In which I'm placed on the DHS Watch List

Got a letter yesterday from Grayson's school telling me that I'm in non-compliance with state law because my son has been late to school 23 days this year.

23 days. We live about 7 blocks from the school!! How can I be getting him to school late that many days?? I feel like a complete slug. How many tardies can he get before they send DHS to take him away?

It's just one in a long list of things that seem to be sliding away from me these days. I got on the scale at the doctor's office yesterday only to realize, to my horror, that I'm almost up to my pre-divorce weight. Ug. The one good thing I got out of my divorce was a 15-pound weight loss! Now I've gained ten of it back? How is that fair?

At work we missed the deadline on the production of the newsletter, and both my assistant and I got called on the carpet by the director to receive the Long Cold Stare. Why did we miss the deadline? I dunno. Just did.

Last night, in my self-pitying funk, I downed an entire bottle of wine. So much for my pledge of cutting back on my drinking. Why? I dunno.

This morning as I was brewing coffee and looking at the dishes I didn't do last night I thought "enough." Really. I can't just let everything slide! I've got to take care of business whether I care about it or not.

In my defense, it's not all caused by depression and inertia. This is partly the Almost-Christmas Give-a-Shits. I'm mentally already on Christmas break. I would rather be watching holiday specials and wrapping presents.

One good piece of news, at my doctor's appointment yesterday I finally achieved an appointment with the rheumatologist. I was referred in JULY. My appointment is in February. What's a seven month wait?

Actually, apparently they called my cell some time in August and their records show that they left a message. I did not receive this message, but perhaps I just didn't recognize the number so I didn't listen to it. Sheesh. Again -- inaction. But at least I'll finally know what's going on with that lupus test.

So, in the spirit of the approaching New Year, and in the shadow of the Epic Fail my existence has been the past few months, I will hereby make an early resolution:

As Gawd is my witness, I will no longer let things slide. I will tackle deadlines, get up ten minutes earlier, get my exercise and eat my veggies. I will Do Everything Right. Or at least stop Hakuna Matata-ing myself into a hole.

So there.

Roxy the Neurotic Dog

So, as I mentioned some time ago, Grayson and I have taken in this Temporary Dog, Roxy. I believe I mentioned that she is really sweet. Did I also mention that she is completely neurotic?

So far she has ripped two screens: one on the back window and one on the door from the garage to the kitchen, tearing at them to get in. She still can't be left outside for any length of time. I put her out sometimes for the afternoon while I'm at work, because don't dogs need to be OUTSIDE? But I'm afraid to do it every day because I don't know if she goes nuts barking while I'm out.

She throws herself at you when you come in the house, hitting you at chest level before you even get the door all the way open, and often clawing whatever you're holding or carrying out of your grasp. If she's REALLY excited, she jumps up and claws the door so frantically that it's hard to actually get it open and you have to yell at her to stand down just so you CAN come inside.

I've now stopped give her tennis balls altogether after she had another barfing incident on the skirt around the Christmas tree. Now she is allowed only to play with her Kong ball which, though it cost $7, has proven to be virtually indestructible. Problem is, she's always losing it under a piece of furniture, causing her to either dig frantically at the carpet or sit with her nose stuffed under said furniture, whining and barking until you get down on your hands and knees and grope the thing out for her. This is an exercise in futility. Usually she just loses it again right away.

It's impossible to read or watch TV on the sofa without Roxy constantly bringing you the ball and dropping it in your lap, begging for you to throw it. If you give in to this invitation, you will have her skittering through the house after the ball and bringing the wet, slimy thing back to you until hell freezes over. She never gets tired of it, never. If you refuse, she just stares at you and whines this incessant high-pitched whine until your hair stands on end. Sometimes hiding the ball helps, but if she sees you hide it, forget it. Then you just get the same whining and barking thing she does when the ball is lost under the sofa.

When I was home sick, I learned that she watches out the front windows all day, her back legs on the sofa and front legs folded up on the window sill. She barks at everything that goes by, flies overhead, or moves the tree branches. Also at things she hears but does not actually see, such as distant dogs barking, car engines, and sirens. I pity the poor mailman. She goes absolutely berserk when she sees him. I'm surprised he has the fortitude to come up on the porch at all.

Roxy has recently started sleeping with Grayson at night. This is very sweet, and Grayson doesn't mind. She just curls up small and tucks in at the foot of his bed. But most nights he gets up around 4 or 5 and comes into my room. I have a baby gate across the door to keep Kobi and Flower in, which he is skilled at climbing over in the dark. (Okay, it's just for Kobi. If she has the run of the house, she will get up in the middle of the night and pee on the floor behind the dining table.) When Roxy discovers that Grayson is gone, she comes to the gate and whines, and when I let her in, she jumps up on the bed and settles right in next to him... in my spot. So I have to shove and cajole her out of my way to get back into bed.

She still gets up around 6:30, which is a big improvement over the 5:30 wake-up call we got the first few mornings. I get up and let her and Kobi go out to pee, and then I go back to bed. Generally I'm just drifting off to sleep again when Roxy barks to be let back in 15 minutes later. Not much point in getting back in bed at that point. It's not so bad on the weekdays, but let me tell you, it's a pain on the weekend.

In the morning when I leave for work I am, of course, obliged to leave Roxy inside. She reads all the signs -- I've got my coat on, purse, keys, etc. She knows I'm getting ready to leave, and she immediately goes into stasis mode. I don't know if she's trying to be very still and quiet so I don't notice her and make her go outside, or if she's just settling in for the long boring morning, but she climbs onto the sofa, curls up small and lies very still, staring blankly into space. She doesn't respond when I talk to her. Not an eye flicker. Not an ear twitch. She's in suspended animation. Nobody here. Just us big black hairy pillows.

A couple of times a week I come home at lunch and throw a ball for her in the backyard, just to give her some exercise. She also likes to play keepaway with Kobi and Flower, and tug of war with Kobi. Kobi does all the tugging. Roxy just hangs on. I have to watch, however, because sometimes the thing they are tugging is one of Grayson's stuffed toys or one of my bras. I've already lost one that way, and I don't have that many of them, so I have to keep my eyes peeled.

Sometimes I want to kick myself for bringing her home. She IS a pain in the ass. But then she'll stand up on her back legs to hug me, and look into my face with those sad, crazy brown eyes, and I melt. She's not a BAD dog. She's really very sweet and gentle. She's crazy, but it's a needy, harmless kind of crazy. I'm probably a little bit that way, myself.

Still, it will be good when her family gets a place of their own and she can go back. Though I'll probably miss all that nuttiness when she's gone. It will be very very quiet around here.

Art Walk

I had a lovely evening last night with my fellow Leadership Norman classmates. It was a low-impact evening. We pre-viewed the Second Friday art walk, cruising convivially from gallery to gallery down Main Street, plastic wine-glasses in hand. This is such a great group of people. I am so glad I signed on.

We all had rather more wine than was strictly good for us.

