Time at home

Well, I’m sick. Congratulations, tourists cussing in my face for two years. You finally got me. 

Waiting for stick-up-the-nose results and watching Korean horror movies. Also painting, because any vacation is a painting vacation if I’m well enough to keep my arms up.

Finished a landscape based on one of my grandmother’s old watercolors. I thought I might feel more connected to her, retracing her steps and making the same decisions about the light and colors, but it didn’t work out that way. She might be lost to me. I’m letting it dry and thinking about it.

Landscapes are not my thing, sorry grandma. 

Detail of squashy brush strokes

I’ll have to give it another try. Maybe a landscape that is less… landscapey.

Blocked out an underpainting of Mr. Bones, to take a break from fighting with rocks and water.

A few more days of this would be okay with me, so long as this thing gets better instead of worse.

Edit: Negative! I’m just regular old-fashioned sick, probably from my kids sneezing on me. 

Take motivation where you can

 

This week, after years of virtual events, the library system announced they’ll pay the fee for 2 people to attend the PLA conference in March, so I dropped my name in the bucket. Under “why should we choose you?” I did NOT write, “because I am wasting my life standing at this goddamn door and I want to feel alive again”. Instead I wrote, “I’m not afraid of hosting a webinar briefing.” As the only person who submitted storytime videos with the green screen kit they sent to all the branches, maybe I will edge out the others with my melodious dog howling. 

It’s like having a lottery ticket, except if I win I get to pay for my own airfare and lodging and also do work on vacation time. Still, the chance of anything interesting happening has been enough to get me back into my jogging pants and looking up coffee shops around the convention center.

Also there is some petty vengeance stuff happening with someone attached to the in-laws. I have something to prove to someone I owe nothing to. 

So it’s back on the dietary shenanigans train for me. 

Revoking their Hawaii credentials

As we were driving home from school this week, Leif suddenly pointed at the road ahead. 

“Otter!” he said.

I was confused. “Otter?” 

“No,” corrected Zenny, “a goose monk!”

“Oh my gosh, you guys saw a MONGOOSE. You are both fired.”

Do Canadian children sometimes forget what a moose is? I hope so. 

 

Goose monk

This week I spotted a glint in the mirror and leaned in very close before realizing I was looking at a grey hair. A blurry one. A few months ago, Zenny caught me reading in my granny glasses and laughed, then her face crumpled and she hugged me, “I don’t want you to die.” So I traded my glasses for headaches, just to cut her some slack. 

Now I’ve got grey hair, though. Might as well be able to read comfortably while my kids freak out about my mortality.

One day closer to death 

 

 

 

Definitely not Batman

While hanging up the “closed for lunch” sign, I could hear someone nearby rage-screaming. A man on a bicycle was riding up the hill, swearing at traffic and making kicking motions at the cars with one leg. I closed the gates and locked the door just as he rolled up to the library and began banging on the glass. “WHERE ARE YOU? I SEE YOU IN THERE. I’M GONNA FUCK YOU UP.” While we called the police and I surreptitiously filmed from a window, the man noticed the taco truck customers staring at him and began spitting and screaming. “I HOPE YOUR BABY DIES. LOOKS LIKE BATMAN AND THE JOKER JUST PULLED INTO TOWN. WHOO!” 

Whoo,  like a badly written cartoon villain.

But he did not fuck anyone up, he pedaled away in his reindeer pajama pants when he heard a siren approaching. 

Gavin went back to college. The vice principal called to tell us that Leif was significantly exposed during the first week of school. The public is hostile, and I’m flipping between acting like a manic Walmart greeter and staring at them with empty burned out eyeballs. 

“I'm not wearing a face diaper!" 

"You didn’t ask my DOG for a vaccine card, that’s how ridiculous this is!” 

Dude. 

 

Spent some time looking for other state jobs I could switch to without losing my accrued retirement, and found two that I am qualified for:

Court bailiff.

Pro: calls out case numbers and witnesses, wears spiffy clothes, has a gun. 

Con: has to “maintain order”, has a gun. 100% would shoot an unruly defendant or lawyer or my own stupid ass.

Child/Adult Protective Services Specialist

Pro: saves children and old people from abuse.

Con: position description includes “extremely volatile situations”, and “high degree of hostility”. 100% would get mauled by a dog and punched in the face.

I’m probably okay standing at a door and getting cussed at by retirees and tourists for a while longer. 

One of my after-school library kids took a spill on his skateboard the other day, and while I was wiping the blood off his elbows and sticking on bandages, I was reminded that being a trusted adult matters. Besides helping these kids learn to enjoy reading, I have rescued the injured animals they bring to me, wiped up blood, cleaned vomit, helped with bathroom accidents, held head wounds shut, and knelt next to a 6 year-old who had been run over. I was just a place holder until more qualified people could get there, but I think it matters. They matter to me, anyway.

best foot forward

The problem with only asking for two things for Christmas, and with those two things being weird and expensive, is that on Christmas Day you end up with a casserole dish and a knitting book, instead. I like casserole dishes and knitting books, but right after Boxing Day I got a check from the gallery and took this as permission to turn New Year's Eve into Christmas 2.0. 

Three days later, I was unboxing a child-sized medical skeleton with a flexible spine. My kids said, "what the heck," and then they said, "I want that thing".

They did not give a damn about my other item; a negative scanner. Over the summer my grandfather let me take his big box of neatly filed negatives and slides dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the prints have been lost or destroyed, and among them are my baby pictures, my mother's college graduation, and my grandmother's original landscape reference for her watercolor paintings. I took this kind of thing for granted - they’ll turn up, someone else will find copies, it wasn’t that big of a deal, I still remember that event anyway - until I finally noticed how quickly time brushes out the tracks in the snow just behind you. Stand too still and it'll catch up.

Kodak Scanza 

 

In the spirit of making time work to catch up, I drove to Pupukea and met my best Canadian (ex)librarian, who recently got fed up, gave both middle fingers to her career, and hopped on a plane the minute the border reopened. We caught up with each other on tippy plastic chairs in the sand, drinking hard kombucha while the sun went down.

 

Five days into the year, and it has already peaked. Oh no.

Gavin flies back to Rochester on Friday. He is boosted, equipped with N95s, and I ordered snow pants and a saucer sled to welcome him at his dorm. These last days are like taking a big breath before hitting the flip turn and swimming back the rest of the way.

But there are skeletons to draw, and custard buns to steam, so that’s something to go forward with.