The Year in short

In 2009, I:

* Lost my Great-Grandma.
* Gained 2 nephews and 2 boy cousins. Developing suspicions about nationwide epidemic of male sperm. (fault = corn syrup, probably.)
* Had one close call with death.
* Lost 10 lbs. Gained 4.
* Went to the opera with my mom.
* Was on the news; apologized to Anchorman McHandsomepants for 'turning into a squirrel'. (Smooth)
* Signed two book contracts, produced 42 illustrations. Did not work on graphic novel.
* Took up quilting and sewing, in continued efforts to Keep Busy and Not Think About Things.
* Knitted two cardigans and several useless hoodies for the baby, ripped out the fingerless gloves I discovered myself making for someone I oughtn't. Also knitted tiny mouse sweaters (ornaments) for mother-in-law, and retracted all the bad things I said about knitting scarfs.
* Slapped ex-husband in the face twice, cried 4 times.
* Learned to remove graffiti/skin with exciting chemicals.
* Made a new girlfriend. Womanfriend. Pal. (Why do men get "bromance"? "Ho-mance" is not so good.)
* Reconnected with cousins and uncle.
* Turned 30, with sense of relief. And bad hair cut.
* Ate terrible ceviche.
* Ate fantastic quail eggs.
* Read 3 books. Partway-read another 30 or so. Wrote a few chapters of 2.
* Accidentally weaned infant from just one side of my bosom.
* Cheered infant's learning to crawl and walk.
* Cheered Gavin's first ride on the motorcycle (no cheers for the second ride, when he tried to fall asleep and slip off).
* Enjoyed 8 different kinds of home-brewed beer.
* Didn't throw up.
* Resisted making an ass of myself on the internet. Pretty much.
* Caught poop with my hand.

And look! One of my hobos gave me a muu muu.



And now I can add "got body lice" to that list.

Hopes for new year include:

* No family or friends dying.
*Finding something on tv that ignites hysteria and obsession, the way Battlestar did for the first 2 seasons.
* Losing last 5 lbs. Ok, 9. My aunt sent a box of Big Turk, it couldn't be helped.
* Seeing old friends and family on the mainland, buying overpriced crap from Purl Soho and that fish & chips place we saw on the food network.
* Finding self back on Oahu during bronze-casting season.
* Working on book #4. Maybe effing GRAPHIC NOVEL.
* Getting back into yoga.
* No, fuck yoga.
* Using my bag of plastic eyeballs and noses.
* Finishing the UFOs in my sewing cupboard; actually trying projects from my collection of craft books. Probably not the one for menstrual pads, though.
* No more babies. At least not until mankind learns to produce female sperm again. 

* Eating a new food. Maybe some exotic cheese, or grits.

You get the idea.

happy knitmas

While picking up my mom on Wednesday in Kahului, we passed a teen clothing store with a bulky knit scarf draped around a pointy headless mannequin. "That is backwards. Can't they see it is backwards?" We marched into the store and informed the tiny surprised salesgirls that the scarf was displayed backwards. They did not care, but reversed it anyway. I actually wanted to buy it, but my mother said, "A knitter does not buy a scarf! You will buy yarn and knit it yourself!"

So I did.

Knitting with size 13 needles is like knitting with the legs of a small animal. That is probably how bulky knitting was invented.

The infink and I have been left alone while my mom and the kiddo are dropped off at the airport. Suddenly Leif has stopped screaming and going boneless and refusing to eat, and is dancing and laughing and slurping noodles again. I guess he hates holidays and family togetherness.

I'll keep him anyway.

criminal masterminds

Vandals possessed by the holiday spirit decorated the campus last night. I drove over this morning to assess the damage to the library.

Our windows got the worst of it. Tagging your own name is just the funniest shit ever.

Hurr.

The front door was also pretty specific.

And signed. With a handy zip code.

I knew a guy in high school who claimed he was a Crip because he met a black person once. Mm hmm.

Waited around for the cops for a bit.

Got bored and went to find cops. Found a small one who sniffed my fingers.

Waited to give Officer Snifferdog my number.

Helpfully searched for clues.

Conclusions: the perps hated toilet paper, and were probably not trees.

Tomorrow I get to play with the special cans of ultra-caustic chemicals in the back room which I have been forbidden from touching up until now - yay!