A group of them went out for further shenanigans after nine, but I of course gathered up my responsibility and went to pick up my son from my folks' house and get him to bed. Tonight I will take him up the demilitarized zone between Norman and OKC and hand him over to his dad for the weekend.

Holiday

I realize it's been a long time since I updated this. Frankly, I think my life has been so dull that I haven't had much to say. Or rather, perhaps what I would say would be tedious. The holidays are upon us, and I am ... not ambivalent... I can't find the word I need.

I love Christmas. It was always such a happy time for me as a kid that I bring that joy forward, I can't help it. I'm so glad that I have also managed to pass that joy of the season along to Grayson. So it's a good time, no matter what. We decorated the tree and listen to Christmas music and every morning, Grayson opens another drawer in the advent calendar cabinet we bring out every year and I fill with little treats and surprises. Every day Grayson tells me he can't wait till Christmas. And I agree. We'll be spending Christmas Eve at my folks' again this year, so it will feel like home.

But this also was the first year I got out all the holiday decorations from storage to do up the house. Last year I just brought out the Christmas tree decorations. But this year I rummaged through seven or eight large storage bins of decorations from ten years of married life. There was G's stocking, with his name in needlepoint that my Mom made for him. There were decorations from G's childhood that his mom sent over to us. There were the garlands and ornaments I brought out every year for specific purposes: one that always went down the stair rail at the old house. One that graced the mantle. The wicker star I made for the top of the tree. Christmas is about family to me, and these were just reminders of a family tradition that was broken.

They're just things, I know. Just objects. And I picked through and repurposed some of them for the new space: The staircase garland over the armoire, the mantle garland across the sideboard. G's things I just nudged aside. I told him I would put them all together and turn them over to him tomorrow night so he can decorate his place.

And I'm not sad looking at these decorations. But getting them out was a little painful, I'll admit.

I called my mom one night last week, crying pitifully. I hate to burden her with my pitifulness. But there's no one else to talk to who doesn't have a personal interest or an axe to grind on the subject in one way or another. Or maybe there's just no one else I think really cares. It's been a year, or nearly so, since the divorce was final. Everyone pretty much expects you to be over it.

Anyway, she was, as always, wise and kind. She reminded me that last year I had the healing power of rage to get me through the holidays. This year that momentum is gone. I'm in a much better place.... no longer crazy, or mostly not crazy ... At least mostly not crazy. I'll settle for that. Anyway. The mental space is healthier and more stable. But that removes a layer of protection from my heart. So things get in.

I went to a meeting of the Arts Council Roundtable on Monday. It was a meeting/holiday reception at the home of one of the members, and she had brought in a couple of founders of the Singer/Songwriters association to perform for us. One of them sang a piece about love and loss that brought tears to my eyes. I felt like a damned fool, sitting there in this cozy company, crying over a song. But that's where I am now. I'm in the final crying-over-a-song phase of grieving, I guess. Is that after Anger but before acceptance? I forget.

Ani DiFranco has a song that says "I found religion in the greeting card aisle, and now I know Hallmark was right."

I was bemoaning my state at work and my assistant said "you need to go talk to someone." I had to laugh. Yes. I definitely need to talk to someone. Or rather, I need to pay someone to listen to me talk. But I can't afford that right now. Not at Christmas. Ironic, isn't it? That during the season when you most need support, you can't afford to pay for it?

So, instead, I bought a bunch of self help books. As a reader, I am naturally convinced that there must be a book out there, the reading of which will solve all my problems. It won't require any additional effort... simply by consuming the words I will be miraculously healed. I have a sort of faith, there. I bought "The Ultimate Happiness Prescription" by Deepok Chopra, and "When Everything Changes, Change Everything" by someone whose name I can't remember. I'll let you know how those work out for me.

This singer/songwriter at the reception also said something that struck me. He said he writes a poem every day, and has for ten years. He said, consequently, he has a LOT of really bad poetry. But I liked the idea of disciplining yourself to write something every day. Poetry or SOMETHING. I'm not sure if Scrawlspace counts. So I wrote a poem. A sort of prose poem. And I'll try to write something every day. It's cheaper than therapy. And if the books don't work, hey, maybe this will.

Things are not all doom and gloom. It is, after all, the holidays. Tonight I go with my Leadership Norman class to dinner and the Norman holiday Art Walk. Good people and a fun evening. I'm looking forward to it. I recently learned that I got my first choice for Leadership Norman's board internship, so I will be serving on the board of Dreamer Concepts Studio, run by an LN classmate. It will be good to be involved with the arts again, and Amber is so bright and determined and visionary, I look forward to learning more about her organization and putting my back into something that isn't about me. Last Sunday I went over and spent a couple of hours helping to repaint the studio. I still have Amazon Jungle green under my nails.

My Christmas shopping is almost complete. I have a couple of projects that I need to wrap up. Okay, one of them I need to START. I'm almost finished with B's mosaic. I need to put the final touches on Charlie's table and get it shipped out to him.

Running out of time this morning. Got to get moving.

So here's my bad poem from yesterday. Have a nice day.

Five thirty a.m. in the dark

with the wind whistling around the house like icy veils

I am awake and remembering, wishing I weren’t, snowed-in nights with you

When love was new and the future long and wonderful.

Hot coffee at six

with piles of books unread and promises broken,

kept warm by the unassailable loyalty of dogs against the chill of solitude.

Tears smudge the ink of the hundredth, hundred and first, hundred and second times I have written that I do not love you. Not now. Not anymore.

At six thirty the sun cracks open the winter sky

and invades the little hollow of loneliness I have inhabited, pooled in yellow lamp-light and bound by blankets. The dogs stretch and yawn, pawing the door for

access to the cold cold world. The coffee is bitter and the alarm sounds relentlessly from the empty bedside.

At seven I am making breakfast,

rousing our son from sleep and jollying him into another day. Filling all the roles we once filled together, feeding the hungry stomachs, rolling the trash to the frosted curb, my eyelids a little puffy.

By eight my face is tidied, my heart boxed up neatly. His hair smoothed, his lunch packed, his cheek kissed, bundled in coat and sweater, I deliver the life we created together to school alone in a comforting rhythm of rush and hurry.

I go on then, focusing my attention forward and forward, not looking back. Because there is no back, there is only through. Forward and forward. To a future that is now uncertain, veiled in the cold unknown. Waiting for the dawn.

An Old Friend

This week I had lunch with an old friend from high school. Ben now lives in San Francisco, where he has lived since he left Norman with my best friend after their first year of college. They didn't stay together, but both stayed in San Francisco. After having lunch with him this week, I did some mental calculation and realized that I have not seen him in 21 years.

Ben was always super bright. Actually, I had a LOT of friends in high school who were scary intelligent (it goes without saying I was not one of them... just a hanger on. Seriously, these people are SMART, and have gone on to fascinating, brain-twisting and lucrative jobs in the Real World). Ben was a computer geek from elementary school, and always had this dry, peculiar sense of humor. He and another friend cajoled the high school communications teacher to give them access to the High School tv studio after hours and they produced this very quirky late night show, the name of which I have completely forgotten. They were just having fun with the camera, when they realized after awhile that they had developed this sort of cult following. Ben's whole life has been sort of like that. Just sort of putzing along from one project to the next, doing what he feels like doing or what grabs his attention, and somehow making a success of it.

