Here Goes. Of Hurricanes, and Such.

Today we are pleased to feature a first person account of Hurricane Ike, written by our very own Mrs. Drunken Housewife of two years running, Missy! (Missy has well-earned that title through our Annual Readers' Photo Contest). People often say that they can't imagine living in San Francisco because of earthquakes, but earthquakes are puny lightweights compared to hurricanes in terms of fatalities and sheer destruction. Missy, being made of sterner stuff, faces down hurricanes with aplomb paired with compassion:

I began to write, a month or so ago, about what it was like evacuating for Hurricane Rita, and taking in Hurricane Katrina refugee children at the school where I taught, and I could not finish. I found it too depressing and upsetting to remember in detail and write about the evacuation for Rita, and I could not go on.

Then, Ike appeared on the horizon. It was all over the place on predicted paths, and I thought for certain it would be like most late season hurricanes, and go in around Corpus or Brownsville. (Corpus Christi, that is.) I began buying water early, checking supplies, we gassed up for the generator and the cars, but all along, I kept thinking that surely we would get lucky and it would go south or east.

"Why aren't we leaving?" one of the girls asked when it became obvious that Ike was headed too close. "Do you remember Rita? That was hell," my husband said, and the girls agreed. It was 15 hours for what was normally a five hour trip, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was sitting in complete gridlock at the intersection of I-10 and a highway, with cars stuck in all directions, and an overwhelming sense of anarchy ready to erupt. I remember thinking that it was like a bad disaster movie, but it was our lives and it was real, and one bad decision meant we wouldn't survive. I realized afterwards why people from generations ago didn't like to talk about such experiences. You don't want to talk about or remember how badly it felt at the time, to know there was a solid, realistic chance that you might not survive. You knew that one slight wrong decision would mean death, but there was no clear right way. It was the most traumatic and horrific experience of my life, and I knew why the people who didn't evacuate chose to stay. They simply could not take that again.

With Ike filling the Gulf like a giant white crayon swirl, everyone I knew was staying put and hunkering down. A couple of teachers whose husbands were gone or were policemen made plans to bag out as soon as we were released from school Thursday, not wanting to ride out the storm alone with small children. During the day a few children were taken out early by their parents, obviously heading out. Everytime one left, my eyes teared up, me thinking that if I wasn't working, I would be a better parent, we could take our children away as well. Even so, we could have left Thursday or Friday afternoon, but with the storm forecast to be a Cat 2 at worst by the time it reached us (one hour from the coast) it seemed safer to stay put. Rita had left our neighborhood largely untouched, but we well remembered the authorities saying "Don't come back yet." The same people who had shrieked hysterically that we were all Going To Die telling us to not come home? Open roads, enough gas, we left Dallas in the early hours with a complex GPS aided map from my storm chasing brother in law. Afraid of leaving, feeling as well prepared as possible, we decided to stay. We were not in the evacuation zones, we kept telling ourselves. If all of us left, those people would surely die, unable to get out. We would stay, we said.

Friday: 9:00 a.m. We watched in amazed horror as the Gulf water began creeping, brown and opaque, over the feeder streets of I-45 in Galveston. With the storm well over 12 hours from landfall, the streets of Galveston flooding and filling up with water was eerily reminscient of the accounts of the Great Storm of 1900 that took 6,000 lives and forever altered the future of Galveston from a thriving port city to a small island resort. People were calling already for rescue from Bolivar Peninsular. How could they not see this coming, we wondered. The west end of Galveston which had mandatory evacuations a day earlier, seemed a doomed place even then. The Gulf was hungrily eating away the shoreline with the eye of the storm still many hours away.

I did load after load of laundry, cooked chicken and ground turkey so we could heat it up on the gas-powered cooktop when we lost power. We taped up windows just to keep the glass from scattering, finished moving everything from the backyard and front. We made a bunker in the master bathroom where a neighbor's close house would provide a windbreak, packing in food, water, and a thin Ikea mattress over the small bay window.

Friday, 5:00 p.m. The sky had begun to cloud over . The wind blew briskly with an occasional little gust, once in awhile, a more ominous whine. My fifteen year old daughter who had breezily dismissed our preparations as crazy, happened to be walking by me as one of the gusts whined through. Her eyes widened. The sound of an incoming hurricane is no like no other wind sound or storm you will ever hear. As the sun went down and the sky darkened, we watched the radar on tv and it was unbearable waiting. Sunset was both eerie and beautiful; with a red rose sky and bands of deeper purple clouds. Time seemed to crawl unbearably slowly , as we simply waited, wondering and worrying.

As the sky darkened, the wind gusts picked up. The large palm in the neighbor's yard began swaying more furiously, and the 8 foot hedge around our fence began bending over on the north side. The other sides remained motionless while the windward side bent over in an odd dance. I stood outside in the dark while the wind blew my hair straight back from my face. And yet, we were still hours from the actual storm reaching us. By nine, the gusts made it impossible to shut the door easily. The girls came down of their own into the bunker room, and I put the two younger cats into the laundry room. We turned on the tv to watch the yellow and red bands advance on the radar, and waited.

At midnight, we moved into the back of the house. The wind was blowing in continuous gusts, but there was still little if no rain.

Two a.m.: The storm was hitting in full fury. We still had power, and we clung to the words of the weathermen on tv. The gusts were continuous and rain was hitting the glass like a fist. It came in bursts, like a machine gun. I began dozing off from sheer exhaustion, but the girls and my husband were wide awake. We had lined the floor of the master bathroom with cushions and pillows and we all curled up, flashlights in hand, waiting and watching.

As I slept, I dreamed I was awake, so there was never a sense of being free from the storm. Over the top of the mattress, the lightning flashed continuously. The reporters talked about green lightning, but it seemed more like someone flashing a lightnonstop over our house.I foolishly thought it might be the neighbors, and then realized, it was lightning. The constant light was unnerving. The power went out after several flickers, at three a.m., nad the darkness and sudden silence were like a blow. We knew it would happen, but we still dreaded it.

"It's gone!" we all shouted. The battery pack that allowed a small nightlight beeped like a clock alarm every five minutes. Half of us wanted it silent. The other half said they could not bear the complete darkness with only the sound of the storm.

At five a.m, the storm was at its worst for us. We were on the clean side of the storm where the winds were lessened, and we were an hour from the coast and to the west of the direct line, but the gusts of wind were stil much more powerful. The windows shook. The rain beat like a fist. The whine was more like a shriek and yet, I kept falling asleep from exhaustion.

"You need to stay awake! You need to be vigilant!" my husband said, as the girls finally slept in equal exhaustion.

"Why? What can I do to stop anything from happening? I'll wake up if something happens!"

I went to the half-bathroom in our house, and tried to look out the front window from the dining room. It was pitch black, coated with rain, impossible to see anything. I gave up. We would have to be ignorant of whatever demons were at work outside. I realized the foolishness of standing next to the window trying to discern something from the darkness. We were ignorant and helpless. Nothing else.

Dozing off again, I realized with a sudden start I hadn't prayed all night, and I started praying. I thought of angels, outstretched arms, protecting our little room, and I prayed. Meanwhile, the wind shrieked and howled and paused, took breath, and howled again.

"It's moving on. It's going to be better by six thirty, by seven. It's going to be moving on," I said confidently. I had no real idea that it would get better. But it had to, I thought. It had to move on, and it had to get better.

I woke just after six, startling to the unfamiliar view. The small patch of window was purple but clear. No more flashes of light, no more rain. We were past the storm. My daughters were silent and still, sleeping finally. I fell asleep again also.

At seven a.m., we awoke again. The girls were still sleeping soundly. We laid down on our bed, and slept for two hours. We were alive, the house seemed intact, and we were completely exhausted.

We awoke to the sound of large motors running. I had a vague hope it was perhaps some kind of electricity repair crew, but I knew it was the hum of generators from neighboring houses. I began heating up some coffee on the cooktop. We walked outside to find neighbors out cleaning up, walking about, talking. Trees were down, but only a few houses had been hit by trees.

We were almost giddy with the sense of being alive and having survived. We began sweeping, raking, cleaning up. The roof, our biggest concern, was intact. We drove over to my brother's at the front of the subdivision, to find him standing outside with a glass of cabernet at eleven.

"Are you finishing late or starting early?" He had just talked to my parents, who were fine and had power, and were busy assigning rooms and bathrooms for their refugee children, he said. I was surprised he had anything left in his wine cellar after that conversation, and we inspected the ruins of his backyard together. The storm had come down his street like a bowling ball down the lane, and his prized plants and trees were shredded. Still, he was happy, and he cheerfully offered me up a bottle of French cabernet.

By five p.m., we had swept up over eight bags of yard debris with more left. Impossible, that the trees and shrubs could lose so many leaves and still be alive. The hedge was bowed over and the pool full of debris. Amazingly, the front live oak tree had lost its top third of limbs, but none had gone into the house. The remaining canopy of leaves and branches had caught the limbs from going into our house or anywhere else. The ice cream scoop out of the middle of the tree was a sobering visual to what we could have experienced.

We cooked dinner on the gas powered cook top. Sunset, around seven, was beautiful, but odd. The sky was golden yellow with puffs of dusky slate blue, like a Laura Ashley pattern. The last rays of the sun hit one of the clouds in an odd greenish way. I thought to myself, how beautiful the sky was, and how odd that last ray of greenish cloud looked. I have never seen a cloud that color, in my whole life. I didn't want to say anything about it. I was finished with the oddities of the hurricane and done with the twists of nature.

"Look at that green cloud there," said my husband.

