Ruffled Harpy

I'm not much of a scaredy-pants, by average standards. Bugs, snakes, rodents, and ethnic foods don't bother me, and as a librarian, my brushes with danger are mostly limited to scruffy hobos and snogging teenagers. But I've had a few real scares in my life; drunks with a rifle, a knife-wielding stalker, witness to a car accident, retrieving my blood-smeared dog from a pack of wild sheep-killing dogs before a shepherd could shoot him, violent pet deaths, spurned teenage boy with a blow torch, rescuing a drowning classmate, Gavin being hospitalized with pneumonia, Leif born with his cord twice around his neck... the threat of death marks everybody. Around here, I knew the most perilous thing besides my patrons would be the road to town, that famous 2-hour switchback drive with 300 bridges and cliff side drops into the ocean. This weekend the road finally got my hackles up.

Despite predictions of violent storms, it was sunny on Saturday when I needed to drive my mom and Gavin to the airport. After some deliberation, I took Leif along instead of leaving him home with his dad, uneasy with the distance between my bosom and my baby should anything delay me. It was a beautiful drive, the waterfalls swollen and roaring from a week of rain, and tourists clogging the narrow roads with rent-a-cars to stand on the stone bridges and take pictures. Safely packing the boy off with his grandmother for a vacation visit, I hit the mall with Leif dangling in his front carrier and spent a few hours enjoying leisurely girl-on-the-town time. In Sears I found a fancy new convertible car seat to replace the undersized baby bucket in the car, and asked a cashier if I could get help carrying the giant box, since I was already carrying an infant. After 5 pages on the overhead, nobody arrived, despite the salesmen I saw pacing the floor and averting eye contact whenever someone looked needy. Finally I knocked down the box and dragged it across the store, causing salesmen to scatter into the aisles to avoid helping. I asked the cashier if I could borrow a big man to help install it (really, it didn't need to be a man at all, let alone a big one, but it was worth a shot), and she cheerfully paged them another half a dozen times before I gave up and dragged it outside to the car myself. After a whole lot of juggling, cursing, banging, and wrestling, I finally succeeded in installing the beast myself, and did a little victory dance. Leif chortled from his new seat. The sky was grey, and mist spattered the parking lot. I wondered if I should head home before it got dark, or if visibility would be better once I could see headlights around corners. Since the baby was still wide awake and there were still provisions to be purchased, I opted for the latter.

It was dusk when I finished my sandwich and buckled the sleepy baby into the car for the drive home. Detecting this, he did his banana-baby flexing and started screaming. Hoping he would settle down, I headed out, and my heart sank when I entered the cane fields and saw what lie ahead; the mountains were black and crackling with lighting like the skies of Mordor. We drove into the rain, Leif wailing like the nazgul. I stopped to make sure he was dry and warm, but couldn't take him out to settle him or we would be drenched. I leaned over him and murmured into his ear until he quieted. He started up again as I drove on.

It was black outside, the rain barreling down on the car, drowning out the audio book I was trying to soothe the baby with. The police blocked the road while an electrician fixed a power line, standing in the rain in their uniforms without coats, soaked to the skin and resigned to it. After being waved through, the cars behind me began to disappear off side roads until I was alone on the road. Leif tired himself out and fell asleep, hitching in a sob periodically. I listened to the Kathy Reichs novel and wound slowly homeward through the rising waters on the road, grateful for the headlights that lit the way and promised passable roads ahead.

A truck passed me just before the corner up to the cliff side pass. As their tail lights receded, I drove onto the bridge, suddenly up to my wheel wells in flood water. For a horrifying moment, I thought the river had risen over the bridge, but a quick glance to the walls saw no overflow. The car slogged through, and I found myself driving uphill into white water rapids. Large rocks were scattered thickly over the road, water shooting up over them as it rushed down the road. A small tree was uprooted and lay across the right lane, so I veered cautiously into the left, dodging the rocks I could and rattling over the ones I couldn't, hoping my tires wouldn't pop. My headlights fell on the source of the flooding and landslide; a waterfall had opened up onto the road. As I neared it, it suddenly roared and doubled in size, threatening to engulf the car. My brain flared into one red thought, oh shit it's a flash flood and my car is on the edge of a cliff and my baby is in the car! I didn't have time to decide whether it was a bad idea to try to speed through and risk hydroplaning - I gunned it. The water pushed me, the wheels ground on the rocks for purchase, the waterfall splashed the car, and after 3 or 4 interminable seconds, we finally managed to clear the flood waters. I slowed at the top of the road and felt the adrenaline reach my fingers, wondered how I would taste if I were eaten by a monster at that moment. Gah. GAH.

