A Failed Experiment

Let's have a science primer, specifically about conducting experiments.

Rule #1: do not do conduct experiments with your mortgage. Do not do any experiments that affect the roof over your head.

Rule #2: do not assume a company will let you pay in creative ways, as in two payments instead of one, even if the sum total is reached by the due date. Mortgage companies are not design firms, they do not appreciate financial creativity. They take your "unauthorized" payment and put it in a special account that just floats in financial outer space and then gets applied to your principal. As if anyone around here cares about their principal balance!

Rule #3: if you conduct such an experiment and after a tearful plea, get the mortgage company to accept your two unauthorized half-payments for the low, low late fee of $85, do not tell your husband about it. Proceed to Rule #4.

Rule #4: blog abot it instead.

(Sorry sweety. I have a B.A. in English, i.e. blogging, not Math, i.e. bill paying).

December 2006

Today Jaden woke up and decided to fill in his calendar.



Yes, you're reading that right, that is my son writing his first letters.

Dec. 3, 4, 5, 12, 19 and 25!

The "x" on the 2nd was Mommy's.

Unreal! The kid just wakes up and busts out some writing on me today!

A developing brain is simply amazing.

I love Pineapple

I think everyone should know about my friend Jamie who loves pineapple.

Jamie is a ray of sunshine in my sometimes cloudy life, that's what I always say. Jamie is so kind, gentle, warm, funny, caring, smart (so smart), loving, sweet, determined, loyal and faithful.

She is moody too and I love that especially. I love people who are not afraid of their moods. She gets cranky and blue like me and she just goes with it. I admire her. Sometimes she needs to be alone and she just takes off in her car down the coast to Santa Barbara or up the coast to Portland. She is rad. And she has a longboard.



A long time ago, on one of my cloudy days, Jamie sent me this email and I printed it out and put it on my wall right by my computer.

"Oh I just know you'll get to go there and when you get back you'll be on a regular schedule with everything -- bexxar, and the maid service will help, and you'll be doing some hill repeats, and we're going to have fun together, and Jaden will be doing fun, new and crazy things, and you and Jeff will have date nights, and fall will come and you'll get to wear sweaters and cook Italian meals, and some days will suck and some moments will be stellar and some stranger will see a Jess smile for their first time and feel that amidst all the world's chaos, there are really special people in this world. Love always, Jamie."

Now do you see how lucky I am to have a friend like Jamie? I look at that note all the time and it helps me remember that I will be okay. That not everyone sees me the way I see myself and thank goodness for that.

Recently Jamie started blogging and I am thrilled. The only part that I am not thrilled about is she only posts once or twice a week and I check her blog at least once a day hoping for a little hit. This morning, I got a perfect little dose of Jamie and it made me realize that everyone needs to make time for her blog too.

Tank tops in November! Who knew?!

Depressed

I feel so wrong and misunderstood and cranky and sad and depressed.

I am trying to take steps to change my life a little so I'm not so overwhelmed but everything takes time. I am trying to sub, started that process awhile ago. I am trying to start a business, started that process awhile ago.

When these plans get rolling, I will have more of an identity again and will be contributing financially, all of which should hopefully have a gushing-down effect around my house and lift everyone's spirits.

You know the phrase, a happy mom means a happy family or however it goes? Well it really is true. When I'm sick (17 days now), tired (4 hours of sleep last night), overwhelmed (no preschool today) -- then little annoyances like running out of diapers and not finding out until naptime become huge emotional volcanic marital eruptions.

I am left, more spent then ever, feeling shakey and now adding to my list of responsibilities, the challenge of fighting my flight response, my dramatic personality, my black & white raw emotional view of life.

I think I have one of the strongest marriages around and I think Jeff and I are so well-suited that it's almost beyond comprehension. So when we have a clash, it affects me so completely that it's hard to remember that under the crushed granite of my fragile state of mind is a mile-deep foundation of interlocking paving stones that is our love.

So sweety...if you are reading this, I am sorry you feel like my punching bag lately. I never, ever want to treat you that way. I feel like a louse. And a mouse. Who wants to hide behind our dishwasher and never come out. Not even for very nice parmesan cheese and red, red, wine.

Okay I'm taking my broken heart and swollen eyes to the store to find some way to back up the 9,000 photos that document our normally happy home life.

Skater Girl

I've been meaning to post these pics of my first time on a skateboard for a few weeks now. I borrowed Jamie's longboard.





Of course I got overconfident after a whopping four trips up and down the sidewalk and decided to try a ramp.

HA. We all know I spent the next week hobbling around, and that was after a trip to Cree, our chiropractor.

I'm close to being ready to try again now though.

On Death & Dying

Lately Jaden has been talking about death & dying a lot. Ever since Harpo got sick I suppose. So I can either blame it all on that situation or I need to get my kid into therapy right quick.

