clickmom

I want that van to pay!!

When I was on my way to the airport for my trip to Berlin I was driving through  New Jersey in the middle lane of route 78East when an unmarked white van passing me in the left lane drifted towards me and hit the side of my car with a loud crash.  The driver recovered and continued to drive in the left lane while I followed him, flashing my high beams and honking to no avail.  Siri would not dial 911 for me, and for that I am POed!!  I did get her to send a text to Evan with the license plate and make and model of the van.  Then I had to get off the highway or pass the airport, so I quickly pulled into the airport lot and called the police, who transferred me FOUR times before connecting me with some teen age sounding dude/trooper who was shocked and appalled that I got off the highway.  Really?!?!  Because everyone wants to sit on the safety of the side of the NJ highway while the van who hit them sails away and MISS A PLANE TO GERMANY.  All I wanted to do was give Trooper idiot the criminal van driver's license plate number so some cops could knock on his door and he could pee his pants in fear, knowing he was a hit and run criminal!!  But trooper idiot said I would have wait for someone to show up and file that report in person, and that they would come to the airport parking lot when they damn well felt like it (my interpretation) and couldn't high tail it over since I had a PLANE TO GERMANY TO CATCH.  I told trooper idiot to BITE ME and ran off to catch my plane.  (As in ...  never mind ... click)  I have a scratch on the side of my newish mini truck.

This afternoon I had to pick Josh up from his rehearsal and as soon as I sat down for my ritual pre exit the house bladder empty the door bell rang.  Evan answered, I heard him say "That would be my brother" and call Matt and then I heard a man voice ask  Matt "Do you want to tell me what happened on Main Street today?"

I figured it was a good time to flush and exit the front hallway bathroom.

It seems that Matt bumper brushed another car while unparking down town today and drove off because he thought some woman was wave telling him to leave.  Somehow the cops got his license plate and now there is a multiple offense ticket and we are afraid to ask how much our insurance is going to go up.  The cops they told me that were going to give Matt a break by not cuffing him,  throwing him into one of the two separate police cars they arrived in, taking him down to the precinct and finger printing him and making him get bail to leave.  Except that would have made a really awesome story!! 

Life doesn't seem fair today.

bitching

I hate the weekends, really I do. Part of me wishes I could just head for the door,  shout "I'll be home before midnight" and flee, like my mother did.  But I am trying to be a different kind of parent.   I am trying to know my children.  I want to be with my kids, it's just that I want them to be less boring, and by less boring I mean, I want them to enthusiastically follow me around doing all of the things I want to do, like buying flowers, or photographing.  

Since no one even batted an eyelash at the one day a year (to be fair, I was in Berlin, but they were supposed to celebrate it when I got home) where I am supposed to get some appreciation for this thankless (yet incredible) job that has been wearing me down for 21 years, I should not be surprised.

The truth is that I just want to be in utopia right now and I am not.

Also, I have some seriously negative self talk happening these days.  I was thinking I might make myself  this slogan "50 before 50" which refers to the 50 pounds I would like to lose before I turn 50 next February.  I watched a couple of episodes of My 600 Pound Life last night, and while I can not relate to someone who eats themselves bedridden and then manages to get others to fetch and serve them food, I can relate to the after surgery patients who are not being honest at all about the amount and quality of food they are still managing to consume.  I am fat because I eat too much.  Period.  It isn't even because I don't move enough, because I move a lot.  (Okay, maybe less since bear bait passed)

Somethng has to give, and that something has to lead to weight loss.  I'm maxing out here and I have to turn this around.

 

mostly photo

I took a walk at the fields where I used to walk bear bait yesterday.  It wasn't as sorrowful as I thought it might be because it was the middle of the day, so the usual dog walking crowd wasn't there, and also because I went with a friend and was distracted by chatting away.  I will try the park next week.  That  is where I really loved to walk her.

I had my last advisor chat before our summer session.  It was really kind of sad, because I have a great rapport with my advisor.  But I will admit that one of my classmates kind of made it weird for me by talking about how "easy on the eyes" he is.  I had never thought of him that way.  Now I look at him and wonder if knows that classmate is drooling on her side of the computer.  I so want to tell him, but I won't because ...childish!!

