clickmom

double numb

You know how when you have cavities and you have to take multiple trips to the dentist because they won't numb both sides of you mouth at the same time? Yeah, well they will numb both sides of your mouth at the same time when they accidentally numb the wrong side of your mouth first and then they have to numb the other side of your mouth to get the job done.

Things that are impossible to do when both sides of your lower jaw are totally and completely numb:

1. smile

2. drink soda from a can

3. chew food without chewing your lip

4. whistle

Also, before I went to the dentist I went to a lab to get blood tests (going to find out what is up (or down) with my thyroid/adrenals)  and during the third vile of blood extraction I started up a conversation with the technician.  After she was done taking my blood, writing on all of the labels,  sorting the 46 viles, putting them in the blood shaking machine and them storing them away she continued to chat away with me leaning back on the counter.  It wasn't too bad since she had a pretty interesting life, but finally (40 minutes later, I kid you not) I had to admit to her that I was trapped in the seat and couldn't get out and she said "I know. I don't want you to leave." which made me break out in a cold sweat until she laughed and opened the swinging arm of the chair so that I could make to the dentist on time and get both sides of my jaw numbed.

 

zero

I had a huge list of things I wanted to accomplish today.  I got done exactly none.  

First I unintentionally ate while preparing the kid's breakfasts.  No blood test for me today!  

Then I ran out of printer ink.  No trip to the post office to return mail order packages!

Then I couldn't figure out how to reconfigure 2 of the 8 photos I wanted to submit to a local juried contest.  No delivering entry to the Art Center!  

Then my new new town friend called and asked if I could meet her for coffee because she is having a bad day.  I am everybody's therapist.  No four other errands I was going to accomplish! 

I guess tomorrow is another day, except it is a day that I also have a dentist appoinment scheduled.  Guess who chipped a tooth!  At least it is an already fake tooth.

my brilliant son

Josh gets off the school bus today and tells me that his teacher, feeling that the current spelling curriculum was not doing it's job, has been looking for a new one.  Last week she administered a 100 word spelling test to the class.  Today the teacher decided to give the new curriculum a try, but not before privately whispering to Josh that he had done so remarkably well on last week's evaluation test that he tested himself right out of the new curriculum and should just come up with his own spelling words.

Seriously?

A million years ago Matt was assigned the first grade teacher who was so tough she made the parent's quiver.  At back to school night she announced that there would be no spelling tests in her class because every one knows that kids learn words for the tests and misspell them a week later.  She said that everyone also knew that spelling words with repitious spelling busy work homework and weekly tests were not how children learned to spell.  Have I ever mentioned how much I loved Matt's first grade teacher?

In the mean time I admit to being a teeny bit disappointed in new town.  Their education system was heralded as amazing, especially for the gifted children.   Well, there is no gifted class for 10 year old kids that can spell anything or read on an adult reading level.  Josh doesn't bring home books from the library that are on his reading level.  But they are making him read historical fiction this month, so I can see why he who prefers fantasy/science fiction might try to get away with whatever he can get through fastest.  But still, I'm thinking of taking him to a writing place I've spotted in town.  I feel like he isn't being challenged.  (Which I totally recognize as one of the top 3 most annoying things parents say.  I'm content with being one of those mothers)  They didn't want to put Josh in their gifted math program because they thought it was likely that a kid from some lackluster school district (which according to new town is anyone other than new town) wouldn't be able to hack it.  Josh is totally bored in Regular Math and even the teacher realizes he already knows and has mastered most of what they are doing but wants to keep him regular math for the year because there are some gaps in his knowledge due to the fact that new town uses the most bizarre math program that teaches kids how solve things both conventionally and ass backwards.  Josh never learned the ass backwards methods.  Next year they are going to put him Gifted Math.  He'll be in the high pressure gifted classes just in time to have to adjust to middle school too.  Yippee!  

fool me thrice

After terrorizing my own gall bladder over the holidays (and beyond) I decided to give the old GB a beak and lay off the animal products for a while.  When I lay off the animal products I go for protein in the form of beans.  And you can guess what happens when I go for beans.  It's also been pretty cold here in the North East.  When it is cold I wear my seriously puffy and long black down coat.  I look like a tall stack of tires (with a face)  walking down the street.  But it is cozy in there!  Unfortunately, recall,  I've been all over the beans, which leads to you know what.  The first time I was caught off guard I was walking bear bait in my long black coat, all snapped up from my calves to my neck,  so I figured I'd casually let one slip, who would ever know?  Right?  Basically, I dutch ovened myself and with every step for about 7 steps a little puff of bean fart air escaped through the neck of my puffy down coat right in the direction of my nose.  The same thing happened last night when I found myself alone in the pasta aisle.  I subtly passed wind on one end of the aisle and tried to make my way over to the other wind free end but oh no.  Dutch oven!  With every broad stride away from area of detonation a puff puffed out the top opening of my coat.  One would think that I would learn my lesson.  After all, I had been fooled twice!  Shame on me.  But no.  Today I rehashed the entire shocking unsettling behavior.  

