clickmom

no class for me

Tomorrow I drive Matt back to Hipster College for his second year at school.  

A few days ago I was checking out at the market when I overheard a lady behind me sharing with her cashier how much more difficult it is to take her son, who is going into his second year of college like Matt,  to school this time.  I turned around to see the lady and our eyes met.  I told her I was about to bring my son for his second year too.  She asked me if it was harder than the first time, I nodded, and we said in unison "This time we know they don't need us."

In other news, Evan is (thankfully) not playing football this fall.  He's playing water polo instead.  The poor thing comes home every day from practice with red swollen eyes from all of the chlorine.  The chlorine is so irritating to him that his nose runs and runs too.

I found a workshop in a printing technique that sounded pretty freaking exciting to me.  I immediately tried to sign up for it , only to be told that I was the only one who wanted to sign up for it, and that they were probably going to cancel the class.

nightmare

As a parent I like to have all the answers for my kids.  Matt blew that dream of mine right out of the water last night with this request:  "Mom, can you show me how to fold a fitted a sheet?"  This morning I'm going to have to fake it.

Luckily back when I lived on the upper east side I was in the building's laundry room one morning during housekeeper rush hour. I studied someone's housekeeper folding a whole pile of fitted sheets.  I can make it look like I'm folding fitting sheets and then hand you a rolled up ball of a sheet.  This morning I'm going for the gold.  I'm going for flat and close to rectangular.

swim time/nap time

Every summer someone either wants to swim the distance of the lake or does it.  This summer a few dedicated swimmers swam the length of the lake.  I think's about 2.5 miles long.  Maybe a wee bit longer.  I kind of wanted to swim the length too.  Except I didn't want to make a big deal about it or train for it or even go public with my idea in case I chickened out.  Then my utopoian frind told me she was swimming with the old lady swim groiup and I went off to swim with her.  I ended up swimming in sync with two other women, and tried to get one to swim the length of the lake (since we had already entered pretty close to one end we were in a good position to do it)  Now, I must admit that I wasn't thinking too clearly, because in the end we ended up swimming to my dock, which was about a 1.5 mile swim and I think I almost killed the lady I was swimming with.  She told the next day that her heart rate did not recover for an hour!  

I've been talking about my swim desires with the boys and my utopian friend and I did plan to swim the length of the lake this morning with Evan, my friend's 15 year old grandson and his friend, who was here visiting.  I didn't sleep so well last night.  I had weird dreams.  I am not sure if they came from the Homeland marathon we've been watching in the evenings or from all the really hard work I've been doing with phone therapy this summer. In either case, I was up at 6AM staring at all the mist on the lake and worrying because it was 54 degrees when I woke up. Luckily it was a much more agreeable 68 by the time we entered the water and took off on one end of the lake.

Before we took off I told Josh I wanted him to cheer for us on our dock as we swam by and then I added that I would also like Matt to serenade us on his ukelele.  It was wonderful when our dock came into view and the boys jumped up and Matt started strumming and Josh was taking videos for me. When we got real close Matt strummed Swing Low and Evan sang.  It was a bit surreal, and kind of a sad song for swimming sake, but still a really feel good moment for us and then we swam on.  We had about a mile to go.  I still felt pretty good, and we took off for the final stretch.  About a third of the way there I started to lose speed.  ABout two thirds of the way down that last mile the boyus decided they'd power out the rest and they swam away from me.  It was strange to be kind of exhausted and all alone.  The water was as calm as it gets this morning, so it was and some still water.  I could hear my own breath and I could feel the muscles in my back and shoulders satrting to whine.  In the end we did it!  Matt and Josh drove down to greet us and so did the friend/grandparents.  What a sweet victory!  

Then I came home, put on some dry clothes and slept for three hours.  Now I'm chugging otc pain killers and swathed in heating pads.  My left shoulder is mad at me! 

Matt's back

Matt's back.  