Christmas 2009

5:00am. After a night of coughs and crying at 30-minute intervals, the baby flipped in his sleep to nurse just as Gavin's feet sneaked into the hallway. I listened from the bed as the family whispered in the livingroom and the light of the tree illuminated the doorway, and Gavin came tiptoeing in to hop eagerly at the edge of the bed and run out again. When the baby was asleep again I popped him off and rolled off the smushy new mattress topper with barely a creak. The family quietly cheered for me. We watched the boy rip into Santa's gifts, opening up the treats tucked into our stockings. When Leif made an angry noise from the bed, I picked him up and waved him at his pile of goodies until he was confused into silence.

The next few hours were the same as millions of Christmas mornings over the miles and through the years, and we were laughing over our coffee cups as we picked through the wrappings to sit at the table with steak and eggs and mimosas.

We shredded potatoes with the new attachments for the kitchenaid I found under the bathroom sink (sent on a hunt by a clue and a piece of the machine in a small jewelry box), my mom stomped around in her new Harley Davidson motorcycle boots, Gavin set up a motion detector to startle the cats, and Leif cooked with his new plastic mixer and microwave. In the afternoon, we ran outside to push Gavin around on his new bike, my mom took off on the motorcycle for a joyride, and Leif ran up and down the driveway until his knees were scratched off.

In the evening we threw together a meat pie and sat around the living room to watch Rudolph while the cats rolled drunkenly in catnip. The baby was grouchy and snorgling on snot as he fell asleep on my chest, so I committed a parental sin and laid him on a pillow to keep his head tilted. And then a Christmas Miracle: Leif slept through the night without waking once. For 12 hours. I'm still happy about it.

And now the year rolls past us again, and the days will grow longer. Time to pack up the lights and put away the music and get back to life. Well, it's alright. Every day is just one day.

christmas eve

Loverly day! Auntie sent chocolate hedgehogs, which caused me to burst into giggles. Hedgies!



After collecting dust for 3 years, the booze checkers finally made an appearance. I lost. Absurd.


Building family values.

The beast is a-roasting, the grownups are a-toasting, and the kiddos are a-ssaulting the cats and christmas tree. I seem to have been left alone to guard the meats while the fambly savages the post office, left with stern instruction by man-person to "not send any drinky emails". Am not. Am watching meat. The one in the oven.



See?

But I am tipping my nog to the ones I love.

7th birthday

The kiddo keeps aging.

He used to be this:


At 7, Gavin no longer speaks with soft Rs. He still loves cats, and kisses pictures of kittens. He was very upset by the episode of Star Wars: the Clone Wars with the nose-worms, and still needs someone to sleep with him at night so the "men with axes in the closet" don't get him.


The advent calender coughed up cash and omelets

This was our first year with real children and a real kid party. With a piñata. And pizza. And Gavin punching his 'girlfriend' in the head from the bottom of a 4-person dogpile.

Gavin invited the tiny redhead who is the constant butt of jokes and kid cruelty, on which I have ranted frothily. One of his friends groaned as she climbed from the car, and Gavin said, "Oh, come on, she's a good kid. My mom used to be called 'Holly Germs', and she turned out ok. Besides, she'll grow up to be really pretty." He listens!

Leif went crazed with cardboard bloodlust, and only got clocked in the head with a bat once.



We overloaded the piñata and had to hoist it up with rubber tubing. It wasn't quite as hard to bludgeon open as the time someone made one out of chicken wire, but it was a close thing.

The kiddo made sure Leif had a present to unwrap, too, and the little plastic toaster drew as much excitement as the remote-control R2-D2. First graders are fun because there is as much baby left in them as cursing big kid. There was a mini cake wreck and cupcakes, Mike made the pizza dough.

7 is also the legal age for becoming a motorcycle passenger. His friends were very impressed.




And then there was a Christmas program to attend. Gavin danced.


Gavin did not dance.
 

9 kids. Pandemonium. Sticks. Screams, bursting balloons. Beer left in freezer, leaking, needing drinkening. Sleepy now.

conversations

As I prepared my morning tea, I spotted a can of Diet Sprite in the staff fridge.
"Is that my soda in the fridge?" I asked.
My janitor said, "I think so, I took it out of the freezer." [pointed look, recalling last year's exploding soda-in-the-freezer incident."
"I would have denied it."
"Blame it on whoever's not here."
"Well, come on, it's been like a year since I've done anything stupid."
I sipped my tea, realizing as I did so that about 10 seconds previous, I had dumped oozy, curdled creamer in it, thinking, oh, what could happen?

