clickmom

2.m.o.r.e.w.e.e.k.s.

I am so over sharing a bathroom with men.  My fantasy house a bathroom on each floor that can only be opened by two people, me and the person in charge of cleaning it.  Come on lottery ticket!!  

Hahaha. I kid.  

Not really.

My sliding on black ice out of the car and hanging by my left tangled in the seat belt arm related injuries are not bothering me as much today.  Whew.  The new (not fabulous, just ordinary) chiro thinks this was not a long amount of time to get over such injuries, but he has not been treated by my beloved stepford chiro, who heals much faster.  I'm tempted to drive back.  Unfortunately stepfrd chiro doesn't work on Mondays, and when I agreed to the lunch with my babes for last Monday I was not in desperate need of chiropractic care.  Bummer.  I'm not running back.

Though I really do like driving.

Speaking of driving, the gas station attendant told me that gas prices might be as high as 5 bucks a gallon this spring.  Goodness.  I'm not going very many places with prices like that.  Kidding!  I'll just take Matt's little tin can car, which gets more than double the gas mileage of my truck.  Yay for choices.  Matt is never getting that car back, I don't care what he thinks.

I still probably have to wait two weeks or so to hear from the other university about grad school.  Time is moving so slow I feel like I'm six years old again.  Seriously, this is painful.  Though I did come up with a plan C, which is to apply to the Maine Media College, which used to be Maine Photographic and I like the old name much better.  Tsk tsk tsk.  I still say LIBRARIAN too.  Media specialist, pshaw!  They also have a non residential MFA program at Maine Media and even better, rolling admissions, so I didn't miss out.  Maine is a wee bit far, but hey, I love to drive!  Right?

Near future plans for me include an etsy store, a photo blog, twitter, and a facebook page.  I've been reading up on how to get noticed.  Now I just have to decide what name to call it all.  I'm dying to have a printing marathon, but the only problem is that I need a certain japanese gampi paper.  I don't know the name of the paper I need because I was given one glorious piece by the workshop teacher from a few weeks ago and she isn't answering my email.  I don't want to send her a second one, it seems kind of stalkerish.  Instead I'm going Saturday to NY Central Art Supply with my fingers crossed and hopefully they have the paper I want.  I called a place in Canada today thinking it was a paper retailer (it's a wholesaler) and spoke to the nicest lady who thinks they have the paper I descibed at NY Central.  When I hung up I declared that I was ready to move to Canada (can you even imagne the intensity of Evan's eye roll?) because I can not get over how nice and helpful  the Canadian lady was over the phone.  So feaking nice.  The only negative to Canada is the weather.  I'm pretty sure I'm not going anywhere colder than where I am right now for any length of time.  (Except maybe Maine for a week or two here and there- plan C) 

I was serious when I said that photo from Monday was the "before" photo.  I am officially two days into being grain free and vegetable laden.  Go me.  

time

I'm pretty tired of being invisible.  

For seven years before I met my husband I did not eat red meat and barely ate other meat.  But, he is a meat and potatoes guy so I started eating meat, which I ate all the time until my gall bladder got bad and then the past two years I had to reduce and then eliminate meat until I was vegan for the last few months before getting the surgery.  I felt healthier not eating any animal product and have been thinking that even though now I can fearlessly dive into anything I choose without having a gall bladder attack I might choose to eat an almost vegan diet just because I feel better when I do.  Then the husband asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner Saturday and I said I didn't trust him to choose the restaurant since he keeps taking me to bar pubs, italian restaurants and steak houses, non of which are safe for a gluten and dairy eater, let alone a non meat eater so he came up with an ethopian restaurant for us to go to this weekend and I looked at the restaurant's web site, which seemed vegetarian friendly until the matter of cutlery came up, and as it turns out the ethiopians do not use cutlery and instead they use bread to scoop up the food and get it to their mouths.  

I believe BITE ME is apropriate here.

