Hear me roar or something

My mom's house. Woke with a start from bad dreams that I couldn't remember, puffy-eyed. Brushed the wrinkles out of my work outfit that was chucked in the closet since the man brought it over last Friday. Calling in sick for Gavin's fever that day meant that a mountain of work and desperate teachers would be waiting for me when I got to the library.

Shuffled downstairs in the dark, pinning my blouse securely shut with a safety pin. On my web board, the news was all bad. My mom came downstairs while I ate my cheerios dismally in front of the laptop, and let out a low moan by the bird cage. Mugwort the Not So Stupid Bulbul (aka Norbert) died overnight. He seemed happy yesterday, snatching bits of strawberry from my fingers and using his wings like hands to crawl all over the cage (his legs hadn't worked since the cat bit him last week). After assembling Gavin's lunchbox and boiling his eggs for breakfast, I went upstairs to wake him while digging through my mom's jewelry boxes. Put on an opal ring, different earrings, a fairy pin, while Gavin sobbed that he didn't want to go to preschool. With her jewelry on, I looked a bit like my mom, like she used to look when she was 26, alone and grim. Hugged Gavin, got him dressed, carried him downstairs with his head on my shoulder.

The ride to work was stiff and awkward after the man arrived to pick us up. He smiled hopefully at me, the kind of smile where you're pretending things aren't as bad as you know they are so that maybe the other person will think so, too. He started trembling a bit when I started talking. I know how that feels, being called on to talk about uncomfortable feelings and events, but my heart doesn't pound anymore when I talk about this thing. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.

New cousin

How did I forget to post about Alexia? 4 days old in this blurry picture. 

Quiet baby.

The Move

132.0

The baby bird has grown into an attack-sparrow. It tried to take off the mole on my forehead, and now every time I walk into the house she flies at my face. La La the Terrible.

A long, exhausting, never-ending weekend. Our first night in the pink house was... comfortable. Amazingly, the crack and clatter of bamboo and the hallelujah chorus of rooster crowing did not disturb us. The near, distant, and mid-tone chicken calls created a 3D audio effect, because every rooster has a dozen hens and chicks. No wonder the foliage is crawling with feral cats - the valley is chicken stew.

Last night we went out to a social event with the Scottish dance society. I wound up in our host's bedroom watching the Timmy Jimmy special on Nickelodeon with Gavin and then falling asleep on the couch after eating too many english muffin pizzas. Wild partying.

Another week has started. My library is being used as a classroom for the high school until their building is finished with construction, my librarian nerves are fried by the teacher clutter. Before I meant to, I put  all our books in the new house in Dewey Decimal order. It's not as pretty as organizing them by size and color. I compromised by breaking up the sections with little statues.

I'm over this moving business. The fun part is over and it's all messy papers and under-furniture dirt now. Gross.

I thought I'd be more excited.

Big boy!

Gavin scribbled on his shirt with marker while we scrambled around for all his preschool loot. "See? I write my name." Green lines on his blue shirt. "Good job, now never write on your clothes again, sweetie." We took pictures as he headed out the door, then threw all his stuff in the car and headed out as the sun came up. Gavin lounged in his booster seat, gazing coolly out the window. He tipped his head and gave me a wink and a half-smirk when I turned around to squeal at him, "You're going to preschool! Now remember, no hitting. Unless they hit you first, then you can hit them." "No," said Mike, "No hitting anyone at all." "No hitting unless someone else sees the other kid hit you first," I amended. Gavin nodded solemnly, "They hit me, I hit them real real hard." "Good boy," I said. "No hitting!" said Mike. He was the first kid there. Once we had stuffed his cubby, we sat him down at the mini picnic bench for breakfast. I cracked the boiled eggs I brought him and Mike situated his fruit. Gavin settled in and bit an egg, looking up at us as we stared expectantly at him. "You guys are gonna go, right?" The teacher behind him hid a laugh. I had visions of him driving off to college, hooting in liberation. And so it starts, Gavin Part II: School Kid. 

update on first day: me: how did he do? mike: it was good, he had fun. Except I guess a boy hit him and he hit him back, and they both got in trouble. me: haaa ha ha