At the airport the kids and I stood by the passage where passengers exited the secure area.  Most of the other waiting people relaxed on chairs or leaned against near by walls while waiting.  They looked real casual.  I looked like my head was going to explode.  I so ,uch looked like my head was going to explode that one of the intitial passengers off of Matt's plane took one look at me and without being asked told me which flight he had just come off of.   I had to be in the closest possible place I could be.   I stood next to sign which warned me that I'd be fined and jailed if I stepped past it.

While Evan was trying to humiliate Josh for improperly touching his toothpaste tube to the bristles of his clearly contaminated disease ridden toothbrush and simultaneously defend his harsher than necessary tactics, I attempted to peer through the windows of the bar which blocked that blocked my view to the walkway Matt was sure to come sauntering in his own take your sweet time through.  

When I finally saw my baby after these seven emotional painful disappointing weeks I managed to stifle any weird sounds I typically make and instead reached out my hands and made strange motions as if I was grabbing at the air between us like maybe I had 3-D glasses on and believed he was standing within arms reach.  A flight crew was passing by at that very moment and one of it's members turned to see what I was flailing at.  She saw Matt slow motion walking towards us and called to him "You should run!"  He didn't run, he probably hasn't run since the day he ran from th emailbox and into the  house with the great big acceptance envelope from Hipster U.,  Matt, true to form , continued his leaisurely way to my arms where I grabbed him, hugged him tight, took an inhale and thought "I'm washing every single garment of clothing this stinky man-child brought back with him."  

I'm coming to grips with the lacklusterness of this summer.  It's as if we spent the whole summer in first gear, swallowing our need for speed.  I know Josh felt it too.  Everyone around us was pretty slow motion also.  I still don't want the summer to end though.  I'd like to stay in summer mode forever, even if it did mean living in a low functioning sluggish world.  

Poor bear bait is walking worse every day.  I know she's in pain too.  She used to walk up the driveway and visit the sentry every morning when I let her out to pee.  This summer the sentry hasn't had a single visit from her.

In bear bait's youth I used to hear the clicking of her toe nails in the floor when she walked.  These days she walks as if we tied big blocky Frankenstein shoes to her paws.  She thumps the fronts and drags the back feet.  When I hear her walk/thump/scraping across the room my heart just crushes.  Walking is her biggest pleasure.  Walking is the thing that is our special time together.  I wish she could walk.  It's tragic.  

the ring

Yesterday lil sis and I went to see Theresa Caputa, Long Island Medium.  We got to the theater nice and early to relax and enjoy some lunch.  During lunch, I suggested we write down a few things we would like to hear from Theresa.  I thought we should write down things that weren't typical, like when I lost my grandma's ring for four years and found it in the attic when I was packing to move.  Who finds long lost rings in an attic, right?  Not everyone can say that.  Lil sis wasn't into the idea, so we chatted about a couple of things, and in the end I left the scrap of paper I had written about grandma's ring on in the restaurant.  

Theresa did a great show, and honestly, there were so many people who were in so much distress, and had lost children or spouses, that I felt like my tiny little parental/grand parental loss was insignificant.  Theresa didn't stop to talk to us, and it was pretty disappointing.  After the show lil sis and I got to stay for a "meet and greet."  The people who were working for Theresa told the hundred or so of us that were staying for the meet and greet that we were really just there to shake hands and snap a photo.  They insisted there would be no readings, no validations.

Lil and I were dead last in our seat placement for the meet and greet so we decided to embrace our last-ness and go with the flow.  We relaxed and chatted and watched as all of the other people shook hands, took their photos, had a little chat, and left the theater.  When we finally got up to the front of the line, Theresa was still sweet and graceful.  We asked if we could have a photo together and individually and she said we could.  We posed together, lil sis took her shot and then I leaned in for mine.  After we flashed our smiles for the camera, Theresa turned to me and said "The mother figure wants to acknowledge the ring."  I froze.  Total deer in the head lights.  Theresa aske dme if I was wearing my mother's ring.  I was still brain paralyzed.  Lil sis  yelled at me to answer and I half way returned to reality and told Theresa that I was wearing one of my grandma's rings to the show (not THE RING) and that grandma was like a mother to me.  Then, still stunned lil sis and I left the theater and once daylight hit my face I realized that it wasn't the silly ring I was wearing that my mother figure was acknowledging, it was THE RING and my one wish for the day had been answered.