Coming up to utopia without bear bait is strange.  When she was alive I always felt like I was cheating on her if I was here without her, since she loved it here so much too. Now that she is gone, it just leaves a big empty hole.  When she died Josh's school was just about to go on a class trip to an animal shelter so I packed up her food, treats, even medications, and sent them to the animal shelter.  It was better fo rme not to see her things sitting in the house unused.  But here I walked in and saw her water bowl on the floor, her food jar, and treat jar on the counter, her crate, her dog bed, even one of those orange ball throwing wands.  I'm in the process of hiding it all.  Maybe there will be a future dog for it one day.  If not I'll just find someone who needs it.

I am going to meet with lake guy this morning and see if heis agreeable to continuing his project with a different kind of shooting.  I have to be less reportage and more constructed to make these images work.  (My advisor and I agreed on that yesterday)   I hope he will be enthusiastic because I would really like to be successful with this series.  I think that with my wifely access to the husband his photo series was easy to pull off.  I already have an intimacy thing going on with my husband of 23 years, but with lake guy being just an acquaintance being successful with his series will be more of a challenge and there fore it makes me want to try harder.   Here I go!!

I also discussed having two series at one time with my advisor.  In general they frown on it, but since it worked for me so far, he just discussed my ideas and aI think that the other project I am goign to work on is a photo story on utopia.  Not entirely sure what slant I am coming from going in so I am going to try to go with every idea that comes to me at first.  There is actually a lot of history here, so there will be that.  Also, I will be doing some portraits of local people.  And I want to find out where there are little corners of this dying town that are alive and trying to thrive and focus on them.  The exciting part to me is that these little fledgling alive parts are mostly arts based and that is right up my alley!!! 

 

figures

Guess which one of my children spent the first period of his all day in school suspension reading both the school and state policy on sexual harrassment.

I just need to work my ass off

I'm still in rough shape over the death of bear bait.  I rolled over this morning and wished I had a dog to walk.  I considered walking without her, but didn't think I oculd do it without an emotional outburst.  I feel guilty just thinking about it.   I put the news on instead and happened on the part where they show shelter dogs who need to be adopted.  I am so tempted, but I told myself I wouldn't get another dog until after this MFA program is over.  Too much travelling.   I have to find a way to walk without a dog by my side.  Maybe next week I'll try for the park near Josh's school.  Not yet though.  Next week there will be more leaves up and I will be less likely to see other dog owners.  

Well, here I am crying just thinking about it.

In other news, I am struggling to figure out what to do for a second act in my photography work.  The director of the program told me my work with the husband was complete, which came as a shock to me, I was dumb founded, tongue tied, unable to even respond.  Here I was, shooting this deeply personal work, and I had achieved my goal without even realizing it?  I am not able to judge my work.  Have to get better at that!  

I am chomping at the bit to get back to work, but I'm not sure which direction to go.  My work on lake guy did not impress, but I knew that it might not going in.  I need to shake up my approach.  Can I do it?  Not sure, it would require me shooting in a vein I have never explored before, and also it would require lake guy's cooperation.  I'll speak with him on Tuesday to see how he feels about another approach.  

three weeks tomorrow

So, it was easy not to think about bear bait when I was in Berlin at my last school session for 2 weeks.  Once someone asked about her and naturally I cried, so they changed topics at the first chance and I was relieved because I am not ready to discuss, at least not without a big box of kleenex nearby.

Coming home was another story.  I started to cry when the plane landed and I imagined walking into the house and not being greeted by her.  Now I tear up every time I think she is going to be racing me to the door, or waiting for me to come in or lying under my feet and she isn't or won't be.  Even this morning, I hesitated to put the hallway light on becuase I am always trying to choose the light that will disturb her the least when I am not ready to come downstairs and let her out of her crate.  The crate is still there, and I am working up the stomach to toss her old bed in the trash and collapse and crate for storage in case there is some other dog in my future, which there probably will be.  Doglessness feels so weird, but in a bad way.

