clickmom

I whistle a happy tune and no one ever knows I'm afraid

Way back when (in the olden days) when I lived in Brooklyn I ran out to the corner deli for some binge food late one evening. Underneath my baggy men’s jacket I had on my pajamas. At best I figured I looked disheveled, but not quite homeless. At the corner deli I ran into a good friend’s husband. I barely knew the husband and the next day while strolling to the park with the good friend I remarked what a poor impression I most likely made on her husband. “No” she replied, quite matter of fact-ly, “He said you seemed together.” “Together?!?” I asked. “Yes” she said “that was his word ‘together.’” I was shocked.

(fast forward 6 or 7 years) One day I purchased an antique looking quilt out of the $19.99 bin at Linens and Things. It happened to be on my bed one summer day when a garden state friend came into my bedroom with me to grab something. “Pottery Barn?” she asked pointing at the cheap quilt. I told her where it came from.

(fast forward to last Friday) When I got back up to utopia last week I ran into the super market just to grab a meal’s worth of food. I paused while I dashed by the tiny little nail polish section and grabbed a bottle of some pale glittery summer type shade. I just happen to have ten perfect nails for this nail unique brief moment and I figured, why not?. I came home, slapped a shimmering coat on that same evening while watching tv with Matt while balancing the whole deal on a People magazine. The next day I stopped to chat with a neighbor and when I gestured with my hands she noticed the polish and said “Oh, a manicure” I was all “Chic and citied out.” I told her how the polish came about.

When I was a kid my mother used to tell me this story about being nervous entering an expensive restaurant (or something) and how she walked into a room holding her head high and standing tall and how every one in the room turned to admire her because she was so confident and important looking. (or something like that.) The point of her story was that people respond to what you are giving off and even if you are unsure of yourself people will assume you are purposeful and strong if you look like you know what you are doing and where you belong. I guess I manage to pull that one off most of the time. Not sure how I do it.

But this ability to look fine has it’s draw backs. Up here in utopia folks are pretty tight with each other. Every one knows every one’s business and all sorts of people keep coming up to asking how I am and how my mother is. I just burst into tears every time they ask me how I am because all I find myself doing this summer is mostly reminding myself to breathe. I can discuss my mother’s situation easier because it is more medical and less emotional. But judging by the look of semi horror that meets me every time my voice begins to quiver and my eyes start to well up I must be looking like I am doing a whole lot better than I actually am.

go me

I have been sugar free for two weeks now. Go me. It has been the least difficult detox yet and I attribute that to being in utopia. We are all just so relaxed and zen like here that the whole ordeal was rather non existent. One Sunday night I ate so many roasted marshmallows during a s'mores event that I went to bed feeling pretty sick. The next morning I woke up still feeling poorly and thought to myself that I kust can't go on like that any longer. Since it was a Monday, and everyone knows thstMonday is the universal begin a new diet day, I began my new sugar free eati g as soon as I hauled my ever increasing waist line out of bed. Sadly there has not been amazing weight loss due to thr astounding volume of food I am capable of eating, but I am dealing one step at a time here. For now I am basking in the relief of having the sugar monkey off of my back.

I can hear them now

Adjusting to having three kids again has been a struggle. The hardest part is all the noise. OMG the noise. I did really and truly appreciate the calm and the quiet of single child parenting, I just didn't realize how much I would prefer it. All the noise makes me on edge and cranky. I have to raise my voice to be heard, no one hears me anyway. Also, the big boys leave doors open, the toilet seat up, and glasses every where. I'm thinking Evan might military school and maybe Matt can find some movie making kibbutz to go off to. Np, if you know me for a day you know I would never, bit the temptation, ph how tempted I am.

By the way, I may have gotten the cereal wrong. But in any case fiber twigs seem to be a popular ingredient. Sorry cereal companies but there is no way I am going to get excited about eating twigs.

Breakfast is served

The husband asked me to buy him some low carb cereal. While I recognized the oxymoron in a low carb cereal, I shut my mouth and figured I would take a look like I have never paid attention before. I had no luck in the regular cereal aisle so I ambled over to the health food section. There I spied the most emasculating feral ever. The box boasted it contained crunchy soy nuts and tasty fiber twigs. How I longed to serve the husband nuts and twigs, bit alas it was not low carb.

good vibrations

No sooner did I arrive in utopia than I found put that an older lady swimming by the island this morning became I'll. Her friends managed to drag her to our dock where they called to the workers who called 911. The workers immediately cleared the area of their trucks and gear and then the cops came and had to run onto the lake to help drag the lady the rest of the way out of the water.