A few minutes later. Still resolutely drinking the tea.
"What if I did the painting on Christmas Eve, when you guys are out on furlough?" said my janitor.
"Oh! You HAVE to!"
"What? Why?"
"Because Baby Jesus might come."
"Baby Jesus likes paint?"
"Yes, in Newfoundland everyone painted on Christmas Eve, because Baby Jesus might come over."
"Ok, but I don't know how well it'll air out by Monday."
"That's ok, people like the smell of fresh paint. It smells like Christmas. And Baby Jesus."
"That's true."


Adorable and fond of paint.

At home, Gavin waved his arms in exasperation over the ending of Astro Boy. "Who would be afraid of that?! It can't even hurt anyone, it was just a big floating eyeball covered in testicles! Come on!" Mike snorted and started laughing [on our first date, he told me calamari were squid testicles].

Men-types are fun.

Warmth and recovery

It has been pretty wonderful around here; the dead fridge rats have mummified and no longer smell (Mike waged psychological battle against fridge instead of finding something to pry the back off it), the neighbors had an interesting screaming/throwing fight (which we pressed ourselves to the floor to hear), and - more in the spirit of things - chocolate liquors and truffles and beautiful marbled steaks were procured, tree decorated, wreath hung, presents wrapped, eggnog and boozes consumed, holiday music warbled along with, romantical snuggling accomplished. Kind of perfect. 3 years ago, we were mixing cocktails to obliviate our break-up depression (awful); the next year I was newly pregnant, living alone and down with the flu (pretty terrible); last year we had an infant to go with the kid and had returned home to Hawaii (vast improvement); this year I feel I can relax into the season again. I think we had things pulled together enough to keep things jolly for the kiddo through all this, but thankfully my mom was there each time to cheer the boy, foist meat pie upon us, and hug me when I cried.

Knit one, skip ahead two

Have been having a renewed love affair with knitting, owing to the frigid weather (socks! I am wearing socks now!). Have been poring over patterns for slouchy leg warmers and bulky cowls, imagining myself as an achingly hip snowbunny in New York this winter. Realized that leg warmers are only good over skinny pants, of which I own exactly one pair. Possibly leg warmers would not be as hip worn around my ex-mother-in-law's house beneath a t-shirt and underpants. Subject requires more thought.

In the meantime, I've been watching Fargo and knitting scarfs for the offspring.






Or it could still be a cowl, it isn't too late.

mail

The cold has arrived, seeping in through the screen windows and driving our sleeping bodies deeper and deeper into the blankets. This morning I tiptoed to the kettle, despite the fact that yesterday the downstairs neighbor had stumbled and climbed over our patio blockade to complain about the baby playing with a spoon at 9:30am. (I have been mentally formulating retorts ever since. "Oh, sure, we'll stop letting the baby play - if YOU stop screaming FUCK YOU at each other and smoking pot all night", "Yeah well your hair is stupid", etc). Leif and I spent the morning under the couch blanket, texting and watching reruns of the Daily Show and working on our dance choreography. When it was time for work I looked for my warmest blouse, but unbuttoned it anyway when I drove by the line of construction men working on the highway, picking out one for each of my closest friends and family. I took the little one on the end, because he looked like he could fit easily in the trunk. The ocean was flat, brushed silver, smudging into a colorless mass of rain on the horizon. I counterbalanced it with Van Morrison, sha-la-la-la-ing to the post office. And then something spectacular happened. Ms. Apple sent me beaver panties. BEAVER PANTIES. With a stuffed gnome, viking, and pocketmouth. The stuffies were so excited, they did a dance on the post office counter, wrestled violently, and did a bit of kissing. I managed not to pull the underpants on over my pants in the middle of the post office, but it was a near thing. Reenactment:

 

  

 

Gnome and viking pretend things are not a bit weird between them now. 

 

  

 

I no longer care about the dead rats stuck in the back of the fridge. The man can fish them out; I will sit at work whispering secrets to the stuffie guard. Assuming they can stop texting each other long enough to pretend they are listening.

dates and disaster

The motorcycle was broken. I picked up the carburetor from the bike shop last week, breaking up the knot of burly salesmen and making them nervous by thumbing through a sluts-on-wheels calendar while the mechanic brought the part up. Yesterday, my mom wiped the grease off her hands and handed me my helmet instead of offering to test drive the bike with me. "Go for a ride with your husband." I no longer bother reminding people that he's not my husband; it's like complaining that your relatives still call you "baby". 