Also, I am feeling pretty down about myself.  I know the numbers on the scale are going up but yesterday I went to see my old stepford friends and met with wildmom before lunch to get pedicures.  The two of us were so ridiculous walking across the street with our wet toe nails, in our winter clothes with foam nail salon flip flops on that glory took a picture and it's been a long time since I have seen a full body head to toe photo of myself.  It was shocking.  And that shock was made kind of worse since after the week long food binge I've been on I was bloated too,  my face is so puffy my eyes look like wrinkles and my mouth looks like it is buried in cheeks.  

DIET TIME.

There will be no bread, glutinous or gluten free, for me. There will be not much of anything for me for the next month.  I'm going hard core and I'm also going to get my sorry self back into the routine of exercising.  It is time. Actually, that time has long passed and now I have play catch up, but I'm ready for it.

Watch me shrink.

happy birthday to me

In an alternate universe people make some effort to treat me special on my birthday.  

I had a bad day.

just a moment

I never hardly ever dream of my dead parents or dead grandma.  Yesterday, after a truly delightful day with Josh, I spotted a yahrzeit candle on my kitchen island, and today is the day I light it for my dad (4 years!) so I set the candle up on my stove, because my mom used to always the put the one she lit for her dad on the stove, so there isn't really anywhere else for me to put it, and I guess I was probably thinking about my dad least night.  The whole candle thing feels so heavy in my heart, I really don't want to think about how much I miss him or how much he has missed out on.  Before he had his massive stroke he told me and little sis that the one thing he regrets would be missing out on seeing our kids grow up, and I can't stop thinking how fabulous my kids are and how much I'd like to be able to share that with a grandparent, who might be the only person who could really appreciate their amazingness as much as I do.

With all that candle related thinking going on it really shouldn't be surprising to have a dead parent dream, but what was surprising to me is that I dreamed about my mother.  I don't think I've ever dreamed about her before.  I have been trying to be more forgiving about her lack of parenting or even interest in me as a human being sharing the planet with her, and just LET IT GO and move forward, so there might be something meaningful about this.  Here is what I dreamed, 

Josh and me were riding on a motorcycle.  He was sitting in front of me and the wind on my face felt really good.  In my dream I was as totally happy and content as I could feel. In my dream I was trying to etch the exact happiness of that very moment into my thoughts so I can call on it forever.  All of a sudden in my dream I am aware of someone pressing against my back, but I'm on a moving motorcycle, so it is weird.  Somehow I know I am dreaming, so it wouldn't make sense for someone to be leaning into me, but I am sure I feel an actual real person pressing on my back so I look over my shoulder and it is my mother, and she is young and beautiful.  She tells me she just came to tell me goodbye.  Somehow that goodbye legitimizes me and means that I am a part of her thoughts and her consciousness and the act of saying goodbye to me has erased all of the neglect.  Then my young beautiful mother begins to float away to my left, and I reach up and I take her hand, stopping her from leaving, she looks at me because she has to go and I very sincerely thank her for saying goodbye to me and I let go of her hand and she floats away until she is gone and I look forward and I am still riding that motorcycle in my moment of happiness with Josh.   

 

rains pours, welcome to my life

I did make it to the interview stage for the (not Y@le) graduate school I applied to.  My interview is at 9 o'clock, by skype tomorrow morning.  Luckily last week I got the fake tooth for the implant I have been waiting for for 7 months.  By "waiting for" I mean, only smiling on the left side of my mouth because the single tooth denture retainer was too uncomfortable to wear.  It's weird because I still catch myself only smiling half way and then I remember that I can smile all the way and boy have I been smiling!  Until today that is, because naturally today, Sunday, day of rest when my dentist is somewhere else, and doesn't even bother to return my emergency phone call to tell me that she can't take care of me,  a crown on the other side of my mouth decides to fall out while I am brushing my teeth this morning and now I have to do my interview with a hill billy grin.  I might as well don a woven grass wide brimmed hat, dig out some overalls, place a jug of moonshine beside me and smoke a corn cob pipe throughout.  If the professor asks me what he should call me I'm going to say "Well, my given name is clickmom, but you can call me Ms. no tooth." 

