last month. This really sucks. Michael Swanwick dreams about writing the perfect paragraph and I dream about explaining myself to my creditors.How does a person go about dreaming about what they want to do for real? I mean, I recognize that my dreams are all about what's

Contemplating darkness

2009-02-13T17:41:00.004-05:00

My husband and I were talking about how afraid we are that we'll begin to lose our minds in another fifteen years. He thinks he'll be working for ten of them and he's angry that his retirement won't come sooner.I think about how fifteen years isn't any time at all and what if I live fifteen years beyond the time when I begin to go senile? I bet fifteen years of relentless creeping senility lasts

So much for that project

2009-01-18T17:05:00.002-05:00

I ended up not using a writing prompt or a picture prompt for this one. A friend was over and telling me about a Glinda the Good Witch wedding dress she made for someone once and I thought it'd make a nice picture.

Purple nails

2009-01-17T06:23:00.004-05:00

I'm trying an experiment. I want to learn to use pastels but I'm having a hard time deciding what to draw so I'm using writing prompts to direct my efforts. I found "purple nails" at http://dragonwritingprompts.blogsome.com/ . I'll continue this way until I get tired of the project. Could be months (not likely) or it could be days (much more likely).

A sign of better times

2008-11-25T09:21:00.003-05:00

I recently posted a sign over the kitchen sink. It reads: "If you dirty it, then you must wash it. The Management." Notice I've given myself a promotion. I'm no longer chief cook and bottle washer. Mom smirked when I told her about my new plan to do less cleaning up after all the able bodied men in the house. I actually heard her do this over the phone. It sounds like it's spelled. "Smirkff,"

Bleeding creativity

2008-11-23T07:23:00.006-05:00

My fingers are sore and stiff today. Why, oh why do I ruin the skin on my fingers trying to execute these elaborate hand sewing projects? I must be going senile. I know this, not because words and names I used to know escape me, but because I've forgotten once again what a pain it is to push a needle through six layers of denim at a time. Satin stitching a teal border on a blue jean pocket is a

That dog

2008-10-24T05:53:00.003-04:00

That dog lays on the couchlegs every which waycompletely open to the universeaccepting herself as a creature on a blue gingham covered stick of furniture.She doesn't wish the cushions were stuffed with feathersshe doesn't worry the curtains which are trapped behind itand don't hang straight as a consequence.She just sprawls on the endspreading herself as thinly as possibleon the pillow and the

Taking comfort where you can find it

2008-10-04T07:01:00.006-04:00

When she came to the phone last night she sounded so fragile, so near to tears and so bewildered."I did it wrong," she said. I didn't ask her to tell me what she'd done. My sister had already told me in an earlier phone conversation that Mom had used a pen knife. "If she'd really wanted to kill herself she'd have used the scissors. They were sharp," my sister said.I found myself wondering if

I've been here before

2008-10-04T06:51:00.003-04:00

My brother left a message on my answering machine yesterday morning, "Marie, it's your brother. Call me as soon as you can," and I thought, "It's Mom." I know it's Mom because I can't think of anything else that would make his voice sound like my dad's voice -- deep, authoritative and brooking no nonsense. I call him and he answers, "Good morning," in a tuneful way so that I know my first thought

WEATHERING THE WEATHER: A week in the life of Tropical Storm Fay

2008-09-02T19:49:00.002-04:00

Day 1 - Supposed to have a hurricane by next week. Jacksonville mayor says prepare now. Not sure what to do. Fill water bottles? Have a shower? Replenish liquor cabinet? Decide to take the dog for walk. Then think about panicking.Day 2 - Pace around house, look for things to do. Dust the piano, fix the blind in bedroom, do laundry. Start sorting things. Wait for Fay. Supposed to be tropical storm

Family Recipe

2008-08-11T14:08:00.002-04:00

Our trip up north so far is turning out a bit differently from last year. For one, it’s just me and my two teenage sons squeezed into the Corolla, instead of five of us all spread out in the Expedition. For another, we had to roll down all the windows three times the first day to let the "bad" air out. Boys have no inhibitions about releasing inner demons in mixed company. Car games tend to have