We made it home - dry, warm, lovely home. And poor Leif is doomed to hear about this every time he tries to drive in the rain for the rest of his life.

Christmas 2008

A much better holiday than the previous two. 

On Christmas Eve I drove from work to the post office to pick up the library mail, and stopped to find a small parcel wedged in my box. Everything kind of went into slow motion when I pulled out a letter from my father. It's a strange and painful thing, caring so much about someone you've only been with a handful of times in your life. Along with the card came two enormous, long packages, which I fit into the back seat of the car on top of the library mail. 

At lunch I drove home in the rain and carried everything up the stairs to drop off milk and presents. 

Gavin said, "Look, I can fit into Granny's suitcase!" and he climbed into it, curling on his side. 

Mike zipped it and stood it upright. 

"You just turned him face-down," I said. 

"No I didn't, his back is on the bottom." 

"No it wasn't, he was curled the other way." 

The suitcase was giggling and wobbling and my mom said, "And the cat is in there with him." 

"What?" 

Mike ran, unzipped it, and Sookie came jetting out from beneath Gavin, who had been upended onto her. He poked his head out of the flap, and the suicase fell over before he could get his arms out to stop it. He was was not happy with the suitcase for nearly decapitating him, and with us for laughing instead of helping him, but we assured him that we were glad he had not died by suitcase on Christmas Eve. That would have been a real downer. 

Back at work, the afternoon dragged by, marked by a handful of sad tourists looking for wi-fi for their "lol I'm in Hawaii ur in snow" holiday emails. (Note to visitors: when you go to the farthest, most remote corner of the rainforest, don't be surprised that nobody has wi-fi. You're lucky the library doesn't have a tin roof.) At closing we scattered like rabbits to our homes for Christmas Eve dinner; a loaf of fluffy french bread and stinky french cheese waited for me, and as night fell and the lights of the tree winked on, a huge roast beast was pulled from the oven. We feasted, we nogged, we watched Ralphie shoot his eye out, plunked the kids in the bath like dumplings, and by 10pm everyone was in bed, listening for scruffling hooves and rustling bells. 

 I woke up at 5am, expecting to hear the sound of little boy feet, but there weren't any. By 5:30 I got impatient and snuck into Gavin's bedroom, where I heard heavy sleepy breathing in the darkness. My mother followed me out into the livingroom, where we turned on the tree and sat drinking tea and coffee. Mike carried Leif out a bit later, and finally the boy came staggering sleepily from bed to investigate the lights and voices. He rubbed his eyes, and frowned, "Why are you all out here?" "Because it's Christmas!" He froze, his eyes turned, followed by his head and body, and he jumped straight into the air when he saw the stockings and piles of Santa presents. He ran to the advent calendar, knocked down the toy soldiers he had put on duty, and we all grabbed our stockings. 

We made out well this year. The tiny sweater I had knit and laid out with Leif's stocking had been filled with a teddy bear overnight, and Santa gave the telling gift of a Nintendo DS game. Gavin does not have a DS, so he started scanning the pile of presents beneath the tree. The rest went very quickly. Light sabers! iPod! Sewing machine! Blueray! DS! Beer-making kit! Blinky baby toys! It was a huge mess. Mike and Gavin voooshed and crashed around with light sabers, we ate too many Shmidt truffles, and Leif wore himself out studying the mechanics of plastic duckies. 

In the evening we visited the landlord, pawned off the gross absinthe on his caretakers, then came home to eat Christmas meat pie and bread pudding. I even got some knitting in. The rain came down, smelling like snow. 

Today it was work again as usual, and I drove to the library in the early morning in the winter storm. I was soaked to the skin while unlocking the school gate, and blown sideways with slashing rain while running inside. It's a day for cuddling with mugs and admiring your presents, not being at work. Oh, well. 

Merry Christmas.

Christmas Eve

My Yogi tea bag says:
Love has no fear and no vengeance.

Haaahahaha.

Yesterday I was deposited at work without an escape vehicle as Mike packed up the kids and made the journey to the airport for grannie-retrieval. I worried about the low milk supply being sent along with the baby, knowing Mike would have to crack open our first can of formula and risk rejection and a 2-hour drive with a screaming starving baby. As it happens, he slugged down a bottle of the canned stuff like a frat boy with a bottle of beer. My breasts are mildly insulted.