Here's a glimpse into his state of mind, a little conversation we had on the way home from a happy little visit at Nana's.

Jaden:

When I was five, I was walking under an airplane and they dropped a bomb on me and I was dead.

And Bailey and Lulu and Ella were all crying, they just kept crying over me, they were so sad. And there were flowers.

And one of them brought me home and they buried me. And they put my blankie over me and gave me my binkie. But my mouth wouldn't open. So they opened it. But they couldn't hear my sucking noises. And they couldn't hear my heart beating. And they coulddn't hear me breathing anymore.

And I couldn't walk anymore. And I couldn't eat. I couldn't eat carrots or broccoli. I couldn't do any of those things anymore.

And it was very sad. And I was dead.

Was that the saddest story you ever heard Mama?

Mama:

Yes, it was a horribly horrible story. I am so happy it's not true and it's just a story because no mommy wants to hear her son tell the story of his death. And if you die, I will cry and never stop crying. I won't eat or sleep. I will just cry until I die too.

Jaden:

Well when I was five, I didn't go back to that place anymore. I didn't go to that war again and I didn't die.

The moral of the story is a) do not let your kid watch your vet kill your dog in your foyer/living/dining/family room (since you live in a one-room overpriced townhouse in the Bay Area) and b) do not, no matter how nicely he asks, thumb through Newsweek magazine at the doctor's office with him.

Home Alone

Ahhh my darling husband took the kid & the puppy out all morning and I've been home alone. It is so great. I paid bills, had coffee, listened to iTunes, talked on the phone and checked my email. All without the pressure!

Oh yeah, how could I forget? I also SWIFFERED my floors again.

Swiffer!

Okay how come no one told me about the wonders of a Swiffer?

Okay so maybe my ban on commercial advertisements has gone too far, my auto-avoidance of them through the wonders of TiVo has done me one disservice.

Okay so maybe I have known about Swiffer for years but was taking the environmental high ground.

Well enough is enough. I will serve the environment in some other way. I will put my morals on hold until this puppy is housetrained. Because Swiffer is fabulous. It is fabulous dry (under the couch and tv cabinet) and it is fabulous wet, every citrus chemical drop that wipes my floors clean of muddy paw prints and trails of puppy pee.

Yes Swiffer, I love thee whilst I deplore thee in my local landfill.

Seventh Generation, are you reading? Do you have a Swiffer in R&D soon to be available at my local Whole Paycheck?

Ho Hum

Today Jaden woke up on the wrong side of the bed and I never fell asleep on the right side of the bed. Between the two of us, there is more than enough angst to fill a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.

The dog is digging, digging, digging an enormous hole under my garden bench. In one hour, he pee'd three times inside and twice outside. He jumped up on my dining table and swiped Jaden's milk cup and sat lapping it up like he was a cat. If only he was a cat, I might have some sanity left. Of course, this happened at the exact moment that Jaden finished in the bathroom and needed my help.

Jaden has cried over his Halloween candy twice so far today. Once on the way to school when he really couldn't believe I said no. I was planning to say yes but then he only ate two bites of toast and one bite of oatmeal. I figured morning was actually the perfect time to let him have his candy. He usually eats a huge breakfast and then school can deal with his sugar high, not me.

The second time was just now before nap. He chewed one bit of apple for at least 7 minutes and then told me, "I can't swallow it Mama." I'm like, right, I bet you could swallow a piece of chocolate though. So he spit out his apple in the garbage and went to nap crying his head off about how angry he is with me.

So I'm sitting here eating a KitKat in a rather vengeful, spiteful, secret way in the office. I'm wondering how on earth I can quit my job. Because from 11:30 to 1 p.m. now is the longest, most challening and miserable 90 minutes of my life every day. I've been sick for a week, my nose is raw despite my devotional use of Kleenex Cold Crap Care with Crap Lotion and I could sleep all day if only anyone would let me!

CBEST

I passed the CBEST.

Surprisingly, my writing score was the lowest of the three sections (which also included reading and math). I would have bet money that math would have been my lowest. I'm actually quite embarrassed by my writing score although I know I did a totally half-assed job and only spent 15 minutes on each essay. So I guess I deserve my half-assed score.

The point is that I passed overall and now as soon as I get my hands on my official report, I'm off to get a substitute teaching permit. I don't have a clue logistically how I will start subbing between Jackson and Jaden and how to arrange for preschool hours, etc.

I just looked up all the elementary schools in Campbell Union School District and wrote down all the start/end times. I have learned that 4th and 5th grade often gets out at a different time from K-3 and every school in the district has a minimum day on Wednesdays.

