Be Still My Heart

Big plans cooking for this weekend -

Bea and I are headed over to Ms. Q's for a Girl's Weekend of playing, sans men and children. Well, actually, I hear Senator Kennedy* is supposed to drop by for drinks on Saturday, so there will be one man.

I'm kind of excited about Senator Kennedy's* visit, since I have sort of a thing for him. I know he's married - so am I, for that matter. But a girl can dream, can't she?

I'm all busted up about the brain tumor - he's never going to take me to Chappaquiddick now.

Pictures to follow, as soon as we sober up!

* The Senator is Ms. Q's extremely handsome and witty older brother, who as he ages, looks more and more like a Kennedy. "Not like when he was fat and on drugs" - Bobcat Goldthwait, "Burglar"

Who Needs Cable?

The weather yesterday was a' moving and a' shaking.

Shortly after the boys and I came home from school the sky began to darken considerably and the wind died completely down. When we checked the weather report on TV we saw that not only was there a severe thunderstorm on its way, but that a tornado had been sighted nearby as well. We sprang into action; the boys brought our nine head of cat into the house, while I battened down the windows.

It was actually rather anticlimactic. After hunkering in the hallway for about ten minutes, I went out to see where the storm was. Evidently it skirted our area and we only had a smattering of hail. But Bea wasn't as lucky. she pulled up in my driveway at that moment, exclaiming, "Jaysus H. Key-rist! I've never been so happy to be home!" Driving home from work, she had been right in the middle of the golf ball sized hail. She heard on the radio that we had a tornado in town, but she couldn't see anything other than torrential rain and the incessant ponging of hail on her seemingly frail little Toyota. It was at that point she was forcibly reminded of the movie "Twister" we had just watched last week - the part where they know the tornado is upon them but they can't see it. Oh yeah, she was having one of those never-ending high blood pressure moments.

She headed home and shortly afterwards, the Hubinator rolled in. He had come from the other side of the storm and driven through pretty much the same cats, dogs, and hail thing as Bea. He was surprised to see it hadn't done much here at the abode, although we did find evidence of some hail in the yard, and Bea had said the ground was covered in hail just three blocks north of us.

Whew! Did I mention how grateful I am it passed us by? Back in September we had a tornado come right down the street. It passed withing 30 feet of our house, ripping up almost a dozen trees in our immediate vicinity. That was too damn close. The kids and I hunkered in the hall, and the poor Bohemian, who I had pulled out of the shower, was only wearing a hand towel as we huddled together. Afterwards, I went out to try and assess the damage and clear the driveway for the man. As I was clearing the debris, something brushed the back of my head. Not thinking, I reached, and grabbed a power line of some kind. I looked at it in my hand and screamed like one of those stupid girls in a horror film, never letting go of the line. Kids - don't try this at home. Luckily for my Doofoid self, it was just a TV cable line, but what a classic scary movie scene it was - me out there screaming. I tell you - I'm dull bulb at times.
So we only got a nice soaking and a bit of drama, which is just dandy with this girl.

And the sunset was amazing.

Crazy-assed, Cyclical Whirlings of My Brain

How can I feel so blah, so (dare I say it?) depressed?

Spring is here - school is almost over - family life has been on a fairly even keel for a while now - I even have a Girls' Weekend coming up.

What the hell is my problem?

I think I worry too much (Oh, and thanks for that legacy, Dad!)We've planned a few vacations for the summer, and the planning of them makes me anxious.

*Note - Please don't offer me platitudes - I'm a Solution Person - I always find a way to fix the situation, but sometimes it has to stew first.

The first vacation - a trip up to PA has actually been resolved, so I can stop worrying about it. The whole not having a reservation and/or a paper trail to show for our down payment was making me squirrelly, but the renters have finally gotten their fecal matter together and now I can just obsess on what to pack.

Again - don't try to make me feel better - have you read the title of this blog recently? That would be me, the tapdancer. Its all part of my stage act, see?

The second vacation - OY! Let's just say that my mother is the one who thinks she planning that trip, and that should sum it up. I love her - I really do - but she can't plan for shit, child, and god help the fool who tries to tell her that. No, no - "these things must be done delicately". The plus side of this trip is that my sister is also going on it, so together we can handle her, I'm sure. We were talking about it the other day and we confessed to each other our sense of dread, our secret thoughts of "is it too late to cancel?", which strangely, made me feel better. I think its just a knee jerk reaction to taking a trip with Mom-zilla, but we are mighty in our solidarity, right? Right?

See, now would be a good time for the soothing platitude! Oh, wait, I said not to, didn't I?

The third vacation is my very own fault and I can't blame anyone else for the insanity of it. I'm supposed to take a trip up to NY with my mom later this summer. I signed up for it in a moment of weakness (I think a shipment of NY rye bread was involved), and as much as I have tried to find ways to weasel out of it, I think I'm going to have to do it. I have a sneaking suspicion that all is not well with my mother. She won't tell us anything, she won't go see a doctor for any of the myriad issues she's been having, and she's taken up smoking again with a vengeance. Maybe I'm just over the top paranoid - I would really like for it to be just that - but I have this terrible feeling there's something wrong. So maybe this trip up to NY has to be this year - maybe there won't be another chance to have a quality moment with my mother. Maybe its all in my head and she'll be here for another 20 years, driving us all to the brink of insanity. Either way, I think this is one of those Carpe Diem things I have to do, so that when I'm standing by her deathbed I can say goodbye with as little conflict or regret as possible.

Hey! I never said I wasn't toting a dufflebag of batsa! I freely admit my logic may not hold up under another's scrutiny, but ultimately, we have to do what we think is the right thing, don't we?

And really, once I stop to think about it - life IS good!

Ludicrous Beauty

Should I tell you what he was doing, or do these pictures tell their own story?


Parents, without a doubt, and even the best of them, will drive you batshit at each and every chance they are given. But then, there are those moments where you look at them in action and have that instant sense of identity. Where you realize that your crazy-assed apple didn't fall or roll that far from the tree, and that's perfectly okay.

This would be one of those moments.
I love you Dad!