Till a landslide brings me down

Saturday morning bloomed warm and sunny. I fed the cats, drank my tea, packed the diaper bag, and gathered my tax papers for a day in town. Po, inspired by a belly full of nutri-nuggets, bolted across my lap like a cannonball on tiny legs, leaped up onto the computer table, skidded on a stack of papers, and smacked into the wall. Sookie caught her kitty madness, became entangled in the curtain, and both of them jetted away into the bedroom. Just so.

Leif played obligingly with his plastic hammer until crooning himself to sleep, and Mike and I enjoyed the winding drive through the jungle to the soothing British narration of Dragonfly in Amber. As we rounded a hairpin turn atop a modest cliff, we slowed breathlessly to stare across the gully at the damage marked by last week's landslide. The face of the mountain was smeared away, the guardrails snapped and dangling like broken yarn. It was amazing nobody was killed, and we drove under it silently, staring up at the rocks with some awe and trepidation. Irene had told me about the school's teacher who had been crushed in his car next to his wife and infant by a rogue boulder that came down from one of the cliffs. These things do happen here.

In town, we split a breakfast platter at Denny's, and Leif astounded the waitresses with his charm and heft. "Wow, I have ten-month-old, and she's not as big as him!" "Yes, he's our little pork chop," we agreed, handing him a hunk of pancake. After breakfast, I bought a new pair of jeans and wormed into them in the car, my old pants being rather too big and startling me with unflattering thigh bagging when I caught glimpse of myself in the Denny's restroom. Feeling rather more sexy in new denim, we strutted through the health-food store (well, I strutted, Mike took his turn carrying Leif) until it was time to strangle my tax people. After my divorce-year taxes had been bungled, I had gone to HR Block last year to straighten everything out professionally, and paid a pretty penny for the service - which resulted in letters from the IRS informing me that they had been bungled and that I owed money for the inconvenience. Immediately upon presenting my paperwork, the new fellow before me said, "I can't pull your records because it was a different HR Block." "What is the point of going to HR Block, then?" I asked. The answer was, in the end: none. There is no point in going to HR Block. Spare thyself and buy Turbotax!

Mike needed a beer after this, so we ate at the Ale House, which turned out to be nothing more than an overpriced Chilis-wannabe with frozen french fries, then finished up the grocery shopping and headed back home, having failed to purchase much in the way of food because we were mentally crippled by the cost of Turbotax (as much as a week's worth of groceries and much less tasty). Leif held up all day, a ball of cute with curls and dimples, and settled amiably into his seat to narf three packets of baby rice crackers as we headed home. We passed a man on a motorcycle balancing a weed whacker on the way to Paia, where we stopped to waste some daylight because the evening sun was beaming into the back of the car onto Leif's face, causing him to try to burrow into his blanket with a mouth full of mashed rice cracker. I suffered a fit of joyful hysteria over a box of shredded wheat biscuits ($3.50!) and had to have a happy dance in the car, so I appropriated the ipod and put on Mama's Room, shimmying my shoulders in rhythm with Mike as we drove by the crashing waves of Maliko bay. I tossed my hair and said, "I need a wind machine for this song," then spluttered as Mike suddenly blasted the A/C into my face. We laughed, drove away from the sunset, and it was another beautiful day.

^__^

I am now hopping online to chat with Gavin and my mum on webcam. One more week and I reclaim my eldest!

Behold the pork chop:

a friday

After two days sick at home, it was odd returning to work for one day before the weekend. Like a burp of a Monday. At any rate, it went as such:

Woke too early, nearly fainted in bathroom, nearly fainted in bedroom, crawled back in bed and bellyached about not being able to call in sick.

Ate oatmeal, drank tea, played with infink, put on jacket and went to work.

Fun morning with T, my favorite substitute assistant, making fun of Twilight and then admitting that we both had the movie already.

Came home for lunch and did not cause a seizure for my neighbor.*

Ate a manapua and smoothie with the man-person and infink. Infink lunged at my glass and smeared strawberries all over himself.

Left man-person to clean up infink, returned to work and linked books.

Did bank deposit, listened to Dragonfly in Amber audiobook with one earbud.

Drew a toad.