Then, everything around me was lit up in the way that only the sunsets near the Gulf Coast can do. It's so flat here, the last golden rays from the sun touch everything. Houses, schools, any building gets covered with a golden radiance. When you are driving on a highway, it's almost blinding in a kind of St. Paul on the way to Damascus way--the last sun light waves touching everything in a brilliant golden glow. In the midst of the most ordinary day, I sometimes find myself in the middle of a medieval painting, with a golden aureole, or a latter day impressionist glow of light. And it was again this way, the day after the storm, that the golden light covered all.

I thought, how beautiful, how lucky we were.

We went to bed, by nine p.m., hot and sticky. Around one or two a.m., my husband got up to fix the generator, which kept cutting off due to an overheated vent. For some brain-fogged reason, he kept setting the house security alarm. Beep beep beep beep---wooden blinds on door rattling--then beep beep beep beep again. In and out, in and out, again and again. By three a.m., he had found the instructions, fixed the problem vent, and started up the fans again. We all slept til nine, and I plugged my coffee maker into the generator. Hot coffee. Cinnamon scented. It was heaven, despite the heat. By two p.m. though, we were all cranky and tired, and frustrated. There was nothing to do but take a nap and long for deep sleep.

Six p.m. Sunday: The power came back at five, to cheers and astonished shouts. I immediately grabbed up an essential load of laundry. One of the older DD's friends from dance along with her sister came over to spend the night, as they were the last of their subdivision to get power back. We got take out Chinese from our favorite restaurant and we were thankful for hot wonton soup and crab puffs. The air conditioners hummed in the background.

The pool vacuum, having run continuously for three hours, miraculously cleaned the pool of most all the debris. The air conditioner hummed in the background, the appliances sang. We saw lines of other people waiting for ice. With electricity, we did not need help. The volunteers and authorities could help the truly needy, because we could continue on our own. We were no longer in need or disconnected from the world, or counting the hours we had til fuel ran out. We talked about how if we stayed here, our next home would be self-sufficient and self sustaining. Whole house natural gas generator, deep porches and hurricane clips on the roof, the ability to be helpers, not helpless.

Eleven PM: The pool was serenely clear and almost blue again. A near-full moon behind a drifting veil of smoke blue clouds shone calmly. Less than a fifty miles away, cafe au lait water lapped at the pilings of shredded houses and over the concrete foundations of others in silence as the stars began their nightly journeys. A cooler wind from the north whispered, chasing away the last dripping remnants of the storm. The local tv stations, exhausted, gave way to national broadcasting, having shown the last photos of devastated homes and beaches and shorelines possible. The girl in the Chanel-style suit has been talking for hours. Time to sleep, where ever that sleep may be.

Twelve thirty p.m. We walk outside. The moon is a distant coin behind the purple smoke of the clouds.

"We were lucky, we made it," I say.

"Other people weren't so lucky," he says.

"Yes, but...."

There is no finishing the sentence. There are plenty of tomorrows for that.

the chip on my inbred shoulder

I recently received an invitation to an annual camping party, which read in part

Dear Cousin,

Myself and the current missus (Cassiopeia-Karaoke Bodeen, your 3rd cousin, twice removed on Aunt Jackie's side) are once again having a family gathering at Fortuna Farms, and were wondering if'n you might want to be attending again. . . .

To be frank, it's been a powerful hard year for us, what with the bank trying to foreclose on the farm (fortunately they don't shoot as good as we do), the drought which has made bath-time kind squirmy, and campaigning for John McTaint and his VPILF. You probly also heard your cousin Sissy ran off to Vegas with the blonde copier repair man. We ain't heard nothing from her 'cept one post card with a half-nekkid lady on it, saying "wish you were hear." . . . As usual, we can't promise you nothing but a patch a ground to sleep on, but that never seemed to bother you in the past. We still gots the big army surplus cook pots for baths, and soaking. Your Uncle Walter and Aunt Jane have even more beautiful plants growing in the cement pond. These days, I think we's as civilized as them city-folk Bodeens that is always turning up there noses at our outdoor kitchen and chain-link bar-b-que pit.

Last year as you recall, we had a very unfortunate batch of moonshine. Uncle Earl Bodeen Jr. (Timmy-Ray's husband, you know, the one with the monkey tail) swears on the grave of his daddy (Angus-MacPhereson, your great-great-great Uncle on both sides) that quality control has been restored at the distillery so that won't be happening again. Thank the lard!

I had actually been quietly planning to slip off without the husband and children to go up to this party, but as soon as I saw the theme was Making Fun Of Rural People again, I resolved against it. The last time this theme was used, I spoke up as eloquently as I could, explaining that this line of ridicule is unseemly and hurtful. I argued that it is mean spirited for members of the dominant culture to ridicule marginalized groups (and in the United States, the dominant culture comes out of New York and Los Angeles, from educated city-dwellers). I was not the only person who felt that way, but years later, here come the same jokes again, and they're even staler and less funny to me.

The truth, though, is that I have a chip on my shoulder. I'm from rural Maine. My parents grew up on farms in Gorham, Maine, the town demonized in literature by Carolyn Chute in "The Beans of Egypt, Maine." Although no one has ever addressed it, I am apparently a product of some degree of inbreeding: my mother's mother had the same last name as my father and his family. (And yet I got a perfect score on the LSAT, outperforming 99.9% of the urban, city-dwelling, silver spoon-possessing aspirants of my year. Go, hicks!). I grew up with an extreme rural accent, which I lost along the way, but I still know my way around a cow.

My upbringing was so rural that I was completely stymied as a small child when I read an activity book which asked me to describe my block. Block? What was a block? I couldn't imagine it. In my town, we had no sidewalks, no streetlights, no grocery stores, no malls, no movie theatres... By high school I'd gained a bit of sophistication, but not much. There was a popular song about a girl who'd been dumped nursing her broken heart by riding the metro around and around, and I thought it was science fiction. In college I acquired some polish, but it was gradual: I remember telling everyone I knew in astonishment that I'd been given coffee in Spain "that was soo strong, they only serve it in a tiny cup!" (indicating size of cup with fingers and look of awe). Nowadays Starbucks has spread espresso everywhere, but my rural mind was blown by that first one.

I'm sickened by people who, by complete luck of the draw, were born and raised in cities or suburbs who think people from the country are automatically stupid and ugly. Many of my deep Maine relatives are wittier and more cunning than almost anyone to be found in large cities. Perhaps we Maine people may be lacking in exterior polish -- I am virtually the only mother from my children's private school who lacks a Prada bag -- but we have inner resources we've cultivated over those long, hard winters (or at least one would hope so. There should be some reward).

Coincidentally I'm currently reading "Deer Hunting With Jesus" by Joe Bageant, a book which argues that the left has lost power in America precisely because urban liberals have such scorn for the uneducated country dwellers. Republicans woo these people's votes and pay lip service to their values, while liberal urbanites like my friends make fun of hollers and cousin-lovers. This makes all too much sense to me. Laugh while you can, city dwellers. You're just buying us more Republican administrations.

the further adventures of Cupy

This morning the children were extra sleepy, and it was hard to get them dressed and breakfasted and ready to go. However, five year-old Lucy snapped out of her lethargy at one point. "Where's Cupy?" she squawked.

Cupy, the Slushee cup she brought home from the movies, normally resides in the dining room, next to the wine rack, but he wasn't there this morning. Lucy ran about frantically, until the Sober Husband spotted Cupy in the kitchen, next to the knife rack. Lucy carefully carried Cupy back to his normal place.

"There! Now Cupy is in his palace!"

The Sober Husband noticeably stifled a laugh. "Cupy has a palace," he observed to me.

an unbearable affiliation

"First thing tomorrow," nine year-old Iris announced angrily, "I'm going to turn myself in to an orphanage! I'm going to contact an orphanage! I cannot BEAR to be affiliated with Lucy any longer!" Iris went on about the comparative joys of living in an orphanage as opposed to residing in her current home with her little sister.

"You can't turn yourself in to an orphanage. You're not an orphan," I quibbled.

"I'll turn Lucy in to an orphanage!"

"Lucy's not an orphan, either."

"I'll MAKE her an orphan," Iris threatened.

I pointed out that this would require executing both parents, but Iris felt she could stay the course.

tragedy struck!!!

My every-other-week cleaning lady threw Bottly away.

so many changes in this world

Driving home with Lucy after the end of the Very First Week of Kindergarten, Lucy remarked, "School is called Sucky Suck Suckington!" We laughed. Lucy is having a hard time adjusting to getting up early each morning, and she is still sussing out the other girls.

We passed a Muni bus with an ad for the Chronicle on the side which read, "All About You and Your Family." "It is NOT all about me and my family," Lucy remarked acerbically. Then she stopped to think. "All good things are about me and Mommy and Daddy! All bad things are ABOUT IRIS!" She liked that thought so much that she repeated it a few times.

I reminded Lucy that she had her dance class later, with her preschool friend, Isabelle. "Won't that be good to see Isabelle?"

"Of course, Mom-zoid," said Lucy irritatedly. "But there have been so many changes in this world!"

In a surprising change in this world, Lucy seems to be on the ascendant in the sibling rivalry wars. Iris complained to me this morning that Lucy hadn't acknowledged her when Iris deigned to stop by Lucy's kindergarten class. Iris had expected to be shown off like royalty, with Lucy bragging about having a glamorous older sister, but instead "she acted like she didn't know me!" I asked what Lucy should have done, and Iris decided Lucy should have looked at her.

"Next time, Lucy, look at me!"

"Look at who?" said Lucy dreamily.

recent Lucyisms

Lucy put on a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses. "Don't alarm Iris, but I'm not Lucy!"

