clickmom

tricks

I've been thinking a lot about my old (two times ago) dog, the best dog ever, lately because sweet pea is such an exceptional dog too.  They have in common that they were both solid black.  I don't understand why people don't want black dogs.  I hate being covered with white or tan dog hair.  The hair is still there but at least the black doesn't show!

Once, back in the olden days before we had kids, the husband and I were at scumcle's house with my parents for a weekend and the husband and I went upstairs to take a nap.  When we came back down a couple of hours later my mom had taught the best dog ever to give paw.  She also gave him an entire box of biscuits during her training, but I was so happy that she taught him a trick that I tried to hide my shock about feeding him whole box of dog biscuits.

So, a couple of days ago I was walking with sweet pea in the woods when we bumped into a dog friend.  I chatted with the owner as we strolled (or more accurately - I baby stepped my way through ice patches) when suddenly sweet pea was no where to be found. I called and called for her and she did not come running, like she always does.  Just then my phone rang in my pocket and I just knew it was someone who had gotten my phone number off of her dog tag. And it was! It was woman who lives on the perimeter of the park. Now, you should know that I am (cough cough) somewhat familiar with the yards of the people who live on the perimeter of the park because sometimes ... I look.  And sometimes I might encourage my dog to hop the park fence and "say hello" to the lovely looking incredibly friendly and playful yellow labs that are out there all alone, and sometimes other people point out your addition and renovations to me. She said sweet pea had somehow gotten into her pool enclosure (have I ever mentioned my suspicion sweet pea is part kangaroo?) so I apologized and I waited for her to either scold me or tell me something and she said that sweet pea was confused and didn't know where she was.  Which is kind of hilarious. Proudly, I held me laughter at bay. Sweet pea knows that back yard like the back of her paw.  She's in it a couple of times a week easily! I am assuming that sweet pea was actually unnerved by the lady holding her still while she got my number off of her tags.  I said I "thought" I knew where she lived (I totally knew who she was -she yelled at me once for stepping on her driveway while I was photographing trees) and I would walk towards her while calling for sweet pea, so she should let her return to me.  Sweet pea was back in a flash and not entirely traumatized by the capture in the pool area or by being held captive for a minute judging by her immediate sprint off into the distance after a squirrel.

Then yesterday I took sweet pea to a new woods, because the BIL had hip replacement surgery (cue bionic man soundtrack) and his wife managed to slip in the ice and break her wrist (been there, done that, storm of '96) so I went out there to walk their dog, somewhat affectionately I will call him MANIAC, with sweet pea.  The dog walking woods/park near their house has a lake (keeping in mind that despite looking like she surely has a chunk of lab in her sweet pea has no desire to swim and will only run in water a couple of inches deep-and only if it is completely still) and naturally, illegally, I took sweet pea off of the leash.  She got close to the edge of the water and I didn't quite notice she had gotten over the edge (recalling- there is/was ICE here) until I heard the crack of breaking ice and then sweet pea was standing in water up to her back. I called to her, so she would swim out of the water and she broke through the rest of the thin ice and made to shore and looked down at her wet self and then looked at me with an expression that could only be read as "what.the. F.U.C.K.? I'M WET?"  It was pretty funny and this time she heeded the warning and stayed clear of the frozen lake.

I'm going to teach her some tricks.

 

thanks internet

Someone showed up at the dog park today with her sister from washington dc.  The sister told me how everyone is walking around like they are going to a funeral. I still feel that way too.   Except I feel like it is my own funeral. I just can't seem to adopt the "it's only four years and government moves slow, he won't be able to do that much damage" perspective because not only do I not believe that but I am also quite concerned about the hateful every day people who are going to start acting up right now.  Also, nuclear war. Why can't I just sleep for four years!?!?!?

