Paying Attention

Once a month, I try to focus on the details. Here's yesterday.

6:00:  I am awakened by Chuck and am almost immediately bright-eyed.  I go to bed much earlier now, than I used to.  Alarm clocks are forbidden – Chuck wakes me up at whatever time I ask.  I know!  How does he DO that?  I wake up the kids, get the kettle on and Sara joins me to go for the newspaper.  The paper delivery guy is at the mailbox when we get there and hands it straight to me.  Breakfast, sack lunches, dishes. 

7:00:  I get a cup of tea and Chuck’s vitamins ready for him before I leave.  He pulls me in and whispers in my ear that he loves me so much that I make him cry sometimes.  It has been a long time since he has spoken to me in this way, and I carry it with me for the rest of the day. 

7:20:  Out the door and off to school.  The sunrise has not hit the canyon yet; but the Oquirr Mountains on the other side of the valley are pink. 

7:40:  I drop Sara at her middle school and then drive over to the church parking lot from which Nathan’s bus will leave in about 45 minutes’ time.  This has been awkward ever since the divorce.  His school starts more than an hour later than Sara’s.  Do I leave him at home and go back for him?  Waste  of gas and time.  Drop him off at his school?  Too early.  The bus stop is so close that I can see his dad’s house while we sit waiting.  But it isn’t fair to the custody agreement to drop Nate off and have him wait at his dad’s.  We have a routine now:  we both have our books and we read while we wait.  In the coldest part of winter, it sucks and we freeze.  Otherwise, it’s not too bad.

8:20:  Nate sees his friend Ethan headed to the school bus stop and leaps from the car.  They race every morning to see who will lead the bus line.  As soon as he has a companion to wait with, I leave and go to the Rec Center.

8:50:  It’s a fat-burning day!  This means I lounge on the exercise bike, keeping my heart rate at a mellow 114 beats per minute.  At that rate, I can read my book!  For an hour!  YES!  Today, I get a fair amount of ribbing from the peddlers of the other bikes when I drop my book spectacularly (lunging to catch it, missing so that it bounces off my finger tips and goes flying, etc…).  The old guy next to me asks me please to do it again.

9:50:  I’m reluctant to stop reading; but my butt is sore from sitting on the exercise bike – and it’s time for work.  OK…  I drive downtown.  

10:15:  I arrive at work and transform myself from sweaty fat-burner to semi-groomed semi-professional. 

10:30:  Unpack the crate of work I took home over the weekend and start working on phone calls:  Will one sanitation company offer me a lower price than the other to pump Chuck’s sewage holding tank?  Can I persuade any of the commercial radio stations to air a public service announcement, requesting volunteer tutors?  I have been working on one of the local media conglomerates for several weeks, and am finally invited to come to the corporate office to be interviewed by the producer of the X96 morning show, “Radio from Hell”.  I think that the company will probably just interview me and air sound bites in the wee hours of the morning.  BUT!  What if I am really hip and funny and the producer of the morning show is entertained by me?  Could I get some sort of morning show exposure? 

11:00:  Time for e-mail.  The bottomless pit:  teacher licensure questions; meetings to schedule; Thanksgiving food donations; student payments for textbooks;  ordering business cards; following up on broken technology; volunteer recruitment; Sara’s English teacher.  With interruptions to review the latest draft of the rules for our childcare; giving teachers advice about which textbooks to choose; interpreting Spanish / English at the reception desk.  By the time I have finished scaling Mt. E-Mail, it is...

1:30:  OK, the main event for today is supposed to be updating volunteer and student enrollment for the new month.  I start working on that, with breaks in the action to deal with:  someone calling from Brigham City to find out whether there are English classes up there; discussions about how to organize a baby board book lending library for parents.  And could I have my picture taken leaning out of a school bus tomorrow?  Sure.

2:45: A little lipstick.  I know I am backward about this; but I get prettied up before I go home, rather than before I go to work.  I want to look nice when I walk in the door.

2:50:  Time to pick up the kids.  Time for hectic, but of a different sort.

3:20:  Sara and Nate are waiting behind Nathan’s school. Sara’s school lets out earlier, but I’ve told her that she has to walk up to Nate’s school, and that I’ll pick them up together. 

Quick stop at their dad’s house, because Sara can’t find her shin guards, then home.  The house is cozy and welcoming:  my ginger chicken has been bubbling in the crock pot since early morning; Chuck tosses another log in the wood stove.  I have about 30 minutes before I have to go out again, and daylight is at a premium, now; so I head out into the yard, tossing my “dirt coat” over my work clothes.  There isn’t much to do out there anymore:  oiling and stowing tools, coiling hoses.  Little things. 

4:15:  Time to drive Sara to her soccer practice.

4:30:  Drop off Sara and boogie over to Blockbuster.  Chariots of Fire for Monday Movie Night.  Chuck is on a “sports movie” jag.  I get home a little before 5:00.  Just a few minutes to get a bunch of things done.  I kinda simultaneously get rice water boiling on the woodstove, mop the upstairs floors and drill Nate on his spelling.  Chuck keeps his eye on the rice and I leave again at 5:30 to go get Sara. 

5:45:  I pick up Sara and we head home.  Like many thirteen-year-old girls, she is ready to talk about things on her own time frame.  The drive home was spent talking about “cutting” among teenage girls:  “cutters” that she knows; their motivations; the dangers involved.

6:00: Ahhhh…  Supper was so delicious.  Crock pot every Monday!  Talk about a time-saver!  Supper table conversation also get a little edgy:  Aids; condoms; bodily fluids!  Man! Dishes, ice cream.  Chariots of Fire.

Late evening conversations with Chuck about firewood, sewage removal, snow tires, whether or not I am sufficiently pretty for him.  That’s a whole other blog entry…

 

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.