-----

In a caring, instructive voice, five year-old Lucy told her mother, "If you see a vampire --- (she paused here to make sure her mother was paying attention) -- go LIKE THIS." Lucy demonstrated clasping her hands around her throat. "Then the vampire can't get any blood!" She made sure her slow-witted mother grasped the mechanics and significance of this protective act before running off in pursuit of Iris.

-----

Morbidly Lucy expressed the desire to die soon. "Then I would have all my birthdays at once! Then you would come to me, and Daddy would come to me. But Iris will go to hell! Even if she doesn't want to." The idea that you get all your birthdays at once in heaven is a new theological nugget in the Lucy creed.

Cupy's birthday

Five year old packrat Lucy treasures a used Slushee cup, "Cupy", to a disturbing and unhygienic extent. The Sober Husband and I didn't feel up to facing the wrath and angst that would follow from throwing Cupy out, but he did move Cupy down to the garage as an interim step.

The same day he put Cupy in the garage, Lucy had the good fortune of finding a Snapple bottle, which she brought home carefully. "It's Cupy's birthday! And I have the BEST present for him!"

Of course Cupy had to be brought back into the house and presented with his present, "Bottly." "Now Cupy has a brother!"

Cupy and Bottly reside in the dining room at present. I only hope their family won't grow further.

a rite of passage

Today was Lucy's first day of kindergarten. She'd been dreading it, but her school is well-schooled in overcoming the objections of five year-olds. An ice cream social held last week and two letters, one from the head of lower school and another from her teachers, did a lot to soften up her objections. Indeed, the ice cream social persuaded her so much that she put on her school uniform the day before school started and wore it all over town.

In the event, Lucy was shy but resolute, moving away from her doting mother when the time came to start class.

On the way to school, Iris took the same haranguing tone every feminist of my acquaintance takes: "Mom, now that Lucy is in kindergarten, aren't you going to get a job?"

I shared that with other stay-at-home mothers at the kindergarten parents' reception. "I WILL work again. I swear that one day I will once again become a capitalist and an earning, tax-paying member of society! I'm just not ready yet."

Another mother agreed. "I want to clean out my closets before I get a job."

But another frowned, who has been trying to return to the workplace for the last six months, and looked away.

In actuality I felt fortunate not to be employed, as Lucy's class will be attending from 8:30 to 11:30 only for the first week, while Iris is excused at 3:30 after today. Additionally this school starts later than the local public school district, adjourns earlier, and has longer, differently-scheduled vacations during the school year, so the "camps" for school-age children don't fit. Only homes containing a stay-at-home parent can handle those logistics without quailing. I frequently end up helping out the families where everyone works by taking a child for a day now and again.

I was displeased with the Sober Husband, who blew off Lucy's first day of kindergarten in favor of a meeting at work. "Can't you email everyone and tell them it's your daughter's first day of kindergarten?" I urged, but he didn't listen.

Afterward Lucy had little to say about her initiation into the ways of school.

"Did you like kindergarten? Was it good?"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

The children fought so bitterly in the car on the way home that I became stressed out and upset. Later they pushed for ginger ale, which had been purchased against my wishes by the Sober Husband (I don't keep soda around the house, reserving it for special treats). I allowed them a ginger ale apiece only on the condition that they hug each other and attempt to be nice to each other (a welcome change from the prior throwing things at one another and such remarks as "I will hate Iris even after I am dead"). Lucy pretended to be an alcoholic hobo slugging her ginger ale, and Iris attempted to be kind to Lucy. "I like it when you are gone."

one person's garbage is another's special friend

Lucy is a hoarder by nature, as anyone could tell by glancing idly into her bedroom. Recently the pink light bulb in Lucy's nightlight burnt out, and she couldn't bear to see it thrown away after it was replaced. "Nighty!" she sobbed, stroking the burnt-out light bulb. "Nighty kept me company at night for so long!" She ended up making a little blanket for "Nighty" and cradling the little light bulb in her arms that night in bed.

Over the weekend we took the children to see "Wall-E", and Lucy took a liking to her slushee cup. The Sober Husband tried to pull it out of her hands when she dozed off towards the end of the movie, and Lucy, waking up, slapped his hands away and clutched the empty cup passionately to her bosom. That cup, now named "Cupy" (Lucy put a post-it note on it reading "Cupy" as a primitive form of nametag) has become an important member of the family, although I worry about Lucy getting food poisoning from bits of decaying chocolate milk gunk in its seams.

Yesterday I took the children and one of Iris's friends out to lunch, and Lucy held onto her lemonade cup for some hours. Eventually she dropped it on the sidewalk and the rest of the lemonade spilled. I told her to put it in a nearby trash can. Later at home, Lucy confronted me. "If you hadn't made me throw out my cup after I dropped it, CUPY WOULD HAVE HAD A BROTHER!!" She gave me an angry and aggrieved glare. "AND CUPY WANTS A BROTHER!"

new technology vs. old technology

The Sober Husband is deeply enamored of his iPhone. He announced sometime ago, with pride, that his iPhone has a new application providing all local movie information. The last time I sought to go to a film, he was deeply frustrated by not being able to get a signal so he could look up the times and theatres. I gave up on his iPhone attempts to get the 411 and instead used my laptop.

Yesterday I wanted to take the children to see "Wall-E", long after the rest of North America's children had seen it. I marked the newspaper up in the morning, after completing my daily Sudoku, and informed everyone of my intention to attend one of the evening showings. In the afternoon, the Sober Husband and I were doing yardwork in our minuscule garden when the question came up as to when we should retrieve Lucy from her friend's house in order to get to the movie.

"Please let me use the iPhone," said the Sober Husband emotionally. "What good is it if I can't use it for these things?" I went on raking and weeding while he fussed with the iPhone for an inordinate amount of time. Eventually he admitted defeat, saying the application was down. I went inside, picked up the marked-up newspaper, and read the moview showtimes out loud.

an impending ceremony

"Mommy, there's going to be a ceremony soon," announced five year-old Lucy importantly, "for the Lucy Club and for EVERYONE WHO HATES IRIS!!"

oh, if only I could control the world

My niece, who has a toddler and is pregnant again already by a different guy, has a bedraggled stuffed animal which is still a security object for her. "Oh, he goes everywhere," she said as she packed up the nearly furless dog. "I'm the only twenty year-old that still has to have a stuffed animal with her. I've had him since I was in the first grade."

I felt sad that she didn't bring any stuffed animals or toys to speak of along for her little boy (he did have a little pillow with a monkey face on it and one little toy car). I wondered also if she brings this stuffed dog along on sleepovers with her boyfriends.

There should be a rule that if someone is still actively using a stuffed animal as a security object, she should be banned from procreating.

the birthday non-surprise

The Sober Husband and Iris Uber Alles have birthdays just four days apart (indeed, as Iris was late, the Sober Husband had great hopes that I'd deliver her up on the correct day. "Where is my baby?" he demanded. "It's not UP TO ME; tell the damn baby to get out," I retorted crabbily). I did my shopping for them both this year at ThinkGeek.com, a website I recommend highly for anyone with a geeky loved one.

When the package came, Iris Uber Alles was happily engaged in ranting at her visiting cousins, and I whisked the big box upstairs and started wrapping her presents. Unfortunately her little sister Lucy came in before the big present, a radio controlled dalek, had been wrapped. I swore her to secrecy in return for letting her help me. Lucy was in heaven, putting a "Knock First" sign up on the door and insisting to Iris that she stay out.

"You must be wrapping my presents!" said Iris presciently.

"If you come in, I'm keeping it for myself," I said.

"Oh, you ARE!" shouted Iris happily. Lucy giggled crazily.

As soon as we were done, Iris was in, prodding the package. "Can I pick it up?" she asked.

"No! Leave it alone!" I insisted.

"Lucy, give me a hint!"

"Lucy, I want you to just say to Iris, ' Sorry, I'm sworn to secrecy.'"

Lucy made an important face. "Sorry, Iris, I'm SWORN TO SECRECY."

"GIVE ME A HINT!"

With continual hounding and rapid fire questions like "Have I wanted this for a long time or a short time?", Iris got out of Lucy such admissions as "It ends with a K,", "You want to do something with the cats with it" (the girls are a huge fan of that subgenre of Youtube videos, radio controlled daleks vs. cats), and "You could find it on DrWhoMerchandise.com." Iris grabbed my laptop without permission and started combing DrWhoMerchandise.com, mumbling over and over again, "What ends with a K?" and "Lucy, I'll give you a dollar if you give me another hint."

"LUCY, don't you dare tell your sister any more! Tell her you're very sorry, but your lips are sealed!" I was getting genuinely cranky at this point.

Within less than five minutes of the present being wrapped, Lucy had given it up to her big sister. "It's a radio controlled dalek!"

Iris left DrWhoMerchandise.com and opened up an IM window, typing in to her father, "Lucy is a blabbermouth! She just told me I'm getting a radio controlled dalek!"

"Whoo hoo!" typed her father, safely away at his office.

Emboldened, Iris opened my email and started reading a rather sensitive email out loud. "Iris, YOU DO NOT DO THAT!" I snapped. "You are driving me INSANE! First you get Lucy to tell you what your present is, and NOW YOU'RE READING MY EMAIL! I DID NOT GIVE YOU PERMISSION! CLOSE THAT COMPUTER NOW!"

"But I'm IMing with Dad-dude."

'CLOSE IT NOW! AND LEAVE YOUR POOR MOTHER ALONE!" The children tiptoed out of the room and ran downstairs. "I'm getting a radio controlled dalek!" Iris shouted to her visiting cousins. "Lucy told me!"