I am just so freaking sad and so freaking frustrated that I can barely express it.  If only there was one thing for me going in a great direction right now..... like a lottery win.  I sit around and fantasize about all of the good things I could do with a ridiculous amount of money- like help kids and women's issues.  I would be such a generous lottery winner!  I don't need a fancy car or anything crazy, I'd just want to not have to worry and then be benevolent.  Giving other people the opportunity not to worry would make me so happy.

Other good things that could be happening for me right now are: getting recognized for my stellar photography, the husband being instantly cured and jumping off the couch and going back to work, Evan going off to a solid college, and Matt calling me every once in a fucking while. At least it looks like Evan will likely be off to a legit college in the fall.  

Ok.... I'm forcing myself to think mundane thoughts.

The amazing brisket I made for the first night of chanukah lasted three nights. (it was an 8 pound brisket...)  The first two nights we had it straight, but tonight I soaked it in barbecue sauce and we had pulled brisket sandwiches.  If I even remotely liked red meat I'd make it as a regular dish but now I feel like I'll be carrying the stench of red meat with me for a few days so I might have eat vegetarian or take mineral salt baths to get rid of it.  The other thing that I can smell when I eat it is cow's milk.  Yuck!! When all of these pesky kids move out I am going full out vegetarian/borderline vegan.  I've just had more meat in my life than I can stand. It's so gross. I am somewhat disappointed that we didn't get chinese food for either christmas eve or christmas day but I'm sure we will order it some day this week. I just don't feel like cooking, ever, and if no one was around to cook for I'm pretty sure I would be on a raw vegetarian diet just because I would be so happy not to cook. In my imagination I get very happily thin when I don't have to prepare food for other people.  This is a critical flaw in thinking since I do not have to prepare the dark chocolate or frozen dairy free confections that magically make their way into my freezer every time I get back from the store. I think I need LSD therapy to deal with my flawed relationship with food.  I'm going to figure out how to volunteer for a study.

Also, I have some ideas about getting creative with images I already shot.  I just need to figure out how I am going to mount them so I can rephotograph them.  But I just had a brainstorm as I typed the word mount, so hurray for me internet!  I know what to do now!!  Oh my goodness.  I am very excited. I owe you vast emptiness.  

 

yesterday's photo

There is something which totally satisfies me when I make food which my grandmother would give her nod of approval too.  Last night's latkes came out really good even though as I headed home from an afternoon stroll with sweet pea I realized I had forgotten to pick up more oil (which is a complete ironic Chanukah joke since OIL what the holiday is based on) and then by some miracle (because it was christmas eve as well as chanukah) trader joe's was open but the shelves were cleared out of all the regular oil, like peanut and canola, so I grabbed a jar of coconut and a bottle of super expensive avocado.  Latkes with coconut oil is weird, but tasty with the addition of applesauce.  I went with the surprisingly neutral tasting avocado for all but the three testers I used coconut for. It was fine and even better was the air in the house was not as heavy with oil today as it usually is the day after a latke making adventure.

I was going to grab a run of the mill brisket earlier in the week, but the only couple left were tragically sad looking so I went all the way in the other direction and ordered one from the real butcher who only sells organic pasture raised meats.  Holy mother of all things wonderful.  This was hands down the best brisket of my brisket making life. I wish I could have served it to grandma. Now I feel as if I must find other recipes to make with this quality meat, such as an exact replica of Katz's pastrami before they ruined it by using the chewy oddest fattiest less than stellar cuts of brisket they could find.  The last couple of times I was there I was seriously disappointed, and you don't want to be disappointed when you're buying ridiculously expensive food.  You know?  But I am the kind of girl who would go to the effort of making her own, I just have to figure out how it is done.

So many things are making me sad these days, if it isn't about the husband, it's Matt's total distancing himself from me, or Evan's unhappiness with being here instead of having the college adventure he wanted so badly to have right after high school OR the fact that trump won the electoral college, which feels like backwards land since the electoral college is there to protect us from people exactly like trump.  What the hell? Nothing makes sense anymore. I know that our world is going to be in a disaster after January 20th and I just feel like we all might as well throw our end of world parties and prepare for the end.  I got it bad.  I don't want to live in the world this evil man is going to create. But if I do have to die of radiation poisoning I would way rather do it a the lake than here in new town so I hope the end of the world happens while we still own the lake property.

