Tuesday, September 27, 2011

High Point, Low Point

Even when I am super-pooped and unable to writemuch, I can at least manage this, huh?

Low Point:  Rude responses from Si to my e-mail today.  Tells me that I think I'm the only one that matters.  I told him that wasn't true:  that I didn't understand how he could say that I didn't care about my children.  He countered that I cared about my children; but that I cared about myself more. 

High Point:  I love training volutneer tutors.  And my favorite thing to teach them about is pronunciation.  Next thing you say, stop to ponder the miracle of articulation.  It is truly amazing.

Finding the Right Groove

Whew, Nelly!  It's late!  I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen singing:

Git out the way of Old Dan Tucker,
He's too late to eat his supper!

I've really struggled to write lately.  Sometimes I write entire blog entries that I don't publish.  Sometimes I start writing and am suddenly consumed by weariness.  I need to keep going and work my way through this monumental writer's block.  Unfortunately, this means that I may have to just...'blog some more, so see if I can find the stories I used to find so easily.

Eek!  What is I have a complex?  Do I need to be riled up in my mind in order to write? 

Trial and error.  First though, tea.

So, a day in the life of a single mom whose kids are out of school.

7:45 AM.  My alarm goes off.  I turn it off and surrender to the siren of sleep.  What did I think could possibly tempt me at this ealry hour?

9:00 AM.  I wake up on my own and realize that I have slept for ten hours.  Remember when I could thrive on almost no sleep at all?  Now I am a total sleep-tramp.  What's more, I don't even get up at 9:00 AM.  I doze and reflect on life, love and the universe until 10:00 AM.

10:00AM.  Enough of this!  Rise and shine.  Roust Nate, who has also been seduced by his mattress. Oatmeal for him.  Cheerios for me.  Tea all around.  I open my Salt Lake Tribune to this story.  Silvia Alfaro is a student in our Adult Education program.

I tidy up the apartment, run a load of laundry, and check the mail.  Newsweek again?!?  I did NOT subscribe to Newsweek.  Much as I like getting it, I suspect I will not enjoy paying for it. I call Newsweek and cancel the subscription (or whatever we want to call it...).  I text Sara's Girl Scout leader to find out where they are in their drive home from a weekend camping trip.  What should I make for supper?  Hmm... chicken soup?  I have some chicken that is getting a little freezer-burned around the edges... 

11:30 AM to Game Stop!  Game Stop!  Game Stop!  Game Stop!  Nathan has been a picture of helpfulness and compliance ever since Chuck told him yesterday about how he can take old games to Game Stop and trade them in for other games.  Best!  Thing! Ever!  (Emphasis Nate's, not mine...)

12:00 PM  Text coworkers Melanie (who is Silvia Alfaro's teacher) and Kristen (who helped Silvia pass her citizenship test) and let them know that Silvia is in today's Tribune.

To Smith's Marketplace, for which I have a gift card.  Time to buy an iron.  I realized that this morning when I looked in my chore basket and saw my unironed skirt in there.  I meant to take it up to Aloha Road and ask Cliff for the use of his iron, but I forgot.  I figured I would buy an iron and ironing board, but then I found the holy grail of laundry!  Finally, after much searching!  A drying rack!  Now, I have a drier, thanks to Chuck.  But a drying rack will do nicely for smaller stuff when the weather is  nice and will save me some pennies.  OK, but if I buy the iron and the drying rack, that pretty much uses all the money on the gift card.  What to do about the ironing board?  Nathan and I debate for a while.  Should I get one at the thrift store?  Will a thrift store ironing board be any good?  Why do people get rid of their ironing boards, after all?  Not because they have gone out of fashion, or they got a new and improved version for their birthdays.  In my opinion, people only throw out their ironing boards when here's something wrong with them.  Still...  OK, I will check Saver's for an ironing board.

As we leave Smith's Marketplace, Nate asks me where Saver's is.  "Oh, just a little way from here.  You can almost see it."  "Well, let's just walk down there."  As we walked along, he asked about why Silvia Alfaro is in the Tribune,and I told him all about the cheating, lying immigration lawyer who ripped her off.

At Saver's I buy a few picture frames for something like $4.  No ironing boards today.  Fate does not want me wearing that skirt right away, I guess.

1:15 PM - Drive back  home and make a little lunch.  I make a shopping list and do a few more little chores:  water plants, clean out the microwave. I am hating my sofa.  I detest the baggy, dingy slipcover almost as much as I loathe the ginormous holes in the upholstery.  Today I took the cover off and put it in the wash.  Then I looked at the holey sofa and thought: holes or no holes; I kind of like you better without the fucking slipcover.  I'm telling you:  this sofa is so bad that I often see sofas in dumpsters that would be an improvement.

2:30 PM - Sara is sin Scipio.  I get some frozen dough out to thaw and rise for rolls.  Fold a load of wash.  Change into my running clothes. 

2:45 PM - I go over to Cottonwood and run my favorite hill-route; mindful of the time, because I have to take Nathan to soccer practice at 4:00.

3:55 PM - I am very pleased with my timing as I pull in the driveway of the apartment complex  I won't be able to shower before I drive Nathan, but I should be able to take a quick hand bath and -

I get a text from Sara.  "Hi, I am at the Scout Leader's house.  Can you pick me up n 20 minutes?"  I am frustrated because the scout leader lives in Cottonwood, and I was within 100 yards of her house while I was running.  Now I am about 15 minutes away and I have another pressing engagement.  Wishing very much that they had told me that the plan was for mothers to pick up the girls rather then drop them off, I realize that I will have to drive all the way to Draper to drop Nate off for soccer practice, then drive to Cottonwood to get Sara, then return to Draper.  Oh, barf.  Can you hear the gas being slurped out of the tank?