Fool me thrice ....  I'm a lost cause.

Shit.

I just stupidly erased a whole long post.

Grrrr.

Long story short, I suspect my head bones are screwy and I have a new name for a chiro in this town.  This one is my biggest hope yet.  So far I've personally seen two (4 if you count the two substitute chiros at the first practice that I saw as a surprise replacement for the one I actually made the appointment with-tacky!!)  and have brought Josh (chip off the old block) to a third when he fell flat on his face and managed to sprain his back in the process.  Fingers crossed.  My head is so off right now that my eyes can't focus.  

Josh and I had a mom and Josh day and since he didn't want to be lazy and go to a chick flick with me I dragged him to a museum.  I found this website  and decided I would visit all 15 of these museums.  Unfortunately I can't do it in two short weeks, so I couldn't get the pass.  Last week I went to the Florence Griswold Museum with Pal's husband, and that was a great thing because 1. they have a Walker Evans exhibit going on now and 2. in the museum house that belonged to Florence there is a dining room that is covered in panels painted by all the artists that boarded in the house when it was a boarding house.  All are either impressionist or tonalism landscapes.  I WANT THAT DINING ROOM! Now I might have to make my utopian home into a summer boarding house/artist's colony.  I just wish I had more open wall space.

Today I went to the Mattatuck Museum Arts & History Center with Josh.  We had a good time with the interactive displays in the permanent collection and then were happily cruising through the end of the current exhibit.  We were discussing one group of itaglio prints, and Josh was pointing to one of them when an alarm went off and the exit door, which was close by, shut itself.  I grabbed Josh and pulled him away from the wall fearing he had touched the print and set off the alarm but when no guard showed up and I realized Josh and I were the only ones on the entire museum floor I thought "This alarm is not about us.  Let's get the hell out of here".  It was a fire alarm.  We got out onto the street just as the first fire engine pulled up.  But not before I paused and gave Josh a hug.  He was so scared he was about to cry!  I told him he definitely didn't set off the alarm.

Then we decided to have some lunch.  We asked Siri for some suggestions and she sent us to a restaurantless alley, a bodega, and a closed coffee shop.  We got into the car and desperately hungry stopped at a donut chain store.  I did not partake in a fast food sandwich (hello gall bladder) but you should have seen how happy Josh was to have that crappy sandwich.  I'm shaking my head thinking about all the organic food I try to feed the kids.  It's a battle.

critter

My first thoughts upon entering our utopian house last night were "We've been broken into!"  The place looked ransacked.  Which it kind of was, only not by a human, we had been ransacked by maybe a squirrel or a chipmunk.  Which ever one poops more is probably the one that got in, because holy cow, poops everywhere.  

And by everywhere I mean every single freaking room including bathrooms.  It also tried to chew it's way into the one room with a closed door.  Not sure what to do about a chewed up door bottom.  Is there a fix for that?

I miss jailbait, who bravely chased that little squirrel out of the house two summers ago.  Right now, as we speak there are two peanut butter loaded humane have a heart traps set and ready.  I'm not sure where I'd take something that we caught, but I'll deal with that if it happens.  I'm a little afraid that the pooper will stay in hiding until we leave.  Or that the pooper is already dead somewhere in the house and will start to smell.  I don't smell anything yet.  It did eat enough left over from Thanksgiving chocolate truffle balls to give itself a heart attack.  It also chewed the top off of a bottle of canola oil and spilled it all over my stove.  (Thanks!)  Didn't touch the olive oil though.  It ate a box of gluten free Mary's gone crackers crackers, but passed on the wheat thins.  Interesting.  It also ate some honey Matt brought back from Romania.  I'm not sure how it got the lid off or where the lid went.  

As long as I am sharing weird, sit down for this one.  I had a little macabre collection of a dried butterfly, a tiny little dehydrated flattened turtle and a bunny (I think it was a bunny) skull that I found in stepford while walking bear bait under the power lines on my kitchen window and it's all gone.  What could a critter want with another critter's skull bone?  Creepy isn't it?  I did find the butterfly but not the skull or turtle.  

I know I should go int the attic but I'm scared.

6 words of relief

 

Y@le lady sent me a 6 word email response: (see yesterday's post)

Everything seems to be in order.

 

I'm taking half deep breaths for the first time since Monday night.  Will breath 3/4 deep if (when! when! when! I must think positive) I am asked to participate the interview/portfolio round.  Oh who am I kidding?  I won't take a fully deep breath until I know one way or the other.