Since it is a skype interview and I can control the lighting I've been trying to manuever some photo lamps to just the right spot so that shadows fall on my lower left jaw now.  I know it's all goign to be messed up tomorrow during day light.  I'll be in here panicking just before the call laying down black out shades on anything that illumates thaty side of my face.  Tsk tsk tsk.  It had to happen to me didn't it?

 

my haircut rocks

I drove back to stepford for a haircut last week.  It takes about an hour and a half to drive in good conditions.  That being said I made my appointment for 10AM so I had to face rush hour.  I left 20 minutes early, intending to leave 30 minutes early, but these days it seems I can never leave on time.  It ended up taking me two hours, and all of the traffic was in the first third of my drive.  I sat in the car with a panicking voice ranting in my head and I did smile to myself thinking this was the kind of thing I typically kept inside and if any of my friends could hear the voice of insanity bellowing it's diatribe against nutmeg state driving and my loyalty to my stepford hair dresser, they would have thought me insane for sure.  I was only 7 minutes late, got into the chair, let the hairdresser work her magic, still fuming on the inside and berating myself for effort it takes to get a simple hair cut, telling myself I would have to find someone local, until 40 minutes later when she unwound the hair cut cape from my neck and I looked upon my newly shorn locks and I thought "That was totally worth the drive."  Then I walked into my new town therapist's office 2 days later and she said "You got a hair cut!  It looks fabulous!  You did not get that around here, did you go to New York?" and I knew that for the foreseebale future I'd be trekking back to stepford, nutmeg state traffic and all,  for haircuts.  

I fell three times on ice in the past week.  The first two times I ended up tebowing hard on my right knee and somehow screwing with my ankles in the process.  The third time I fell jumping (literally, I guess I'm a jumper, who knew?) out of my truck onto black ice, and in one swift motion tangling my arm in the seat belt while sliding under the open door, leaving myself hanging by my arm half way lying on my side in the ice.  I cried for bear bait but she was so scared she just cowered int he car.  I untangled myself, and managed to get up without wiping out a fourth time.  To be honest the fall was so unexpected and happened so fast that I have no idea how it all went down but in the end this last fall left me sore at every joint going wrist, elbow, neck, shoulder, mid back, lower back and hip.  Add those new pains to the knee and ankle happening and I need to be locked away for my own safety. And then there are bruises which could be from the seat belt or maybe I slapped my arm against the seat or the door opening, who knows.  All I know is that it hurts.  A lot.  I'm prety sure that if I showed up in the ER someone taller than me would get questioned regarding spousal abuse.  That thought is so funny to me that it might be worth the hassle of going to the ER.  When a cop pulled the husband over under suspicioon of drunk driving (except it was just the husband's normally bad driving) the husband was fresh to the cop and talked back to him.  I bet back talk doesn't get you off with a warning when your wife is black and blue from head to toe!  

We put Evan on a plane to Guyana last night.  (Technically we put him on a bus with 30 other kids and a few responsible adults)  He is going there with a group of kids to build a community center.  It's going to be such a good experience for Evan.  I'm glad he'll be working hard and I'm glad he'll be seeing how people live with so much less stuff than we have.   I just wish Evan didn't have to get typhoid and yellow fever shots and take malaria pills to go there.  I'm worried that he's going to get sick with something.  That would suck.

busy bee and then not

I spent about 4 hours on Thursday unpacking and rearranging boxes in the garage inorder to fit both my truck and the husband's car in.  It wasn't too bad once I got into the groove because most of the boxes in there were half full of packing paper anyway and the truth is that I did laugh out loud more than a couple of times when I opened the boxes and saw how insanely well packed valueless things had been or how unable to describe our belongings the movers had been when labeling the boxes.  There was a criminal misuse of the word "misc" as pretty much every single box had misc on it, instead of something more useful, like "from the desk in the kitchen." In the end we didn't have to dig out our cars from the 24 inches or so of snow that fell upon new town and for that I am patting myself on the back.