Seeing him again was a little like looking into a very weird mirror. He looks exactly the same. Only older. Not in the "oh my god, you look old!" way, but in the same way I'm sure I look exactly the same, only older. Because I'm older, he doesn't really look older to me, if you know what I mean. He looks exactly like I would have expected him to look. His mannerisms are the same. His sense of humor is the same. I'm sure if I had the chance to spend any time with him, he would get on my nerves in exactly the same way he did when we were part of a group of best friends in high school. It was oddly comforting. Oddly disconcerting.

It made me nostalgic for those high school days when friends were so easy to come by, and so easily kept. There are very few friends I have made since that time that I think I will feel so easy with after a 20-year separation in the future (of course, who knows if I'll even remember them in 20 years? At the rate my memory is going, it's a bit doubtful). But those few friends I have retained from that time have a sort of unassailable agelessness to them. (You know who you are!) And it is comforting to return to them, even after a gap of months or years, and know that they know me. My mannerisms, my quirks and interests and sense of humor were imprinted on them when we were kids and I didn't have any reasons to protect myself or pretend to be something else or feel self-conscious. Okay, teenagers are sickeningly self-conscious. But not in the really false-front way we are as adults. When you're a teenager, no matter how much of a front you put on, your real self just spills out all over. Partly because you don't even know who it is yourself. Now, after years of experience, we know what parts of ourselves we had best keep quiet in polite company, and we're much better at pretending.

My point, if I had one, is that seeing Ben was like stepping into an old sneaker. Just a little stiff at first from disuse, but then just as comfy as before. It's nice to know people like that.

A Ballocaust

Roxy is driving us nuts.

Don't get me wrong, she's not a bad dog. She's just a rather needy, neurotic dog. She's completely ball-obsessed, and chews through a tennis ball in ten minutes flat. The good news is, she doesn't seem particularly inclined to chew on anything else, i.e. the sofa, shoes, tables or people. The bad news is, she seems to need to chew on something all the time, and without a tennis ball, she wanders around the house squeaking for something to chew on.

The picture here is of a small sampling of the balls Roxy has gone through in just a few days: a soccer ball, three or four tennis balls, a baseball, and several plastic squeaky balls. She also has to be kept out of Grayson's room because she will abscond with anything she finds in there that is vaguely ball-shaped, including Bakugan toys, stuffed animals that are roughly spherical, rolled up socks, and balls that actually belong to my son.

It wouldn't be so bad, except that she chews them into itty bitty pieces, which are constantly scattered all over the living room floor. Some of these pieces she subsequently swallows, later barfing them up messily onto the carpet, which leaves a vile green stain.

If I give them beef bones to chew, Kobi goes around collecting all of them from the others and either standing guard over them, snarling, or burying them in the flower pot on the back patio. (Only to bring them back in, dripping mud, at midnight)

I had some luck giving them cow hooves to chew on. This seemed to generate less sibling rivalry than the bones do. But recently all cow hooves have been recalled because of some salmonella scare, so they are currently unavailable. I'm sure I should be glad of this, but I'm actually just annoyed. My dog needs hooves, dammit! I don't care about any stinking salmonella risk! She's driving me NUTS.

Did I mention that she's a really sweet dog? She is. Really. She is very gentle and has learned to play with Kobi. She snuggles with us on the sofa and she never has an accident in the house. But I've had to keep her inside almost all the time because she barks continually and tries to claw through the screens when she is left outside all day. My neighbors actually complained, which pained them, I could tell. They're very nice people and I could tell they didn't like to have to say anything.

Ive been trying to acclimate her to being out with the other dogs for longer and longer periods of time, by leaving her out with the screen door open, so she knows I'm home and can feel comfortable coming and going as she pleases. That worked great until the weather turned,and now it's too cold to leave the door open.

Honestly, I believe she's getting better. She no longer throws herself against the front door when she hears me coming home. She no longer barks at every tiny noise during the night, and she has been out for an hour or so at a time with me home without barking at the door. I am being patient.

But she's still driving me nuts.

Four years in the making

A momentous event. This weekend I completed the mosaic I have been working on for more than four years. I started this damned thing when we moved into the last house, thinking I would take advantage of the extra space the house had to get involved in hobbies. But it got stalled out somewhere along the line... oh, and in the meantime I made a table for Charlie, so I had other things on my mind.

Anyway, I've now moved the thing, unfinished and wrapped in old newspaper, to TWO different homes, and finally this past weekend I decided to just knock it out. When I unwrapped it I realized I was actually much further along than I remembered, with only the background to fill in. So I spent a few busy afternoons hunched over the dining room table, clipping tiles. Saturday afternoon I grouted and by God, it is now complete! I can hardly believe it.

Tonight I start on a new one. Not as large. I'm doing a piece for B for Christmas and if I want it to actually be finished by Christmas, I have to set my sights low. So it's just a little 12-inch square. I'm not giving away the design, you just have to wait.

Upheaval, anyone?

Got a notice on my door on Monday that my house was behind on taxes. Way behind.

I called the Property Manager who works for the Receiver in charge of the house to see what happens now. My landlord attempted bankruptcy, but I guess that fell through so now the houses he owns will be sold at auction to pay off his creditors. Including mine.

The property manager couldn't tell me when, or how much notice I would get of the impending sale. I'm pretty bummed out by this, because I literally have not even totally unpacked yet and I just planted 100 bulbs in the yard this weekend in anticipation of spring.

Now I may not even be there in the spring.

I know, I know. I have told myself this over and over. There's always another house. But I like this house, and I just started feeling at home there. Now we may have to move again soon, and we may have to move on the fly. I don't know if I'm bound by my lease or not... should I start looking now? Should I wait until I get notice? But how much notice will I get? 30 days? 90? Five?

The property manager told me that "someone will probably get a really good deal on it." Meaning at auction it could sell for cheap cheap cheap. I wish I could afford to just bid on the damned thing. But of course I can't. So I have to just wait and see.

More drama. Just what we needed.

Temporary Dog, Halloween, and more

Last Wednesday, Grayson came home teary-eyed because a friend of his at school had told him that they were moving into his grandmother's house and were going to have to put his dog to sleep.

Well, of course, being the Dog Lady that I am, I was aghast. "Oh No!" I said. "We have to keep that from happening!"

Grayson had no further details. Couldn't tell me when the presumed death was scheduled to happen, or why the family was moving in with the grandmother, or much of anything else, except the dog is a black lab "like Flower."

Heart strings: Tug.

So the next morning we set out on our mission of rescue. I came to school with Grayson and collared his teacher during the morning assembly to tell me what she knew. Not much. But she sympathized and said she would contact the boy's parents that morning and let us know how to get in touch with them. Later she gave me a number for the boy's Mom.