It's been a few years since I've been on the back of the bike. Mike patted my leg as we pulled onto the main road, and for a moment I imagined him patting his Bakersfield girlfriend's leg and had the sudden urge to grab him by the collar and throw him off the bike. Tipped back my head and smelled the wind, instead; barbecued chicken, horses, fields of cows, winter, ocean. We pulled off at the beach and walked onto the sand to look for the resident seal and pup. The beach was eerily empty, and the moon sat above Alau island like it had been hung there.

We drove on, and pulled over up the road where people with cameras stood behind a white rope. The seal pup was resting its nose on a log, its mother having just left it for the first time in seven weeks. "There are only a hundred in the islands, this is the first live birth we've had in 12 years!" The naturalists were excited, but the lonely baby made me anxious to return home. We drove back over the roaring river as the sky went pink and starry.

Then I learned that two of my patrons had been washed away during the rains on Thanksgiving night.

Article here.

Their vehicle was found mangled in a river bed near our house, their bodies lost. The same flooded river that claimed their nephew 10 years ago - also on a Thanksgiving night.

I had an intrusive thought, imagining the onlookers back at the beach, documenting the return of the mama monk seal, their happy whispers turning to screams as they zoomed in on the human arm in her teeth. Oh god, I'm a ghoul, I thought.

Today I returned my mother to the airport. Drove away alone, feeling sad. The roads were wet, and the dark spots on the pavement looked like an enormous skull as I passed over them. A tree had fallen across the road into the left lane, just by the sea cliffs. I nervously drove under the trunk, into high winds that broke branches and bamboo. The waterfalls were raging, and a fog rolled in. It smelled like snow, and I unrolled the windows to listen for landslides, grateful for the moon through the scraps of fog. Frightening weather. I thought about my lost patrons and their grieving families. I hope they find them soon.

Thanksbirthday 09

Yesterday

Pulled aside for two cops who were winding their way to town to reinforce the taut cord of civility behind which holiday madness lurked with rolling eyes and frothy mouth. I met a bit of said madness outside the strip mall where I sat eating a manapua at lunch, poking idly at my phone while a homeless man tried out different pet names for me until I picked up my drink and trotted away with a wave.

At dusk I threw my shopping into the trunk and collapsed in a booth at Krispy Kreme to suck down a cup of decaf and play with the free internet until my mom's flight arrived. "You're missing an eye!" she yelped as I pulled up. An absurdly young teenage clerk at Checker talked us into buying two headlights instead of just the one. I could not say no; he hadn't given me that sad car-savvy-man-face when it took me five minutes scrabbling around to find the lever to pop the hood. He had cheered.

My mother spun stories into the darkness as we drove home along the cliffs; crashed ships and escaped bodies and metal plates. I need to keep writing them down before they slip away.

Today

Quiet pre-dawn house, whispers and kisses, pattering feet and burbling coffee pot. The man-person whisked fresh hollandaise, I cut tomatoes and basil, my mom made chocolate royal icing from scratch. We drank two bottles of wine and ate ourselves into couch-stupors before the turkey was even in the oven.







The turkey kept us poking at it for 6 hours before deciding it was ready. We curled on the boy's bed to wait. "Mmmm, my hands smell like sage," said my mom. Gavin sniffed them and made an appreciative squeak, snuggling up to her neck. "Granny," he said tenderly, "Your face smells like age, too."

We descended upon the big table like wolves with cutlery, Gavin throwing up toasts to the broccoli casserole every few minutes against the chorus of classical Christmas music. The feast was idyllic, except that the rolls showed up completely smashed. Jerks.



I wanted to get pictures of the pumpkin-rum- and chocolate-pecan pies, but by the time I remembered, they looked like someone ate them with their face.

Also, the official Birthday Outfit was in action. With wizard sleeves. Fancy.



The storms have swept back in, shaking the house with thunder and lulling the household to sleep with the sussurus of rain on the leaky roof. Let's go, then, holidays.

no bling

Favorite pastimes in New York include hanging out at the Palisades Mall, counting teens in hoodies with gold foil dollar signs while making alternating trips into the Lindt store for free samples. This year the boy will fit right in. Note the small child wedged between my knees, which is my standard productivity position.