The productivity fever lasted through out Friday when I so smartly decided to give the car Matt didn't take to college a drive before it got buried, and took bear bait to the fields where I typically walk her. Unfortunately I slipped on a patch of snow covered ice and came down super hard on my knee.   I got up, fought back the tears, and began to walk anyway.  The snow, which had only started to fall 10 minutes earlier was already whipping around, making it hard to walk , and causing me to curse the powers which made draw strings on hoods illegal, ut I did manage to walk bear bait for one final decent amount of time before before being snowed in.

I may have been cursing the school district for not canceling school that day, we all know the kids lost too many school days due to Hurricane Sandy, but safety first!  They did call an early dismissal, which meant I picked Evan up at 11:45.  I pulled my nice snowless car out of the garage and headed over to the school early so as to be one of the first in line, when Evan began pleading with me through a series of texts to allow him to go to a friend's house (down the block, not too far away).  A few other boys were going too, and I did feel some peer pressure to not be the only mom freaking out about the snow and forcing her kids to hunker down waiting for the storm to blow over.  I called the friend's mom who was way behind me in line and offered to drive the 4 boys over, since I was already sitting out in the line anyway, and also because I do like these kids and I really just wanted to be with them for the entire 120 seconds it would take to drive to the friend's house.  I did tell Evan, in no uncertain terms that I'd be back for him real soon.

Which, I was, I came back two hours later after being tricked by the husband into watching a movie where a kid dies in the end, and showing up to fetch Evan with swollen red eyes and a drippy nose.  That mom was taking the other kids home then (she would have brought Evan home too, but I didn't know) so at least I felt good not being the only one to cut their little gathering short because of the storm bearing down on us. Evan and I got home safe and sound and I ripped my boots off because I must have hurt my ankle when I fell and hurt my knee, only, my knee hurt so much that I didn't realize it until I put my boots back on.

Later that day I got all home improvement and put up some curtain rods and curtains in my bathroom.  I purchased some new curtains, but in the end I went with some that I had originally bought for my new basement studio.  Then I turned to my bedroom and removed the linen colored curtains that came with the place, they are fine curtains but they totally didn't go with the beigey color of the bedroom walls, because the beigey walls have some kind of green undertone to them, that I do not understand or even care for, but painting isn't on my schedule and I found some white linen curtains packed away in one of the garage boxes that I had originally bought for my old stepford studio and never hung there because I loved my big perfect light filled north facing windows and couldn't bring myself to cover them up.  So I put the unused curtains in my new town bedroom and it was much much better.

Then I turned back to the bathroom and assembled two different plant stands that I had picked up at Ikea for my bathroom, set them up with two antique plant stands I picked up in a antique store in utopia, and decorated them with some old candles I had originally purchased in 2005 when I let the middle school use my house for a house tour, and all of a sudden my incredibly poorly designed bathroom was getting kind of cozy looking and I might even consider taking an actual bath in there one day despite the fact that the bath tub is located under the forced air vent and the thought of a breeze blowing on me while in the bath doesn't please me.   

I need another Ikea run for returning the curtains I didn't use for the bathroom and for buying some more bath mats now.  Also, I need to spend more in the utopian antique store because I feel like this bathroom actually needs furniture.  Yes, it is that strange.

At the end of the day I made a nice shrimp risotto with steamed squash for dinner.  I was pretty tired Friday night.  I should have taken a pain killer too.  By the end of Friday my back was killing me from cleaning the garage, my butt was sore from lugging stuff up the stairs for hours at a time, my knee was on fire from the fall and my ankle ached.  