I wish I knew if she was happy in heaven or just that I did the right thing by having the vet put her down.  When I talked about bear bait with my cleaning lady and told her I had taken some photos of bear bait at the end and could see her face wasn't right, either the pain or the drugs had deadened her eyes and stolen her light, the cleaning lady said she had seen the same loss the last time she saw bear bait.  If bear bait could only send me a message and let me know that she is running in the grass and happily rolling in mud and deer poop all the while lapping up muddy puddles and happy as a puppy then I would feel better about everything.

I am going to cull all of my many bear bait photos together and make a nice coffee table book.   It won't be the story of her life, just some photos of her stepping into my landscape photos, always making them better, or frolicking so adorably that I just had to press the shutter.  Doing this will make me happy.  

My next dog better like being in front of the camera.  

written on 12/2/2006 and never posted

We needed a new remote (that is a whole long other angry post) and the husband picked a very funny very large one up at Br**kstone today. When he couldn't program that one, and the Dir*ct TV guy (last thing I need google hits for) was no help, he went to the electronics store and got one in the same brand as our tiv0 receiver. He couldn't program that one either. Here is the conversation that followed his unsuccessful attempt at programming the second remote.

husband: (Enter kitchen hanging head in unmanly shame) I can't program the new remote.

clickmom: (Rolls eyes simulating a perfect teenage attitude- holds out hand, juts out hip) I'll program the remote, just give it to me.

husband: (muttering) I hate it that you can do these things better than me.

clickmom: yeah, yeah

husband: (makes the "I have a secret" smile) It's like the other day when I was locked in the garage and I couldn't get out. I was banging on the door and calling for help. No one heard me.

clickmom: (face brightens with smile of heavenly delight) When?

husband: (blushes) The other day, when I had to ask you how to raise the garage door.

clickmom: You were locked IN the garage?? (snicker snicker)

husband: Yeah. (averts gaze)

clickmom: IN?!?!

husband: yes

clickmom: (suppressing laughter and delighting in imagining the torturous possibilities of a husband locked IN the garage) And how did you get out?

husband: Evan came and opened the door for me.

clickmom: (screams) Evan, we need to talk.

Twelve days

Every day I wake up and count how many days its been since I had the vet put bear bait to "sleep". I'm still feeling guilty about making that choice even though after the worst of the grieving wore off I realized the severity of the downward spiral she had been on. I can't even use the phrase "she died" because I do feel bad about killing her.

In the mean time I am in Berlin with my MFA program. There is some weird high school like social dynamic going on in the group and this saddens me deeply. We have the opportunity here to learn so much from each other and not everyone is playing nice. If I ran a group I would make cohesiveness a priority. I just can't stop thinking about how much we are missing out on by being divided.

Speaking of being divided, last night after being coerced by our director to have a drink together after classes everyone ended up eating bar food. I can't eat bar food so I slipped out with my foodie friend and we went to a Michelin rated restaurant. I had huge white asparagus and sauerbraten . I'm pretty over German food right about now. I am longing for things that are poached and steamed.

I like this city more than I imagined I would. Mostly I like the architecture and how everywhere you turn there is a playground. Even in the cemeteries. Also, Germans seem to have remarkably well behaved dogs. I've only seen one on a leash, the rest just walk calmly down the sidewalk with their owners. Those are my kind of dogs.

Dec 21, 2013

Two nights ago I opened the cabinet under the kitchen dink to discover water. A lot of it. Enough that there was a puddle in the basement. I called the plumber who listened carefully and told me how to fix it temporary until he could get here next week. I reattached the pipes and propped the loose pipe up with a big can of bug and tar windshield spray.

This morning was the first day of vacation for the boys. Guess who managed to set her alarm last night. Instead of a long cozy slumber I was eyes wide open at 6:15.

After an afternoon out and about with the family I came home to prepare dinner. I kept smelling something awful and I thought it was the stainless steel cleaner that the housekeeper uses in the fridge. But it got stinkier and stinkier. Then I opened that same cabinet Zmd heard a big hissing noise.

Folks, don't prop up your pipes with cans that have not quite hard plastic tops. Because the tops will slowly squash down causing your windshield spray to constantly spray out the whole can and you'll end up with a stinking kitchen and a cabinet covered with bug and tar remover.

Starbucks cup to the rescue.