clickmom

Round 4

Matt has 100.5. Here we go again!

I've wanted to say "I'm thankful no one died this week." all day

 

Plague holiday

holiday quarantine gripe

So, with the intent of being a more flexible person, and since I am now (due to freaking PIG FLU in my innocent baby) forced into altering our long standing Thanksgiving Day tradition of coercing everyone I am related to and also happen to even casually know for more than a day (or an hour) to come to my house and eat my food, I'm actually considering that since everything I normally do is out the window, (F U PIG FLU!) that maybe just maybe I'll completely throw all tradition out the window and serve our mini 5 person feast as a late lunch instead of the standard dinner time that I usually present.  (Jeez, that can not possibly be one sentence.)

But you know what?  Flexible! On day 4 of the quarantine I DON'T CARE ABOUT GRAMMAR!  I left my fevered baby on the couch today (down to 99.9!) while I snuck out of the house to do my mini holiday grocery shopping while the other two were still in school.  Normally, I'd have to take a kid or two with me for the holiday shopping because I would have more than one cart.  Today?  Half a cart, AND I even got food to bring us into the weekend.  sigh. Instead of torturing my family with turkey for three days straight, I figure I'll make them really happy and toss a delicious brisket in the oven on Friday and they can eat that with stuffing or marshmallow sweet potato or pecan pie.  Flexible! Also, since it's just the nuclear family, I am making brussel sprouts because I LIKE them.  HA!  

You should know that in previous years it was necessary for me to get two turkeys, this year?  An adorable little 11 pound football of a turkey.  Seriously, I could tuck the thing under my arm and run a touchdown with it (except for the part where all the blood is still kind of forming in my wee little turkey's plastic wrap).  But I won't. I'll brine it, and if the husband comes through for Evan tonight, he'll be arriving home from work with a turkey deep fryer on his passenger seat because Evan is beside himself in unhappiness that he won't get to dive into his Uncle's tasty deep fried turkey while under quarantine.   

 I can not possibly do an accurate Renaissance Wench impression tearing into the leg of a cute little mini turkey!  Flexible!  Right.  I'm going to eat in moderation tomorrow!  It's a good thing.

again

As if it wasn't bad enough that this is the first holiday that I am the oldest generation of my own family.  As if it wasn't bad enough that for this holiday I don't have a parent left.  As if....

Ev is sick again.  It came over him suddenly Sunday night.  His temperature is still 103.  I took him to the real doctor today.  He said he thinks it is SWINE this time.  What Ev had two weeks ago?  Who knows.  Doc said NO TRAVELING (goodbye Utopia!!) and that Ev would be contagious for a couple of more days (so long guests!) and now instead of our small and cozy (I kept telling myself that a smallish thanksgiving was going to be just fine)  only a few friends and the husband's big bro and wife Thanksgiving it is going to be the five of us and a tiny little baby turkey.  The worst part of Thanksgiving for 5?  How to justify sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and two kinds of stuffing for 5 people (One of whom has not really had solid food since Sunday).  Also, It's hard to get that pie variety going when only 4 of us can eat pie to begin with.  sigh.

Now to paste on a big smile and fake it 'til I feel it.

letter I wrote and sent off to my very first photo teacher

Dear Zeke,

Not sure if you remember me, but you were my teacher in photo 1 and 2 at Ithaca College back in 1984 when the other teacher was on Sabbatical.   I didn't sign up for photo 1 before the class was full and came to you in your office to beg you to let me add the class.  You told me to come to the first class and if I still wanted to add the class afterwards you guaranteed that 3 people would drop the class and there would be room for me.  I came to that class where you told us students how many hours we'd have to spend photographing and then in the lab developing and printing our photos.  As you predicted, three people ran to you with drop forms after the class and I approached you still trying to add the class.  You turned to me and asked "You still want to add this class?" and I told you I wasn't afraid of a little hard work.

Two weeks later I declared myself a photography major and never looked back.

Every week I came to you during your office hours with every contact sheet for every assignment and you and I would carefully go over my photos.  In your office and through your words I experienced something I never knew before.  You were patient with me, interested in my point of view and thoughtful in your comments.  You respected my perspective and creativity.  I was devastated when I realized you were only at my college temporarily.  After you left I never made the same connection with the other professors that I studied with, but the new found confidence you bestowed on me pulled me through.

I've had many jobs since college, and even did a stint as a teacher in the 90's.  As an ex-teacher I know that I hope that something I said or did with my students will stay them and help them believe in themselves or help them through some tough times, so I just wanted to let you know that you were that person/teacher for me.

I'm still a photographer.  I've been a photojournalist for the last 6 years, and am right now reaching back to my first love of landscape.  I've got some work up in a gallery and just won awards of merit for some recent work in a juried show.

