It is too hot to think of a title...

I am so flattered that people want to know where I am. I'm right here!

misc. wrestlers at the dojo

It is a sunday, so my husband and I delivered papers at 6 am. The bed of the truck was completely full of sunday papers-this route is so long! We have some apartment complexes on our route, square, communist-looking monstrosities without elevators, so up and down, up and down the stairs we go. The thermometer in the truck said 94 at 7 am. So, say it was in the sun, it was at least 85 before the sun had even risen over the trees, with a gazillion percent humidity.

My husband was soaked from sweat. He looked like he had showered with his clothes on. I do not sweat. I'm incapable of sweating, so I turn fire engine red and wheeze in the most attractive manner. Also, my hair is HUGE. I kind of like how weird it makes me look. I brush out my curls and unveil it's full mass, then I go to the grocery store to scare the "norms". This is what I have to do for fun in this town.

What else have I been doing for fun in this town? Oh, baby showers. Four young women at my office are expecting. All boys. I have been invited to four baby showers, two of which were yesterday. Add to that a kid's birthday party, and two sleepovers, and you have the soccer mom's rock n' roll lifestyle. Blue crepe paper, blue cake, little blue outfits by the marching military masses. I won the game of "who can name the most baby animals!"

Watch this:
Baby swan? Signet
Baby frog? tadpole
Baby fox? kitten
Baby panda? cub
Baby owl? owlet

Boo-ya! I got it. My friends, with all due respect, didn't know what a baby horse was. REALLY? You really, really don't know what a baby horse is called?

Not a pony!

A foal.

Calling a baby horse a pony is like calling a baby human a midget. Incorrect. Sorry. You don't win the blue baby shower prize. You need to go home and read your Ranger Rick that your grandma got you for ten years and never even opened, because if you DID you would know that a baby horse is a FOAL.

(My husband says he had Highlights magazine and that is why he now hates The Environment.)

So, Mountain, why does your hand look all purple?

 Well, I'm so glad you asked!

I was just, you know, using kool-aid to put purple streaks in my kid's hair.

Tomorrow is the first day of Peace Camp. She has to look her best!

Love and light,

your friend,

Mountain

The Entry After The Turtle Story

It is not that I didn't know how to follow the turtle story, it is just that I have been working every day in my cubicle, every evening in taking the children on a soul-enriching outing, and every night on social media projects for my husband's business. Other than that, I've been bored! :) If you see me on facebook for like 7 hours at night, it is not that I have no life. I am NETWORKING for BUSINESS, ok? Good. Get it straight. In one week, my husband's fictional wrestling character has 83 friends, and that doesn't just happen on it's own, people.

So, I saw the massive wall swiftly approaching called :::::::Burnout, but I was moving so fast there was nothing I could do but hit it squarely with a mighty THUD.

If I was my previously more spiritual and observant self, I would have gotten the tip when everything in my house broke at the same time.You know, the radio doesn't get stolen, the check engine light doesn't go on, the expensive theme park tickets didn't go missing, the china butterdish that was the one nice thing from the old life doesn't break, the tv doesn't break, the computer doesn't break...........are you getting the idea?..................just for no reason. Was the message slow the fuck down? I don't know, I went by too fast.

My father told me that being busy and worried and overscheduled is just the part of life that I am going through right now. He tells me this while sitting in the sun with his pipe, reading a novel. "It will pass." I keep trying to remember that this is my time to hustle, and then put my shoulders down and work a little bit harder.

Then I tried to get up at 4 am and help on the paper route.  Yes, we are doing the paper route again. Yes, those babies just got in a habit of eating three times a day, and I can't break them from it. This is a bigger and better and more lucrative paperroute, and it will be over OCT 4. We are not doing it one day longer. I put my foot down. I want a ticker at the bottom of the page to Oct 4...END OF THE PAPER ROUTE.  So, I tried to get up at 4 am, and I did, and I drove while he delivered, and then I was dead. I mean, I got to work, but at work they were like,"you feeling ok?" See, I was quiet. Real quiet, and it set my coworkers on edge. Ms. Personality was shut down for the day, and my supervisor, bless his heart, was nice enough to send me home. My job is very slow right now, so it is ok.

Yesterday I just layed in my bed and said I was sick. I felt dizzy. Multitasking is the devil. I read once that the quickest way to burnout is by multitasking because our brains are just not set up to do 17 things at the same time like I always do. We feel like we are being efficient, but really we are just frying the circuits.