"What is a 'dalek'?" asked her non-geeky cousin blankly.

the scare

I had a terrible night's sleep, lying awake thinking about my problems. When I woke up, my first thought was to take action on one particularly pressing problem: to send out an email asking AGAIN for an emergency vet appointment for my foster kitten who is going blind (when I took her in previously, she was only seen by a vet tech, which annoyed me no end as I specifically asked to see the vet and I am not a foster parent given to creating emergencies when there aren't any). While I was writing that email, the Sober Husband (who had himself not yet had a shower or gotten dressed) came in disturbed. "I think you should come downstairs." My twenty-year old niece was downstairs, thinking that she was having a miscarriage.

"Just a MINUTE. I'm sending an email," I said.

"I think you should come downstairs right now. She's crying. She wants to go home early and see her own doctor."

"I'm almost done sending an email ABOUT MY CAT WHO IS GOING BLIND, and I just need to finish this," I said crankily. "There's nothing you can do about a miscarriage in the first trimester, anyhow," I added somewhat callously.

I put on a bathrobe and a sensitive, caring expression and went downstairs. My niece was at the dining room table sending email herself. My nephew was out back smoking. When my niece saw me, she started crying. I pulled a chair up next to her and rubbed her back. "What is it, sweetie?" I asked.

She reported, among tears, that she thought she was having a miscarriage because "my pee is red."

"Honey, you had beets for dinner last night. That's why your pee is red. If you're not bleeding, then I don't think there's anything wrong with the baby."

"But it was red before I had the beets last night."

"Sweetie, you had beets the other day, too. Remember? We all had beets? I'm peeing red, too." I had roasted a big pan of fresh beets with tarragon and olive oil, which we'd eaten over a couple of days.

It turned out there were no other symptoms. I explained how one's diet affects one's urine, using asparagus and dehydration as other examples. My niece took the point and gradually calmed down. The Sober Husband came downstairs while he was trying to rebook her flight on his iPhone, and we told him to forget it.

in vino the veritas comes out

My nephew is 19 years old. He dropped out of high school and hasn't gotten a GED. He's unemployed and blames his mother's live-in boyfriend for preventing him from getting a job (the boyfriend supposedly does this by tying up the phone lines all the time, so places where my nephew have put in applications can't reach him), but he has also said that no one will hire him. He lives in an small, dank room in the basement of his mother's small, cluttered house (his room is actually meant to be a storage room; it doesn't qualify as a bedroom because it has no window for ventilation). S. gets into fights often and is anorexic. For opaque reasons he doesn't want to take the GED. He claims the local community college won't let him take classes (it does not sound to me that he filled out all the enrollment paperwork). He gets into lots of fistfights, many of them with his mother's boyfriend, who is allegedly a dirty fighter who often resorts to "choke-outs."

He does devote time to writing horror stories, and his great success in life is acquiring girlfriends. Having been broken up with by one just before he left to visit me, he's already got another one positioned via IM and Myspace to take up the role on return.

Since he got here a few days ago, we've been tactful and tiptoeing around the subject of his plans, which appear to be to do nothing at all as the years creep on. I've been mindful of the fact that no one likes nagging or judgment. The Sober Husband has made noises about wanting to hear from S. why he lives like this.

Yesterday my nephew spent the day sitting on the couch IMing and Myspacing, although he's in one of the world's most loved and visited cities and has been presented with a map and a key to the house. I took my niece, great-nephew, and children to a children's museum for a big part of the day, leaving the nephew to his own devices (I was irritated because the night before I'd taken him to "Tropic Thunder", and he hadn't thanked me or had any interesting conversation to offer). Feeling fed up with both my niece and nephew and depressed, I escaped into my bedroom in the late afternoon and tried to sleep. Eventually I gave up and came downstairs, where I drank a few glasses of wine while making pasta with lake beans, fresh tarragon, and bell peppers in a wine sauce, with traditional polenta on the side ("traditional" meaning made in the manner of a Sicilian peasant, where you add the corn meal grain by grain to the boiling water and then stir it for half an hour over low heat to prevent lumping)(yes, I know it sounds heavy, having polenta besides pasta, but I was cooking for a brain-damaged 2 year-old and a 5 year-old who eschews all spicy flavors among others, and very good polenta is one of my secret weapons with picky eaters).

Over dinner more tactful conversation was made, and I found my nephew's evasiveness and excuses maddening. I erupted into a wine-fuelled monologue:

"You have to do something! It doesn't have to be college; you could pursue a trade [lengthy foray here into the examples of an uncle who is a very successful stonemason and my beloved hairdresser's boyfriend, who after unfulfilling office jobs has more happily taken up installing solar cell panels). I can't stand to see someone who is so smart not doing anything! You're a smart guy; you could go to college so easily! College is an easy way to try living somewhere else, since you say you don't want to stay where you are forever. [A weak assertion that college is impossibly expensive was quashed by my pointing out the options of state schools and community colleges]. When I was your age, I did things! I was engaged, I traveled, I had jobs, I went to college! When I was your age, I was studying in Madrid, and all I had to do for that was fill out some forms and get a couple of professors to write letters, and then my college bought me tickets to Madrid and found me a place to live there! I went all over Madrid not knowing the language well and not knowing anything, and I learned so much! [This appeared to score, as my nephew looked a bit like he'd been punched in the gut]. You have a lot of girlfriends now, but TEN YEARS FROM NOW when you're still living in your mother's basement and you don't have a job and you aren't doing anything, no one is going to want to date you! You can get away with that with charm when you're 19, but when you're 29, it won't work!"

While I was monologuing, my niece, husband, and Iris Uber Alles all silently excused themselves from the table and started clearing everything away.

a rare moment of victory, rare as a unicorn

I was arguing over the telephone with my father about whether oil drilling should commence ASAP in all areas of America where oil is likely to be. He is of the Republican opinion that duh, we need oil, and those lily livered environmentalists should stand out of the way. (Surprisingly enough this man holds that opinion after writing a guide to energy conservation in the seventies and spending much of his life tinkering with solar power before it was fashionable).

"Even if all the oil reserves in the U.S. were exhausted, that would only buy us about a year. It's just a blip in the world oil supplies." That point didn't seem to go anywhere, as my father seemed to feel it would be gentlemanly of us to take up the burden of oil production so long demanded of our global acquaintances.

"California has a huge economy, it's a rich state, and our major industry is tourism. It would be asinine to risk our beautiful coastline, on which we depend for our biggest industry, tourism, for just a few months worth of oil supply. It's the same in Florida; they make all their money off tourism, and it would be crazy to risk it with offshore drilling."

My father says slyly, "So how many tourists you got there this year, with everyone staying at home?" I can tell he thinks he has me.

I close in for the kill: "Hotel occupancy rates are way up. The city's full of Europeans. And it's affecting everything. I read in the Chron that they're all determined to try the best California wines, and with the dollar so weak, they're ordering $200 bottles when they used to get cheap ones. They come to shop, because everything costs so much less here than back home. It's like they're running around in a bargain basement store. They get a lot of electronics."

He actually took this point and gave up the debate.

I am over forty, and I have finally won an argument with my father.

one of the true joys of life: "Project Runway" in its Canadian and American forms

I came to "Project Runway" a little late. I'd heard of it, but I resisted seeing it. In general, I'm not a big television watcher, and I tend to assume television shows suck. However, I went to a big house party, and everyone stayed up 'til 3 AM (including then six year-old Iris) watching "Project Runway", and I was hooked.

The Wall St. Journal reported that sewing machine sales and sewing classes have skyrocketed due to "Project Runway." This illustrates how inspiring "Project Runway" is: you see the creative process, and you feel more creative yourself. I look at the world differently now and feel more likely to create and to find innovative uses for everyday objects. Iris loves to sketch outfits now, and even Lucy has developed a catwalk strut as a result of PR.

Our dear Hughman is recapping the current series over on Pink Navy, and so I won't both summing it up myself. Let's just say that once again there's a spunky bunch of egotistic designers, and our darling Tim Gunn is aristocratically overseeing their endeavors (the man once said, off the cuff, "It's looking a little Happy Hands At Home", which struck me as one of the more brilliant ripostes, even though, of course, my own creative endeavors are nothing but Happy Hands At Home). Tim Gunn is a walking Wodehouse character.

The Canadian version of Project Runway, rather unimaginatively named "Project Runway Canada", was even better than the American version. PRCanada had designers even more talented than the usual sprightly American casts. They had challenges even more clever than the usual American ones (my favorites were designing a bathing suit for a plus-sized model -- and they really DID use plus size models, not what is called "plus sized model" in this country but doesn't even qualify as overweight on the BMI scale-- and creating cocktail dresses out of broken umbrellas). PRCanada has Iman as a judge and host, who makes American host Heidi Klum look like a bubbleheaded idiot. (What drives me crazy about Heidi Klum is that she speaks in such a high, girly voice and that she always wears dresses no longer than her crotch and stands with her legs waaaay splayed apart. The woman seems to have a fetish about having people look up her skirt). Iman has such gravitas and a thoughtful, deep voice. On the downside, the other PRCanada judges were personality-less, unlike dear, bitchy Michael Kors and outspoken, glamorous Nina Garcia, and their sweet and caring mentor, Brian, wasn't as good with the bon mots as Tim Gunn.

However, Brian grew on me as the season progressed. He clearly worked hard, cared about the designers and inspired them to excel. I fell for him when cranky enfant terrible Biddell whined about having to make that plus-sized bathing suit. Brian firmly told him that the women who could afford to buy Biddell's clothes were not going to be the size zeros who model them on the catwalk and that he needed to learn to love every voluptuous inch of them. Bravo, Brian. Biddell took the point.