Went home, called mom, bounced baby, ate curry, fed rice to baby, pounded rice out of gagging baby, cleaned spit and rice off rug.

Took pictures of infink in bathtub, startled cat trying to wipe her butt, spilled nail polish all over Mike and tile floor and towel.

Gingerly helped dress baby with wet fingernails, nursed him, let dad walk him to sleep, curled on couch in front of feel-good movie.

Ahhhhh, Friday, pau hana.

Tomorrow: fun throttling tax people!



* chatted with neighbor on Monday afternoon and watched him collapse in an epileptic fit. Ran up and offered to help, to which he replied, "Nah, no worries, I'm just having a seizure. Fucking seizures." Mike said of it afterward, "He probably thought you were hot. He said that happens." Hmm.

Spring Break

Started Monday by dropping a box cutter on my foot. Rethinking ambition to become Russian knife-thrower.

Further insomnia: woke up at 1am and mentally rehashed series-finale episode of Battlestar, searching for answers to gaping plot holes and descending into angry sleep-addled plans to track down writers and knock their heads against the floor and demand revised finale.

Am back from a weekend with my mother, having flown over with the kids to drop off Gavin for spring break. The house is unsettlingly empty without him. We both awoke last night, certain he had walked into the room and spoken to us, so I phoned my mother first thing in the morning to make sure he had only been dreamwalking and not visiting as a ghost. He said he had dreamed of us, too, and didn't seem surprised we had heard him. How eerie.

In other news: Gavin learned to eat with chopsticks, Leif learned to clap, my mother and I saved a colony of enormous toads, and Mike tried to defend a bouncy castle against a horde of viscious teenagers. Productive weekend.

Stupid day.

Firstly; Leif is sick, and spent his 5th consecutive day screaming at us and punching away attempts to clean his snot.

I spent all morning sketching lovely mascot ideas for Mike's work project; a cartoon managerie of pigeons, dancing weiner dogs, friskative kittens - all nixed because "pigeons are filthy sky rats", "no dogs no cats NO NO NO", and "can't you have, like, a chair reading a book or something?" Out of sheer desperadoes, and trying to avoid anthropomorphosising (?) a lawn chair, Mike scribbled a duck in a chair reading a magazine. "Yes!!" Yes? Yes. They went with DUCK IN A CHAIR. I'm trading in my BFA for bubble gum.

The afternoon was spent sabbotaging myself with shmoopiness. Having awoken from an unsettling dream at 2am, walked the house in my pajamas to stare out all the windows, and laid in bed smelling the neighbors smoke until 4am (maybe they stay alive without sleep by pickling themselves with tobacco), I arrived at work to thump my head against my keyboard over the collapsing ceiling, 200 titles I needed to cross-check, and the discovery that one of my exes had gotten married without my permission. This addled me sufficiently to drive me blindly to the seaside while fetching the mail, where I rolled up my slacks and walked into the ocean to stare at the rain-swept horizon. Grey skies, grey water, grey sand - SPLOOSH! Soaked librarian. Brilliant. I slogged back to the car, my legs plastered with sand, and let my ipod stab me in the chest with angsty whine-rock, causing me to narrowly miss an oncoming tour van around a sharp turn. Harried and cursing, I arrived back at work to be greeted by my janitor's ominous invitation, "Come here and smell this and tell me if it stinks to you", then broke my shoe on the way to investigate. Because the room in question did in fact stink, I retreated to my office to write a work order, hid from the shrieks about the trail of black sand leading to my door, tucked my cold feet under me on my chair, then leaped up to grab a snack, snagged my foot on the chair, and dove face-first onto floor. BAH.

And the 200 titles I needed to cross-check? For each title I must do this: *click* highlight *click* copy *click* change windows *click* paste *click* search, repeat. And the titles in question? 200 books on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Aahhhahahaha. I am going to chew my fist off and go sleep in a cupboard for the rest of the day.

music = stupid

My ipod is going for my throat. This morning it played one shmoopy heart-wrencher after another, and just as I was reaching to change it from "Love is Only a Feeling", it made a weird bloopy-bloop noise and switched mid-warble to "All My Lovin'". Jerk. I do not need love songs right now. Nor do I need war anthems, emo wailing, or thrashy gypsy punk. I need perky songs about waffles and cats... Post-modern alterna-fluff? lolrock? Niche genre.