Nate is not ready to go, despite the fact that, beofer I left for my run, I told him to pay attention to the time and be prepared.  I notice that his milky, empty cereal bowl in still on his bedroom floor, when I had admonished him to wash it up over an hour ago.  Despite the lateness, I sit on the end of my bed and tell him that we are going nowhere until his cereal bowl is washed up.

4:10 PM- I pull out with Nathan.  He remembers that he left his cleats in the apartment and has to go back for them.  I still managed to get him there on time somehow.

4:30 PM - Drop off Nate at soccer practice in Draper.  Back up to Cottonwood.  I knock at the screen door and Julia, the Scout Leader answers.  The girls are playing Wii downstairs. Julia is a major talker! She recounts some of the high points of the trip.  Do I have time to look at the photos?  "Well, actually, I still need to get groceries and make it back to..."  "Oh. that's right, you have a busy schedule," she says, getting out her camera regardless.  I love Julia and enjoy looking at her photos, but  the little voice in my head wants me to remember that we have a DEADLINE!  Yeah, yeah, OK.

Sara and I drive over to Macey's for groceries, then back to Draper.  The traffic is tight.  I am sweating it with the clock.  Again, though, I pull in at precisely 6:00 PM

Home.  Set Sara to unpacking and cleaning up her camping stuff.  Homework as well, while I bake the rolls and make soup.

7:30 PM - I text our friends Mike and Mark Wolf and ask them if they are ready to hang out.  We jump in the truck and drive up to the Avenues to see them.  Mike just got a driver's licence again, after working to recover from a brain injury.  We pile into his car and make him drive us to Hire's for root beer floats. 

9:30 PM - After stuffing ourselves with root beer floats and bullshitting for a long time, we figure we had better get home.  School tomorrow. 

10:00 PM.  Home sweet home.  Showers, sack lunches.  Kisses good night.  Accounts and bill-paying.

I have also been working on another piece of writing, to which I dedicated an hour or so.  And where are we now?  2:00 AM.  It doesn't mater that I just about slept the clock around last night, I am done in.  Night-night.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

I Need A Good Cry

There are things to do around here. 

Chores and obligations.  But I'm stuck; sitting here, pondering a feeling of sadness that makes my throat tight.

I'm supposed to be happy. 

I'm useless.

I need to keep thinking this through and I need to figure out a plan.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

August Ends in Pictures

I'll pay the rent a day early, because I'll probably stay in the Avenues tonight.
Sara left her sock monkey in the truck yesterday, resulting in a very sad phone call late at night.  "Mooooooooom?????  Do you know where sock monkey is????"  I promised her I would drop it off at the house in the morning, but then Chuck suggested I have a little more fun with it than that.  So I took it to her school on the morning and snuck it into her locker. She called me later.

"HOW DID YOU DO THAT?"
"Well, I drove up to the school building and then I-"
"I mean, how do you know my locker combination?"
"Mom knows all things."
"Did you just walk right in?"
"No, I asked at the office."
"YOU TOLD THEM AT THE OFFICE THAT I NEEDED MY SOCK MONKEY???!?"
"No!  Would I do that to you?  I told them I needed to drop off your birth control pills."
"WHAT!?!?!?!?!"
OK, I didn't.  I told them I needed to drop off a pair of clean panties, for reasons that were strictly between the two of us."
"MOOOOOOOOOM!"

You get the idea.

Went for a run.

Chuck and I thought that, since his kids are coming for supper tonight, we would get a movie as well.  I really wanted "The Castle". Not at Blockbuster.  How about other Blockbusters?  Nope.  Not at any Blockbuster.  Does Blockbuster have no sense of humor?  Lots of Adam Sandler.  No "Castle"?
Maybe the library has it?
Boo-hoo.  Oh, well.  life's not all bad.  There's still Nacho Libre, Raising Arizona, Harold and Kumar...
...

The Kitchen Manager and the Adult Education Floor Manager are still getting used to each other.  I found this note, posted prominently in the office.  To read this, you would think the place was smeared with food and water gushing into the sinks all night.  I think Jodi is talking about the main tap that brings water to the other taps; and a carton of bagged potato chips...
Work clothes.
I have a lot of paper work to do.  The sign is hard to read, but says, "Kate is in the cone of silence. Unless we have an appointment, please do not disturb."  Despite its positioning right  in my doorway and the "combustible" sign directly over it (ESL teachers have lots of signs), no one paid it the slightest attention and just barged in anyway.


Emily B.  New teacher with an appontment for a training session.



Time to get the minuscule rock chip in my windshield fixed.
We needed a magnifying glass, but the guy found it.
See it?  No, neither do I.  Everyone says, though:  fix it now, before it turns into a crack.  OK, OK...
It is much faster to drive  to the Avenues  now that this bridge (the North Temple Viaduct) is finally open after being rebuilt.  It would be even faster if it weren't narrowed to one lane, but I am still happy.
The house on Aloha Road.  Residence of Cliff, Chuck, Arnell and their kids, friends and groupies.
Chuck's daughter is in town for a couple weeks before she goes back to college. He is psyched and has roasted a yummy chicken.  Killing the fated calf is just a little too expensive and would require too much freezer space.
My dinner preparation duties?  Drink wine and read the newspaper.

Chuck, Cliff and Chuck's son, G.  You can't see daughter K, outside the frame. 

At this point, my photo journal bit the dust.  I got way too engaged in visiting with all these fun people, then by baking brownies, then by watching "Raising Arizona", then by doing dishes.  More discipline next month.