BEACH NIGHT

2008-07-01T09:17:00.002-04:00

"Under no circumstances are we cancelling tonight.""Okay.""If there's a tornado, maybe, but anything else, we're still on,all right?""Right. (Tornado, maybe?)"I'm on the phone with my friend, talking about our beach night tonight. Once a month, on the night of the full moon, we drive to Mickler's Landing, a public beach south of Jacksonville. We bring folding chairs, blankets when it's cold,

Fair Game

2008-06-01T18:21:00.006-04:00

Back in Michigan tourism season is just getting under way. There are more visitors crowding the beaches and walking the state park trails. You have to park your car a little farther away from the entrance at Wal-mart. The stores, restaurants and galleries are open seven days a week instead of "by chance" and there are fishing tournaments and fireworks and parades and art fairs to look forward to.

Trash talking

2008-05-08T19:41:00.001-04:00

"What an amazing coincidence," I tell my husband. "Ludington is having their spring clean up the weekend that you'll be there hunting for morels.""Let me guess. You want me travel 2,000 miles so I can trash pick windows?""Please?"My husband is leaving to go to Ludington this weekend to spend a few days combing the woods for morel mushrooms. This is an annual outing for him and he's looking

A beautiful season

2008-04-01T07:10:00.002-04:00

"I hate working in the garden," snarls my oldest son. I ignore him because, according to my newest expert book on child rearing, "Animal Training Techniques for Parents Who Have Tried Just About Everything and Are Totally Desperate," I must ignore the behaviors I don't want and reward the behaviors that I do want. Right now I want my boys to help me plant the garden. They're not showing any signs

Running down a dream

2008-03-06T08:57:00.001-05:00

This morning I am sitting at the table on the patio at my home in Florida, waiting for my body to stop sweating so I can go inside. Sweat condenses into puddles wherever my body comes in contact with the chair or the table. I feel spongy, like I'm made of frogs. My legs feel like someone has been hitting them with ball peen hammers. Little uncontrollable muscle twitches run up and down my thighs.

Morning Ritual

2008-02-08T07:41:00.000-05:00

I make it last as long as I can.One mouthful, set the cup down.Another mouthful, feel how much cooler it's gotten since the last one!A final mouthful and I'm staring at the blank white innards of my mug,unbelieving.23.5 hours to go before I can have another.Damn.It wasn't even good coffee.

Rock and Load

2008-01-30T06:22:00.001-05:00

It's Saturday morning and I'm listening to my son doing color commentary on the state of the refrigerator."This is disgusting. Yuck. Who put this in here?"He marches out of the kitchen and thrusts a half empty can of green chilis toward me."Mom, are we saving this?"I don't want to crush my child's newly found zeal for search and destroy style housekeeping, but I happen to know that my husband put

What I've learned (since yesterday)

2008-01-23T07:13:00.001-05:00

Living on a budget is a lot harder than I thought it would be and even though the little budget monitor in Quicken with the colored bars says I've overspent in six categories with two weeks left in January, I'm in the yellow in six more and green in the other twenty so it's all right.My herbal tea tastes a lot better with lemon in it and it's worth $3.99 a bag to have the lemons in the house so I

Transformations

2008-01-07T07:31:00.000-05:00

She's a lot younger in the morningsbefore we begin the walk.Her body is a coiled springthe leash a live squirrel in her mouth.She shakes and waggles and bounces.Then we pass through the gateand she's all business,sniffing, peeing, heeling.By the time we turn the last cornershe's acting her age,doggedly making her way back to food, water,and the soft spot on the couch.

Making friends

2008-01-03T05:48:00.000-05:00

I've begun to feel more at home here in the south and I think it's because I've finally made some new friends. I still have all my old friends back in Michigan, still write to them as often as I can, still plan on visiting when I make it back north, but there's nothing like having a girlfriend available for a cup of coffee and a good talk every now and then. That had been missing until just

Handmade is best, hands down

2007-12-29T08:45:00.000-05:00

Made water bottle cozies for the kids and my husband for Christmas this year out of recycled wool sweaters and Sculpey clay. I think the animals and skulls are my favorites. I had mushrooms for the green one but at the last minute decided to save them for another project. I have so many.