So now I wonder if I can choose which schools to sub at, of course I probably can but that might limit how often I can go sub. If I'm open to each elementary, then I might be able to work out a fairly structured schedule. How to mesh that with Jaden's preschool is another story. They have a part day schedule which requires pick up by 2:45 p.m. but I think I'd be stressed out trying to get there even from a school that gets out at 2 p.m. I have no idea how long I will have to stay after.

Or I can sign him up for three full days and then pick him up after school and ask his school when a good time is because I wouldn't leave him there until dinner. But I wouldn't want to interrupt their afternoon routine much.

I'm just thinking out loud. If anyone knows the answers, please feel free to comment.

In any case, it's exciting to know that soon I will be contributing financially to the family. Between this and starting my errands service, there is some hope we will be able to move into something else (probably a bigger townhouse).

A Material World

This picture is a totally, supremely, perfect example of why I need a digital SLR.



Enough said.

Vampires

We went to visit my in-laws this weekend and they had to dress up for a Halloween party last night. It was such fun watching them transform themselves into creepy vampires and we had a blast taking pictures of them before they left.



There were ten great pics but this one just cracks me up to no end. So it goes on the blog!

Mostly this reminds me that I have less than 48 hours to pull off a cowgirl outfit.

Daydream

I am so late to get the day started, I was supposed to leave half an hour ago to get Jaden to school. But Jackson is miraculously quiet in his crate, Jaden is playing happily in his room so I got greedy and stole some computer time for myself.

I am really over this exasperated, relentless feeling that I am living for everyone but me most of the hours of the day. I go and go and go in an endless cycle and the whole time feel this nagging knot in my stomach crying "What about me?" Where am I all day long?

I am stuffed deep inside the responsibilities of my life, that's where. There is no escape right now. I feel cramped inside and out. The house is overwhelmingly small, the narrow walls seem to close in further on me every day. I want to break out of here but where would I go?

I spend my fleeting free time on Craiglist looking at rentals. I don't even bother with the real estate sites. I look and look around here and get discouraged. Where are we going to raise Jaden? How can we ever leave our friends and family here and how can we ever afford to stay here? It all gives me a giant headache and it's not just from the whopper of a head cold I woke up with yesterday.

Okay...my time is way up and I have to trudge along my day now.

Inspiring!

Sunday morning I woke up bright-eyed at 4:45 a.m. so excited to drive to SF and see my friend Jamie and her friend Jenni finish the half marathon at the Nike event. I couldn't find my camera for the life of me which was the only disappointment for me.

I found parking, got coffee and scoped out the finish line. As I was wandering around about 9 a.m. near the finisher's booth, I saw a familiar face. It was my friend Lynora. I knew she did this event last year but I didn't know she was doing it again. She was so surprised to see me too and we went to the Pose Like A Girl tent and took a picture together. Lynora and I have known each other since 1989 at Long Beach State, six lifetimes ago it feels like. Our lives are so busy that we don't see or talk much, but nothing can stand in the way of that much history together. I'm so honored she ran in this event twice.

After saying goodbye to Lyn, I found a spot along the sidelines and yelled GO TEAM to every purple TNT jersey that passed my way. Finally I saw Jamie and cheered as loud as I could. I was so happy I was able to spot her in the sea of runners going by. I met her & Jenni after they crossed the line and later, after we found Jay & Ed, Jay took this picture of us.



(L-R: Jess, Jamie, Jenni)

I was so inspired by Jamie & Jenni's run that I vowed to do this event myself next year. This is despite a lifelong pure hatred of running and a violent histamine reaction every time I even walk fast. But the event raised $16 million for the L&LS so how can I not suffer a couple of hours of itching for my own cause?

sk8

Several weeks ago Jaden needed some new shoes and I settled upon a pair of Vans. Little did I know I'd be starting a skating phenomenon in my household. Now Jeff's got new skate shoes, they both have pads and I've got a date to try Jamie's longboard this Saturday.

Here are some pics of my big & little skater boys from the weekend before last.













These are taken at the Campbell skate park. We went back last weekend too and Jaden made so much progress in just one week. Now he stands up on his own and can balance. And he rides on the front of the board with Jeff going on all the ramps! I was amazed to watch them. Jaden is fearless! He is the youngest kid out there. It looks so fun and I want to be out there with them, not just on the side taking pictures.

Big News

Okay my big news (and big excuse for the past week of no posts) is pictured below.



We welcomed Jackson to our family last Tuesday. He is about 10 weeks old and was 14 lbs. at his vet appt. on Thursday. He is a lab/golden retriever mix and we found him on Craigslist. His entire litter was rescued. Or so we think. More on that another time. I have my doubts right now but at the time, I did believe we were adopting a puppy, not buying one (which is an important distinction to me).

Anyway a puppy is a huge, massive, amount of work! OMG. Jeff and I are overwhelmed to say the least. Puppies are WAY harder than babies in our opinion. But he is adorable and when he chases Jaden down Nana's sidewalk while Jaden rides his tricycle, it is one of the sweetest sights I've ever seen.