2 dead birds

It's been a rough summer for more than my husband up here in utopia.   My neighbor's mother passed, and now a utopian friend fell onto a metal rod that was sticking out of the ground and was punctured right down to the bone of her lower leg.  Her husband told me, in excrutiating detail, about the chunk of fat and flesh left behind on the post after the ambulance driver took my friend to the hospital.  I wish I had been here to see it!  It's all cleaned up now.

One piece of good news is that there are currently two decaying birds outside, one down our long driveway and one nestled  in some pine needles by the end of the driveway,  which I intend on photographing tomorrow morning.  I hope no critter steals them away in the night!  Evan is mortified.  His friend is here visiting for the week.  Too bad! 

I photographed a guy's tattoos and he has a lady friend who is willing to let me shoot hers too.  I'll have to download the guys ink, check it out, evaluate what I did, see if I am getting what I want to get and then shoot her too.  I'm hoping that there is a secret underground ink club and that the inked people of utopia (which there are many!) all know each other, all talk, and are all open to getting their tattoos photographed.  But I don't think this is portfolio material.  I'm thinking that maybe macro wasn't the way to go last year.

Nikon came out with a ridiculously high mega pixel camera.  I hope Canon is close behind. I've been waiting!  

I'm thinking about my next Y@la application portfolio all of the time.  I have a tendency to obsess, and unfortunately I have once again arrived at my obsession destination.  I prefer photographing for the sake of photographing over photographing with the burden of knowing that if I go to Y@le eventually depends on the 20 photos I submit as my portfolio.   

I have first world problems

In my mother's house growing up there weren't too many rules, but one that was drilled into us was that YOU DO NOT PUT A GLASS CONTAINING LIQUID ONTO A WOOD TABLE.  (In my apartment growing up that meant the "dining room" table, which was lovingly pledged to a mirror like shine.  I quote "dining room" because there was no real "room" to the dining room, only the first area a person walked into when entering the apartment, two steps away from the glass (liquid safe) desk and brown striped corduroy 3 sided sectional couch that was our "living room."  Also, for a while the walls were painted high gloss rust color. Rock on 1970's. ) Personally, I shudder at the thought of glass rings on a precious wooden table.  It is a constant frustration to me that I seem to be the only person, adult and child alike, who seems to have grown up with this fear of sweat rings on wood hammered into her head.  It is not unusual to spot me running arms outstretched towards a wooden horizontal surface faint with the idea that a glass may have sweated a ring onto some of our precious wooden table tops.  The rest of you are heathens.

One glitch in the wonderful workd of owning a vacation is home is that at some point teenaged children would rather hang out at home in your boring every day home because they want to see their friends more than they want to experience your adult version of the utopia.  As soon as Evan got back to utopia from camp I nagged him into inviting a couple of friends up to utopia and just as I had planned, the friends are all under the magical spell of utopia and now as soon as they leave, they find another parent to drive them back!  Right now I have Evan and 4 teenaged guests sleeping in the husband's basement man cave (their preferred place to sleep during stay over, not sure why) and I couldn't be happier because the worst thing for me is when someone expresses a desire to leave the place I'd rather be than anywhere else.  I am so thankful that evan's new new town friends have such great taste that they all want to be here.

Last night the kids decided to have a night swim and for a while they were all floating beneath the water trampoline singing Bohemian Rhapsody in the dark.  I'm not sure there are words for how much I love these kids.  I am so thankful that Evan made such nice friends in new town.  Also, I am so thankful that they seem to think "classic rock" (otherwise known as, the songs of my youth) is the only acceptable musical way to go.  I know all the words!  I do take a perverse kind of pleasure in declaring "Awesome song!I love this song!" when Evan is listening to the radio because I want him to know that he did not discover "classic rock" and that I was there long before him.