News from Casa de Harpy:

*Leif has been sick. And not in the "Whoa, mom, look at this, it's sick!" kind of way (thanks, Total Drama Island) but in the snot-hacking-fever-screaming kind of way. And because I need to catch a plane on Friday, this means of course that I will be next. Minus the screaming. Maybe.
* Leif is inches from crawling; getting up on his hands and knees and lunging at objects, regardless of their potential hazard to his wellbeing. Bravo.
* Gavin got in trouble at school for lobbing a puzzle piece at another kid's head. Takes after his mum, the poor dear.
* Mike's next batch of beer is almost ready. It be dark and ominous.
* I am down to the last 8 or 9 illustrations for my next book, minus the final color.
* We're looking for a new home, since the loathsome neighbors have somehow charmed the landlord (or addled him with smoke and paint fumes).
* Mike's brother, Robandstacy, had a new baby, Ethan. Devin/Gavin and Leif/Ethan = parents having fun confusing children by yelling names indistinctly.

Shmoopy today.

In the AM

Gavin dawdles, I bark, we find sneakers, rustle up homework, dash out late. Yesterday I didn't feel like barking, so I snuck up to the bathroom to see what was taking so long. Gavin stood in front of the mirror with the lights out, waving his flashing toothbrush as he applied toothpaste, singing. "I'm Captain Hammer, my teeth are shiny and clean, and it's a brand new day! La lala, something something die, my teeth are bright and shiny!" Like-minded wee beastie.

Last night I was chilled, troubled with dreams of being shot at and chased, and I woke up wanting to be next to my boy at 4:30am. Like I had summoned him, Gavin stumbled in and climbed over the nyquil-zonked body of his father to snuggle beside the baby and I. Leif stirred, the three of us whispered and touched each other's hair and faces, and we slipped back to sleep until morning. "I didn't have bad dreams after I was next to you," Gavin said. "Neither did I," I agreed. It's a wonderful thing. I wish we had a bigger bed. Maybe Mike can sleep in Gavin's room. :P

It has been a magical day for knitting in casa de Harpy. I dashed to the computer with my morning cereal and discovered that the spring Knitty is finally up, and went moony-eyed with lust filling up my queue. We pulled out the stash of alpaca and made plans for lace wraps, then I knit a couple of ears for the stuffed bunny I'm working on for our new nephew-to-be. My copy of Interweave arrived in the mail, along with a box of yarn my mother was passing on to me from the plundered stash of a mad yarn lady. The skeins are long discontinued and expensive, a trove of linen, silk, and merino. Oo-er, and phwawr. She's sending another tomorrow, with a bonus box of girlscout cookies. I am as giddy as a nerdly giddy person!

*lust*

Of note

* Leif cut his two bottom front teeth last week. It is like nursing a badger.

* Mike managed to buckle Leif's face into his carseat, learning the difference between his cranky scream and his "oh god my face has been buckled into my carseat" scream.

* Neighbor drama: have learned that new stinky smoking neighbors asked neighbor #2 to have three-way with them. Neighbor #2 declined, having already gotten in trouble after accidentally dating and then spurning local lesbian. Third neighbor annoyed that neighbor #2 drank all his beer and smoked all his cigarettes while running around pantless and not being romantically interested in him. Mike annoyed that neighbor #2 came up repeatedly to mooch his home-brew (not pantless). Neighbor #2 ran out of rent and moved to shack on farm, where she is hiding from band of vengeful lesbians (I have never heard of such a thing, but this is what I'm told). Hoping stinky neighbors follow suite (the moving out bit), as they have admitted to neighbor #3 that they are unemployed and just smoke and have donkey-noise sex all day. (I am paraphrasing.)

* Gavin has started Tae Kwon Do, grown out of all his clothing, and decided to go into robotics. He had a wart on his butt which we tried to freeze off with the nifty can-o-terror, and let me advise readers: DO NOT. Use sticky pads instead.

* New scale gave me three different weights this morning. Am going to buy the sort you stand in and balance with rocks.