Art has gone to the dogs

2007-12-29T08:38:00.000-05:00

Started another pastel picture (can't seem to call it a painting, maybe because it's not wet!) for a friend. I have another one in the works. Still mean to finish the Ms. Rushmore piece and then I want to begin on another portrait of Sue with her daughters. I don't have any skills to speak of with this medium, but playing with the colors has sure been a lot of fun! Here's Rascal in four pictures

Art 4 Love

2007-12-09T12:58:00.001-05:00

Here's where I'm going to leave it for a few days. I'm not sure what I want to do with it now. I either like the background or I want to change it. I can't decide what to do with the faces. So I'm going to do nothing for a while and see where that takes me. This is going on the wall where I'll see it in passing. Sometimes looking at a thing out the side of your eye can help when staring it dead

Art 4 Love

2007-12-08T08:11:00.000-05:00

So, I started over AGAIN, because the last version was just too dark and creepy for me. Plus, I tried this underpainting technique and it wasn't until I started putting flesh tones over the top of the purple that I really got it, figured out what it was supposed to accomplish and then I was like, OH. So I wanted to try it again except in a purposeful way instead of an accidental one.It's coming

Art 4 Love

2007-12-01T08:03:00.000-05:00

I got some more work done on this early. I learned that I have to put in the dark stuff first so I did some of that and now the process makes more sense to me. Definitely need more practice working on faces. It's hard not to overlay personality on there at the same time as the color, but I'll figure it out, or try again.

Art 4 Love

2007-11-29T07:50:00.000-05:00

Progress, of a sort. I took my friend Cherryl's suggestion to add another friend to the pile. My husband walked through this morning and thought it looked like Mt. Rushmore, so I've officially named it "Ms. Rushmore." More work to do, but it's starting to get interesting.

Brick layers

2007-11-28T08:46:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I watched as my husband pulled up chain link fence posts from around our house. There were nine posts that needed to come out, each one with a twenty pound slug of cement around the bottom. I felt for him, but I have too much respect for my back to have offered to help. Earlier he'd found a black snake under a piece of old linoleum in the corner by the house. The snake must've been

Art 4 Love

2007-11-27T07:24:00.001-05:00

This is going to be a series of creative endeavors that I'll complete for love and not money. I do enough of the other already.My first official project is a pastel painting of me and two friends, Cherryl and Dorothy, giggling after lunch (or was it before lunch?). Here's the first picture. More to come.

Company's coming! (Now is the perfect time to panic!)

2007-10-29T21:59:00.001-04:00

I'm expecting company next week so, true to form, I'm now seeing my house through panic-colored glasses. All those things that I meant to get to someday have now become a lot more urgent. Nothing in my house looks the same as it did before I knew I was going to be entertaining and my brain has been writing post-it notes to itself. (Remind boys to pull out those two rusty posts by the front steps.

Welcome to Gator Country

2007-09-29T10:44:00.000-04:00

Garage sale season has started. It's the weather. Once the heat breaks, the little white cardboard signs come out, and all you have to do is drive up the street to find a little something that you didn't know you needed until you saw it in someone's yard under a sign marked, "Everything on this blanket - half off!"Last Saturday we found a neighborhood sale down a cul de sac on a small lake. One

Having a wonderful time. Wish I was there.

2007-08-27T13:18:00.000-04:00

I vacationed in Ludington this past summer. It was great to walk to the lighthouse, visit favorite restaurants and just pretend for a week that I lived in a small town again. I found myself falling into old habits like talking to people I didn't know and consequently made a friend of the woman working at the laundromat. I know she's my friend because she asked me to hold the fort while she took

Cat study

2007-06-06T06:11:00.000-04:00

Let the cat out this morning. She peers as me, trying to figure out what I am. I reach out and cup her small head in my hand, stroke her back, all the way to her tail, surprised at the softness, and guess that my daughter took a brush to her the night before. She begins to purr. She's wobbly on her feet, back legs collapsing with every step. Still, she twitches her tail and wanders off around the

Snakes

2007-04-18T07:14:00.002-04:00

Today I plan to look out the bathroom window at the concrete steps to nowhere and see if the snake the bug man told me about is napping there in the sun. He said it was about a yard long and showed me by spreading his hands apart and then he said, "It's just a regular garden snake." He said he saw another one poke its head up out of the hole in the steps when he came out of the crawl space