Last night I saw the first episode of the British version, "Project Catwalk." It completely and utterly sucked, and so I shan't bother to watch the rest of the series. (It was reported to me that "the bit torrent for Project Catwalk is really weak", signifying that the internet as a whole has formed a thumbs' down opinion of Proj. Catwalk). How could the Brits take such a clear winner of a formula and fail to copy it adequately? The only thing they did right was to cast Liz Hurley as the spokesmodel, and Liz seemed more interested in getting to know the designers than Heidi Klum (who evidently is quite cold towards them when the cameras are off). The cast seemed thrown together at a moment's notice (including a teenage first year fashion student who seemed quite obviously unprepared, a stay-at-home mother of several blind children who didn't function well out of her house, and an older designer who didn't seem creative in the least). However, the joy of Liz Hurley soon paled, as the Proj. Catwalk people insisted on a constant voice-over of her bright, burbling voice. Instead of showing us the idiotic designers having a drink, we had to hear Liz tell us they were about to have a drink, then tell us that they were having that drink, speculate that they were going to have hangovers, then inform us that few of them had hangovers, and so on, and so on. The Proj. Catwalk people seemed to feel they should make it a "Big Brother" sort of show, and their focus seemed to be on their relatively inarticulate and uninteresting contestants interacting in a small and crowded house. There was virtually no creative process shown whatsoever, completely stripping the show of its interest.

Incidentally I looked "Project Catwalk" up on Wikipedia and learned that three seasons have been made, with Kelly Osborne hosting the last two. Kelly Osborne? A drunken teenage American reality star? Obviously the Brits have given up on producing a quality show about creating amazing and imaginative clothes on a shoestring and are still aiming at that "Big Brother" trainwreck feel.

At least we still have the American Project Runway. If you haven't seen this current series yet, read Hughman's recaps to catch up and join the fun. And perhaps someday, if we are very good, we shall be rewarded with another season of Project Runway: Canada. Pray, my darlings, pray.

what do you do for a trainwreck teen?

In one hour I'm driving to the airport to pick up my niece, nephew, and great-nephew, and I am so dreading it. Ever since I found out that my young niece is pregnant AGAIN, I've felt like canceling this visit. Instead, I decided to cancel the Santa Cruz leg of the trip and just hang out in San Francisco instead.

Indeed part of the rationale for the Santa Cruz leg was so thrillseeking Iris Uber Alles could ride the roller coasters with her big cousin B., who is the only one who likes them, but as B. is pregnant, she wouldn't be able to ride them. The other part of it would be going to the beach, but given that my niece and nephew are both anorexic, that leads to other issues. My surly nephew complained that his body is not beach-ready (and no, he's not gay. He runs through teenage girlfriends like I go through bottles of extra virgin Kalamata olive oil).

My niece and nephew have not been blessed with a great nuclear family. My sister is narcissistic; their deceased father was lazy, morbidly obese, and a congenital liar (his children to this day believe their father bagged corpses in Vietnam for a year but on leave filled in for one of the Doobie Brothers in a Japanese stadium date). My oldest nephew, who had drug issues, killed himself soon after his father died and his mother moved in a boyfriend within months of that death.

As you can imagine, I really want these teenagers to have healthier role models and to be exposed to more things in life than they see in their ugly, ugly Denver suburb. However, how long do I consider them malleable? I'm about to give up on B. now that she is over 18 and pregnant AGAIN. Her first baby was severely abused by his teenage father, so badly that the baby was airlifted to a hospital for surgery at risk of death. (I'm concerned that the great-nephew may have lasting brain damage). The baby spent a year in foster care, and the father is in prison for the abuse. I told B. again and again how hard motherhood is and that she couldn't expect her 15 year-old boyfriend to take care of a baby; I encouraged her to consider open adoption; I invited her to come stay with us so we could help her with the baby. This time around, seeing as how she must have learned nothing from the past, I don't feel like saying anything. I feel like giving up. She's nominally an adult now, albeit not legal drinking age, and she's evidently choosing a career path of being a babymomma.

And then there's S., my nephew. He wants to write, and he does write plays and stories. However, he dropped out of high school and doesn't seem motivated to do anything likely to lead to supporting himself. I talked up college to him the last time he visited me, explaining how it would expose him to new things, help him try living in a part of the country (he lives in a basement room in my sister's, ugly, ugly house on an ugly, ugly street in an ugly, ugly suburb), get him to hone his writing. My own husband dropped out of high school and, after a bit of a teenage pothead louthood, went on to earn a Ph.D. in physics from one of the country's most prestigious universities (skipping the GED step, so technically he never did get that high school education), so I'm not going to say all is lost by dropping out of high school. (Indeed, I kind of wish I'd dropped out of high school. My senior year was a waste of time). But one needs drive to get somewhere when you're starting from such a crappy position, and I don't see drive in my nephew.

I feel pessimistic. B. is doing her best, cranking out 2 children before age 21, to create a whole new generation of fuck-ups. My sister, never a contender for mother-of-the-year, said blithely when B. was pregnant the first time, "I always say, 'If they're old enough to have 'em, they're old enough to take care of 'em.'" There has been no sign that the horrific abuse meted out to the newborn and the year he spent in foster care changed my sister's mind on that point.

What am I supposed to do for or with them? I feel like there's nothing left to do other than give them a free vacation (I couldn't afford the tickets this year but bought them anyway... before I discovered B. was pregnant again. Pettily enough I'd only have brought S. out if I'd known). At what point is someone old enough that you give up on helping them or inspiring them?

don't sell yourself too cheap, Castro boys!

I took the subway downtown yesterday, and the Castro station turnstile I used had a delightful problem with its digital display, which read "ASS OR $1.50." I fear for the MUNI employees, as it's only a matter of time until someone drunk enough to have some real fun with that message stumbles along.

In less amusing MUNI news, a twentysomething hipster lost consciousness on my train, causing a delay. What really perturbed me about this was how blase the paramedics were. They were practically rolling their eyes and snapping their gum, and they seemed to really take their time about getting him onto a stretcher and removing him. I relayed this to the Sober Husband, who was disturbed. "They should be racing around, looking really upset and concerned" like TV emergency workers, he felt. "I want to think it will be like it is on television if I ever get hurt."

my nerves are past frayed and into flayed

The day after we got back from the East Coast, I came down with a debilitating flu, leaving me homebound and miserable for a week. I didn't leave the house for days apart from an emotionally draining marriage counseling appointment (current verdict: I need to be meaner to my husband and refuse him more things, but yet my wrath is too scary to him, so I need to be nicer so that he can speak up more about things that bother him. I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense to me overall). As soon as I started feeling human again, Iris got sick, so I spent several days at home keeping her company in front of endless "Dr Who" episodes.

While I've been housebound (I have a severe case of cabin fever developing), my next door neighbor, the one I believe to be a participant in the witness protection program, is having some work done on her house. She didn't tip us off ahead of time, which I would have appreciated as the acoustics of this particular work make it sound as though someone is repeatedly breaking into my garage with a sledgehammer. When it first started, I grabbed a cordless phone, dialed 911 but didn't hit the transmit button, and crept down the stairs with my heart pounding, without saying anything to sickly Iris or healthy but crabby Lucy. (I actually own a delightfully powerful handgun, but ever since we procreated, we've kept it unloaded in a locked box. It's worthless to me if there's an intruder. I'd have to go downstairs, get my keys, go back upstairs, dig out the locked box, then unlock it, only to try to bluff someone with an unloaded gun. I have no idea whether there's any ammo in the house and where it might be --- probably there's a small quantity of it stored somewhere in the garage. It would make more sense to try to club someone over the head with the little locked gunbox). Over the past few days I've grown somewhat used to that racket and haven't had to do a house-sweep again, but it's taking a toll.

On top of that, yesterday I paid off a favor owed to one of my mommy friends by hosting her daughter, one of Lucy's dearest friends and Iris's mortal enemy. Iris stayed home sick, and the two children were clearly spoiling for a fight all day. The visiting child, Lawyer, Jr., at one point jabbed me in the arm with her index finger. "Iris is watching a scary TV show upstairs," she said, "and when we walk by, we can hear it." I was not about to deny Iris the pleasure of watching Dr. Who behind closed doors, so I instructed Lawyer, Jr. and Lucy to play together where they couldn't hear the television. After all, it was a gorgeous day, and they were authorized to play with the hose in the backyard, plus there were four kittens afoot downstairs. But our young guest was not appeased.

An only child of an attentive and permissive stay-at-home mother, she is accustomed to a higher level of service and accommodation than the children receive here. Iris balefully kept track of Lawyer, Jr.'s complaints, which included "I don't care for green grapes", "Bananas make me throw up", "There's a MOSQUITO IN THE BACK YARD!", "I stepped on a dead snail", and many, many more. Iris was gleeful when she had counted up ten complaints made by Lawyer, Jr. to me (many of which were accompanied by poking me with an index finger). "She complained about ten things! Ten things!" I think Iris is hoping to get Lawyer, Jr. banned from our home, but that's not going to happen so long as she remains one of Lucy's dearest friends.

Earlier in the day I'd had plenty of energy, and I picked up around the house and invited a neighbor to come by for drinks to discuss our errant cat, Rachel, who spends a lot of time over at his house whenever I have foster kittens (Rachel also spends time at another neighbor's house as well, and there's some other unknown house she likes to visit as well, because she often sets off purposefully in the other direction). But after a day of being shut up with these children, including the nitpicking and complaining visitor, my nerves were shot, and by the time the neighbor called back, I'd already turned to Ben & Jerry's for some self-medicating (there wasn't anything I felt like drinking around, so it was ice cream instead of alcohol). "Tell him to come tomorrow," I hissed as the Sober Husband held his hand over the receiver. "I'm just not up for dealing with ANYONE right now."