She told me that she had had a heart attack (at 37!) several months ago, followed by a fall that severely damaged her knee. She's a surgical nurse, and couldn't continue to work until the knee is fixed, but the hospital dropped her insurance 4 days before her surgery, so she was obliged to use all their savings to have her knee repaired. Next, her husband got laid off, and now they are losing their house.

They had three dogs and two cats. A 13-year-old dog and 18-year-old cat were scheduled for euthanasia, because they are old and unwell. A lap dog belonging to the 11-year-old sister had already been placed in a new home. Now there was a cat and Roxy, a 3-year-old black lab, in need of homes. They had run the gamut of all their friends, acquaintances, friends friends, and families of the kids, but no-one had stepped forward to take Roxy. The Mom was sadly considering the possibility of having her put down when we called.

Hooray! We're able to save the day and make a family in desperate straits happy!

On Saturday, Roxy arrived. She is much smaller than Flower and verrrry nervous. She loves to play fetch, can catch a ball in mid-air, and is very affectionate and sweet. But she's a wee bit on the neurotic side. She's pathologically attached to her tennis balls, and she alternately carries them around, dropping them into everyone's lap in an attempt to make them play fetch with her; or lies down on the floor and systematically chews them into little bits (the balls, that is, not the people). Since Saturday she has gone through 5 tennis balls and a soccer ball.

She has gotten along fine with the other dogs (with the notable exception of a full-on fight with Flower last night over the remains of her dinner – all sound and fury, however, no blood), but they are puzzled by her neediness and obsession with people. She barks and throws herself at the door if left outside, even with the other dogs. She was raised in the country, so is unaccustomed to town noises like cars passing, distant sirens, and neighbor dogs barking. So she wakes up and barks hysterically every time she hears one of these noises at night.

Also, her family were apparently early risers. So 4 a.m. is Time To Get Up in Roxy's book.

Fortunately, all of these little difficulties are already being smoothed out. She is sleeping through the night, though still getting up before 6. The squeaking and barking for attention has decreased a lot as she begins to feel secure with us. And I've been able to leave her outside while I'm at work for the past day and a half without fear of her chewing through the door or injuring herself by lunging at it. I think we're going to be okay.

In the meantime, my family has grown. Now we are five. Okay, six if you count Mambo. Okay, eight if you count the fish, but I don't really count them.

Mambo, by the way, is much larger, and is now eating full-sized crickets, four or five at a go. This is a big improvement over meals of 15 to 20 small crickets. He is also eating spinach and a bit of carrot, so that's encouraging.

Halloween

Grayson was a vampire for Halloween. My mom, god love her, made a terrific black satin cape with a scalloped edge and red satin lining for him. It's glorious. The rest of his costume, I'll admit, was a bit weak. He doesn't like shirts with buttons, and insisted on wearing his crocks. So he was a vampire in dark blue corduroys, a black T-shirt and crocs. It didn't seem to bother him a bit, however. We did attempt to get some stick-on fangs for him, but we couldn't make them stick, and when I tried them on myself, they cut my gums, so we abandoned that effort.

He trick-or-treated twice over the weekend. Because of a conflict with an OU home game, Norman changed its "official" trick-or-treat night to Friday. So we went out with The Boys Friday night. We also attended an iron pouring at the OU Art School, which was sort of interesting. They sell carvable plaque molds for $15 apiece. You take it home, carve out the shape of the plaque you want, and then they fill it with molton iron at the event. Later this week we'll be able to pick up our finished piece.

On Saturday, I took Grayson up to the city to spend the night and go trick-or-treating with his best friend. Consequently, we have waaaaaaay more candy in the house than is strictly good for us, especially considering the fact that my folks insisted on giving him an entire bag of Hershey bars when he trick-or-treated their house.

For My Own Part...
I am attempting to do my back a favor by doing half an hour of yoga every morning after I drop Grayson off for school. This is part of my new "Do Something" campaign of self improvement and motivation. This also includes cutting back on wine consumption, cooking real food for my family, and filling my evenings with something besides Sponge Bob and sofa. I'm on day 2. So far so good. This very minute, there is a big crock pot full of Beef Bourguignon simmering away on my kitchen countertop. Good for dinner tonight, and enough of it to either make dinner tomorrow night or freeze for some desperate winter evening in the future.

Sad News

My folks white westie, Beaumont, also known as Bobo or BoMonster, has been diagnosed with cancer. The vet told them yesterday that he guesses the little guy has no more than about a week to live. Bo was a little more than a puppy when Grayson was born, and would install himself at Grayson's side when he was a baby, growling protectively at anyone who got too close or made too much noise. He got so protective, in fact, that he spent about a year on doggie Prozac so he would chill out enough to allow even Grayson's own family approach him. Now he's ten years old and we'll lose him soon.

Pets. You know when they come into your life, as I have said so often, that they will break your heart. Yet we take them in, we love them and raise them. They become part of our family. You can't regret it, even when they die and your heart grieves.

Roxy, nervous mess that she is, reminds me of Maggie, the dalmatian I had when Grayson was a baby. She died just shy of her 12th birhday, in my arms. Whenever I see Rox curled up on her blanket, looking anxious, my heart squeezes a little, still loving and remembering Mags, though she's been gone more than 8 years.

No regrets.

Rose Rocks in their Natural Habitat

Saturday was such a beautiful day we just had to get outside. So B and I loaded up the boys and drove up to Lake Stanley Draper in south OKC to go rose rock hunting. B collected a bunch of them up there a couple of weeks ago, and I admitted that I'd never seen rose rocks "in the wild," even though I'm an Okie native. So, we went up.

The weather was perfect. Warm sun, cool breeze, bright and crisp and sunny. The roads into the lake bottom were closed because of the recent rains, so we had to park and walk in: about a mile and a half or two miles, according to B. I have no sense of distance whatsoever. It was a good long walk. But pleasant. The boys were scampering back and forth with their eyes open: finding bugs, a tiny red toad, clams and clam shells. The wind was coming in off the lake and really bringing the waves in. The water level is really low, so there were wide stretches of red Oklahoma dirt down by the water, and wide swaths of exposed rose rocks. Hundreds of them. Thousands! I picked up a bag full, but soon stopped because there were just so many. I was astonished! I've never seen them au naturel before, and I always thought of them as being quite rare, but there were places where the waterline was completely covered in them! It was very cool.

We knocked around out there for a couple of hours, turning over rocks to look for crawdads, skipping rocks. There were patches of dried up dead reeds that made a wonderful musical tink tonk noise in breaking as you walked through them. So we spent some time wading through patches of reeds, swinging our legs and making music.

The way back was long, however. We were all tired. My back was hurting, the boys were whining about how far it was. But fortunately we were able to turn the whining into a sort of game about how we were all going to die. I'd hold Grayson up and say "Don't give up! You've got to keep moving! I'm not going to leave you out here! You can do it!" And he would laugh ... and whine some more.

It was a beautiful, perfect Fall Saturday. We haven't had as many of those as we usually do this year. There has been so much rain! But this one was perfect.