Lunches with Sue

2007-02-01T06:49:00.001-05:00

Every Tuesday morning for the past ten years I’d get a call from my friend, Sue.“Hello?”“Yeah, it’s me. Got time for lunch?”“Sure. Where do you wanna go?”“What’s open?”“I dunno.”“The Brew Pub’s always open. Let’s go there.”"All right. Say about 11:45?”“Sounds good. See you then.”Meeting in the middle of the day in the middle of the week was a ritual for us, a habit we’d formed long ago and found

It's not easy to die

2006-12-08T07:06:00.000-05:00

I think about my mother, off and on during the day. It's easier than living with her. When I lived with her I thought about her first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I laid in my bed and worried about her. I worried that she was awake. I worried that if she was awake she would trip going down the stairs. I worried that she was taking too many pills. I worried that she wasn't taking

I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper

2006-12-04T15:21:00.000-05:00

"Marie?" "Hi, Mom." "I'm calling to tell you something." "Go ahead, Mom." "Did you know I'm a lesbian?" "Yep." "I just wanted you to know." "You've lived a good life." "No, I haven't." "Well, I forgive you." "I was going to ask you to forgive me." "I forgive you. I love you, Mom." "Would you tell Mary?" "Sure." She hangs up.

Thanks

2006-11-24T07:44:00.000-05:00

Talked with Mom late yesterday afternoon, after playing tennis with Steve and the boys, after listening to Oliver Twist on the headphones. Oliver had it rough.She sounded pretty good. Told me that David had dropped by and had lunch with her. She said she'd gotten her hair shampooed and set the day before. "It's a little flat in the back where I slept on it," she said but I reassured her it didn't

Onofrio speaks

2006-11-22T10:31:00.000-05:00

I called her just now and she said she'd changed her mind about the flowers. "You don't want me to cancel them?""No.""It's nice to have something cheerful in the room," I said, and she agreed with me. After a few minutes listening to me tell her stories about my boys, she said she was waiting for the nurse to come back because she had to talk to her. The doctor was by the day before on his rounds

Mailing out

2006-11-22T07:09:00.000-05:00

Sent a letter to my mother with some pictures in it of my daughter at college and one of my sons working on a school science project. I put the pictures in the envelope after writing on the backs of them, explaining what's going on in them, maybe too much. She's not stupid. I try to send her four pictures a week. Sometimes I get my camera out and force myself to record something, anything, so

Motherland

2006-11-21T06:32:00.000-05:00

I got a card yesterday from my mother's cousin. She'd had a phone call from Mom and it had upset her, this cousin, so she'd written to me, looking for explanations. She said in the card that she was worried that my Mom was thinking about ending her life. She was looking for reassurances.I don't really know what to tell her. Mom seems okay on the phone sometimes. Other times she calls to tell me

Word game

2006-01-03T08:08:00.000-05:00

My oldest son has a large vocabulary, which I love, except sometimes I don't know what he's talking about. "Don't worry. I won't do a meddycore job," he assures me, regarding his thank you notes to his aunts and uncles.Funny how a little thing like the accent on the wrong syllable can completely throw off a person's understanding. When I figure out what my son is trying to say, I correct him. "

All Lit Up

2005-12-18T14:32:00.000-05:00

Armed with twist ties, duct tape and a glut of mindless determination, I teeter at the top of a 24 foot aluminum ladder, a coil of blue rope lights on my left shoulder. I’ve got one glove clenched between my teeth, and I’m leaning over to my right, attempting to thread a twist tie behind the vine that clings to the house. The small limb snaps and I swear at it and then look around for another

Spuddies — Unlimited Fun in the Sack

2005-08-13T12:41:00.001-04:00

There are only two “Spuddies” left on the porch -- the one that looks like a six-legged hedgehog and the one with four twigs sticking out of its head.Spuddies are my sons’ answer to the question, “What do you do with a ten pound sack of potatoes, an unlimited amount of sticks and a few hours to kill on a camping trip?” In this case, they made ten little men (and one hedgehog) using Idahos, sticks