It's not all bad. We have no debt. We are afloat. We have no credit cards. The bills are paid. We have food, a lovely apartment, lots of cool neighbors and a great school. We're healthy, strong, smart and honest. I have a huge, loving supportive family. I just want more power in the choices I have in life.

So, today I set to work on the reset after the crash. I went for  a bike ride with the kids. I asked my husband out on a date. We spent some time walking hand in hand and talking it out. I love that I can always trust that he is doing his best. He fucks up frequently, but he is never lazy, lying, stealing or cheating. He suffers most from inexperience. I help him prioritize and think things through (yeah, there is the blind leading the blind!). We move forward one step at a time.

The girls are running a lemonade stand out in front of the pizza shop on this sweltering day. Life is never easy, but it is good.

The story, how I heard it...

so, like, me and my boy was drivin by this park, right?
and I say, yo, stop the car?

and he's like what the fuck?
and I said that is a straight giant turtle in the road, g!
and he said, like, whatever

and I was like, no, we gotta save him
and he was like, whatever, muthafucka

that turtle is straight

and I was like can you believe some nigga just left him here? He musta been a pet

and then he was like, No, that muthafucka too big
and I said whatev whatev
and we turned the car around

and I'm tellin ya this muthafucka was HUGE

HUGE!

HU_GE!

and it

have like a long tail and shit?
you ever seen a long tail on a turtle? Like what the fuck, right?

so, we go to pick it up, me and this negro
and it's like hissing like a mofo

and this thing is HEAVY
and it like darts its head out at us like dis
like dis, see?
and it has a point on it's mouth, like a beak

but, yo, I know how to handle this shit, right?
I mean, I gotta save the turtle, yo, right?

so I get a blanket, me and my boy, we get this blanket, right?
and we trow the blanket over the giant turlte muthafucka
and we put him in the trunk!

but, like this water starts pouring out of him
and it stink like a mother.
like stink to holy hell

Mountain interjects-Hector, that might possibly be turtle pee?

so the muthafucka pisses all over me, and my blanket, and thankfully
my friends car, right? Haha!

so, we drivin

we got the giant turtle, yo
with the weird ass long tail
and it fuckin stinkin
and we took it to this like, nice pond and shit

that aint got no roads around it and shit
and then we gotta get it out of the trunk, right?

so muthafucka gives me the blanket
and now it stinking and wet and shit
and the turtle is doing it's head like dis, see

and that beak shit is sharp!
and I say to my friend

you watch that tail, holmes
because it is possible that he is getting ready to hit you with that

and if that shit hit you, watch out!

right?

so, of course, I gotta grab the turtle
cause negro aint gonna help none.
did I say it was heavy, because when I say heavy
I mean that turtle was huge and HE-VEE

and it's got it's tail goin, and it's got it's beak goin, and it's hissin
and I'm grabbin it out of the trunk
and I got it, right? I got the turtle
and I can't leave it there

so I like put that heavy mutha down

and it don't move none.

So I like, tap it, yo
I like tap it, and it goes like a foot, then stops.

So, I like tap it again, right?
yo I tap that fucker again

that stinky fuckin turtle
and it goes another foot
so I gotta go tru this process all the way
to the mutha fuckin pond, yo.

and my friend is laughin his ass off
but I'm just laughin on the inside, yo
cause it be his car that stinkin!

and the turtle finally gets to that pond,
and he swim away

and he swim away just like dat.
Believe dis. Truly beautiful, yo.
Truly. Believe dis.

Photos of an Evening Walk

Ya see, cloud, what you have to do is RAIN!

It is finally raining! Hooray! Hooray! I have never ached for rain before. Usually northeastern summers are steamy and green. This long, long wait for water is not the norm at all. I really began to feel an instinctual pull from inside, like a dog before an earthquake. I looked at the sky and contemplated the broken clouds.

Last night I walked with the girls along the same route I have walked hundreds of times before. We walked to their old school, the one I faithfully walked back and forth from 3 times a day when the little one was in kindergarten. The same one we walked to for school concerts. The same one we walk to after a good evening meal to stretch out legs and see who else is at the playground.  I took along a camera, figuring what I have seen a million times might be new to one or two of you!

 We met up with a neighbor walking her dog. I was taking a picture of my foot. She said,"What ya doing with that camera?"
"Scratching a creative itch,"I say. "I sit in a cubicle all day."

The days have been in the high nineties. Like in the winter when you open the door and brace yourself for an arctic blast, this past week you have to mentally prepare to enter the oven. My parents to the north have no air conditioning, and are just walking around the house naked. Those yankees just are not prepared for this kind of thing. They will be laughing at the southerners when the snow hits, though.