I am very happy that the guys on my island did their part in saving this lady. It makes me remember last summer when we saved jailbait (who is back and has gone beyond cute into hottie territory) from his burning jetski and when the goddess and I towed the distressed boat to safety on pitch black night. I guess the island brings with it a spirit of helpfulness. What a great legacy. I love it here more every day.

today

Mom is okay. Though there was quite a bit of confusion regarding how okay she was. It seems that the doctor's nurse took one look at mom's jaundice and assumed she would be admitted, so there were all sorts of calls to mom from the hospital telling her her room was ready, and from the visiting nurse trying to find out what room she was in. But, in the end the doctor sent mom home (or I should say back to my house) with instructions to eat more and sleep all she wanted. Sounds nice right? What I wouldn't give for a medical professional to look me right in the eye and tell me what I need to do is eat more and sleep the day away!

I did bring Matt to the podiatrist who thankfully only clipped the triangular corner of his ingrown toenail and not half the nail as I had feared cause that is what they did to the husband a million years ago when we were young. Matt's big toe resembles a toe once again and not the blow fish he was kicking around there for a couple of weeks.

I realize what shitty dog owners we are and have devil dog on suicide alert, since when we are in utopia she gets to follow us around all day and is a joy to be with and here we pretty much ignore her and wonder why she is always pestering us. She doesn't know she is getting to go back up there later today and boy will she be happy when we call her into the car.

I shaved Evan's head this morning and plan on applying the henna tattoo to his scalp shortly. I better get the nicest mother int he world award, that's all I am saying. He wants a dragon and I am going to attempt to copy the dragon of his choice off of the internet. What did we ever do before internet?

Unfortunately there will be spotty posting from utopia, but we'll be more vigilant about finding someone's wifi to borrow, since I'm not sure Matt will be able to make it through with out at least some internet. He's being somewhat teenaged about it, that's all I am going to say about that.

And since I am finding it difficult to generate the funny during these stressful times. WARNING: I am going to throw in a little bit of TMI just for giggles: I had steamed fresh beets for dinner and just made the most awesome purple poop ever.

bump in the road (we hope)

Bad news folks. Mom is on her way to the doctor. She is weak as a kitten and it isn't what she should be. Mom has been noticing that she just didn't have the spunk she did after her last her surgery, when by this time post surgery she was already plotting how to ditch dad and make her way her to the mall because it had been over two weeks since she had fondled her credit cards and normally this would mean the end of civilization had occurred, and mom, very unselfishly, didn't want to send off any alarm bells lest they bring down the big metal gates and actually close the department stores.

Check this out, last night the kids had ice cream and from beneath the seven blankets she has been swathing herself in to keep warm she asked me to bring her some chocolate chip cookie dough, which I was happy to do since she had barely touched her dinner. Later on I spied the mostly empty cup and spoon on the coffee table, except there were cookie dough lumps in the cup. I gave mom the puzzled look and she said it was too much effort to chew the cookie dough. I repeat, mom thought it was too much EFFORT to CHEW the ice cream add in. Alarm bells started going off.

So, she's been kind of pale and tired but over the last three days (and we all kept reminding her that she had never had chemo before and now I feel totally like you should kick me in the ass really hard over and over again because mom doesn't complain unless it is serious, of all the people in the world, I should know that) and now it seems like she has just hit bottom (at least I hope it is bottom) sitting at the table is so strenuous she can barely sit up straight or even manage to eat. Yesterday I realized that her paleness had become more like jaundice and implored my dad to call the doctor. Eventually he did, but not until they had gone for the day, and he neglected to mention mom's new skin tone. I bugged him all evening reminding him that much of her cancer had been "up behind the liver" according to the doctor and that he needed to report this kind of thing sooner rather than later, and toxins, and kidneys, and that is why doctors have answering services that can page them..bla bla bla... Until finally this morning dad called again, mentioned the color issue and the doctor told him to come right in and pack an overnight bag for mom "just in case".