Sunday, unfortunately, Grayson came down with a stuffy nose and lay around all day feeling crappy. I let him veg out in front of the TV while I embarked upon the task of reorganizing cabinets. When I moved in I put things away, but of course didn't really know how I was going to need to use the space, and not everything was even unpacked. So now that we've been here a few months, I realize what our storage needs are and needed to move some things around so I didn't end up with a bunch of junk cabinets.

Well, what started out as a project to clear out one cabinet to make room for craft supplies became a day-long odyssey where each new cabinet led to another, until I ended up reorganizing the hall closet, the armoire, the side board and the drawers in all the living room tables before I was done. At least now I know where to put stuff, though.

Grayson's home sick again today. Not really sick, though. Just snuffy. I'm guessing it's allergies. But that means I'm home, too. I am NOT starting another organization project, however. Just don't think I'm up to that again. Think I'll sit on my butt and read a book, instead.

The To Do List

Today is the one year anniversary of the day I moved out of the house. I keep running into these anniversaries: the date that would have been my 11th wedding anniversary, the anniversary of the day G told me he no longer loved me. The date I moved out. In January the divorce will have been final for a year, but frankly, I don't even know what that date is. By then it didn't matter. I don't suppose any of it matters now. I just keep hoping that the next anniversary will mark the official date on which it all becomes part of "the past" and I will stop stumbling over it. I'm continually dismayed at how much the past still drags at my future.

Lately the big stumbling block is financial. I just keep re-learning the hard way that I am in much reduced circumstances. I have a lot of leftover debt from the marriage, plus I pay a car payment and a divorce lawyer, and am trying to hack down the credit card debt I racked up after I moved... twice ... this year. I keep hearing all the dire financial news and sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat at 5 a.m. certain that I'm going to end up bankrupt or homeless.

Speaking of home insecurity... the owner of the house I am renting is going through bankruptcy. After the first month's rent was paid, I got a thick packet from a law firm informing me that the property was "in receivership" and I should make future checks payable to the firm, not the owner. So I did for the second month. Then I got a note that the owner was filing bankruptcy and was again in charge of handling the rent... for whatever reason.... so for the fourth month I sent my check back to him. Then last week I got another thick packet from the lawyer telling me that the property had been released from the bankruptcy and was back in receivership and I should pay them, not the owner. It's been a zoo. I frankly didn't even know what "receivership" is!

So I looked it up:

"In a typical Receivership, the Superior Court appoints a Receiver to act as an agent of the court to liquidate the assets of a Corporation, Partnership, Limited Liability Company or Limited Liability Partnership. Once the assets are liquidated, creditors are paid from the sale proceeds."

This would seem to indicate that it's just a matter of time before my house gets sold to pay the creditors off.

I wish I could just buy the thing myself, but I'm so upside down on my debt to income ratio that no lender in their right mind would grant me a mortgage, especially in the current financial climate. Plus I have no down payment. So if the thing sells, I'm back out there looking for a place to live.

This is not good, but it does remind me that things could be worse. I recognize that the fix I'm in is at least partly of my own making. G didn't rack up all that debt by himself, after all. But being on my own sure makes it a harder hole to get out of. Note to the younger generation: don't live beyond your means. It could really come back to bite you on the butt.

I heard on NPR yesterday how many college are now offering courses in basic household finance: how to read an earnings statement, the difference between a 401k and a 403b. What a flexible spending account is, etc. What a concept. Not me! I come from the Credit Card "Charge It" generation. And I have been a verrry hard Old Dog to teach. Looks like I'm entering the school of Tough Love, however. No Way Out But Through. My new mantra.

So, no more on that depressing subject. Lets talk about something else.

Lets talk about Leadership Norman.

I haven't had a chance to say much about it, but I was accepted to take part in an annual program put on by the Norman Chamber of Commerce called Leadership Norman. Thirty people are chosen to participate in six months of sessions that will teach us all the inner workings of the community, with an aim of making us better, more informed and engaged "leaders." It has been a wonderful experience.

We began with an evening mixer in which we had dinner and everyone had an opportunity to introduce ourselves and give some information about who we are. The emcee was the owner of a local office supply business turned educators supply turned toystore who is a mainstay of the Norman scene since God was a boy. He had clearly dug up the dirt on each of us and would ask questions showing that he had some real information about our past experiences and histories. He brought up my old acting career, for example. Anyway, that was fun. Then we met for a session on the Myers-Briggs personality profile, (I can't remember what I am, I'll have to look it up). Then we had a full day on the Ropes Course at OU, which was fantastic. Terrifying, but fantastic. It really made an impression on all of us and brought the group together. Then last night we had a session introducing us to a wide range of non-profits in Norman. We met representatives from each of them one-on-one, and later we will prioritize our top three and be placed as an "intern" on their Board of Directors for three months.

Last night a group of us met before the general meeting for happy hour at the restaurant of one of our members. We have two restaurant owners in our ranks, so there's always a place to go for drinks! I'm hoping to make some close new friends over the next few months. That's one of the main things on my To Do list since the move to Norman. Make Friends. It gets harder and harder to do when you're a grown up, but Leadership Norman should provide just the avenue.

And speaking of my To Do list, there are several things on it that bear mentioning here. Financial solvency is one, naturally. But also Making friends. Engaging my community. Reinvigorating my work. Taking care of my health, and feeding my soul. I need to get out and find things that are meaningful to me. I guess I was so encapsulated in my little family when I was married that I now find myself sort of cut off from the world. I'm not sure what I do for fun. Someone asked me that recently and I just looked at them, blinking, for a moment. Crickets chirping. I don't know what I do for fun. I know what I do, but I couldn't really call it fun.

So one of my missions now is to identify what it is that I do for fun. Develop a hobby, cultivate interests, explore and experiment. There are lots of possibilities out there.

I'm trying to find one of them for this weekend. What can I do with Grayson that is free, entertaining, and does not involve television? I'll keep you posted.

From the Tourism Conference.

I'm in Tulsa for the annual Governor's Conference on Tourism. This is the fabulous and exotic view from my window at the Renaissance Conference Center. I call it "Target parking lot with Oklahoma skyline."




I'm kind of missing my kid. He spent Thursday through Sunday with his dad, then G dropped him off with my folks where he will remain until Tuesday afternoon. So it's been almost five days since I saw him. Probably he's not missing me much at all. He got to play with his best friend in OKC, yesterday. And today his Papa's taking him to Scouts, so there's plenty to do.

He tells me he feels equally at home both at our house and at his Dad's place. I'm grateful for that. I noticed, though, on a poster he made as an assignment for school... where it asked him to draw a picture of his family, it was just the two of us. At the beginning of the school year, when he filled out a little booklet about himself, the family he drew was the three of us: G., (recognizable in his green shirt), Grayson in the middle (in glasses), and me (wearing red). Maybe he feels he has two families now.

Yesterday was something of a big day. G dropped off Grayson with my folks, marking the first time he has seen or spoken to either of them in a year. My mom was the only one present. My dad is just not ready to take that step. The new tattoo on his ankle is still healing where he had G's initials tattooed over last week. (My dad had all of our initials tatooed onto his ankle several years ago. Last week he had a sailboat tattooed over it, and fresh initials tattooed onto the opposite ankle: just mine, Grayson's and my mom's. Kind of makes me glad I never etched G's name into my skin.)