Anyway,
Thanks Zeke,
You made me a stronger woman,
and helped me believe in myself.

play that funky music white boy

I put one foot up on the side of the tub and bend towards my foot.  I feel a snapping sensation come from my rib area and I freeze.  I remain in the frozen position, convinced I have just snapped my own rib in half by bending over,  and I assess the situation.  I feel no pain.  Then I flash on that story about the woman who sat in her car with her head pressed up hard against the head rest for an hour convinced she had been shot in the head and was keeping her brains from leaking out after a Pillsbury Pop N Fresh container exploded in the car and shot a wad of raw dough onto the back of her head.  I knew there would soon be a viral email about me if I didn't move.  The snapping sound?  Not my ribs, it was my underwire breaking in two.

The husband took the kids out to lunch.  I get this actual text from Evan: "Josh just spewed everywhere."  

I'm still just a little anxious about the skin cancer I had removed a couple of years ago.  Sometimes I think I feel a tightness in that area.  The other day I was cleaning up for my weekend company and I was in the bathroom, having just used bathroom,  folding some clothes that had been hanging to dry on the shower curtain when I felt a stabbing sensation in that cancer area.  OH SHIT!  I thought, IT'S REAL!  IT'S BACK!  Panic set in as I reached down to massage the stabbing pain and that's when I realized that when I had pulled my jeans back up some how a pencil I had stuck in my back pocket had flipped into my pants leg and was stabbing me in the area.

Last week Josh was home from school sick for three days.  The week before it was Evan.  Did a happy dance today that because of the play and it's vigorous rehearsal schedule Matt had virtually no contact with his brothers during their contagious periods.  Just took Evan's temperature and he has 101.5.  Again.

Just doing it

Day one of week two in the couch to 5K done! Curiously enough I kept saying I needed to walk the dog this morning. Why couldn't I say I was going for a run and taking the dog?? I think it's all about entitlement. It's like our economy where the middle class is disappearing and we have become either very rich or very poor. As a society we either feel entitled to everything or nothing at all. Very few people find that healthy balance. The entitled thing has nothing to do with money it has to do with care and respect. Think about it and take a lol at the people around you. How many people do you know that can never ask for what they need and how many people do you know that demand and take what they need with hardly a thought about anyone else?

I need to find that middle ground

One of the fears I struggle with in life is the fear of being noticed. I didn't want a formal wedding because of all those people looking at me. I've been trying to conquer my fears lately so I am going to share with you the story of this Nike shirt. I grabbed it off the rack at Marshall because it was on a 2x hanger. But it isn't a 2x. It's an xxl. Which is not as big. But I squoze into it anyway. And I wore it under my sweatshirt for this morning's run. I'm going to wear it every Sunday. And show you. Hopefully with all this running and eventually getting myself back to the gym you'll see me fitting into the shirt and even needing a smaller shirt one day. In the mean time. Here I am. Letting it all hang out. Being real. Not hiding.

my funny man

For a while there we had this christmas day tradition of going to the Big Apple Circus and bringing grandma with us.   I'd often look over at grandma during the circus and grandma would never be watching the circus.  Grandma would be watching the kids watching and enjoying the circus.   The biggest smile in the tent?  Grandma's.  Once I told her to look at and enjoy the circus and she shooed me away.  Then I realized what a dumb thing that was of me to ask of grandma and I let her watch the kids.  After grandma opened my eyes to the better show I started watching the kids too, and sometimes I'd get my circus kicks from watching grandma watching the kids.  

During Matt's brilliant performance last night I thought about how amazingly happy it would have made grandma to watch Matt up there on the stage.  Tonight the husband and I discussed how wonderfully Matt had played the role of Scapino and we (really HE is)  are curious if the success was all about the role being perfect for Matt or if Matt was perfect for that role or if Matt is simply that good of an actor.  The husband thinks the role was made for Matt. Now that I have seen my baby Matt in this role, I can't imagine him playing anything else.  So I would kind of like him to play something else.  Because, as his biggest fan and loudest cheerleader, I suspect that he has the ability to transcend a wide variety of roles.  I needn't worry though, because the try outs for the spring musical are in 2 weeks!  

I did get a video clip of my favorite part of the show.  It's 5 minutes of pure Matt being astoundingly funny.  Everyone seated around me had tears streaming down their cheeks by the end of this 5 minutes.  I'm pretty sure that hearing the whole audience hysterically laughing was fuel for Matt too.  As the scene evolved, I think I saw a little smile sneaking onto the corner of his mouth, taking a millisecond and  luxuriating in the funny.  

opening night

My baby was brilliant.  More tomorrow.