In a few days my anorexic, violent, high school drop-out nephew, my teenage niece who is pregnant yet again, and my toddler great-nephew who was in foster care for over a year after sustaining severe, life-threatening injuries from his teenage father (who is now in prison) are coming to visit. I'm so disgusted and annoyed with my niece for being pregnant again that I felt greatly tempted to cancel the visit, but I haven't met my great-nephew yet (he has been in foster care for most of his short life). My flayed nerves are not in the best shape for this visit, sigh.

grown-ups vs. children: the children behave better

This year I finally managed to get into a class at the renowned Sharon Arts Building in Golden Gate Park (I've been hearing about this place for years, have often kept well-thumbed class schedules about, but have never before pulled off the onerous registration procedure, involving showing up in person and waiting for hours outdoors in the early morning. I accomplished it this time around by sending the Sober Husband and Iris Uber Alles, who took lawn chairs, blankets, and an iPod loaded with Simpsons episodes for their vigil). The children and I are taking the "Family Clay Day" class together, which is for children from 5 to 11 and their parents. Children under 8, such as Lucy, must be accompanied by a grown-up, who must be enrolled in the class.

It turns out that a lot of the children in the class are dropped off and picked up by parents, who have chosen not to participate. Of the few adults who are participating, two are not particularly into doing any sculptures themselves. "I have no imagination," one complained over and over again. The other is mainly interested in chatting and in getting her daughter to press handprints into clay, which the mother can glaze. There are just two grown-ups who are more interested in sculpting than their child proteges are: the Drunken Housewife and a grandmother with a marked dowager's hump and two rather browbeaten grandchildren.

Our first class was the very morning after we'd returned from the East Coast. We were all tired and cranky, and Lucy got frustrated with the stiff artist's clay and burst into tears. I found this aggravating, as although I was sleep-deprived, I was completely obsessed with finishing a sculpture of a fish. The soft-spoken and warm teacher took Lucy away to show her some work and give her ideas, allowing me to obsess about my fish, but brought her back quickly when Lucy spouted an epic nosebleed. I ministered to Lucy, who was spouting both blood and tears in vast quantity, while everyone hovered about unnerved. Eventually Lucy stopped excreting fluids and made a little clay cat, two smiling clay snakes, and a tiny smiley face. Iris made a tip jar (she has taken to panhandling about the house) and a little mushroom.

The children were ready to go by the end of class, but I parted with my fish reluctantly.

Later I felt ashamed of my selfish behavior. I should have been more focused on Lucy; I should have been helping her more, rather than insisting on making something myself. I resolved to be more Lucy-centric next time.

Today we went back to Family Clay Day, and we ended up sitting with the grandmother and her two charges. The grandmother is a passionate amateur sculptor and brought her own box of tools and brushes, which she allowed her grandchildren to use. Our pieces had been fired and brought out, and we spent the entire class glazing them. I held my fish, still warm from the kiln, in my hands reverently. Lucy was happy to be reunited with her cat, which she chose to glaze purple. Iris painted exuberant polka dots on her tip jar. "You know, Iris, you're going to have to provide excellent service if you want good tips," I observed.

Iris paused. "I guess I won't get big tips."

I started the class with good intentions, helping Lucy get set up, pick the colors of her choice, and watching her glaze. Then I got completely sucked into glazing my own fish carefully with several coats, pondering color choices and agonizing over getting it right. I regretted not having gone down to order bifocals, because they would have helped me with the finer detailing. I did help Lucy whenever she needed more paint or more praise, but I was absorbed in my fish. So much for my good intentions. The children finished their projects well before the end of class and were pulling at me, "Come on!" while I was still glazing my little fish.

I think I'm going to give up my idea of being less focused on sculpting my own pieces, because I already have my next project in mind: I want to make a little green parrot standing on its own two legs. At least the children like that idea. "Be sure to make a parrot," said Lucy naggingly. "Don't forget next time to make a parrot."

My shame was mitigated by the fact that I wasn't the worst adult there. At least I praised my children for their creativity and tried to encourage them to do their pieces how they wanted to. The sculpting grandmother screamed in the middle of the class, "THAT'S A GOOD WAY TO RUIN BRUSHES!" at one of her grandchildren. She also repeatedly tried to tell her two grandchildren how to paint their pieces. "I have some brown for that door. I think you should do that part gray. Aren't you going to paint some daisies on that?" At one point, with real disgust, she said, "You just ANNIHILATED that" to one of the children. "That was cute before, but you just ANNIHILATED it the way you painted it," she ranted, shaking her head and stomping away.

dissatisfied with the basic amenities

"I want a satellite dish! Seems like it would be a little bit classier," said five year-old Lucy, who sadly resides in a home lacking even basic cable.

home, sick

I woke up yesterday feeling sick, spent the day feeling sick, had horrific nightmares about space zombies all night, and here I am again, still sick. My theory is I picked up something on the plane; at least I wasn't ill away from home with all that driving.

Feeling like crap, I dragged myself into the bathroom at one point to find Tux (a rescue cat given to us for socialization who seems to be becoming a permanent fixture here) and Al (the orange skeleton who is allergic to his own teeth) there. Princess Henry (the Christmas present cat) followed me in. All three cats, still in that honeymoon glow of being happy to see me home, rubbed up against me, purred, and sought attention while I attended to my needs. This bathroom is a small bathroom, and it was crowded in there with all those happy cats. I called the Sober Husband as I washed my hands around Al and Henry. "Come here! Come here!"

He came slowly, probably dreading some invalid request.

"I'm having a crazy cat lady moment," I said. "I feel like a crazy cat lady."

The cats were swarming and purring. "I see what you mean," the Sober Husband said thoughtfully. "They seem like a lot in there."

Thankfully as I dragged myself back into the bedroom, the feeling dissipated. My bedroom is a very large and airy room, which could hold a lot more cats if need be.

home again, home again

These urban, San Francisco-born children have driven ATVs (wearing safety helmets and being chauffeured by either their cousin Ashley or Aunt Robin), driven a tractor with their Uncle Dick, ridden horses with a neighbor of my cousin's(who didn't ask my permission before putting my children up onto the horses), gathered eggs, petted cows, raked blueberries, dug for new potatoes, and done no end of rural things. They are fully prepared to move to rural Maine at this point, and the Sober Husband (who loved lobsters and fresh blueberries) is feeling the charms of New England as well. "You don't know what it's like in the winter," I observed acerbically. "It's not this much fun in the winter."

We came home to a message that our cat, Rachel, had been reported as being a stray, and the Sober Husband retrieved her while the children and I were at our "Family Clay Day" sculpture class. The rescuer pointed out that Rachel had been at her house for a full week and we "didn't notice", and that Rachel was lacking a collar. The Sober Husband argued that we'd been gone for two weeks, our teenaged petsitters couldn't be expected to be on top of everything, and that she had a collar when we left. While he was having this discussion, Rachel wandered out of the self-styled rescuer's house and towards a neighbor's house. When the Sober Husband went to retrieve her, this neighbor protested, "That's MY cat!" Evidently while we were gone, Rachel acquired not one but two new homes. Clearly she doesn't need us at all (whereas all the other cats were hanging about the premises and appeared excited to see us again). The Sober Husband thanked this second person for feeding our cat. Incidentally one of these kindly braintrusts had taken Rachel to a vet out of concern that she was pregnant and had learned that no, she's long-neutered and just fat, and I note that maybe if all these people STOPPED FEEDING HER CANNED FOOD she'd reach a more reasonable weight for her petite stature. Now returned to her home, Rachel is reclining on the floor, bloated, and refusing to eat any dry kibble, screeching emphatically whenever anyone walks towards the canned food. (Rachel is a middle-aged cat we got off of Craigslist five years ago who was homeless at one point and who has clearly mastered the art of scoring canned cat food).

We've already picked up four foster kittens, as one of the other fosterers has a wife in the hospital and some kind of crisis at work and was accordingly thrilled to drive over and drop off his four charges. "They have trouble using the litterbox" was his parting shot.

Broke, tired, a wee bit on the cranky side, but rich in cats: we're home.

for a bad mommy

"You are a good mommy for a bad mommy," said five year-old Lucy approvingly.

he needs to relax

"Relax, you bony little man!" said my Aunt Sher to the Sober Husband.

say your prayers

Lucy was trying to get her big sister to say something, and in as threatening a tone as an angelic five year-old could muster, she said, "Say it, OR SAY YOUR PRAYERS!"

the unthinkable tourist attractions of Boston

Five year-old Lucy was exposed to some advertisement for the New England Aquarium and became convinced that "there is a wading pool for little kids full of sharks in Boston." "Don't take me there," she asked. Evidently these are "killer sharks" at that. I tried to talk her out of this misconception with no luck.

During one of our long drives, I thought Lucy had nodded off, so I told the Sober Husband, "Lucy thinks there's a shark pool for wading in."

"There IS," Lucy said acerbically from the backseat.

back in the car

Everyone is still asleep but me. When they wake up, we're going to pack up, get our massive luggage to the ferry, wait for a ferry, take a 45 minute bus ride to our car in a parking lot, drive off the Cape, head up north out of Massachusetts, and drive all the way up towards Canada, to remote Northern Maine.

This "vacation" is involving spending a lot of time driving up and down the length of Maine (which, for those of you who haven't been there, is a Very Large State). Lucy alternates between being hot and commanding the air conditioning be turned way up with suddenly freaking out and becoming coldcoldcold. Iris hogs the communal armrest and the iPod and cries when we make her give Lucy a turn with those amenities. Anton fusses with his iPhone while driving until I confiscate it on safety grounds. (And what do I do which is annoying? I require more bathroom stops than anyone else, but other than that, I'm just damn delightful).

vacation under protest

Today I woke up depressed, tearful, and angry. The Sober Husband had gotten up early and gone off to see his family. I sent Iris out of our room to fetch some coffee and allowed the children to watch cable tv cartoons.

