Sticking to the Point

Show n' Tell

Today at noon, I'll walk into Miss A's school, as show n' tell.

The obvious topic would be acupuncture.

Or possibly, photography.

Today at noon, I'll walk into Miss A's school as a roller derby referee.

I've got my skate bag and my zebra shirt and a printed diagram of how the game is played.

I'll talk about the skaters and the refs and what we all do.

I'll use words like strong and athletic.

And hopefully, what the kiddies will take away from A's show n' tell today, is the belief that they can do anything, be anything that they desire.

That gender doesn't define what you do with your life.

That just because you're grown-up, you can still follow your dreams.

Today at noon, I'll walk into Miss A's school as show n' tell.

Today, I'm proud.

So it begins

After life in the city, you have expectations about car services. As in, there's always a car or taxi. In our neck of the woods, we've had 'issue' with our local choices, the car arriving 15 minutes early is a good sign.

M was yukoned off to JFK, boarding a flight to London, (and other cities in Europe), gone for the next 8 days. Normally I take the business travel in stride. Sometimes I look forward to the time alone, absence making the heart grow fonder and all. This time, I felt a little sick to my stomach when I had to say goodbye.

My OCD comes out when I'm single parenting. I have these rituals that I perform every night while M's away. When a co-worker commented that I should have some hypno-therapy (this is her speciality) to release these fears, I realized that 1) some things are better left to myself and 2) I'm probably more fucked up than I realize. My ability to gloss things over startles me.

I've always attributed this aspect of myself to 9-11. And it's true, after that day I became a more fear-filled person. Lately, I've been thinking that it's more than that.

By now you're probably wondering, what the hell is Kiki's ritual?

Instead of leaving my purse downstairs, I take it upstairs along with a set of car keys and my day planner. Normally all of these items are left on the first floor.

I have a bag where I keep all the important family papers: birth certificates, passports, important photos and the like. I pull this out, adding a pair of shoes, easy to slip into, and a sweatshirt.

I sleep in the guest room and I have A sleep with me. I never sleep on the 3rd floor where our bedroom is. It's on the back of the house, an amazing feature considering we butt up against a golf course, but it feels isolated. I can't hear anything from the street and I'm disconnected. And if there's ever a reason to leave in the middle of the night, 3 flights up is a long way down.

Clearly a woman with control issues, I worry about the what if's and this ritualizing helps me feel prepared. Certainly 9-11 contributed to paving my road to fearful. I have fears as a mama. The incredible vulnerability. The countless unknowns.

Therapy helped me through the crisis of my issues. Now abandonment and control are compounded into what if's. The recycling of my themes are more sophisticated, cloaked in ambiguity so I'm often surprised when I realize "oh, it's you again".

I'm less fearful than I was. I sleep more soundly and I'm not scared by every creak and sound when M is traveling.

Rationally I know that we are safe. My ritual seals the deal.

House Quake

It has been a whirlwind 10 days. House guests and Miss A's seventh birthday, a busy work schedule with little time to check in, my space here has felt quiet.

Having Nicole come visit was delightful. She arrived on a Friday, and later that evening, we were in the city for dinner and boothing.  Our first stop was a bar in the East Village, full of dudes with serious fugly style.  We watched 2 euro-looking men as they mauled one another posing, their arms and legs shooting out from the sides and bottom of the flimsy curtain. Next up was the craggy-looking actor and his friend. I really wanted their strip and half-jokingly, I devised a plan that would have me grabbing their strip as we bolted. It would have been really embarrassing if we were caught and it wasn't a sure thing; instead we took our strips and headed over to this place, for a few more.

On Sunday we roamed the city for a day of shooting our way through Soho and various flea markets; eventually making our way to B&H Photo, an unforgettable experience.

See more photos from our day here.

Sacred Sunday :: the best day of my life

March 30th, 2001
9:59am
5 pounds, 0 ounces
21.5" long

Of all the babies in the world, how did we get so lucky to have you?

Happy Birthday, my beautiful baby girl. You make me and my world a much better place.

I love you to the moon and back.

Vacation, all I ever wanted...

It's hard to believe it's already Thursday. We leave in two days and I write those words with a heavy heart.

Maybe it's because it's still winter at home. 28 degree days and more of that damn olive green down parka.

I know it's more than that. It's going home to a place that feels less and less like home.

