Creepmania Halloween 2009

Hey guys! They took my computer! Ack! Actually a friend is graciously trying to fix it for me, but my addiction is well seasoned and going cold turkey is giving me the shakes! I have to tell you all about the Halloween parade at school,and all about trick or treating last night, so I grabbed my husband's iPhone and am doing it primitive style.

So, my kids go to a new charter school that just opened, and it is pretty fantastic but everything has had to be invented as we go along. Yesterday was the first Halloween celebration, and they decided to go old school and host a costume parade. I love costumes and I was tickled to see a tiny mother nature, a god Apollo, and even my own little vampire and cleopatra marching proudly by. The kids each had parties in their classrooms and I took off of work to be there. That may have been an irresponsible decision considering I missed two days just crying, but I really want to enjoy this stuff with the girls while they are still kids. I have missed so much of their toddlerhood in sharing custody, I can't bear to miss out on any more.

I helped out in my vampires' class first. They had a sugAr buffet with homemade pumpkin pie, crafts to paint and a homework pass to color- obviously, the teacher is awesome. He told me that he went crazy at the craft store the night before because they didn't have what he needed and the phillies game was starting!!!! In this area we have a healthy mix of Yankees and phillies fans and everyone was on the edge of their seats with the two local favorites head to head in the world series. The teacher is a BIG Phillies fan, and had the kids make Go Phillies signs to hang all over his door. Some kids could not be coherced into this blasphemy, and wrote Go Yanks.

In Cleopatra's class, we had the lights down low and all the kids had scary stories they had written to read and healthy snacks to munch. Someone even sent goody bags in with brand new crayons and gluesticks inside! Score! There is a comfy couch with blue velour flowers on it in Cleopatra's classroom, and I got to sit on it. I am pleased to see that my preconceived notion that this school was going to be full of nothing but the progeny of rich, white, yuppies-turned-greenies(gruppies?) is absolutely not the case. The school is very diverse and there are a full rainbow of skin colors inside. I'm not quite sure how that happened because all of the planning meetings that I went to were a sea of subarus with pithy liberal bumpersticks, and white faces, but I am happy.

They go trick or treating on the friday before Halloween around here, which I haven't quite gotten used to yet, but we had great fun nonetheless. We went with a huge pack of friends and neighbors...five kids, five adults, and the cutest little bulldog puppy you ever laid eyes on. I am highly irritated that so few people in this neighborhood leave their porch lights on, but I have already repeatedly commented on the un-neighborly, irrationally fearful attitude of the people in our city. Gah! What's gonna happen if you give candy to trick or treaters!? I'm not sure why, but off porch lights seriously bug me. Ok, if you've got religious reasons, but trick or treating is a great exercise in being part of a community, a skill grossly undervalued in modern times. I would say only 30% of houses participated in our neighborhood.

My neighbor across the street lead by example. He has a small apartment, which often are overlooked on the trick or treating circuit, so he set out a cardtable on the sidewalk, with a strobe light, and a huge bowl of individually constructed goodie bags for the children. Not because it is the work of Satan's holiday, but because it's fun to see all the kids on the street running up with happy faces. The kids were optimisticly prepared with pillowcases to load up with candy, and I gave them a quick math lesson...THE MORE HOUSES YOU HIT, THE MORE CANDY YOU GET, SO RUN YOU LITTLE BUCKAROOS!!!! It was good.

NOT A MOUNTAIN WAS HERE

Today my hormones and chemicals were properly organized and it was a recipe for a much better day. It rained. It was grey enough to make Rainbow Brite suicidal, and still I rolled out of bed with a Pos!t!ve Att!tude! Yay Team! Let's go to work and make some money for the family! Woot!







Today was-



dunkin donuts coffee with milk, no sugar



singing happy birthday into a long distance phonecall



learning about the miraculous tamarack tree



remembering the names of four of the five dogs in Puerto Rico-Milagro, Bacon, Blanca Nieve, Luna and WHo?????







So, my font won't go back. That's what you get for pressin' buttons. I'm a big button pressor. For shame.





Last night I utilized my netflix account and watched a pretty interesting movie called Rory O'Shea Is Here, which is about a guy pretty much going through the same internal struggle I am...you know the one that goes,"mylifeisrightnowandI'mtryingtogive150percenttolivingitbut youdouchesareholdingmeback"? The major difference between myself and O'Shea is that he has cerebal palsy and can only move two fingers on his right hand. And he's Scottish. Other than that, there was a lot I could relate to. Here is the trailer:









Hmmm. It seems I am rather vapid today, but at least I am getting some joy out of living, which is a definite improvement from the recent past. Today I am boring yet placated, just like the rest of america. :)

How about a song?

Boohoooo!

Hello from my husband's laptop! My desktop has a virus, so I have been missing for the past few days. I also have been having hormonal issues. My period was later than it has ever been (when I was not actually pregnant, of course), and it brought with it crying. Like, all day long crying. Missing-two-days-of-work crying. I'm trying to put it into perspective, and say,"THIS IS HORMONES. THIS WILL PASS," but I am feeling a bit, how to say it delicately...panicked that it might never stop, with a side of horrible.

My mom thinks everything is caused by exhaustion. "You planned the wedding, got married, you started a new job, the kids went to a new school, then you went on your honeymoon...now you are exhausted!" I didn't think I was exhausted, but after I got the kids up, packed the lunches and put them on the bus, I went back to bed and slept until one in the afternoon. ONE IN THE AFTERNOON! This is not something I do. EVER. I'm a morning person.