I love having my mother in the house, loud and happy with coffee cup and grandson attached to her. It was announced by the governor last week that her school has been slated for closure due to the economic woes, and I am hoping this means she will transfer over here so we can have our family back together permanently. These intermittent visits over the last year have emphasized my mother's worsening cough. She's always had trouble with her lungs, but the occasional cough I was accustomed to as a kid has turned into chest-rattling fits every time she laughs. This time I notice that she coughs deeply whenever she uses breath to exclaim during conversation. She's still in her 40s. I'm worried about where this is going.

But Christmas eve is here! And I must go to work. Bah. This morning, Gavin unloaded and flipped the last box on the advent calendar, and my mother has her eyes on the enormous slab of beef in the fridge for roasting with yorkshire pudding. People in the library are flirting (although not with me), and the snow that melted on the way down is misting across the ocean onto the mountains. It's a lovely day for Christmas.

Bah

I dreamed I was screaming for help while being killed, and nobody came. In movies you trust that the hero will either rescue or be rescued in the nick of time, proof that wholehearted trust pays off. I remember when Christmas used to come with that feeling of real magic, as certain as stepping through a wardrobe into snow, and I remember finding and trusting my One True Love with every nugget of my heart. I miss that. Christmas and True Love are similar; they still exist after you find out about them, you can enjoy them and conjure up wisps of that old feeling, but it isn't all-encompassing, and it isn't here to stay.

Yes, it's official: I'm having the holiday blues. It's the feel-sorry-for-yourself time of the year, where despite all the cookies, music, hugs, and family, it's still easier to notice all the people who aren't writing or missing you, and to wish for month-long holiday vacations while working on Christmas Eve and scarfing down cheap chocolates in the staff room. I will not give in! I will fight, with rolling pin and candy thermometer and costco bag of cocktail weiners! I can do this.

x-mess

Little man turns 6

As usual, Gavin's birthday was kicked off by the hunt for Thai food, paying our respects to our dinner on the night I went into labor. This year I drove up and down the winding jungle roads, grumbling at both of the closed-up roadside Thai food stands and ending up at the farmer's market picking up basil and cilantro. After popping cake pans in the oven (with batter in them) I made a stir-fry that we called Thai, and Gavin ate canned ravioli. Not quite capturing the original moment, but the kid was pleased, and Leif got a handful of rice.

The advent calendar coughed up a 5 dollar bill on his birthday morning. In the afternoon, I carted up a couple boxes of chocolate pudding and a giant can of whipped cream up to his classroom for distribution. I peeled lids and swirled cream onto 24 cups for eager little kids who has no problem shoveling birthday pudding into their faces while snarking insults at Gavin for being too old for kindergarten. They paused to ask me if I would squirt cream into their mouths. Which I did not. After I had wired them up, they moved on to their favorite pastime; tease the redheaded girl. The little thing sat with her thin ankles crossed and ate her pudding on the sidewalk curb by herself. She got an extra swirl of cream.

The boy had requested an R2D2 cake, and so I channeled my inner Food TV cake decorator and had at it. Now I appreciate why everyone uses fondant; icing is stupid and stupid. I had used photographic reference, but when I finished Gavin said, "He needs lines across that button." I thought he was being artistic, but no, I saw today that R2 does have a grill across that button. I wonder about his use of brain powers sometimes.

My mom joined the party as a floating head on the laptop, and we stuck her on a table with a view of the present chaos. Gavin wastes no time anymore, ripping and flinging paper. Satisfied with his haul, he emptied about a billion Star Wars legos onto the floor while Mike stared at the two-book manual for assembly. I bounced the baby and was glad nobody expected me to do it.

This week gave us a Christmas program and parent/child gingerbread house event, both of which we barely managed to attend as first-time parents of a schoolkid. I sat with Gavin this morning in the school cafeteria, slopping frosting and graham crackers onto a milk carton with a hundred other kids and parents. The little redheaded girl sat alone two seats down, evidently the child of other first-timers who didn't get the memo, so our table pulled together to get her house built and picture taken. It was a nice morning.

In other news, I somehow lost 3 pound this week even though I have been living solely on birthday cake, chocolate biscuits, and mini liquor candies. It's easy; eat enough of candy and you don't have to worry about calories because you get too sick to hold any in. Broke into the 140's, only 10 lbs to go.

The presents have been bought, the liquor stocked, the baking started, the floors cleaned. I'm happy with life, if a bit spotty on the magic still.

Oh Tannenbaum

It's the small things

Yesterday I turned off the dvd player and sat back, feeling encouraged by the crime documentary I'd seen. It's not so odd, people get back with their old partners all the time! And hey, Mike didn't even blind me with acid. Bonus.