Latkes

slide

I don't know if you remember that uncomfortable day when I ended up standing around with two pathetic, sad and lonely older women who began discussing their passion for their pure bred dogs in such a way that you could substitute race names for pure bred names and it would have been a total nazi discussion.  It seemed as if they were white supremacists speaking in coded language using dog breeds instead of race names. Sweet pea and I were trying to pity them instead of being offended, but they were speaking rather offensively and I, personally, was not successful. Sweet pea on the other hand measures a person's goodness by their generosity with treats and willingness to share their water bottles. So, I can't speak for sweet pea.  The looney in the next paragraph packs both treats and water.

Well. I was walking with one of the older women today and after a rather pleasant and benign discussion about our outerwear and the merits of wearing spikes on your boots during the ice season we got on the topic of her severe environmental and seasonal allergies.  I suggested she move to the desert and she said she would rather move to Vermont or New Hampshire to get away from a certain ethnic group. I asked her which one and I was hoping she said Jews so I could sing to her in hebrew some tune I memorized from saturday morning services but tragically and not surprisingly she answered with a group that the orange one often attacks too. In short, she is tired of THEM coming here and getting everything for free (oh the ignorance!) when she pays taxes, which I highly doubt she pays since she is a nanny for some rich family who live in a pretty much all white town near by and my guess is she gets paid cash which goes straight into her pocket and never declared.  I told her that no one was going to get deported and there would be no wall. I could see the green smoke coming from her ears.  Also I won't even repeat the names she called our current excellent president.  I totally pissed this low life human off by suggesting to her that she might want to diversify her news sources since Faux News is 75% factually inaccurate and then I may have pushed her over the edge when I ask what else she did not like about our good president besides his color.  I suggested that maybe she was unhappy with record low unemployment rates or record high stock market numbers and I didn't even get to reel off any other of his really big accomplishments before she stormed off screaming about obamacare (the chance of this woman not being on medicare is about 0-so I kind of hope things get temporarily fucked up just so all of the orange fanatics get some sense scared into them) and yelling so passionately that her arms were flailing around as she stormed her way back to the parking lot.  

I may have taken her anger and used it as a lubricant to slide her over the edge.

Oops.

I'm not putting up with any ignorant shit from anyone. Not going to let anything slide. Enough is enough.

 

dissatisfaction

I know that entering juried contests and calls for entries online is not the only way to get my name into the wonderful word of please buy my photos so I can justify making more.  And I'm more than just a tad bit annoyed that I got an entire MFA and they never even began to address how to begin getting our toes in the door.  Damn I want my money back!  Also, they prided themselves on making the MFA program revolve around the photobook and only the photobook and I am realizing more and more that they did us quite the disservice by not offering a multidisciplinary approach.  Oh well.  At least I can still say things like When I got my first master's degree.... and be all sorts of appearing to be extraordinarily educated.  Hahahaha.  Little does the world know that that MFA education was merely an endurance test of how much psychological torture I can put up with without crumbling.  The answer to that is A LOT. (Take for example..my life!)

I got my haircut yesterday and I'm pretty sure it was the first time since last April.  The bottom two inches of my hair was practically crunchy.  Chop chop. I'm going to see how little I can blow dry my hair all winter.  I usually pass on the blower over the summer, cause my head never freezes in the summer, but in the winter I prefer not to ice my scalp, but I think I am just going to get through this winter with gross dirty hair in a pony tail in an effort to blow dry it as little as possible.  Then next spring I'll chop a serious amount off of the ends.  My big plan is to let the hair get annoyingly long and then dye the tips of it some insane color for my niece's bat mitzvah because she asked me to when I told her I almost did that as a surprise for her older sister's bat mitzvah.  I probably shouldn't have said anything if I wasn't in the mood to do it ever but I did and you know how much I love to make the kids happy. Also, I feel like I am about to turn the corner of no return into the land of needing to look my age and dress respectable and so far people are still telling me I don't look as geriatric as I feel, so it's pretty much now (as in next May) or never. Which is an odd thing to say about something I don't particularly want to do.  I recognize the perplexity. 