Don't get me wrong, I love my house and I love my job and I even love our life back east. We've made a nice life for us and I've been happy.

But getting here, coming home, this is what feels right for me. I see the handful of friends and family when I visit and I feel like myself again.

My heart longs to make L.A. my home again and we're figuring out how to make that happen.

We have a 4 year plan. And in the big scheme of things, 4 years will happen in a blink of an eye.

There are things that could make that move happen sooner. And maybe, it won't happen at all.

Which means, I need to make my life back east work for me again, as it has for the last 15 years.

I just need to reconfigure how my days unfold.

Part of this is the transformation that I'm going through. Physically and emotionally, I'm changing and through this metamorphis I'm questioning, which is a good thing.

I sat down here this morning to write a very different post. I wanted to tell you about the hundreds of photos I've shot this week and how excited I am to get home and start editing.

I wanted to tell you about my delicious playdate with DeeZee. How we spent all day Monday together, roaming the east side of L.A., exploring and shooting our way through Silverlake and Los Feliz; two neighborhoods that the mister and I have on our short list of places we'd like to live.

I wanted to tell you about our trip down to La Jolla, how 24 hours alone did wonders for us and gave us the opportunity to really talk about our 4 year plan, (among other things, wink).

Arriving back in L.A. yesterday, serendipity had a way of working its way into our life and now we're looking at our life a little differently.

It's too early to share any of that; we still haven't formulated our thoughts and feelings after receiving news that might or might not shape our future.

Instead, I plan to enjoy our last 48 hours here. We'll visit the California Science Center this afternoon and I'm looking forward to hanging with my friend R and her son T. The kiddies can run and touch and watch, and R and I can continue where we left off Sunday.

I'm not glum and I won't pout when we return. There is much to be thankful for and appreciate about our life back east.

But I'm glad to have a goal, even if it's one thousand, four hundred and sixty days away.

One Day

9:30am. Kiss M goodbye, he's off on a last minute overnight to Philly for a work event.

10am. Pick A up from sleep-over. She's tired.  Dark crescent moons circle her eyes, the reminder of a night when too little sleep meant giggled whispers on an air mattress.

We settle in with a snack of Pirates' booty, a movie (freaky friday) and the promise of an art project.

11am. Spin art in the house! A favorite with miss A, we set up the machine, pull out the paints and she begins. She's good for a half hour, I make my 2nd cup of tea, black and steaming.

A slice of pizza in the toaster oven, lunch before I drop my girl off for an afternoon playdate; 3 hours of choice time for both of us.

1:30pm. Drop A off at her playdate and plan my afternoon. Another cup of tea and a sit-down in front of the computer.

2:30pm. Still here. Three posts for NaBlo(me)PoMo, now in the queue.

4pm. Still here, how did it get so late? Make a phone call to a sweet friend.

4:30pm. Where's Elmo? Crap, I'm late. Grab back-up Elmo only to see the original Elmo squished into the backseat of the car. Throw back-up Elmo on the floor, pick-up miss A.

5pm. Dinner at the diner - egg white and veggie omelet for me, chicken and rice soup for my girl.

6pm. A quick change into PJ's, we settle downstairs. A with Zach and Cody, (and a little Miley too), me with a cup of tea and knitting.

7:30pm. Snuggled into bed, we read books to each other. First A reads Socks for Supper. My turn, miss A drifts off on a pink cloud of dreams, lulled to sleep by Priscilla and the Pink Planet.

8pm. Arrested Development. Season One, disc three. Kitty. GOB. Need I say more?

The last days

I'm having a hard time sitting down here to write. Not that there isn't a lot to say, I'm just feeling quiet. I'm enjoying the last days of summer and I'm enjoying the company of our houseguest, who leaves us Friday morning. We've grown quite fond of having Luzie here, especially A who loves nothing more than lying in Luzie's bed, having a chat.

Yesterday we took a ride to the beach, just 4 girls (we took A's sister-friend E along), and a car packed full of towels and sunscreen, shovels and snacks.

We laid in the sun and we swam in the ocean. We ate pizza and cotton candy and I bought too much salt water taffy.

I found the photo booth at Frank's, (thank you bella), 6 lovely black and white strips, be still my heart.

Wristband day with unlimited rides, the girls rode with abandon, a small gasp escaping my lips with each pass.