Eventually the Sober Husband trailed back in, and got us all to walk over to his mother's rented house. Later I had an emotional talk with him, the children dispatched to rocking chairs on the hotel's veranda. I told him that he is just working through my love for him and that he's running low. Forcing this trip down my throat (and now this financial blow) on top of his neglectful behavior over the past year is exhausting the store of love I had for him. I also finally confronted him with something I'd held my tongue about, an arguably emotionally inappropriate relationship with the wife of his dying friend (which added hugely to my stress when the Sober Husband went to the extra memorial service in Chicago against my wishes. When I couldn't reach him by celphone and he was out of touch with me, I was convinced he had hooked up with her. In the end, after the Sober Husband didn't go further than his emotional entanglement with her, the new widow ended up moving another one of that circle of friends in with her... the very same alcoholic friend we let crash with us for months on condition he go to AA meetings, until he relapsed and nearly burnt our house down. I felt that this was the proof that her questionable behavior towards the Sober Husband had been playing for keeps; it seems her survival strategy for being widowed at age 40 was to start up again with one of her husband's close friends). I'd been playing that one cool, trying to be a sweet and loving spouse to win that one, which was easier because I didn't see them together. When I saw my husband hanging all over that other woman up at Camp Mather I exploded. The two things happening close in time together (after a long time, perhaps a decade, of me not noticing any inappropriate behavior with other women) is pretty lethal on top of his neglect towards me over the past year.

So what did I do to cheer myself up? I took Iris to the beach, and we swam. Then we went to Sharky's Cantina, and I got trashed off two drinks since I hadn't eaten all day. Under the influence, I dropped by a boutique and spent $600 on clothes for Iris and me. Then I went back to the hotel, took a nap, and then took Iris back to the beach around 7:00, and we swam more. I told the Sober Husband that it was insane of me to drop so much money when we are so fucked financially, but I was mad and felt also that I should spend while I could (if we separate or break up, I'll be on a severe budget). He's appalled to hear me talk that way, but I'm feeling so bitter and angry.

We later trailed over the to mother-in-law's rented house and hung out, but then I took the girls back to the wretched hotel, leaving the husband behind to chat with his extended family longer.

idiots on parade, err, vacation

We left Ogunquit at 10 AM and didn't arrive at our hotel in Martha's Vineyard until 8 PM. Granted, we stopped in Portsmouth, New Hampshire to show the children Strawberry Banke, which I remembered from my own childhood as a marvelous wonderland of crabby people dressed in authentic colonial costumes demonstrating the colonial way of life in some old buildings, but which turned out to be lots of restored and semi-restored buildings with bored teenagers in maroon t-shirts acting as hosts. The children were nowhere near as enchanted as I had been at their age. Afterward we got some lunch and resumed our driving. (The entire theme of this vacation is Long Drives In Hot Rental Car With Feuding Children, with a subtheme of Idiotic Decisions Made By Morons -- and mind you, I included myself as one of the Morons).

While we were driving, we received some very bad financial news by celphone, which caused the Sober Husband to sigh repeatedly at odd intervals and to drive me further into a quiet doom.

The ferry to Martha's Vineyard required parking a 45 minute drive away by shuttle bus and then a payment of $46. Having just received a harsh financial blow, this $46 charge drove me to rage. "Your mother is so selfish! So selfish!" I hissed.

We got off the ferry and were met by the Sober Husband's mother. It took a solid hour to negotiate the packed-solid Martha's Vineyard traffic to deliver us to our hellhole of a hotel. Our room, which costs $265 per night, is a small, ugly room with low ceilings directly off the communal breakfast area. From 8:00 AM to 10:30 AM, all hell will be breaking loose right behind our thin wall. During other times, we can attempt to amuse ourselves by listening to the hideous noise and dripping of the small window air conditioner, gazing at the view of a nearby parking lot through the one small window, or trying to watch the minuscule television set.

In this poky little hellhole, the reality of the bad news sunk in on me in a bad, bad wave. This was the first time in 5 years I'd left the state of California, and we were going into debt to stay in this ugly little room in a place I never wanted to visit, and we weren't going to be able to afford to go anywhere I wanted to go. I sank down on one of the beds and burst into tears. "I can't even go anywhere good! This is all I get!" I cried for a short while, during which everyone avoided looking at me and felt bad.

The Sober Husband promised that we'd go on a real vacation, somewhere exotic, somewhere I want to go, but I couldn't believe it. He was angry at me one whole weekend for buying Lucy a $17 Spongebob DVD; we are going into debt to pay for this stupid expedition; there's no way there is a proper vacation occurring anytime.

I swallowed two Lorazepam given to me by my understanding physician to ease over the difficulties of spending time with the inlaws and rocked back in forth in a chair, staring blankly into space. It's unfair to the children when their mother is a high-maintenance and high-strung bitch. On the other hand, it's unfair to me to have to go into debt upon my mother-in-law's command to go to Martha's Frigging Vineyard.

Eventually we left the hotel to walk to the mother-in-law's rented house (the purpose of our getting a hotel room was to provide a private oasis of rest, which the Sober Husband emphatically failed. There is NOTHING relaxing or restful about this ugly, nasty hellhole of a room. May the owners of the Pequot Hotel be forced to spend the afterlife in this ugly room!!!!). The Sober Husband had neglected to bring the address, so we walked up and down, up and down, up and down trying to find the mother-in-law's black Volvo in the dark on the correct unmarked street while the children whined about needing to use the potty.

We did finally arrive, to be fed some of the worst food on the surface of the earth, bland, flavorless, and cold. (On the other hand, it was free). Iris had a fever and was uncomfortable, and Lucy was tired and fell asleep on a couch, so we had to drag them home. There we discovered the Lucy had lost Moosie, her back-up stuffed animal (Bearie, the primary stuffed animal, was mistakenly left in San Francisco, and Moosie was left in either our car in a far away parking lot on the mainland or Ogunquit). Tears ensued. I sent the Sober Husband out to procure a consolation stuffed animal.

I really, really, really would delight in overdosing on something tonight save for the trauma to the children. This is my only trip out of state in five long years (and I am a woman who has traveled around the world): sitting in an ugly, noisy, hot, overpriced room with crappy beds...and just having absorbed the news that there's no more money. We aren't going to be able to buy the new double oven, five burner stove I craved. We won't be able to fix the two little floors which have only ugly, stained, unhygienic carpet with no subflooring. We won't be able to go on vacations. And I probably won't be able to work on an MFA.

I thought about fleeing to Boston and throwing myself on the mercy of old college friends, but just the taxi to the ferry costs NINETY DOLLARS. A person who is still absorbing terrible financial news is not ready to pay $90 to escape.

welcome to my beach vacation

The National Weather Service just broke in, interrupting "Spongebob", to announce that there are flood warnings in effect for much of Maine and New Hampshire.

the ambitions of a five year-old girl

While we were in the car for so much of a long day driving from Cambridge to remote inner Maine, Lucy spent some time thinking about her life goals and made the mistake of recording her thoughts in her sketchbook.

Lucy wishlist

1. get gawn [gown]
2. killing Iris
3. win trophy

Iris was pretty bitter about the grown-ups' amusement over this rather psychopathic list. Oh, psychotic bloodlust, so much more acceptable when embodied in a cute little tapdancing girl. Visiting my aunt and uncle, who prominently feature in their home the remains of a large black bear once shot by my uncle, one couldn't help but think Lucy could combine 2 and 3 with great satisfaction in her black little heart.

here I am, in the rain

We're in gorgeous scenic Ogunquit, Maine, near the beach and the Marginal Way and Perkins Cove and no end of scenic wonders, and it's POURING FUCKING RAIN and we're holed up in our hotel room eating salt water taffy (I've had so much sugar I feel ill) and watching cable TV. We tried a tapas restaurant, which we found rather disappointing, and I left a note for the chef explaining how to make a tortilla a la espanola.

Thank God we could change our room. The original room we saw overlooked Route 1, and it turns out that watching stop-and-go traffic inch along is almost as stressful as being in stop-and-go traffic. This room faces some maintenance sheds, a small lawn, and a few flowers and trees. MUCH BETTER.

We spent the last couple of days visiting my aunt and uncle up in Embden, Maine, which was really pretty fucking delightful apart from getting horrifically lost on the way up, in rural areas where we had no celphone coverage. I stopped to try to get a giant snapping turtle out of the road, which was a failure. That turtle wasn't going to budge unless it were to take a hunk of meat out of me. I have been trained to calm animals by throwing a towel over them and quickly and efficiently wrapping them up, and I imagined if I threw a big towel over this turtle, it would pull into its shell, I'd move it off the road, and then perhaps it would lick my hand in gratitude and turn its head over its shelly shoulder to watch me depart. Instead, as I tried to throw the towel over it, it lunged drastically and bit at the towel. I changed tactics and tried, toreador style, to lure it off the road. Around this time the Sober Husband's celphone suddenly got a few seconds of coverage, and my worried aunt called, who had expected us hours before. The Sober Husband described what was going on, as I performed my towel dance with the turtle, and my aunt told him to get me to walk away from the dangerous snapping turtle. However, the celphone coverage vanished before he could get better directions.

The subject of directions was a sensitive one, as the Sober Husband felt the emailed directions were a bit inadequate and I'd cautioned him against seeking directions from the locals. "They see that Mass plate" on the rental car I said, "and they'll think you're a Masshole. They're gonna give you the wrong directions."

Finally we found a store with a payphone, difficult as that was, and arranged for my uncle to meet us and show us how to reach his vacation home. After a day spent largely cooped up in the car, with the stress of being lost in remote central Maine, we finally arrived, where we were feted properly. The grown-ups ended up staying up late and getting quite drunk.