Speaking of how I look, I am really sporting a disastrous combination of layers this winter, and even more frightening than the bag lady dog walker look I sport every morning is the insane and on drugs bag lady look I sport in the afternoon when I don't do things like untuck my sweat pants (the ones I pull from the donate pile every single winter when it gets cold and I think about how cozy they are despite their bell bottom legs, not mentioning they are the color of vomited up dog food) from my wool socks for fear of a cold breeze hitting my ankles but throw on some old clogs as I walk out the door because I don't have time to lace up the boots which would have partially concealed my unusual fashion choices. And then I throw on my shredded dog park coat because it's more snuggly than the new clean (not ripped to pieces or splattered with muddy paw prints) coat.  But really, my hiking boots are the most comfortable footwear I own and I'm starting to wear them more than just to the woods. It's kind of hilarious how much I do not fit the new town mold.  Ladies here wear tennis skirts, not hiking boots. Also, they don't walk around with greasy unwashed pony tails to prepare for tip dipping their hair for the niece's bat mitzvah.

Where are my people?  I wonder where I will land next. I feel like I would totally fit in in the city but somewhere along the line I got used to the quietness of not being in the city and also the woods are such a source of comfort to me.  I really do feel like I don't have a place anywhere.  This make me sad.

Here is a secret- I was destined to be near the woods.  I remember telling my mother I wanted to be an artist and she told me that art was not a career.  I said that the only other thing I could imagine doing was being a park ranger.  I really felt that I could be happy working in a national park somewhere. (except for the bloody awful man pants and button down shirt I would have to wear)  I wonder what my life would have been like if I never listened to her and became a park ranger/artist?  I bet that would have been fulfilling.

 

 

a year

So many things get me down lately. I can't stand to watch the news. That doesn't stop Evan and the husband to from putting it on whenever they want, if I am nearby or not, and then leave it on even if the news casters are doing that bizarre thing where they are talking about stump like he's legitimate and might possibly be interviewing candidates for his cabinet that have any qualifications other than the possibility of making more money for his investments/businesses which he plans on keeping even though it is a conflict of interest. It's all way too much for me to handle and it makes my head want to explode.

Also, the idiots who are running around screaming IT'S STUMP'S WORLD NOW and victimizing other human beings? The first thing I would do if I had to take over would be to call any "hate crime", white supremacist nonsense, alt-right bull shit what it is and that would be Internal Terrorism and lock those dumb fucks up. You can't be PC with people like that. It just feeds the beast.

I went to a Meet and Greet the other day. It was for FTD families. Talk about a ride I don't want to be on! Holy hell. My life is now defined by being trapped on a never ending carnival ride which simply morphs from one terrifying scenario to another. In some ways it was great to talk and listen to people who know what kind of twilight zone of horror this ride has become and on the other hand it's pretty depressing hearing stories of the FTD victims who have progressed farther down the line from the husband.

However, I am thinking more about humanity these days. I went down tot he meeting in the city on the train with a guy who lives near by and who has a wife with the disease. On our way back the train was standing room only. We had gotten to the platform early enough to get a seat about three rows away from the door area.