 

Cali Style

It's hard to believe our trip is half over. How does time pass so quickly? My sister and her kiddies leave tomorrow night and then we're back to the East coast on Saturday, probably not returning a week later after all.

Miss A lost her 6th tooth on the airplane, a bagel the culprit once again. Checking in at the airport Saturday morning, I thought about that loose tooth and kicked myself for not bringing the book I have stored for just this occasion. The toothfairy forgot (ahem) that we already have this book, the book she left in exchange for the lost tooth. I quickly explained that because we're not at home, the tooth fairy couldn't look on our bookshelf to see what we already have. I was able to exchange the book for this one, and miss A is none the wiser.

We've had a busy week here in Los Angeles.

We've gone bowling,

and we've gone shopping.

We've shopped again and we've gone boothing.

We tried to get tattooed but the shop price is $200 per hour, bite me, 3 small stars included. It was more than my sister wanted to pay for simple Japanese lettering, so we left. No strips. No ink.

My sister and Dad took the kiddies to Disneyland on Tuesday giving M and I a day free to do as we pleased.

We had lunch in a sweet French cafe and I took a few shots as we roamed around Hollywood and Santa Monica.

The plan

When we first moved to our suburban oasis, there was a lot of planning involved in childcare. What facility (I was never the nanny-type) would best care for miss A and also give me a full day. Once A's 'school' was in place, I looked for office space that would accomodate a part-time schedule. I knew my hours would be a modified version of what they'd become in 2007, the year A entered first grade. 2007 became my gold standard. The year we would no longer need to pay for childcare. The year that A would be gone from 8:30 until 3:15, a full day. In early 2004 as I was choosing daycare options and office locations, 2007 was a very distant horizon. A rite of passage.

Suddenly (it really feels that abrupt), here I am. A started camp Monday and the camp schedule, replicates the school day. This is what my weekdays will look like for the next twelve years. I work Monday, Friday and Saturday and this schedule, in my current digs, won't change. Which leaves me a lot of time to myself. And that's what I need to figure out.

Suddenly (there's that word again), I won't have to cram laundry-groceries-errands into a frenzied 2 1/2 hour window. I can go to the gym regularly. I have time to be creative. I have time to work more. I have options. And frankly, I don't know what to do with myself. This week has been fine. The novelty of more time has allowed me to be uber-productive, a wrinkle of my old self. Eventually, the shine dulls and I will find myself needing more. I've volunteered to work in the school library starting in September, but that's one hour a week, hardly enough to fill the void. That's what it feels like, having my girl all grown up.

This week I've spent my days alone and I miss my side-kick, my companion. I knew having her home with me last year was really, the last year. And I appreciated our time together, even as she busted my butt to make playdates and entertain. I guess I didn't know how much I'd miss all that, but then I never do.

I've got options and I want to consider these thoughtfully, carefully. I'm going to take the summer and marinate on my choices, instead of my typical rash impulsivity. In my heart I'm a nomad, and in reality I'm firmly planted in routine. I shiver with excitement and fear.

A Good Day

Mother's Day (and Father's Day) around our neck of the woods is the do as you wish day, the one day of the year where I'm not in charge and I don't have to negotiate or feel guilty about it, it's my day.

I was showered with gifts: a hand-written card accompanying a beautiful hand-made with help tie-dyed t-shirt in all my favorite colors, swirly orange, pink and purple that I wore today with pride. My perfume bottle was refilled and M picked out two cute t-shirts from here. In the afternoon I met two of my teammates for a six mile skate outdoors along a river in a wooded park, the trees and nature singing to my city-drenched soul in a way that has left me feeling peaceful and relaxed. Tonight I'm going to the movies with a friend. I'm hoping to see this one or perhaps this, if my friend isn't into zombies.

I think this Mother's Day has been my most favorite of all. Miss A flings herself upon me whenever I'm present, showering me in kisses and lovey snuggles and there have been no disagreements or arguing (at least with me), a blessing after four long days of virus-ridden fevers and a gasping cough.

Happy Mother's Day to all you hot mamas, I hope your day was as good-filled as mine, you deserve it and more. Mwah.

I did sneak into the city on Friday afternoon since M was working at home and got my hair cut. What do you think? Me likey my fauxhawk very much.