Anyway, they both said it was cordial, if awkward. It's another step toward getting On With our lives, I suppose.

Now, in other news: Mambo is now able to eat large crickets. This is great because large crickets are only 1 cent more than small crickets, but he eats 50% fewer, saving me a lot of cash. I have not yet had success in breeding my own crickets, however. The cricket farm seems to be doing okay as far as keeping the adult crickets alive, but I'm not seeing much in the way of eggs. I may have to tweak my techniquesw. Play a little Barry White for them or something... I dunno. I wish they'd get on with it.

On Cricket Husbandry

I am starting a cricket farm. Yes. A cricket farm. Mambo is eating me out of house and home, and I am obliged to find a way to pay for his cricket habit. Either I need to get a second job, or raise the little suckers myself. So, cricket farming it is.

Here's what you need to farm crickets: a big plastic tub, a dish of dirt, some wet cotton balls, some raw veggies, and a heating pad. Oh, and a bunch of crickets.

The crickets and all their stuff go into the big tub (into the lid of which you have drilled holes so they get some air). The heating pad goes on top to keep them nice and mosty toasty. The dirt is for laying eggs in. You put it all together and listen to the chirping and wait. Hopefully in another week or two I'll have little crickets. In the meantime, I have a nice evening chorus in my living room. It's like camping.

If someone had suggested to me a few months ago that I would be raising crickets in my living room, well.... But here I am. Raising crickets. Or trying to. So far, no baby crickets. But the adults are not dying. They're chirping. They seem content. They stink, but they seem happy enough. I feed them bearded dragon pellets and chopped veggies. I wait for them to lay eggs.

I do not care for crickets. I don't mind their chirping. And I don't mind handling the little ones. There are a lot of escapees from Mambo's little cricket holding-pen that I find myself chasing down on a daily basis. But the big adults kind of creep me out. Their little legs are so.... grippy and ... crawly. I just don't care for them. But I'm raising them, so I can feed their children to my dragon. Sort of like Athens and Crete. Perhaps I should build Mambo a labyrinth and demand a regular tribute of 24 youths from my cricket subjects.

Except actually, I'm pretty much going to feed ALL the baby crickets to my dragon, so...

Maybe I should just drop the metaphor. It makes me feel kind of creepy.

How Sweet My Boy Is

I don't generally spend a lot of time gushing about how wonderful my kid is. BUT. I'd like to gush a bit about how wonderful my kid is.

First, he has taken all the major changes and upheavals in his life over this past year with remarkable aplomb. I've had no discipline problems, no choosing sides, no machinations to try to get G and I back together, no resistance to B... none of the classic kid problems associated with divorce... to say nothing of a subsequent move and new school.

Second, he is a sweet, polite, gentle creature, with a heart of purest gold. I am grateful every day for his sunny disposition, his eagerness to please, his flexibility. He's not a whiner, he is grateful for everything he receives, and he always gives people the benefit of the doubt.

By God, my kid refills toilet paper rolls. I'm not kidding. Half the adult male population doesn't refill TP rolls. But my little boy does. He looks in the cabinet, finds a new roll, replaces the old one, and throws the empty tube in the trash. Without ever having been prompted. This I count as a minor miracle in and of itself.

Over the past week, I've had two experiences with him in the morning when i drop him off for school. We always arrive with less than a minute to spare before the bell rings at 7:55 and he's counted as tardy. Typically we pull up and I say "7:54, run for the door!" and he hops out, blows me a kiss, and takes off running. A week ago, though, he blew me a kiss and I blew one to him too, as he was turning to leave. He stopped, turned back toward me, and quickly reached out and "caught" my kiss in his hand. Then, grinning, he ran for class.

Then on Monday when I dropped him off, the car windows were all covered with dew. After he got out and closed the door, he stopped and drew a heart on the passenger side window for me, then he put his face in it, smiled at me, and went to school.

Love that little boy.

Adventures in Hair Color

When will I learn?

OK, so... I got my hair cut on Friday. Nice cut. Nothing too flashy, but definitely workable. I couldn't afford to get the color refreshed, however, so I decided to do it myself at home. I have done this in the past with good results using a Loreal color and highlight kit. No sweat. This time, I decided to go a shade darker, in deference to the season, and I chose a different brand of hair color.

Mistake Number 1.

When I had rinsed the color out and pulled the towel off my head, my hair was MAGENTA.

Let me say that again.

MA.GEN.TA.

AAAAAGH! I dried it, hoping the color would be less purple when dry, but when I stepped out of the bathroom, Grayson looked up and said "Purple?"

So I grabbed my keys and rushed to Walgreens, where I purchased the same Loreal brand I had used before, with notable success. I ran back home and quickly colored my hair a second time.

Now my hair was the color of old dried blood. Completely devoid of any depth or highlight. But at least it wasn't Magenta. B came for dinner and said "Hm."

"Hm." is not good.

So I got out the highlight kit that came with the second color kit and proceeded to put in highlights. Here a highlight, there a highlight. Oh what the hell, I smeared highlighter all over my head.

Mistake Number 2.

This time the product is a sort of dark Bonnie Raitt look. Deep auburn with red highlights. In other words, I am an unintentional redhead.

It's not bad, really. Not horrifying. But not at all what I had in mind. How did I get purple and red out of a brown hair color kit? I would color it again, (a nice safe deep brown, with no hint of red anywhere in sight)... but I'm afraid coloring your hair four times in a weekend could add up to baldness or something worse than magenta as a final product, so I have opted to play it safe for a couple of weeks and see what it mellows into.

In the meantime, I surprise myself every time I look in the mirror.

A Feast

My birthday dinner last night was FABULOUS!! My folks went to the farmers market and got fresh black eyed peas, little yellow squash, new potatos and okra, and my mom made cornbread and cut up some sweet onions and vine-ripened tomatos. Yuuuummm.

And to finish it all up... Apricot Fried Pies.

Nuff said.

Cosmic Rain

I have been a little off balance lately. Seems like my perceptions of reality don't always match up with those of others, and I wonder if I'm just having an off month or if I'm receiving cosmic messages to take a good hard look at myself and maybe change my ways. Over the past few weeks there have been a number of incidences – some small, others larger – of my actions or words being completely misconstrued or misinterpreted... or else I'm failing to see clearly my own behavior. It's giving me a bit of existential displacement, and I'm feeling like pulling in under my rock for a while to let the wave of whatever it is wash over me.