I was doing some serious people watching and was all prepared to tell you in excruciating detail about the woman sitting in our row who took out disposable coffee cups with lids and poured glasses of wine from various bottles for her and her three friends. Or all the drunk children in Santa costumes because it was that day when young people dress up in Santa costumes and go from bar to bar getting drunk. As we chugged along I noticed that one of the standing people was an older woman who was showing signs of distress. She was unwrapping her scarf and sinking lower and generally looking kind of faint as she fought to remain standing there. There were two rows of young, loud chatting girls between me and her but the girls were in their own world. There were also not very old people sitting underneath the sign that declared the seats were reserved for elderly or handicapped people in the seats right beside this older woman. Sensing an urgent situation, I stood up and called out to the young girls to tap the arm of the older lady. When the older woman looked my way I offered her my seat and she pushed people away to get to me while I crawled over people to get out of the window seat. She took my seat and immediately passed out with her head against the window. I heard one of the young girls say to the others that was so niiiiiiice as if it was shockingly unusual to let an old person sit. I wanted to mother the girls and give them a little lecture. Instead I just ket an eye on the older woman until I got off the train, except when another standing passenger actually did hit the ground but that was because she may have weighed 96 pounds soaking wet and she smelled like a whiskey factory. I gave her a spare plastic bag I had to puke in because I knew the last thing the train crew needed at the end of the day was to clean up some scrawny princess's whiskey puke. I could sleep for a year.

why I need a support group

On Saturday I went into the city to a "Meet and Greet" for people (caregivers, friends and family) affected by FTD (Frontotemporal Demetia- the disease which the doctors have apprehensively assigned to the husband).  Interesting that one of the more typical symptoms, because it can affect people in slightly different ways, is a total lack of self awareness, which really rears it's head as the sufferers being incapable of understanding that they themselves have this (or any) disease.  Two women brought their husbands, one who was newly diagnosed and one who was diagnosed 9 years ago.  The one with the almost decade long ride in FTD hell, mostly sat placidly with a glazed (another symptom of the later stages) expression listening to the conversation.  He understood the room was gathered to discuss FTD and leaned over to his wife and whispered "Which one of us has FTD?"  

My husband, also finds it incomprehensible that he has a diseased brain but instead of sitting and cooperating he is going down a more irritated road, one on which he has decided that I have created this imagined diagnosis because I am cruelly wishing him to die. Naturally, he thinks he is going to live forever. When I got back from the meeting the husband, in his "You are such a joke" voice, asked me if I was successful (wink wink) in convincing a room full of strangers that he has FTD. 

It's like living in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and the husband plays multiple characters. This shit could drive a girl over the edge, because in his alternate reality he is so assured of what he believes that I end up asking myself AM I THE CRAZY ONE?  Then I remember that the crazy people do not question their sanity- only the sane people do and I'm steady for a while.

At the meet and greet I met a woman whose husband is going through this disease the exact same way the husband is.  That was reassuring because it seemed that no one was questioning her husband's diagnosis. (I suppose the one who is questioning my husband's diagnosis is him... so really ... but still... these things wear a girl down) Don't get me wrong, I do not want to be in this club, I do not want to be in any club which ends in miserable death and requires a support group, and most of all I spurn any role which requires me to be the nurse.  Seriously, I only have so much of that in the reserves.  I guess I take after my mother more than I realized! 

Did I ever mention how when my kids were 2,6 and 10 and I got out of the hospital still sick with double pneumonia lil sis had to guilt our mother into flying in to take care of me and after two days she said I was fine and tried to schedule her flight back because she said my dad needed her more than I did? I begged her not to leave and she only stayed one extra day. My guess is that there was a party she didn't want to miss. Or maybe something even more important like a manicure. (Guess who rocks at holding onto resentment even after people are dead for 8 years!) I feel like my mom.  I want to get on a plane and go to a party or maybe have a manicure.

Sometimes when I fill up the gas tank I think of just how blissfully far away I could be from here on one tank of gas.

 

 

busy day

So, I tried to have to most productive day since I simultaneously completed my hand made thesis photobook and partially wrote my thesis on the same day.