 

homeward bound

Our checklist of vacation to-dos wasn't complete without a quest for donuts. Failing to find a single Krispy Kreme, we opted for Dunkin Donuts instead. It was a crisp, quiet morning, not a soul in sight as we skipped up to the doors. Immediately we were swept in by a shouting mob, the cashiers barking over the clamor, hands shooting past our ears clutching dollars and pastries. "WHATTAYA WANT?!" screeched the cashier. My hands flew up in confusion, I waved them stupidly and began yelling, "Pink donut! Sprinkles! Munchkins! 25! 25! I said 25!! Mixed!" We banged outside and stood panting with our paper bag. "God, that was just like an instant trip to the city." Kind of awesome, in a terrifying way.

We sucked up the last of summer and watched as autumn tried to catch us. Gavin demanded his jeans and socks and hoodie, then punched his cousin in the head when she teased him and yanked down his hood. I should not have been proud of him. My jacket smelled like a bar, so I stood shivering in a tank top while we packed the car with Salvo. "I am so done with this cold," I told Gavin. He pulled down his hood and nodded, "Let's get out of here." At the airport, I wrapped in a blanket and sat in the terminal worrying my pockets while Mike hunted for breakfast with Gavin. We sipped coffee, ate chicken, boarded the plane, and were gone. Over the hills and far away.

Up for work at 3:30am. Gavin is methodically cooing over every one of his toy trains he had forgotten he owned, holding them up for me to admire. "The Easter Bunny gave me this one, look, mom! My break-down train, look!" He has been leaping from one thing to the next - trains, cats, grannie - with glee. I'm looking at the full answering machine and piles of moving boxes with resigned dread. Life starts, life waits, life goes on, etc.

Here she is...

Signed and done, key in hand! Who's coming over for enchiladas?

love

I sat in the back seat with Gavin as we drove to North Shore. Rose's mom chatted with Mike in the front, I looked out the window. Although Mike went to the festival last year, I hadn't been along the road since our wedding more than 3 years ago. I saw ghosts along the way, and I loved them: the teenage imprints of the boys and I walking from Kualoa covered head-to-foot in red mosh-pit dirt; my sad 23-year old self sitting at Kaaawa with my small baby jumping in my lap; Mike and Peter running through the surf at Sunset Beach; 17-year old Harris and I, lobbing water balloons at his summer camp near Turtle Bay; Mike the Marine dancing furiously to Irish music and swinging me in circles at the festival when I was 19. And Rose, almost there, a bit of her with us for the day in her wonderful mother.

We went to the opera in the evening. I switched my cocktail order at the last second, and the bartender dumped the liquor from my glass into Mike's before starting over. The people at the opera are amazing to look at. Women with fragile skin and delicate veins against purple velvet and pearls - bodies of all ages and shapes and posture wrapped in their best clothes and really truly beautiful. During the first act, Gavin swayed to the music and went limp in my arms, so long-legged and solid, almost all the baby gone from his sleeping little boy body. We ate at a lovely French restaurant as the crowd flowed out into the evening. Ron was unsuccessful in teaching Gavin to say "merci", but did manage to prompt an enthusiastic chant of "chocolate mousse". I enjoyed the most pretentious Diet Coke of my life, and Mike was surprised to find that he enjoyed the escargot. It made me happy to see my mother cut into the sugar of her creme brulee, one of those small things in life that is as beautiful to see in the dish as it is to see on the face of the person enjoying it. Mike and I examined the photos on headstones as we walked by the dark cemetery, Gavin dangling happily by our hands between us. One of the photos had fallen off and was lost, leaving an empty space that struck us as vastly sad.

On the way home, Gavin reached for my hand and pulled my arm across his lap, resting his cheek on my shoulder, stroking the inside of my elbow and threading his small fingers through mine. Beside us, Mike looked at him, pushed my hair back, and kissed my forehead. I looked at Ron's hand on my mother's knee in the front seat. The small ways we hold together through this fleeting trip.

There's so much love to be had in the world, it is almost too bright to look full in the face.