  

 Ta da! *fanfare of tinkling pennies*

 

14 hour blackout!

It was a dark and rainy day. I hid at the back desk.

Then - rain, thunder, roaring ocean! The library patrons froze like rabbits as the power flickered and died. We chased the rabbits out into the rain and locked the place down. On the way home, a soggy cop dragged a tree off the road and gestured for our cars to follow him, driving through flash floods and waiting for the rest of our sissy vehicles to make it safely through the waters.

We gathered all the stinky decorative candles and hid from the lightning under the couch blanket and told stories of Before You Were Born until the boys fell asleep and left us to read by booklight. (That last sentence is for Cormac McCarthy, who hates punctuation as much as he hates unicorns and puppy dogs - except to eat.)

I dreamed of light.

New stash

Adam Rex is growing a mustache for charity - get over there and give the man money. Don't do it for the kids, do it for me. I want to see the mustache.

I don't have any money, but I grew my own mustache in solidarity.

I expect this is a fairly accurate depiction as to the outcome of Adam Rex's 'stash.

Halloween 2009

Another magical holiday comes to a close.

We arrived in town, pulled the kids from the car, jammed the baby's hat back on his head, and Mike dropped his pants and put on elf trousers in the parking lot behind the hotel laundry. Mr. Ferrell he was not; he had accidentally sewed the wrong parts of the legs together, had a mishap with the hat band, and didn't manage to get any buttons on the jacket, but it was dark and his bits were all covered, so we counted it a success. (Though he did almost get thrown out a window for seaming the pants with my special metallic gold quilting thread.)

Our friends arrived, and the children took off ahead of us as we walked into the subdivision. The entire town turned out; the school kids giving me the hairy eyeball for appearing without my librarian disguise and skirting warily around the man-elf. Leif was unconvinced about the trick-or-treat bit, but dug around in his bucket and temporarily forgot to rip the hat off and beat me around the face with it. The streets were crowded with princesses, super heroes, and adults with beer holsters. We followed the kids up the two streets and back down them again, finished too soon, and went home to roll in the candy. That's how it goes in a small town.

I went over the pictures to see if my lazy supposed-to-be-ironic Twilight vampire sparkles had shown up, and saw that Mike had taken a bunch of pictures of some tart in a wig. Realized it was me.

I suppose Sandra Lee is about as scary as sparkly vampires. Oh well.

Not as fun as a night at my mom's house, but better than the year in the California apartment going door-to-door to sex predators and drunk college kids. The first kid is the practice one anyway; we should get it right by the time the second one makes permanent memories.

Disaster house

First off, my cat is a lunatic. And she thinks she is a dog.

Secondly, brownie is not a proper material for [haunted] gingerbread house construction.

The costumes for the kids are bought and sewed. I gave up on the elf costume, so the man has been bending over the sewing machine while I drink booze. "I will go as all the members of OK Go, and wear a vest and break into dance when people ask what I am." "Nobody will know what you're talking about." "Well you could do it with me, and we could do slo-mo choreographed fighting." "I am an elf." "Elfs dance." "Not so much."

Well what is this, then? I win.

I felt moody at the library today. An elderly guy asked for something on writing nonprofit policy, so I walked him over to the legal books. He frowned at the first ones I handed him. "These are all written by women. I guess women are lawyers more and more nowadays. I don't think it's right. Women didn't used to try to work in men's fields. But it's ok," he said, "I don't have many years left. I don't have to see it much longer." I carefully shelved the heavy NOLO book I was holding, and did not use it to hurry him on his way to the afterlife.

Stomped upstairs in the dark after work, and stopped when I heard the strum of a guitar, feeling an unexpected surge of anger. Shook it off, confused by my reaction. Stomp stomp stomp up the stairs in my boots - strum. I stopped again, looked around, inexplicably pissed off. The moon was bright enough to cast shadows, the neighbor's windows were dark. Stomp stomp stomp across the lanai to the door - no guitar. But the house smelled like Krispy Kreme. Mike came out of the bedroom, having put the baby to bed, and pulled homemade bread from the oven. Ok.

This is why I keep him around.

The mystery of the phantom Guitar of Anger remains.