Got sweet boy Josh off to school on time! (boo ya!), walked sweet pea (though not in the woods and for two hours), went back for a follow up visit with an orthopedist at the walk in orthopedic clinic (which I have decided is way too sub par for me) and listened to him explain to me how I have stage two arthritis in my knees (which means that it hurts now, instead of stage one which is the beginning stages, and also there is a somewhat pronounced bone spur on each one) and how landing on them when I fell was like tossing a match (the injury) onto some kindling (the arthritis) and how now I have a fire burning (which could be true since the left one is literally still warm to the touch) and the one thing that would be the equivalent to a bucket of water on the raging fire which is my knees would be a cortisone injection, or there are pills, (which I immediately dismissed, because I'm not going down the pill road for anything not life threatening) and oh so many more colorful similes tot he point of ridiculousness, I hopped off the table and pretty much said You know what?  I'm gonna wait this one out! because if I did allow someone to slide a needle full of steroids into my knees it wasn't going to be this guy.

Then I stopped by a discount store where I purchased a new winter coat because my old winter coat has been shredded by dog nails.  So now I will have a new fresh winter coast to wear anywhere except the dog park and an old winter coat to wear exclusively to the dog park because while I may have joked about looking like a homeless lady in the past the level of shred on the old winter coat is beyond anything I can get away with and not expect not to be handed a free sandwich by a concerned citizen. (Cause you know, I look so hungry-hahahaha)

Then I got my teeth scraped and my gums grated  cleaned at the oral surgeon's office because they go all heavy duty on me in foolish hopes of saving my teeth.

Then I decided to do something heroic and show up for a cheek swab to see if I am a match to a local girl who needs a bone marrow donation.  I even decided that I would enter the national registry- because, why not?  I got to the place where they were swabbing cheeks for DNA and the lady in charge was just finishing giving her spiel to a couple of 20 years old gorgeous kids.  Then as they took some time to look over the paper work, she turned to me and started in again on her routine.  First thing out her mouth was "To be a donor one has to be between the ages of 18 and 44" Oh, I said.  I'm too old.  She stood there blank faced. She said Really?  I nodded and then the most charming young man ever, looked up from his paper work and said I would have never pegged you for being over 44.  I told him his mother raised him well. Good thing I had my fake denture teeth in because I walked out of there grinning from ear to ear.

Then I went to a place to check out their reading glasses because I damaged my current favorite pair. I thought I had googled the excellent 15 dollar glasses brand I currently wear except I googled a different 75 dollar brand and as soon as I realized it I mumbled something about an appointment and slithered out the door of the store.

Then I went to the ordinary dentist to have molds taken of my weird crooked bite and my missing tooth space because IT'S TIME FOR TEMPORARY PERMANENT FAKE TEETH!  Oh my god, if this comes true I might be actually able to smile a real smile without worrying that my denture teeth will fall out of my mouth before christmas, which is not my holiday but who cares!! She also filled two cavities and I walked out of there with a paralyzed smile and a swollen upper lip.

Then I went grocery shopping on my way home, rested for ten seconds, loaded the dishwasher and threw a load of laundry into the machine and wrote this post. Now I will prepare a gastronomical feast for the family. (At least that is what I tell them it is as I slide a plate in front of them)

I have earned the right to an early bed time tonight.

know this

Things you should know:

1. The inside of my arm is still eggplant and also a wee bit tender.
2. Sweet pea (and my bedroom) both still have just a touch of eau du skunk to them.  The bedroom has been febreezed, and had a bowl of vinegar set into the midst of it, and all bedding used the night of the skunking is still sitting on the front porch while I decide if it is special enough to consider an attempt at resuscitation via laundering.  Sweet pea has received another round of bathing.
3. I'm still thinking that I will not leave the tri-state area until the world settles down (as in elects a sane- not hate mongering president.)  If humanity manages to survive, that is.  I'm kind of pissed because I'm not in love with the nutmeg state. 
4. And no new ghost sightings or even hearings, I think I may have scared him away by seeing him.  Which is kind of disappointing as I am lonely for company which is not related to me.