Quality time

2005-08-07T21:52:00.001-04:00

Today was the usual grab the stack of newspapers from the porch, the wagon from the garage and a pair of drink boxes and cookies and run out to the elementary school to pick the boys up from the bus stop kind of day. It's a good break for me. I fold the papers and listen to Nick and Sam tell me about their respective days at school. A little island of quality time in a hectic sea of work-related

Homeward bound

2005-07-27T07:08:00.000-04:00

Today, in honor of my daughter’s return home after nearly a year away, I’ll do some special things. I’ll take a shovel to the living room, dust off the piano, and put her computer back on her desk. I’ll string up a banner that says, “Welcome home” and I’ll bake a cake to celebrate. I may even brush her dog. My daughter left last August for a year in France as an exchange student and I’ve missed

Endless summer, endless chores

2005-07-27T07:06:00.001-04:00

School’s out, summer’s here and that means it’s time to get out The Endless Chore Game.Chores are not popular at my house. Nobody looks forward to them. Nobody appreciates the trouble I take to make sure that everyone has chores to do that will build character (“Why do I have to clean the bathroom again? I did it last week!” “Because you did a terrible job and you need more practice.”). Nobody

Hello, my name is Marie and I'm a piler.

2005-07-27T06:58:00.000-04:00

I suffer from piles. Piles of work, piles of papers, piles of clothing. My home is full of piles. In my sons' room there are piles of toys, piles of dirty clothes and piles of books. I ask them to pick up the piles and they do, but within 48 hours they're back again, the contents rearranged, but in much the same spots as they were before, as if there were pile magnets in the corners and under

We're settling in.

2005-05-04T06:57:00.000-04:00

It's gotten easier, a little, or maybe it's just that I'm expecting less.Today Mom has a dentist appointment. She grumbles that it's just for x-rays, "A way for them to take more of my money," although how she expects to have her teeth fixed (she needs a filling replaced) without them knowing what's in her mouth, I have no idea. "They need to support 5 hygienists, 2 receptionists and a family of

Mother worry

2005-03-17T06:17:00.000-05:00

I remember saying to someone that it was easier to worry about her at my house than to worry about her from two hours away, but that turns out to have been a lie. It’s harder to worry about her here. When she was living away I worried about her only intermittently, for the space of a phone call and for an hour or two afterward. Then, my regular life would take over and I’d forget about worrying

Mother in the morning

2005-03-08T07:00:00.000-05:00

When I walked into the kitchen this morning my mother looked from the back how she used to when she was working third shift at the hospital, pink sweater and white pants, white socks looking like her nursing shoes. She used to come home in time to tell us goodbye in the mornings, and then she’d have a warm beer and go to bed for a few hours. The warm beer was because when she kept it in the

Here's Mommy!

2005-03-03T08:01:00.000-05:00

I came down the stairs and surprised my mother with her pants down in front of the refrigerator, rummaging around for the plain yogurt. She has a yeast infection and the yoghurt helps. I definitely have to get a curtain on the front door, which is comprised almost entirely of clear beveled glass, and is on a direct line with the refrigerator, and also the window in the kitchen, which faces my

Underwear is so personal

2004-12-04T07:43:00.000-05:00

Last night I became inexplicably angry with the world and was sent to bed by my husband. I read for a half hour and fell asleep. Later I heard him discover the bag with sexy underwear I’d forgotten on the stairs and he came into the room where I was sleeping and kissed my cheek and whispered that he loved me. Sexy underwear is good for a few things. Myself, I just feel ridiculous in it, but it

Take note

2004-04-23T00:00:00.002-04:00

I was dropping off my daughter, Alice, now a freshman in high school, at her soccer game. Getting out of the car, she stopped dead and said, "Shoot! John's here."Since I knew she and her friend, John, had had a recent falling out, I asked her if it wasn't a good thing to see him today and tell him how she felt.She gave me an exasperated look. "No, it's not a good thing, Mom. I wanted to talk to

Science is gross

2004-03-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

Lakeview Elementary had a science fair this week. I got to go with the boys, who each had something on display. Sam was required to attend from 6-7 pm as part of his assignment grade, so he could be on hand to explain his project to any interested passersby. Nick’s project was a wooden catapult that he'd constructed with a lot of his dad's help. Both boys and Steve had spent a rollicking hour