Me and Rose's mom, after 10 years:



Gavin ponders the graveyard on the way to the King and I at the Hawaii Opera Theater:



Getting with the program:




Gavin's reflections on passing a cemetary...
"All thems is dead?"
"Yes."
"I going die too?"
"Yes, we all will, but we have a lot of life to live before then."
"... I going to hit bad guys, and they die. Hit hit hit, like dat."
"What? Is that what you're going to do when you grow up?"
"Yep. I is. I be a policey man power ranger."
"How will you know who the bad guys are? What do they look like?"
"They has mustaches."
"All of them?"
"Yep, and I has a mustache, too. A biiiig mustache, and I hit them with it. And they fly hiiiigh up and crash! and make a big hole. And I fly after them, ha ha ha."
"Policemen can fly?"
"Yep. Like Superman." [Gavin has never seen Superman movies]

crick, crack, quack

138.0 (considering weekend indulgence, pretty good) Box of joy. Received my awesome geeky Harry Potter Lumos booklight and fabulous baking cookbook in oversized Amazon box. I sat on the floor, using the booklight to read the recipes even though it was not dark out. Yesterday, after a cafe breakfast of eggs florentine, I found myself pushed into a chiropractor's office which, up until that moment, I had always mistaken for a bail bonds office. I am iffy about chiropractors - not because they have reputations for being quacks (I enjoy a good bit of quakery from time to time), but because I do not like having strangers touch me. Let alone wrench me in unnatural directions. He sized me up, prodding my neck down to my hips, pressing on my head. "Lower your chin and push down low like you're having a baby," he directed. I raised my eyebrows; men speaking familiarly about childbirth always amaze me. He tipped me over onto my front and someone tenderized my back with a vacuum cleaner. "Now relax," he said, then pushed down on my back violently with a loud snap. "Oh dear," I said - only it came out "AUUGH!" and my feet flew up to hit him in the shoulder. Obviously doing a bad job relaxing. "There, now, didn't that feel good?" "No, but we'll give it some time." He seemed disappointed. Half an hour later, we arrived at dance practice. Gavin ran off with Chris under his uncle's supervision, and I discovered that I was not needed in any of the sets, so I went outside, laid on the grass under an enormous tree, tucked my slippers under my head, and fell asleep. Very productive. Ran my tail off at the gym, mulling things over. We faxed in our rent application on Friday; at best, we could expect an answer today or tomorrow. Thursday or Friday at the latest. Toweled my sweat from the weight machines, daydreaming about rugs, curtains, and chaise lounges. Showered, smiling about christmas lights and holiday baking. Whether or not we get this place, it is a first step toward being real grown-ups out on our own, and that is dream-fodder enough. And guess what? We're going to New York next week.

"We're interested at looking at cheap crap holes, thank you"

Mike finally spoke to a real estate agent yesterday, as we browsed open houses. We found several nice homes we could reasonably afford if we went in with my mother, but the point here is to flop gracelessly out of the nest on our own and land in whatever fresh hell we can. Either she needs to find a cozy little cottage for herself, or we must find a run-down tin-roof plantation house and try to prop it upright with 2x4s while fending off the rats with our slippers. Either way, though, it is time, as proved by the look of incredulous exasperation on Mike's face as he held up a melted spatula while my mother said, "No, you can't throw that away, I've had that since I was 8." Ha! Really, though, I've known that spatula all my life, he has to be kidding. Gavin liked shopping for a new house. "And this is my room, and grannie's room, and mom and dad can stay in here," he pointed to a closet. Thanks.

"Look for the hairy white guy"

Harris, friend of 12 years. Played guitar in my living room yesterday evening, slept on the couch bed. I crept down at 4:30am to wake him for his airplane, curled on the couch bed with him and chuckled about old times while he squeezed me hard and declared I was as not-frail as ever. He's living in rural Mexico, making music and eating avocados the size of my head. I dropped him off at the deserted airport as the sun rose, kissed him goodbye and sent him on his way. That fellow has a perpetual twinkle in his dilated eyes, I just love him. He's off to San Francisco for a week, and I hope it doesn't take another 4 years to hang out again.