My sister thought maybe I was crying because I wasn't pregnant. No. Not. I'm crying because of every ridiculous excuse I can think of..."I'm faaaaaaaaaaaat. I don't own a house and I will never, ever own a HOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE. I don't get any child suppooooooooooooooooort. I am not independently wealthy and I can't do my art allllllllllll dayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!" This is why I am pretty convinced it is hormones. It's definitely not anything, well, real.

I have decided it is like a cold in my eyeballs that makes them leak, and I will rest, and it will go away. Because I Said So. I have spent my convalescence reading young adult novels. A lot of them. I read : Kiri-Kiri, The Princess Academy, The Journey to River-Sea, Esperanza Rising, and The Penderwicks. The girls have heaps of these things, and they are great! I especially LOVED Esperanza Rising, and I also LOVED The Journey to River-Sea...so lovely, like a beautiful painting that stretches on and on. Is there a movie of River Sea? I will have to look into that.

The girls and my husband have been totally awesome and patient about all of this. The girls have just seen me reading a lot, and not the full-on drama. They are absorbed in preparing for halloween, learning the water cycle, and playing outside with their friends, as they should be. Their lunches are packed and their days have been inquired about, and my compulsive Young Adult novel reading is but a blip on their radars.

My husband has had his own struggles with Depression with a capital D in his life, and I have never seen a more compassionate human being when it comes to this sort of thing. With tear-swollen eyes, I said,"I think I'm dying!" and he hugs me and kisses me and assures me that I am not. He takes me to the gym. This will pass. This will pass. This will pass.

So, I guess this will pass.

What to do when ridiculous like this:
Avoid sugar
Be outside
Get exercise
Release guilt for not fulfilling all of one's obligations
Do nice things for one's self
Get dressed every day
Write

Castle Adventure Kits, Again!

I have been dipping my toe into being creative again!

I posted this information on the old blog, but I wanted to have it here, too, for posterity, so sorry for the repeats!

Those of you who know me know that I love to make the gifts that the girls bring along to their friend's birthday parties, when time allows. I would like to show you a recent project that I have been working on called THE CASTLE ADVENTURE KIT. My older daughter helped me make two kits for a pair of brothers for their birthday. The kits are different pieces of castles, like a tower, a trapdoor, or a mailbox, drawn on tough cardstock, cut out and attached to magnets. We added a baking sheet, to give them a good building platform. Giving two kits to brothers works out great, because the pieces can go together to build something bigger!


My sister saw these photos on facebook, and asked me to make a pink princess set for a little friend of hers. My coworker saw me working on the princess set, and ordered another one! What fun!


The whole deal was very inexpensive to make (about 6 bucks each, including using some supplies from home) and the possibilities are endless. If I were to do it over again, I would include some blank cardstock and some magnets, so that the recepient could make some of their own pieces.


What do you think?




***HELP! Blogger won't allow me to indent or leave a space between paragraphs, and it seems to also have a strong desire to publish my photos sideways! Has anyone else encountered this? ****

The One Where I Got Into The Dumpster

Happy Autumn and stuff. I stole this from someone who had stolen it from http://www.mcsweeneys.net/ . Sorry if the language offends, but if "It's decorative gourd season, motherfuckers," doesn't make you laugh, come here, honey, because you need a hug...

IT'S DECORATIVE GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.
BY COLIN NISSAN
- - - --->
I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I'm about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it's gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There's a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.
I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I'm going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, "Aren't those gourds straining your neck?" And I'm just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, "It's fall, fuckfaces. You're either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you're not."

HAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Thanks, I needed that.

I'm going through one of my cute little bouts of melancholy. I hate my job, I hate my house, I hate myself, I hate the weather, I hate my past, I hate my future...in short, I've been in a rather negative mindset.

I was in just this sort of mood this evening, after coming home from work in the freezing rain, when I accidentally threw out my husband's debit card in the dumpster. Don't you hate it when you accidentally throw your husband's debit card in the dumpster? Of course, I got my little polka dotted rain boots on, and climbed into the dumpster to look for it. One of the guys from the restaurant downstairs held the dumpster lid open for me, and used his iphone for a flashlight quite gallantly. I think he was afraid that my husband might actually murder me for my stupidity. In his country, this would be justifiable homicide. I found pizza boxes. I found rabbit shit. I found junk mail. I got very stinky, but I did not find the debit card.

So, I come upstairs to my husband, feeling like french fried roadkill in my defeat, cold rain running down my neck and smelling of garbage.

"I didn't find it," I say, with tears in my eyes. I go into the bathroom and start a shower.

Now, I know I'm the one at fault here, so clearly I am in no position to criticize, but the man says to me,"Whatcha doing? Taking a bath?"

I squinted at him, trying to tell if he was making some sort of a joke that I had missed in my misery. There was no sign of joking.

"Yes, dear. I just climbed out of a dumpster. "

"Oh, right."

And now, for your musical entertainment, an amusing yet beautiful cover of Offspring's Self Esteem:

Tomorrow is another day.

Thanks for stopping by.

It's fall, fuckfaces.

Don't Go To Puerto Rico

I have been dreaming of Puerto Rico.

I drink rum, coconut water and parsha juice to try to replace the feeling of being there.

Fall is here. The dark comes earlier and my ride home from work now includes squinting into the glare of oncoming headlights. I have put away my summer dresses and I have started wearing socks and shoes. There are always papers to be signed for school. There are always things to clean that I feel like I just cleaned only moments ago. While picking up toys, hanging up backpacks and pushing in chairs, I dream of air almost too thick to breathe. I dream of the generous boughs of the plantain tree and the xylophone music of the coqui frog, teasing me for being non-native.

While setting the table, I decide that it is cruel to have visited there. I will not enjoy the snow in winter now that I have felt the sand between my toes. Don't go. It will only make you ache with an inverted homesickness.