* I'm having a very hard time with this Lent thing. I have been perusing fabric porn, getting all saucer-eyed over fat quarters of Amy Butler and Heather Bailey. Surely it would be ok to buy some if they weren't for me, yes? No. And fabric that is already in my online shopping carts from before Lent doesn't count, right? Yes it does. Gah. On the plus side, after only 4 days of the quivery-shrieks, I seem to have mostly kicked the chocolate cravings. Except for the half a kit-kat I accidentally ate yesterday. But that is mostly oil and wafer, really, and I only did it to appease the janitor, who then went home and broke his own toe on a ratan couch. Who can say no to a candy-sharing man who will soon be in crutches? I am not heartless.

with a side of LIONS!

One of my ongoing quests is the hunt for the perfect wonton. As of yet, the best ones I've found are at the Kin Wah in Kaneohe, our favorite Chinese restaurant, and I insist on eating there every time we visit. Even though there is a blurb on the menu that says "Our meat dishes contain MSG. Extra MSG will not be added upon request."

So on Saturday we dug into our soup and plates of honey-garlic chicken, stuffed eggplant, and gau gee, when suddenly a deafening roar of firecrackers came from the parking lot, and two Chinese lions came dancing into the restaurant with a billow of smoke and crashing drum fanfare. Gavin leaped up onto his seat, along with everyone else in the restaurant, and the two beasts pushed themselves between the tables towards the birthday girl [old lady with leis up to her ears]. Mike was smashing Leif's head against his chest to protect his ears, and Leif was trying to punch him in the face to get him off. My mom gave Gavin a dollar to stuff into the lion's mouth. It was brilliant. Best wontons ever!

"And if I love you - beware!"

It's starting again. I can feel it building up, pushing out. For the last time in a long time, I hope. Another move is approaching. And this time not because I am thrashing away from myself in pain, or because I have fluffy daydreams of apple trees and lakes, but out of necessity. My mother's school is closing, and she found some transfer opportunities on Maui. As she told me this, I was sitting on my squashy bed in our home in Kaneohe - the only home I've really felt was mine. Our 15 year-old cats snoozing in the sun, the stairs Gavin learned to crawl down, the wood floors we laid together, the corner I illustrated my first book in, the table on which I sewed my wedding dress and signed my divorce papers - home. Two things were clear in that moment: we need to all be close together again, and I can't bear the thought of my mom uprooting herself and losing our home. Our jobs are in peril, our family still fractured, and I just want things made whole again. Nothing is certain yet, but I'm putting out feelers. As of yet, no consultation with litter box required.

And so we are returned from a weekend on Oahu. The opera was beautiful, if somewhat more restrained than usual. In red dresses and impractical heels, my mom and I clippity-clopped to the Blaisdale from our distant parking spot, composing a checklist.
"My shoes don't like this gravel," I remarked.
"Oh, let us pick our way through like little goats!" said my mother.
"Ok, let's see, we need to find a woman who's wiglet no longer matches her hair," she started, "and a prom dress, because there should be newbies at this one."
"And someone wearing crocs," I added, to which a voice piped behind us, "Ooop, that'll be me!"
We turned and all laughed at her sad shoes, although I saw my mom flinch when the woman said, "I figure, hey, it's Hawaii!" "So," my mother murmured later, "what, performers in Hawaii don't deserve our respect?" Boo, crocs.

The checklist was a tough one this year; the crowd was sparse for such a popular opera, comprised mainly of older couples bedecked in black suits and sheaths of tailored silk. Prowling with our cocktails, we found the wiglet in the line for the bathroom (which was being directed by a harried and semi-trampled woman who for some reason had been instructed to funnel us outside and then back in through a door 3 feet away). The prom dress was spotted shivering on the stairs outside. Of the men, we determined that there were three sorts; the amiable professorly types who wore aloha shirts and loafers, the sauntering suit-and-tie fellows, and the strutting guys with slicked hair and their top shirt buttons undone. We said, "how nice", "oo-er", and "erlack", respectively. It was a beautiful evening, and we dashed home at midnight when the spell broke. Fantastic! And yes, the performance was lovely, too.

We didn't get great pictures, but trust me, we were goooorgeous.