I had a major miscommunication with my book group: some of my dearest friends. After a couple of years of being part of the group, I finally decided to step out. The other members are 10 to 20 years my junior, and all with infants or pregnant. Over the past several months, the group's conversation has naturally gravitated away from general topics into the tight specific circles of early motherhood. I don't blame them. It's only natural, and exciting for them in their stage of life. For me, it was a bit painful, specially in light of the catastrophic changes in my own life over the past year. One of the major things I've noticed that has changed for me has been, sadly, this unshakable sense of bitterness and doubt. It applies mostly (not surprisingly) to relationships, but bleeds over into everything. My whole life view has dimmed somewhat. I find I have become, to some extent, a Bitter Old Broad. I don't particularly relish this, and I don't mean to embrace it as a way of life. But I recognize it for what it is – if you'll pardon the metaphorical stretch – the unavoidable cold breath of experience frosting the pumpkin of my youthful optimism. I began to feel further and further removed. So I decided to quit. I did it by an email announcement to the group via facebook and, to make a long story short... it was not particularly well received. The group read it as cold and heartless. I was just trying to get it over with without a need for a lot of discussion. Fireworks ensued. The ashes are still falling.

Then there are the minor intrigues and miscommunications at work. Minor but persistent. I don't recall this happening before... and I don't think anything I'm doing has changed. But in light of all the other miscommunications surrounding me, I have to wonder. Have I become someone I don't even know? Am I functioning in an alternate universe? Some sort of quantum place where my conscious mind is doing and saying one thing and the rest of me is behaving completely differently?

These are existential questions for 3:30 a.m, which is the time I've been waking up lately to ponder them. This morning I was up at 3, my mind spinning over all the possible ways I was mismanaging my interpersonal relationships, my finances, my health and probably the future of my son. I gave up on sleep and sat up until 4:30 before I finally felt it was safe to come back to bed. Consequently, I'm a bit groggy this morning.

That's a lot of information, but I do feel as if it's time for me to pull in a bit and seek out new directions. Maybe I'm getting cosmic messages from the universe that I need to change the direction I'm going or I'm going to wind up where I'm headed... wherever that is.

In the meantime, it rains. It rains. And rains. And rains. So at least my cosmic interior matches my exterior. Hopefully the skies will clear in both realms soon.

Good hair day

Must share this fabulous shot of Grayson's really spectacular morning hair today. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he goes to bed with his hair wet after his shower and the results can be... interesting.

Drama Solved

Well, the drama of the bearded dragon is over. Turns out he probably just had water in his ears. Grayson had dropped him in his water dish and his head went under... an apparent no-no. The water in his ears messed with his equilibrium, so he was walking drunk. Once the water dried up, he was just fine. He now eats about 10 crickets a day. Lets not do the math and figure out what that's going to cost a year, shall we?

Still, he's darn cute.

In other news... tomorrow's my birthday. I will be 43 years old. I don't feel a day over 42.

Mealworms, crickets and flies, oh my.

So the baby bearded dragon gobbled down three mealworms the first night. Lickety-split. Snarf. Snarf. Snarf.

But he hasn't eaten since.

As the mom who is patently guilty of having murdered Grayson's tadpoles, turtles, AND the goldfish that I quickly replaced before he got home and he thinks is the same one... I am highly anxious about the health and well-being of this very expensive little lizard. We tried tempting him with large mealworms, and small mealworms. No. Wiggly ones and not so wiggly ones. No. I chopped up cucumber, grated carrots, and thawed out fozen peas and corn. No. Grayson picked fresh clover. No.

This morning... still no eating. So I went to Petsmart at lunch to talk to the Lizard Lady there to see if she thinks it's going to die. No. She says they don't always eat every day. He may be still full from gorging on three giant mealworms (his tummy IS tiny), OR he could be getting ready to shed, which will decrease his appetite. Then she suggested I take home a few small crickets to see if he has a greater interest in those. So I paid 32 cents for three crickets so small you can barely see them, and I have them on my desk to take home after work. See them? Way smaller than a dime.

At ten cents apiece, if Mambo eats three crickets a day, that's $108 a year on CRICKETS. Expensive tastes, this guy.

Now lets talk about flies.

After Grayson's birthday party, there were dozens of flies in the house because of course the kids were in and out and leaving the back door open a lot and the flies came in to buzz around the food. Well, the next day, the dogs knocked open my back door (which does not latch so well), and it stood open all day long, allowing HUNDREDS of flies to come in and swarm what was left of the birthday cake, tented under tin foil on the table. I got home and was HORRIFIED at the number of flies. It was the frikkin' Amityville Horror in there, I'm telling you.

So I found a cardboard fan (courtesy of the Metropolitan Libraries, thanx), in lieu of an actual flyswatter, which I do not own, and the slaughter began. For an hour and a half I killed flies. It was a fly holocaust. I killed them all over the table (and yes, even on the cake, which I was obliged to throw out), until I chased them off. Then I turned to find them swarming the kitchen window, so I stalked over there and slaughtered them for awhile until they got wise and migrated back to the table. So it went, back and forth, back and forth, until the counter top, sink, windowsill, table, and carpet surrounding the table were littered with dead flies, and my improvised flyswat smeared with fly gore. Dis Gusting.

I got out the vaccuum cleaner to suck up the corpses and Grayson suggested I suck up the ones flying around the living room window, as well. This was a good idea on paper, but in practice, the flies are much too quick. Though I do rather wish I had video footage of the interesting little dance I did, swirling the vaccuum cleaner hose around trying to catch up with them.

As of this morning, I'm down to a couple dozen flies, I think. So I bought fly strips, and plan on trapping the little bastards tonight.

It's too bad bearded dragons don't eat flies, is all I've got to say.

Ahhh, fall.

There's that day every year toward the end of summer when you feel the season change. The air is a little cooler, the breeze a little fresher, and there's just that feeling... like the breath of fall. We had that day a couple of weekends ago, and though there have been plenty of hot-as-hell days since then, you know it will all be over soon.

I love fall. My birthday and Grayson's birthday are both in September, so of course it's the best month. There's football (which I could care less about, but I always enjoy the carnival atmosphere of home game days in Norman), cool nights, the annual surprise of the leaves changing and falling. Ahhhh.

It's not here yet, but it's coming. It's coming.

In the meantime, there are birthdays to celebrate! We celebrated Grayson's big day on Tuesday with a blow-out bash at our house in Norman. I rented a bouncer, my mom and I made our annual bizarre contraption of a cake, and we invited everyone in Grayson's third grade class, as well as old friends from OKC. We had about a dozen kids, and it was complete rampant chaos for two hours. But a glorious good time was had, and we rang in Grayson's ninth birthday in high style.

Yesterday I took him to Petsmart to buy the Bearded Dragon baby he has been wanting. G and I chipped in to buy him a gift certificate for the lizard, cage, lights, gear and all the necessary accoutrements to keep our new pet happy and healthy. Grayson was beside himself with excitement. He's named the newcomer "Mambo," and I gotta say, he's darn cute. Right not he looks like a long, skinny horny toad. But in a matter of months, I guess, he'll be much bigger, and around two feet long when he's full grown.

Mambo's a sweet, docile little guy. He placidly allows himself to be picked up and handled, sits still and patient in Grayson's hand while he holds and pets him, and doesn't seem bothered in the least by the attention. He eats meal worms (with appropriately disgusting gusto and much lip-smacking), as well as dragon chow pellets and fresh veggies. He has spikes all over, and a soft, scaly belly. He has long toes and little grippy claws that allow him to scramble right up your arm or cling to your shirt if he so pleases. All in all a very satisfying, low-maintenance sort of pet. I look forward to seeing how quickly he will grow.