Yesterday I mostly sat around on my butt.

(I wish)

Since I couldn't be productive with the printing due to lack of reliable light bulb and since there is some kind of monster snow storm breathing down our necks I decided that it was time to clean out the garage enough that I could put my truck into it.

Hours and hours later mission accomplished TWO vehicles can fit into the garage (as soon as someone other than me gets home from work and moves the contractor trash bag bagged bed bug infested luggage from our disastrous christmas holiday trip) and I am paying for it tonight with back pain.  Oh my goodness. Hello back pain.  I'm just trying not to move an inch while I wait for the pain killer to kick in. 

Today was actually the first time I ever put my own vehicle into my own garage.  Back in stepford, which was the first house, not apartment,  I've ever lived in,  early on the garage was filled with junk, then I got a truck that didn't fit into the low ceiling garage and then there was an astounding amount of junk and you couldn't even fit a  mini fridge in there if you wanted to.

I'm going to be so ridiculously happy when I don't have to brush Sylvia off!!

The downer is that after a year and a half I found out that the key to the front door, which is the only key the old owners left us, is not the same as the key to the garage door so now I have to get a locksmith.   Grrrr.

I'm counting the seconds until I can go to bed, and I am thinking 8:30 might be an acceptable bed time tonight.  (I wish) 

 

Waiting

is going to drive me insane.

 

When did I get so impatient?

The place I called for the bulb doesn't have it in stock, so they have to have it sent straight from the distributor, who does not deal with the public or snap right to it when things are ordered and the grad school I really wanted to go to anyway isn't sending out their letters of acceptance for another month (!!!!!).  Also, I really want a new camera more than I am willing to admit out loud and I want Canon to release a new version of my pro camera, which there are rumors about, but no one knows for sure.  sigh.  camera .... camera .... camera .....

Oh freak.  

Right now I am waiting for the incredibly unreliable electrician to show up.  I'm gonna be so mad if he is insanely late.  He always is insanely late, so I don't even know why I am going down this road.  I should just leave.  He has my cell phone number.

Also, Evan is going to Guyana, and I am so very worried about all the disease down there.  I had to get him immunizations for yellow fever, hep. A, and typhoid.  Also, he has to take malaria pills.  You would have to pay me some serious bucks to go to Guyana. Sorry.  My sense of adventure?  It's pretty much within driving distance. 

My standard response to waiting is to sit and stare off into space, but I am telling myself to make this time productive, which I need the freaking bulb to do, unless I start all over with some new photos, but I am seriously at risk of drowning in photos, since I am still playing with the 30 thousand (small exaggeration) photos I took in the last 18 months.  

award me

I was on facebook and saw a message from a girl I went to camp with to another camper that I am FB friends with.  I went to the page of the person I used to know and saw that she is FB friends with the camp kleptomaniac.  The klepto was in my bunk a couple of summers and we used to periodically search her closet and take our own stuff back.  It was a miserable feeling.  It is taking every ounce of my restraint not to send the camp klepto a message asking "Hey! Remember me?  Are you still a thief?"

That was about 33 years ago.

I win the grudge holding award.

In other news, I don't know if I can wait for the other school to accept or reject me.  I just want to know what I will be doing this summer!  Also, we'll be required to spend 2 weeks on campus this summer (and for 2 more summers after) and campus will be driving distance to utopia.  How impossible is that set up going to be for me?  I hope I'll be able to get back there and not miss anything.  Maybe I can take everyone back with me!!  Or maybe they aren't going to let me in and I don't have to worry about it.  I did call someone today to ask when they are going to notify us and how.   

I tried to distract myself by creating art today and my light unit was doing all sorts of nutty things, so I called the people I bought it from and it sounds like the bulb needs to be replaced to the tune of over $200.  I have got to start selling stuff.  I'm thinking etsy store.