Slacker

I have really been slacking on blogging. When Harpo died, I just didn't care to blog for awhile. Nothing seemed big enough to write about and I didn't think anyone wanted to hear about my daily cry-fest on her bed. After that subsided a little, I was out of the habit.

Last weekend I took CBEST. If I pass, I will be allowed to be a substitute teacher in CA (assuming I pass the fingerprinting and TB tests). So we'll see. I did little studying and was worried about the math. I get the math and reading scores in one week and the writing score a week later. We'll see! The writing portion really annoyed me. First of all, I have always hated handwriting essays. What's the point? It's just a handcramp recipe. Then they ask you to do two essays. That seems even lamer. If you can write one well-structured essay, chances are you can do two or three or ten. If you can't write one, well maybe you'd do better the second time but probably not five minutes after your first, poor, attempt. So it just feels like a punishment to me to handwrite an extra essay.

Today I had my blood counts checked. They are tanked. I'm so discouraged. This has been going on for 20 months now. The nurse said "well look on the bright side, you're still in remission." Yes. Well now that seems obvious. Of course, I'm grateful for that. But it's not a quality remission when you have to deal with bone pain and hospital visits on a monthly basis still. I feel like a whiner sometimes but I want a normal life now. I have gone through enough. Is it really too much to ask to be in remission AND healthy? Because you get the impression that they are one and the same but clearly that's a bad assumption.

I will post our really big news separately...

Chicken Soup

Our little noodle is sick with some bug so last night I made homemade chicken soup.

Well, more like I made a TON of chicken soup.



I used up every single large container I own & gave away three last night.

Now that's a lot of soup.

Two Weeks

Two weeks ago, Dr. Flinn arrived at our house to help us help Harpo die. It was one of the hardest days of my life. My life has not been the same without her either. I was totally unable to post about it but today I want to try a little.

Jeff, Jaden, Betty and I were here together. Before Dr. Flinn arrived, Jeff, Jaden and I took Harpo for one last hike. The whole walk back to the car, she hesitated and walked so slowly. She did not want to go back to the car. I believe she knew what was happening. She kept looking to the side of the trail and I wanted to break free with her and run away from the destiny we chose for her.

I have looked and looked at her pictures in the past two weeks. I see now how much she had aged in general without me realizing it. But still, the decline in the five weeks of cancer is unmistakable in the photos. I have gotten a meager amount of peace from seeing that because at first I really struggled with the decision.

I haven't put away any of her things yet, in fact I haven't even swept the floors once in two weeks. I think the time is coming though. I've been looking for a beautiful box or basket to store her bowls in, but I am going to leave her leash & collar hanging up by the door for a long, long time. Her bed in my room is my sole comfort now, I can still smell her although it's fading.

Bedtime is hardest on me & Jeff. That nightly routine of letting her out and in and tucking her into bed was precious and ingrained. I cry every night at bedtime still.

I've started looking online for dogs but so far the right one is not there. I knew right away with Harpo the instant that I met her that she was my dog. So I will wait until I get that feeling again. I know all the pain I have felt were far outweighed by all the years I loved her and she loved me back. So another dog is in my future. The house is so empty and boring without her.

This picture has been on my desktop for awhile now. On my big screen, if I really concentrate, it almost feels like she is here with me and I can look deeply into her eyes again.



Harpo, you beautiful, sweet girl, I miss you with all my heart and soul.

Pezzettino

If I was the type (I am) to keep a list of my all-time favorite books, there is a new contender for #1 tonight.



For the longest time, #1 was held by The Awakening by Kate Chopin. I read this in a college summer class and it changed my life. It was not a case of purely relating to the character either, it was more that it widened and deepened my world view as a woman so dramatically that I was not the same person anymore.

Tonight's book is not quite as life-changing in that regard, but it speaks to my heart so acutely, in such a critical way, that I wish I could escape the mundane reality of the Sunday night blues to go be somewhere: somewhere magical, romantic, starry, cold and warm at the same time and drink alternating sips of red, red wine and capuccino while listening to acoustic guitar and Andy Garcia read Pablo Neruda poems to me.

(It occurs to me, re-reading this, that I wish I was in Italy, feeling full of hope, connected to the land and yet, terribly, achingly homesick at the same time).

I feel so much that I am a lost little piece myself the past few years. I walk around and wonder where I belong, what am I to do with My Life and other Big Questions like that. The fact that Lionni chose the color orange for Pezzettino is nothing short of ironic right now for me.

This book has the added charms of being Italian. Being Italian makes it easy to fall in love with other Italian things. Still this is a Caldecott-winning author we are talking about here.



Leo, you inspired me in many ways tonight and writing my first Amazon review is just one of them.

Mille grazie!