Now I am waiting for them to call me and let me know what the doctor said. Cross your fingers, say a prayer, sacrifice a lamb, we'll accept any help we can get here.

artisitc freedom of the head

For a while now Evan has wanted to 1. shave his head and 2. cover his hairless head with a henna tattoo. Since Evan is crazy allergic to food dyes, and once in kindergarten on Halloween after having red face paint look like dripping blood on his mouth for the entire day, and when we wiped it off, yes, there was real blood seeping through his pores underneath that had to scab and heal which took for freaking ever, he can never have any fake tattoos (or heaven forbid real ones) because then he would end up an itchy bloody mess again. But one day I wondered out loud if he could have a henna tattoo and you know from that day forward he has been totally bugging me to give him one and I happened to spot a henna tattoo kit in an art store when Evan was off in camp and I was having all those warm and fuzzy feelings about him because I was remembering how when he was a baby he smelled like maple syrup and I could hold him all day long and bury my nose right behind his little baby ears where he smelled the sweetest, so I bought the henna kit. Also because Evan wanted to shave his head before camp but the husband said he didn't want Evan going to a religious camp looking like some sort of freak (his words not mine) and we only let Evan have a buzz cut but I promised him he could shave it when he got home, so he is going to shave it anyway and also it will be long gone before school starts, because hahaha I can just imagine Evan walking into school with a shaved and painted head!

So, we are waiting for Evan's best bud to come over and then we are off to the barber where I am sure Josh is going to want to cut off his silky hair and Evan will get shaved and maybe Evan's bud will decide to join him, in this head decorating odyssey and that would be great because the best bud needs to cut loose a bit and also it would totally freak out his dad, and I am all for that. I better slip the camera battery into the charger because this is not happening without photos!

nip and untuck

Because I like you people I will not be showing you a picture of Matt's big toe's ingrown toe nail. We saw the beginnings of it (rather: the disaster it became) at camp on visiting day. We brought Matt to the nurse, who showed it to the doctor the next day. The nurse called me at home and wanted to administer a giant dose of Keflex to my son!! I was like, WTF!?!?! Keflex?!?!? And the nurse acted like I was odd for not wanting to treat the nail this way. This happened to be the day before my mother's surgery, so you can imagine I wasn't handling the news well, I called the pediatrician, left him a sobbing voicemail and went on with my day. The pediatrician called the nurse at camp, gave her instructions on mineral salt soaks, triple antibiotic cream, bandages etc.... I have successfully avoided ingrown nails with him before, but the key is that after the warm soaks you have to roll the skin away from the side of the nail. I picked Matt up, this had not been done for him, and OMG, in addition to what appeared to be a sandals tan line, but was actually dirt, he now has the most swollen big toe I have ever seen. You can only see about half of his big toe nail. (fighting back the urge to puke) Guess who is going to the podiatrist today for a little nip and untuck?This will not be fun.

But, the good news is I got Evan from camp yesterday! Which means that in the last three days I have driven approximately 600 miles between coming home from utopia, round trip picking up Matt and then round trip picking up Evan. All my babies are home again and I feel so much better knowing they are all here under one roof, in my control and ready to spring into action at my command. Hahaha, like that would ever happen! Really, you have no idea how happy I was when Evan was born and he wasn't the clone of the husband. Look, he totally has my eyes.

time

So, remember when devil dog had that infection in her girlie bits? Well, the husband took her to the vet where she got a steroid shot, a prescription for antibiotics and a jar of medicated pads for wiping her girlie bits with two times a day. OMG the pads. You know who had to drop to her knees every day and get to third base with the dog, right? Cause the husband wasn't ever going to do that. Ever. He walked in handed me the jar of medicated who-ha pads and have me the look that meant "Don't even try". And then I had all kinds of sympathy for devil dog, owning my own personal girlie bits and all. So, the other day I was getting to the end of the antibiotics and still had plenty of pads left. Her privates are looking fine to me and I wondered how long I was required to be getting intimate with the devil for. As I walked across the room pad in hand the devil dog looked up saw the pad dropped to the floor and rolled over and spread her legs for me. I took one look at the position and the longing expression in her chocolate brown eyes and said "She's done".