I haven't been doing anything at work but sitting at the reception desk, transferring calls to the executives and perfecting my Bookworm game. They won't hire me for the position because I have a disciplinary action against me for poor attendence, so every day they call me from my position and I do the job without being awarded the title. I consider this an afront, and don't try to hard.

This town was supposed to be temporary. This was supposed to be a few months to appease the civil court system into awarding me full custody. Five years ago.  Now I realize these will be the streets the girls remember as their home. These are the streets where they learned how to ride bikes, where they chased the boys they like, where they caught fireflies.

love and light,

your friend,

mountain

June in Photos

The Rose Garden in June

Come on, let's run!

It's hot! Let's go over to Nana's and see if we can use the hose.

We are hungry! What can we EAT !?!

You guys like hamburgers? They are almost ready and they smell good!

Ok, we can play just a little longer!

My best friend and her husband are here from Vermont, checking out the city life.

BFFs FOREVER!!!!! Why is your head half the size of mine?

Good thing we are so good lookin' cuz the boys luv us!

I don't know why you are laughing! We are HAWT!

Oh, say! Can you see?

Hello? Is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me...

You know, you think I waste my time on the computer, but really, I'm doing important stuff...
7 Wacky Jell-O Molds from Around the World


I had a lot of lovely invitations this weekend, but I declined them all and stayed close to the house. We spent the fourth with my husband's family, just five blocks away. We didn't even pay to go to the swimming pool.We waded all the way down the freezing-cold city creek and sat on our towels reading paperback novels. I people-watched with one eye. A black lady in her red family-reunion-shirt stopped me and respectfully addressed me as "Mama!" Not like, "sexy Mami" but just as one mother to another. I love it. More people should address me as "Mama!"

"Mama, do you want fries with that?"
"Mama, can I make your appointment for Thursday at 3:00?"
"Do you know how fast you were going, Mama?"

My check engine light is on. My TV is playing DVDs really skinny all of a sudden, like XTREME LETTERBOX style, and the switch that turns the computer off and on is broken. My pretty white china butter dish got busted. My car radio is still stolen. My bank account is empty and I am feeling a bit perturbed. OK, really pissed off.

So, I did what anyone would do.

1. I pulled everything out of my living room, cleaned it and rearranged it.

2. I bleached my slipcovers. Twice. Yes, my couch is white. Yes, I have two kids, a cat and a bunny. Yes, I am insane. Watching me wrestle the couch cushions back into the slip covers after washing would have made you pee a little from laughing so hard.

3. I signed the girls up for THREE free summer reading clubs. Borders AND Barnes and Noble give away free books, and the TD Bank gives the kids ten dollars and their very own savings account. If you've got kids, and you are near those chains, check it out! If it is free, it is for everybo-dee!

4. We went to the mall (slowly-check engine light!) with a four dollar gift card and a handful of change. We stretched that out to buy three packs of silly bandz and a big bag of mints from the gourmet candy counter. We rock! I stretch dollar til it screeeeeeeeeams!

5. I dumped out my jewelry boxes on the bed and we culled the necklace herd and tried to reunite the broken earring families. Oh, it felt sooooooooo good. I've been wanting to do that for years. I can't find one wedding earring, though. Wedding earring, come home! We are sorry, whatever we did!

6 .I worked on a business facebook page for my husband's dojo. Here's the catch-you can't friend anyone once you've made the page! So, we have to promote it by hand. By actually SPEAKING to people. How archaic.

7. I went on a bike ride with the girls. This was something new. At 92 degrees in the shade, it was over fast. I did discover some new bike-riding muscles I wasn't aware of, even on such a short jaunt, and I am definitely sure that my pelvis-bone is a different shape than it was last time I was bike riding, 12 years ago.

For the traditional holiday we did traditional holiday stuff. Relatives. Corn on the cob. Pasta salad. We sat in a graveyard so close to the fireworks that ash was falling on me and I was deafened afterwards, just as if I had been to a rock concert. We sat at the foot of the grave of William Mosser. Thanks, man. I hope you don't mind!

I was walking along in the graveyard, dragging a big blanket, yelling at the kids and feeling sorry for myself (like ya do!) and I hear,"Mountain! Hey! Over here!" There was the family who owns the 17 year old dog, all spread out on a blanket on top of the departed. We happily joined them. From our vantage point, we could actually see the firework displays of several little towns going off all at once. We could see plumes of light edging up over South Mountain, and fireworks going off at the amusement park, too. Is that how it always is in the city? I have always been out in the country on the 4th.

Loving my freedom, in theory.
Loving my country forever.

love and light,
your friend,
mountain