clickmom

deciding

I've just decided that this winter I am going to embrace the snow and it's barrenness.  I have a few photos from a few years ago that I still really like, which is unusual for me, typically I tire of my photos after about 6 months and I just now decided that this winter I am going to thoroughly explore the snowy landscape, from behind my camera ofcourse, which probably means another snowless winter, but I am going to be mentally prepared either way.

Also, Josh and I are sharing a room on this vacation and we both have curious bumps all over our sides which better not be bed bugs.  I'm working up the courage to peel off the sheets and inspect the mattresses.  Cross your fingers for hives.  Josh said we were rash buddies and I just about thought that was the cutest thing ever.

 

sweat

It is official that I am 100% wimp when it comes to water and heat.  As in, I just can't swim if it isn't hotter than hell out.   We came down to the Bahamas (Yes, long time readers will wonder if we have returned the ATLANTIS where EVAN WAS BIT BY A SHARK and we have) and our first full day here was super cloudy and this old lady which I have become was not entertaining a single thought of water activity.  Okay, I was convinced to go into the hot tub which turned out to be murky and full of little kids, but that was it.

Wimp, I am.

Today's forecast is not the complete thick cloud covered sky it is for partially cloudy.  So far from my hotel room partially seems to amount to about 85% of the sky, but my hopes are high for improvement.  If only I can break a sweat I'll have some water fun with the kids.

 

 

merry merry

We had a little christmas eve dinner in utopia with soe of our utopian neighbors.  I reflected during this dinner.  Here I was dining and enjoying these neighbors, who all have families of their ouwn, and yet they were spending the holiday with us and with each other.  I wondered if the children of my neighbors enjoyed their folks or if they thought of them as an unbearable responsibility.  I loved having a full table, but I also wondered why these people, whose holiday it was, weren't with their own families.  We had the nicest time, and one of my neighbors, a salty old guy who is a big cranky bear, and who I adore, and see right through, (he his as soft as a marshmallow) told my kids what a wonderful person he thinks I am.  Matt filled me in this morning.  The funniest thing is that the salty old guy thinks I never have a bad thing to say about anyone.  Luckily my kids were polite and didn't fight him on it.  

This morning we woke up to dusting of snow.  I was so happy for people who wanted a "white christmas." Snow was still very lightly coming down so I grabbed bear bait and my camera and headed for our usual off leash walking hike up the nearby dam.  I've been photographing that dam all summer and I have a huge collection of dam photos, though I'm not sure what to do with them.  I was thinking I might start a website with those photos.  I'd like to drum up a little publicity for the dam it needs repairs and no one is taking responsibility for it.  It has to be done soon because the dam is poisoning the lake.  I'd like to find a cause and use my photography to champion it.  I just don't quite know how.  I think I need a marketer.

I decided that now that my applications to both Y@le and u. of h@rtford are in I am going to revisit that dead bird series and make solar prints of them all winter.  No more lounging around being brain dead in front of the television.  Too much of a time waster. 

Also, my other resolution: It's time to regain control of my weight.  My goal is 50 pounds before summer.  I can do it.  There will be a lot of vegetables going down.

dizzier than usual

I have no idea what happened to me this morning.  I woke up, did my mom thing, woke everyone else up, cooked them breakfast and packed their lunches,  got Evan off, let Josh talk me into keeping him home for a second day of sore throat and mild nausea and then I turned around and my head got a little spinny.  Also, I had a terrible headache, so I took some OTC pain killer.  But I was supposed to bring Sylvia in to the shop because one of her head lights was out and also I need new wipers (I am maniacal about having good wipers) and an oil change...etc.. So, despite being light headed I think to myself that I'll feel better if I get some fresh air, so I drive with bear bait over to the mechanic and once I am in the mechanic's office I feel so craptastic that I can barely go over the list of repairs and I turn to walk the 1+ mile home and about half way through I realize that I am super dizzy and it is worse when I look side to side or move my head, so I try to walk without bouncing and only looking straight forward and finally I get home and then I pretty much cover myself with three blankets and lie on the couch dozing.  Occasionally I come to consciousness and hear weird things coming from the television because I have fallen asleep to some kind of haunted house show on the science fiction channel, and I aks Josh if he is hungry or thirsty and when he said he was I told him to go make himself some food or drink some water before nodding back into unconsciousness.  Needless to say I barely registered as human and my "awesome mom" award was suspended for a few hours.  Finally at 2 o'clock I could no longer the need to visit the little girl's room, and I unpeeled all the blankets and wasn't as dizzy as I had been, and I managed to sit up for a while and then slap some snakcs together for Josh, who had not prepared food for himself and I came back to life.

It is like a lost day.  And now I'm pretty shockingly awake for 8 o'clock at night.  I hope I can get a good night's sleep tonight.  I thought it was Friday for the last three days so if I can keep that up for another two I'll be right on the money.  Who knows it might feel like a Tuesday tomorrow and then I'll be doomed to spend the near future in total utter confusion.  But why should the near future be any different from any other day?  The school vacation starts this week and that is always good for messing me up too.  I'm like totally doomed to not know what day it is for at least the next 3 weeks.

Bad news Evan just told me he doesn't feel good and he looks kind of pale too.