There is the weird thing where all of the kids are trying to top each other on some kind of vulgarity/inappropriate comment scale, but I'm hoping that passes.  I think they amped it up last night because a new guy joined the group and it was their way of clashing their teenaged horms and proving their manliness for while.  I'm hoping.  Because when you scream out four letter words on the lake in the dark when all else is quiet on the lake sound travels as if you have concert grade loud speakers on your dock, so now any neighbors within a mile of us on the lake are sure to have experienced the boy's verbal equivalent to silver back gorilla chest thumping and I am hoping all of their young visiting grandchildren were either in bed fast asleep or propped up in front of a very high volumed disney movie.  Also, that they had their own personal hearing aids off for the night.  I have a lot of mature neighbors.

My bliss for this summer is hearing the kids laughing while I drive the boat like a maniac trying to toss them off of the tube into the water.   The sentry commented one day on how joyous of a sound it is to hear the boys so incredibly happy like that.  Obviously, the sentry is a quality human being!  In Evan's case, the whole tubing experience is also a wonderful sight.  Typically Evan isn't the smiliest guy on the planet, but when he is holding on for dear life he wears a cheshire cat grin that can't be topped.  

Josh got much braver over the winter and now he is willing to go the same shoulder dislocating (sorry to my nephew!) tubing speed as the older kids.  I have a feeling this is going to be a big year of physical changes for Josh.  I've been freakishly staring at memorizing his baby face in preparation for it's departure.  I'll miss his teeny tiny baby nose.  I hope Josh's awkward stage isn't too bad.  Mostly I hope he never needs to experience the same Tiny Tim hair style that Matt sported during his early teens because I saw an old holiday card of my boys at a neighbor's house and now I know why so many men refuse to acknowledge photos of themselves as younger people.  I rue the day I announced for all to hear "My kids can have any look they want as long as they don't do anything permanent like tattoos.  Hair grows and clothes get replaced."  I forgot that photos last a life time.

death

My utopian friend's mother died this morning.  The family threw her a big blowout one hundred birthday party this spring.  There was really not much wrong with her, she just faded away over the course of a few weeks.  Very very long weeks for her family.  It was interesting to speak with the family during this final episode of their beloved 100 year old mom's life.  As soon as I found out she was sick/not well/in the hospital my thought was to make her as comfortable as possible and say goodbye.  (Even to myself that sounds some what cold- but to me 100 is all bonus time.)   When I asked a family member what their goal with the mom was the family member said "To get Mom well and bring her home." Which surprised me.  I'm pretty sure that if living forever is a choice I wouldn't want it.  After somepoint, the thrill is gone, no?  I always assumed that if I lived long enough and kept all of my marbles that one day I'd wake up and know that I had had enough, I had done all the living I was going to do and that I was ready to go.

Then there is the jealousy part.  This wonderful man, my friend, son of the 100 year old lady who died is older than my own mother was when she died.  I only got a mother until I was in my 40's.  He is in his 70's.  That does not seem fair.  Or maybe it was because my mom was suffering and his mom never suffered.  I'm sure if I was in my own mother's shoes I'd think the last 18 months of her life was the most unfair situation ever.  Maybe my mother dying was the best thing that could have happened to her.  

This all makes me wonder what I would do if I knew my own clock was ticking. Would I sky dive, party like Paris Hilton or run with the bulls?  I doubt it.  I'd probably throw catered dinner parties and savor all the friend and family time without having to do the cooking and cleaning.  I most defintiely would not waste my last precious earth moments doing dishes.  I'd probably print out my favorite photos and give a lot of gifts.  I'd hope that the receivers would get happiness from my prints.  Or they could use them for kindling.  I'm pretty sure that kind of thing doesn't matter to you once you are on the other side. (Which I totally believe in, incase you are wondering)   

I totally suck at funerals because I'm a big time cry baby.  In a world where I try not to draw attention to myself you'd think I'd sit quietly in the corner and not cry at all, but I can not for the life of me do that.