X-mess tree premature erection

December came barrelling in like a truck, and I barely dodged the wheels. The advent calendar was ready to go, the tree was purchased (dismembered and crammed into a cardboard box in the trunk), and the cat has been having a harder time wedging herself under the bed between the presents. On Monday, Gavin and I fluffed and mangled the plastic tree into as natural a shape as it could withstand, pulled the cat out of it, decorated it, pulled the cat out of it again, swept up the broken ornaments, let the cat have at it, and finally sat down to eat the ceremonial box of chocolates and listen to kitschy christmas tunes in its glow. Mike was happy that the tree was too small to fall on him this year, and frowned sadly into his absinthe, the Most Disgusting Drink Ever, which cost him $20 and was made worse by adding diet soda.

Oh no, is she blogging about her cat?

When I say "the cat", I do, of course, mean Sookie. I've had a piercing infection from her slobbering into my ear and chewing on my studs. At night she oozes across my neck to suck on the baby. Last night she leaped into the bathtub onto Gavin. This morning she buried a poop nugget in his shaggy rug. The two other cats spend their days avoiding her; Maura hides in the basket of the stroller, and Po thinks nobody can see her behind the curtain in the bedroom window ("curtain" meaning the old head-shop tapestry that we hung up because curtains are too effing expensive and nobody bought me a sewing machine for my birthday). Twice a day, Po comes out to eat, gets run around the house by Maura, who is being run around the house by Sookie, and then they all scramble back to their hiding places. Both Maura and Po looked like cannonballs with legs after their quarantine periods, but the constant threat of Kitten has started to run the fat off, and their saggy bellies wag when they run about. Much like me.

Hint hint

I finally yanked apart the old jumpy baby seat some well-meaning patron gave me and stuffed it in the trunk so it would stop embarrassing my office. Despite our idealistic handmade-by-earth-mother notions about toys, Leif loves the oversized plastic bucket adorned with baby busy balls and boob-eyed kangaroos (one a large stand-up rattle thing which sets off a musical jingle that makes your ears cry). Loves it. Yesterday he went into fits of laughter every time Gavin slapped the kangaroo in the head. And so the jumpy seat stays, while I plot its retro-punk makeover with plastic sprays and vinyl fabric... if only I had a sewing machine.

Thanksgiving 2008

My birthday came with wind and rain. I heated the oven and got busy making pies for Thanksgiving, sneaking in some Christmas songs disguised as winter classical music. 

As the pies baked, I swept and mopped so the place would be ready for my mother's visit, and Mike watched me from where he stood bobbing the baby to the music. 

"I know I screwed up this week," he finally said, "But I'm really happy." He indicated the music, the house, the baking, our family. I walked over and hugged him. The sun suddenly beamed down through the skylight onto us, and he kissed my forehead with our baby pressed between us. Sookie stood on her hind legs on the table behind us and scratched at my back, so we stuck her between us, too. 

 Feeling like we had made up, we went about my birthday. Mike worked through the baby-napping hour while I went to pick up Gavin from school, we spent 2 hours in the car with Leif squawking, I got to see Twilight by myself and screamed a little when I saw myself in the restroom mirror afterward (120 minutes of airbrushed immortal teens + 29 year old with baby weight and spitup shirt = 1/3 life crisis) , we ran through the grocery store and paid too much for cranberry sauce, picked up my mom and Po at the airport, ate Thai food, and drove home with a crying baby and yowling cat. My mom gave me presents (a statue of La Danaide, nice), and we crashed into bed at 10:30. A day thoroughly spent. 

Thanksgiving

I baked, I mashed, I whisked, I grated. The family watched the parade, Gavin colored with grannie, Po went outside and got lost for 8 hours, Mike drank lots of eggnog, and Leif nailed himself in the face with a spoon. 

All in all, nice day. 

Pictures

I finished Leif's stocking (just have seaming left):

   

 

Fatty Fat Fat (tomato and cheese pie) was had:

   

 

Feasting was had, with more enthusiasm than we are showing here:

   

 

Sookie tried to eat my mother's face:

   

I am starting to forgive the past couple of years. I'm trying, anyway. 

Onward, to X-mess.

Holidays

This weekend the storm flooded the roads to town, so Thanksgiving will be a day-long Quickfire Challenge; make a holiday feast using only eggs, an uncarved jack-o-lantern, and a can of haggis - go!