In other news .... I had my dining room painted.  There were no two ways about it, the dining room was going to be painted even if I ended up doing it myself.  I totally would have done it myself, because I kind of love painting walls, but floors weep when I decide to paint walls, as do ceilings and trim work.  I am a messy messy painter.  That is why even though I wanted to paint the dining room myself, I didn't.  The floors are way too nice for that.  I know what color my old dining room in stepford was and since my dining room is in the part of the house I wish I could have stuck on a tractor trailer and brought with me, I used the same color.  My stepford dining room was cherry wood trimmed and the one in new town is white painted generic wood trim, but the paint color still works.  It was interesting to me that as soon as the dining room was transitioning from overly bright yellow do it yourself textured some kind of poorly executed sponge wash (stress on the bright yellow here) to tasteful benjamin moore tate olive (green) I felt soothed and relieved.  I keep saying that I knew I hated the other color but I didn't realize how agitated it made me feel until it was gone.  I'm so glad it is gone.  Next job?  Painting over Evan's turquoise blue room and kelly green bathroom.  He's going with two different shades of gray.  I call them wet elephant and dry elephant.  They are very nice gray colors.  I'll probably replace his tiger striped bed quilt.  He loved it when he was 8.  Not so much as a 14 year old.

suspense

Not necessarily the good kind of suspense.  You see last night I opened my Y@le application to gaze upon it with high hopes in my heart and I discovered that there was something missing. I had not paid my application fee!  I paid it immediately.  My payment was accepted.  But what I am not sure of is if I blew it for myself.  I called the school this afternoon and spoke to someone who told me I hsould email someone else.  I sent off this email:

Dear Y@le lady,

I submitted my application for an MFA in photography on January 2nd.  I thought my application was complete, then much to my horror, I logged in Monday night to see that I had forgotten to pay the application fee.  I quickly paid the fee and my payment was accepted.  Can you tell me if I my application is still a candidate for consideration?  

Thanks so much,
I'm desperate to attend your school

Now I am holding my breath until I hear from the email lady.  If I just ruined my chances I don't even know what I am going to do.  

Yes I do.  

It's not the end of the world.

If I blew my chance I am going to keep on photographing/working, try to get some representation here in new town and apply again next year.  I've been brewing a few ideas about new projects which are related to my road kill and even my kid portrait project, and I'll follow through with them with or without Y@le.  But I'd totally rather do it with Y@le!!!!   If I blew it for 2012 I'll just apply for 2013.

The best thing

The best thing that happened this weekend is that Josh was in a play.  He's been rehearsing for this big day since September, so there was an awful lot of work involved.  I knew Josh had a lead role, I had read lines with Josh, but I didn't actually realize that there were only a few minutes of the play where Josh wasn't on stage!  He was fabulous.  The first night of the play, I was so overwhelmed with pride that it is quite possible that a tear or two rolled down my cheek.  It's also possible that I cry at the drop of a hat these days, but you know, that doesn't mean that Josh's Cheshire Cat wasn't as inspired as a Cheshire Cat can be.  You know what I'm saying?   I love that kid more every freaking second of the day.

The second best thing that happened to me this weekend was the discovery that despite my personal belief that appliances, devices and other electronics automatically break when you move them from house to house and despite my fear that my beloved photo printer would be plagued with un-clearable giant hardened clogs of un-dissolvable inkjet print ink  (I didn't use it for a whole LONG 6 months since before we moved from stepford)  I discovered that my printer (once I realized that the missing power cord was stashed in the back of my vehicle with the other precious things I didn't want the movers to lose, like my $6 sunglasses collection)   is in 100% fine working order!  I did a little head cleaning and a jet test and my good 'ol printer fired up and performed like a finely tuned Ferrari engine. (Evan totally had to help me with that analogy!) 

Since tonight was Josh's final curtain call, it is time to get started printing the portfolio just incase Y@le calls and wants to meet me in person.  (Also because the gallery/frame shop guy wants to sell some of the photos for me at the gallery, wouldn't that be nice?)  Fingers crossed people!  I want that interview!  I am going to print that photo that I declared my "Representative Photo" on 5 different kids of photo papers (I have stockpiled some sample packs) and see if there one paper that really gets my juices flowing.  Then I'll use that paper for the whole dead bird segment of my road kill series.  I renamed it "Casualties" because I thought it sounded more poetic and less gory.  

The question

I shot off a quick email to my babes the other day telling them that I had submitted my application to Y@le.  B asked me:  "Does it mean more applying then it did when you were 18?"   This was my reply:

I never wanted it as bad as I do today.

I can't tell you how badly I want to go to Yale and 

surround myself with people who eat, sleep and breathe photography. 

When I applied to college the first time I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and just wanted to get away from my parents, 

when I applied to college the second time around I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, my parents discounted anything art related, 

and really needed to put some serious space between myself and my parents again, 

when I applied for grad school the first time I was already teaching and all us new teachers were all going to school at night, so it 

didn't seem so special and also it was for Hunter College, which wasn't a really high reaching school,

the guidance counselor there had already told me I was in because I had good grades in college.

This time around I feel like going to school will bring me to a new place artistically, and 

it is the first time I am pursuing something purely because I have a passion that I want to 

open the door to and welcome into in my life because right now my head is in this place where I 

realize that while I have had my toes in the water here and there with photography I've never really 100% dived right in.

Right now I need to dive in and this is how I want to do it.

So yeah, very different.