No awards for parenting

Grayson has already missed a day of school. Monday night he got all snotty in the wee hours and woke up whimpering pathetically, so I kept him home.

It was a full day of pajamas, TV, nintendo and crafty projects. By noon of course he seemed perfectly healthy.

Payback's a bitch, though. Yesterday when I picked him up after school he had a whole folder of make-up work he had to bring home to complete. We'll still be working on it this evening. Let that be a lesson to us both. Sick day = homework.

Looks like the new school will not assign regular homework like they did at Wilson. It looks like he'll get homework only when assignments don't get finished during class time. We are expected to study his spelling words and practice "math facts" (whatever those are) every night, and he is supposed to do a half hour of reading a night. But other than that, no assigned homework. That suits me fine. I hated the nightly battle over homework last year. And it always made me feel like a sub-standard mom that I didn't sit down with him and go over his answers to be sure everything was right. I know his dad would have done that. I don't know why I almost never did. Must be because I'm a crappy mom.

We had a nice family dinner last night with my folks and B. They seem to get along just fine.

I had a few too many glasses of wine during the course of the evening, unfortunately, and paid the price this morning when I woke with a thumping headache. I did manage to get my kid up and ready for school on time (if only just), but then I went back home, sat down on the sofa and the next thing I knew I was waking up an hour later. I got to work 40 minutes late. Later than usual, I guess, really. Whoops.

There was rain and thunder last night, which means I shared the bed with everybody in my house except the fish. So none of us slept particularly well. I had the devil's own time getting Grayson out of bed... this was not facilitated by my desire to get back into it myself. Then, when I finally extracted him from the bed, I turned around to discover that he had just relocated himself to the sofa, where he was hiding under a blanket. When I came over to ask him to get dressed, all I got was The Hand... which came out to tell me that Grayson had moved to San Francisco. I suggested to The Hand that it go back under the blanket and grab Grayson's butt and drag it to his room so he could get dressed for school. But not before snapping a picture of The Hand in action.

Crazy kid.

Summer's End

Summer is drawing toward its close. Some OKC schools have already started, and G starts school on Thursday. Back to the routine of homework and limited TV time and hectic mornings and trying to get dinner on the table. Yet I look forward to the start of school and the return to some semblance of family life for me and my boy.

It has been a good summer, despite all the changes and craziness of schedule. Grayson has stayed busy and un-bored. I've been settling into a new home and new life, enjoying the slightly slower pace of Norman living. The dogs are home and happy. I haven't DONE as much with my summer as I had hoped, but you never do. Now that the new school year looms ahead, I begin to think, as I always do at this time of year, of new beginnings.

This year I will...
Get Grayson to school on time and prepared
Limit his TV time more effectively
Spend more time with friends
Get a new lease on work
Read more and write more
Take good care of myself
Get out and do stuff

I think my list probably always looks similar to this one. But it makes me feel better to make it.

Meanwhile, summer still has a deathgrip on the weather. This weekend B and I decided to make a return trip to Tahlequah to float the river with the boys. It's just too good a lazy summertime activity for them to miss, and makes a great closer for the season. Sun, water, junk food and a full day of just cruising along, enjoying the journey. Sort of a metaphor for summer itself, don't you think? Nowhere to go, just enjoying the trip.

So I got us a groovy kids suite at Holiday Inn with two twin beds and a kids area with TV and Nintendo, so it should be a regular party.



I miss having a family. Grayson and I do pretty well. But it's different.

Tonight, to change the subject, I get my G-rex back for good, and we are celebrating by going to opening night of the new Miyazaki film "Ponyo." We're both very excited about it. It will be a great Friday night together, followed by an early morning to head out to Tahlequah.

Another Milestone Missed

Last night I realized that I have washed Grayson's hair for the last time.

I ran a bath for him and then hung out in the living room, reading a book and drinking wine while he splashed about. He came out all wet-headed and warm and cuddly in his jammies (which are, once again, noticeably too small) and I realized that some time in the last few months I washed his hair for him for the last time. I don't even know when it was, and of course at the time I didn't realize it was the last. I know I washed it for him at least once while we were at the apartment, but I haven't done so for months. Another piece of his childhood, gone and over with. I stroked his wet head and tucked him into bed and realized in another year or so I won't be doing that anymore, either.

Of course I want my boy to grow up strong and independent, but it's hard to lose these little pieces of him. He is such a sweet, gentle little boy, it's hard to imagine him as an adolescent. Hard to imagine myself without a little boy who wants to sit on my lap and hug me and play with me. Who loves me more than anyone in the world.

G told me that on the way back from their trip last weekend, Grayson asked him if he believed in Santa. Sigh. I will have to remember to hold on tight to every minute now....

Friday he goes back to his dad for the last week of summer, and then I get him back full time. I have enjoyed having some time to myself in the summer, but it's been too much! I feel as if he has spent all summer with his dad. When he's with me, it feels like we barely have time to get used to each other before he's gone again. I'll be glad for the beginning of the school year and the return of a normal schedule for us. It's selfish of me, but I don't care. I've missed him!

A different world

After less than a week of having Grayson home, I was obliged to pack him up on Friday and send him off again with his dad. On Saturday he boarded a plane in Dallas and flew to New Mexico, where he met G mom for a few days with his cousins. I talked to him this morning and, though he'd left me a somewhat pitiful message at bedtime the night before, it sounds like he's having a terrific time.

Meanwhile I find myself with another week of free time on my hands. I could, of course, be using this time to accomplish any number of needed tasks: mowing the lawn would be a good idea. There are weeds to pull. The toilet needs scrubbing, and there are still a few boxes in the garage that I haven't unpacked. But I'm not. I'm lying on the sofa reading books, when I'm not sleeping or watching reruns of "House." Pitiful.

Today, to redeem myself somewhat I got on my bike and went for a ride. This is something I find really enjoyable that I could not have done with such pleasure in OKC. Norman is such a quiet town, and the side streets are virtually empty during the dinner hour. Even tooling down Berry Road was no problem, though it's more fun to take the neighborhood streets where there are no cars swinging wide to get around you. Riding in Norman reminds me of when I was a kid. The smell of cut grass, kids on bikes, dads out mowing lawns, barbecue smoke. It smells like home. I guess you never get away from that feel of your suburban childhood.

It makes me glad to have moved here... glad that Grayson will grow up in that environment as well... not the semi-urban jungle of mid-town OKC, where there are panhandlers walking just a block from his house and police helicopters cruising low over the neighborhood at night. I would never have let Grayson walk six blocks to school by himself in OKC. Here, I won't think a thing about it, just hustle him out the door. My bike has been parked on the front porch unlocked for two weeks, unmolested, and what's more, the kids' bikes in the yard in the house across the street are practically on the curb, and remain there, day and night. At the old house, before G moved out he got his bike stolen from inside the fence, and all his cds stolen from inside the Trooper. It's a different world.