I should be able to pick up food when I drive down to the airport to get my mom on my birthday. A good thing, if I want a birthday cake (read: box of Krispy Kremes).
 

diet talk -
Yesterday I dug around for the jeans I had stolen from my mom after my last visit, and when I pulled them on they fit a bit more snugly than I remembered. I had a moment of dismay (did I somehow gain 5 lbs in a week?!) but they did fit pretty well anyway, and my butt looked ok in them, so I made the best of it. Today I found out they were not the jeans I had stolen from my mom, they were Mike's - the same pair I couldn't button up a few weeks ago. I win! Unfortunately, when I told him, he told me he accidentally tried to put on my old jeans and couldn't get them over his legs. Damn. Still a ways to go.

The week in brief

Two books on my desk. From their descriptions:

"Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is."

and

"Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he's not on his death-bed; no, his dog hasn't run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead."

It's important to be balanced. Now, I tried reading Cormac McCarthy a few months ago, when forced myself through No Country For Old Men and finally tossed it aside two chapters from the end (they all died except the sheriff, right?) so I'm not sure about reading another one. The new trend in grim realistic fiction is to leave out punctuation and plow through the dialogue with no hints about who's speaking or distinctions between speech and thought. (how i live now is another example.) Yes, I understand why, yes, it's effective, and yes, it irritates the crap out of me. Same with post modernism. And scrapbooking. But hey, The Road won the Pulitzer, so let's give it a try.


Leify update:

Leif grabbed his first object on Halloween almost 3 weeks ago, and now manages to get things (toys, cats, etc) in his mouth with fairly consistent success. And on Sunday he rolled over! Yep, unassisted, from back to front and front to back. It's wobbly work, and those pesky arms keep getting stuck under him, but the boy has discovered mobility at just over 3 months. He also laughs now, at just about everything. He likes it when we pinch his legs and say "Who's got ham?" He sings when we play music. (He has my voice. Or possibly the cat's.) And the other day he sang, "Ohhh, yummm mom." I am yum!

Gavin update:

The kiddo turns 6 in a few weeks; he's reading, making elaborate Lego spacecraft, and sprouting ankles out the bottoms of his pants. Sometimes I try to cuddle him up on my lap like my baby again, and he's a lumpy knob of knees, elbows, and ribs. He's obsessed with Star Wars, and wants a Nintendo DS (wtf?). Santa's got the hook-ups on that one, and another one of our parenting ideals flutters away. Conversation from yesterday:
"Mom, when me and Leif grow up, could we marry the same girl? Then our kids can have two dads."
"Well, most people want a person of their own, they don't like sharing."
"But I aaaalways wanted two dads."
"Really? Should I marry someone else?"
"Yep."
"Got anyone in mind?"
"Mmm, no. You can pick."

(I didn't.)

Postpartum update:
 

I'm officially within the healthy weight range for my height again. On the more nuts-and-bolts side of things, I'm having trouble with numbness in my hands again, and my right shoulder has painful range-of-motion issues, but at least my knees are holding out this time. I think my hair has stopped falling out, and I'm not entirely bald, so now I can relax and wait for that attractive chia pet 'do as the new crop grows in. Halfway considering chopping my hair off and letting it grow out again; my mother did last week, and she is cute.

Holidays bearing down like a big scary thing, and I have barely bought anyone anything. My birthday is next week, and I got a present early; a box of broken glass which contained the remains of "ripped" and "frogged" pint glasses from Ravelry. One survived, at least, so I will have a toast to myself this weekend. With sad diet soda.

Coughsniff

The head cold that had been throbbing between my eyes for the past week moved down into my lungs overnight. Leif may be in store for his first illness. Up until now we have been blissfully basking in his night-long sleeping; two or three times he starts getting twitchy and I roll over and pop him on the boob, and we all snooze on. Last night, though, he started making snow angels in the sheets, and I opened my eyes at 4am to see a big gummy smile aimed at me in the moonlight. When I said "hi, there", my voice came out a wheeze and a croak, so Mike scooped him up to play in the livingroom for a bit. At this point I fell dead to the world, dreaming that I was a flying, time-traveling Buffy, kicking butt in leather pants in the future, when evidently all manner of chaos was erupting in the livingroom with a diaper blowout, cat running across the baby's head, and screaming that woke up Gavin. At 5:30 Mike deposited a sleeping infant beside me and staggered away to sleep with the kiddo. We snuggled down to snooze another hour, and the kitten curled up between our heads to join us. Sweet, right? Wrong. 5 minutes in, Sookie let off a cat fart so rank and thick that Leif started gagging and coughing and popped awake again. And so the day was begun.

Friday. Fridayfridayfriday.


Still trying to stuff self with holiday magic. Currently reading: The Stupidest Angel, a heartwarming tale of Christmas Terror, by Christopher Moore.

Also I am knitting a sweater for my tea pot.