 

I, bitch

I drove over to WF to pick up some GF stuff for Josh and was thinking about how the shock of Friday's events make me want to just hug people and be nice.  I pulled into the WF parking lot and headed for my favorite spot.  Someone was parked next to it and I saw her walking through the spot I wanted to stash her cart.  When I pulled into the spot I could only pull in half way because the woman had left her cart right in the spot, I thought "Seriously???" and put my truck in park, got out to move her cart to a place where it didn't block anyone from parking and I tapped (in the smallest way) her side view mirror with my car door.  (She wasn't even pulled all the way into her own spot- one of my pet peeves!).  It was honestly I didn't open my door angrily, I opened it sadly, because I am a big fan of thoughtful parking and shopping cart placement, but at the tap she rolled down her window and screamed "You're a bitch!!" at me, so I just looked forward and went on with moving the cart and she got out of her car and started examining her car door and yelling "You're a bitch!" over and over, so I didn't say anything, though I considered asking her if she kissed her kids with that mouth.  I pulled my car all the way in to the spot and then she started yelling "You're not even going to say anything!  What a bitch!  You're a bitch!!!!" and I realized she was over the top raging and I walked away towards the store.  On my way into the store I made eye contact with someone exiting and said "Terrible weather" and she smiled at me and said "Sure is!" and I thought , well a bitch wouldn't make weather chit chat in the parking lot with a stranger. 

 

You guys can call me bitch too.  

I'm owning it, 

It's growing on me.

Love, 

bitch

answers

I had been looking forward to a holiday party that was scheduled for last night.  Then I cried my makeup off all day long after hearing about the incomprehensible tragedy in Newtown, CT.  Why why why?  When I picked up Josh from his evening rehearsal I looked aorund and saw that all the mothers had cried their makeup off too.  No one said anything because the children were in the hallway.

The cocktail party went on as scheduled, but I couldn't bring myself to wear the festive sparkly shirt I had planned on wearing.  I tried on a black shirt, but passed.  It wasn't right either.  It was too ruffly.  Ruffles seemed frivolous and carefree.  I went with a jacket over a tank.  Which worked.  I was goign to a party, but I wanted to be was wrapped up in a blanket.  Coverage just felt right.  

No one  at the cocktail party discussed the news.

It was a little weird.  We all had this kind of unspoken understanding.  We were goign to dance around the horrible news for the evening.  Cocktails helped.  I couldn't bring myself to have one but the others did, and it lightened things up.  Then we came home and I couldn't put the television on.  So I just went to bed.  I turned it on this morning, like I always do because I want to see the weather, and I cried for half an hour.  So I turned it off.  

I took bear bait for a long long walk, but didn't cross paths with any of our dog walking friends.  Too bad.  I needed the company today.  

I won't watch TV news when Josh is around.  It is too much.  I don't want him to hear or see anything.  If I can't comprehend what happened how can he?  I told him in a factual kind of way.  He says he doesn't have any questions.  I wonder what is going to happen when he gets to school on Monday.  Other kids might have things to say.  Horrible frightening nightmare real things, that actually happened in the real world..

I won't watch TV news tonight either.  I can't see the pain without experiencing the pain.

Is gun control the answer?

Is taking care of the people who could do something like this the answer?

How do you even know who has this potential?

Is there an answer?

This is the saddest day.

 

audits and surveys

Did I ever tell you that once upon a time in 1983 or so I briefly worked at a phone survey company doing phone surveys.  I had dropped out of college (just for a year) and I bumped into a high school friend who had done the same thign and was working at the survey place.  He hooked me up and then they never put us on the schedule at the same time.

We did a lot of different kind of surveys but the two I remember best were the People magazine survey, which was a total bitch since it went on forever and unless your participant answered every question you couldn't count your survey.  I hated the People survey.  Luckily I only had to live through one round of the People survey because they only did it once a year.

The other big survey we did was from a beer company.  We just called it "The Beer Survey."  Someone would hand us a chunk from some mid western state white pages and we'd cold call people hoping to get some beer guzzling 20 something year old yahoo who would answer beer and sports related questions for a few minutes.

There was a bonus at the end of the week for most surveys completed so I really did want to produce for this job.  Imagine for a second a young mid western man answering his phone and entertaining some stranger with his personal beer consumption habits.  You know how in one week I became the number one survey taker in the office?  It was just short of  phone sex.  And I was freaking excellent at it.  They had never seen someone get so many guys to spill their beans before.  The tall dude who sat near me couldn't compete, too baritone, he quit.  The non native english speaking woman down the row (we didn't have cubicles, we had rows of desks divided with 2 foot high desk shields) couldn't even get people past her accent.  But me, with my sweet voice, no accent, and new found ability to phone flirt like my life depended on it could reel them in all day long.  It was like shooting fish in a barrel except totally more rewarding because I was getting paid and turning my coworkers green with envy.

Sometimes I answer phone surveys these days just because I will forever until the end of time have a soft spot in my heart for anyone with that miserable job.  I will not however speak to you past "Put this phone number on the DO NOT CALL LIST" if you are trying to sell me something.  The New York Post is just about to drive me insane.  

Hey

I made a super easy recipe from Real Simple magazine tonight and every one loved it.  It's going to be my favorite dish of the season!  

I have whittled down the kajillions of photos I took in the last 6 months to 20 and am ready to apply to Y@le and one more school.  It isn't even like the other school is a "back up" school because their program is so astoundingly different than Y@le's that I can't even sit around thinking about the two of them.  It would be like deciding between caviar and creme brulee. They both rock and you can't compare them.  It probably shouldn't have even been legal to type out both words in the same sentence.  

I took bear bait for a hike this morning.  It was foggy and I was so very excited about fog so I brought my camera,  which said it was fully charged, but sadly my battery has seen better days because in about 20 minutes it went from full charge to shut down.  sigh.  I decided to enjoy the walk from a different perspective and I walked and walked and walked and possibly got kind of a tiny bit lost until I had walked for two hours and could feel my old beat up hiking boots slicing their way into my little toes.  I could see the road, and I thought I was heading towards the parking lot when I bumped into a lady and she reassured me that I was indeed on my way to the parking lot and also that she gets lost too.  Bear bait and I were pretty walked out.  I think I'm going back to that park tomorrow.