The next day my uncle introduced us to the joys of ATV riding. I was a complete loser at this (despite arguably being the best car driver), driving into a tree and losing my nerve. The Sober Husband, however, took to it fairly quickly. He ended up going on an hours long off-road trail ride (after a few bourbons) with my uncle and niece, including quite a lot of riding through deepish water. He came back elated and wired.

We also had a giant lobster feast. I explained to Iris Uber Alles that a lobster is an insect and that I didn't consider eating a lobster different than her swatting a fly (and Iris Uber Alles was indeed vengefully hunting flies with an electric flyswatter in Maine). This rationalization was promptly rejected by Iris and Lucy, who refused to taste the lobsters. "I just can't see why you want to sit around EATING CORPSES," Iris said caustically in the midst of our meal. (I am often criticized for raising my children as vegetarians, but no one ever seems to realize that I am not the alpha vegetarian in my home. I am the delta vegetarian at best, but at least I rank ahead of the Sober Husband, who actually eats dead mammals on a fairly regular basis).

"We're going to turn these girls into little rednecks", said my uncle, and the girls are indeed ready to move to rural Maine, aside from the lobster-eating. "But how can I go to the School of the Arts if I move to Maine?" Iris puzzled. "Life is full of compromises," I said unhelpfully.

If only it would stop raining, how happy I would be. Tomorrow we'll be attempting to enjoy scenic Ogunquit and hopefully meet up with an old friend of mine from junior high and high school. Five year-old Lucy keeps showing me on the iPhone how the weather is sunny and warm on the West Coast. "You're killing your mother with that thing, killing her," I said.

it all looks so different

We're staying off Harvard Square in Cambridge, and what used to seem to me to be just about the most exciting and fabulous place in the world is seeming kind of, well, meh.

Probably a lot of the meh is that we're dead tired. My plan to take a redeye so the children would sleep the whole time failed spectacularly. The children stayed awake the whole flight, complaining in little whispers to me and waking me whenever I dozed off. Lucy cried twice, once when she realized that Bearie (a stuffed animal purchased once at Starbucks, now the most important stuffed animal in our lives) was not with us, and once, in the middle of the night, when she felt afraid of being so high in the air. The Sober Husband, across the aisle, appeared to get some sleep.

The children are hating the heat and complain bitterly whenever taken out of doors. "I could never go to Harvard," said eight year-old Iris Uber Alles. "The weather is too freakish!" "Oh, my sweet, sweet ankles," Lucy said sorrowfully.

They did enjoy J.P. Licks, a charming ice cream store with faux grass all over the walls and amazing sock monkey art. They also loved the Curious George store, where I picked up some sketch books and crayons for them (unbelievably I stupidly came without art equipment when the easiest way to entertain these children, aside from that blessed narcotic, television, is getting them to draw). We got them a book apiece, too, as consolation for having refused to get them very expensive books previously at Schoenhof's, the admirable foreign language bookstore (Lucy selected a Spanish book about mummies and Iris an Italian and English double version of Dickens, both of which were rejected by the parents on the grounds that the children would not use them enough to justify the expense). I was looking for "The Savage Detectives" by Roberto Bolano in Spanish, but Schoenhof's can't keep it in stock. I ordered it and another new Spanish novel I want, which will be shipped to me in San Francisco. Although I failed in my mission, I did get the satisfaction of buying Bolano's newest book, which is all the rage in Spain this year and won't come out in English until next year.

Tomorrow it's on to Maine! The children are dying to see a moose, but as my aunt said, "Moose is where moose is." The other day she had to wait for a group of five moose to leave before she could drive to work, but probably on the day her moose-craving great nieces arrive, the moose will all head for Canada.

the innocence of a dear child

Five year-old Lucy eagerly asked her big sister the other day, "Do you know what I want??!!"

Iris replied bitterly, "To kill me."

Lucy was surprised and took a moment to think. Speaking slowly, she said, "Well, yes, I do want to kill you, but I was thinking that I want a milkshake."

testing the nerves and the marriage

So we're leaving in about two hours to jet off to the East Coast. While we are there, we will be spending a weekend on Martha's Vineyard, not only the setting of "Jaws" but also the place where large great white sharks have been legitimately spotted AND also where attention-wanters have claimed to have seen sharks. I am expecting this to trigger Lucy's shark phobias repeatedly. This trip will, more terrifyingly to me, feature my mother-in-law, sister-in-law (the one who makes jeering faces whenever I speak and has proclaimed that she shouldn't have to associate with people from rural New England -- full well knowing I"m from deep Maine), and the half-brother who never acknowledged my existence, and quite possibly his wife, whose existence no one will acknowledge. Sigh. Our marriage therapist laid down the ruling that it would be unrealistic of me to ask the Sober Husband to stand up for me in any way vis-a-vis his incredibly rude family, but instead we should both work on "studying the other person's perspective, like a scientist." At first, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut when I heard that, but later, after I cooled down, I realized it was eminently sensible. Instead, I have decided that as I am a middle-aged former litigator, and I should just feel free to let my over-educated and acidic tongue free should the need arise. Sadly the only inlaw who actually likes me, my manic brother-in-law, will not be in attendance.

On the brighter side, we'll be spending time with some very fun relatives of mine (silent readers of this blog, who dare not speak their caustic minds yet in comments). I'm going to have dinner with my favorite friend from junior high and drag the family to Ogunquit, one of my favorite places on earth.

My personal objectives before leaving included finishing "Who Stole Feminism?" by Christina Hoff Sommers, which I just ripped through; mending a tear in Lucy's beloved Bearie; and reaching level 67 on World of Warcraft with my mage character. I managed to pull all of those off. I loved "Who Stole Feminism?", which so clearly stated issues which were vaguely hovering in my mind. Did you know that Simone de Beauvoir once told Betty Friedan that "No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one"?

I'll be blogging sporadically from my travels (but then again, I blog sporadically from my own home). Wish me luck and patience and plenty of Prosecco!

focus! focus!

So it has come to this: I need bifocals.

I wasn't surprised. For the past six months, my vision has gotten kind of scary. I've always been severely nearsighted since I was a small child, but glasses and contacts mostly solved that. (I say "mostly" because my astigmatism is not corrected by contacts, and I don't like to drive at night due to this Lights are big and blurry, and it's hard to adjust between darkness and lightness. I've been ridiculed a lot for not driving at night, but eh, that's all right. My friends will reap a karmic vengeance for ridiculing a poor nearsighted girl, and I get to be the designated drinker). But increasingly and increasingly, I was having trouble reading small print, reading anything without a lot of bright light, and making out colored print on colored backgrounds.

My adorable eye doctor (a very kindly gay man of Asian descent and bear inclinations, which I think is a great combination, who is given to elaborate praise during eye examinations. I have never before been made to feel that making out the lines on those little charts is such a proof of my fabulousity) broke the news to me gently. He was surprised I was eager to get them. I really just want to see better, and I've already gone through a huge midlife I've-lost-my-looks funk and come out the other side. Also, it's easier to deal with aging now, than it would have been back in the nineties.

I explained this to my eye doctor. "Thank God it's now I'm getting bifocals. Back in the nineties, I hated pop culture. I hated the music --- I liked Nirvana, but all those depressing ripoffs were so awful --" He took up this point with avidity. "You mean like Portishead?", and we listed terrible grunge bands.

"And the hair and the fashions... all so awful. I used to feel that I was an old fogey and stuck in that young-people-don't-know-music thing, and it was so depressing. But now I love listening to the radio again! There's so much great music now. Not just rock and pop, but that genre I call 'gay disco', it's so much better now. It used to be that boring house, but now it's fun. I love listening to Energy. And the hair and clothes, it's all so much better now. So I don't feel like an old fogey, like I'm stuck and fossilizing."

Evidently I am the first patient to react to getting bifocals this way.

not cool

Eight year-old Iris has long deemed her father an uncool geek (and oddly enough she parses things such that she calls herself a "nerd", which is by her lights "cool", but geekness is, unlike nerdity, uncool) but given her mother a bye. Maybe it's the tattoos and the little emerald I wear in my nose, maybe it's because I helped Iris dye her hair red and blonde, maybe it's inexplicable; but I've been coasting on my reputation for coolness with the children and their friends. Lucy gave me an unpleasant reality check recently when I was comparing us to a fictional family, and she said strongly, "But we aren't like them because that mom is cool."

"What? You think I'm not cool?"

Lucy pondered this for some time and looked for a diplomatic answer. Sweetly and condescendingly she said, "Sometimes when you give us ice cream, I think you are a little cool."

shark update

Today was Lucy's swimming class, and once again, when informed of that fact, her lip swelled out and her eyes brimmed with tears. "Bad dream!" she said, telegraphing her vivid memory of that infamous "killer shark" nightmare she had nearly six months ago.

"But you have the shark charm now!" I said, exasperated that my hard work and innovation in creating a "Lucy Is The Shark Queen" necklace wasn't getting me farther. Evidently a shark keep-away charm only has one use before it wears off, I learned.

I made the mistake of trying to discuss the shark possibility rationally. "Sharks can't be in swimming pools. They need deep water, in the ocean."

Lucy was unconvinced.

"How would it get in there? You drive there. Sharks can't take cars."

Stubbornly Lucy insisted, "But it looks like shark water. Kind of green."

long ago

"Long ago," five year-old Lucy intoned while looking intensely at me, "Cats ruled the earth. But their only superpower was staring without blinking!"

hell is a bit frosty

Yesterday a number of well-nigh unbelievable things happened. First of, I took as many books as I could carry to sell at a used bookstore, and the buyer bought every single one. "I'd like to thank you for bringing these books in; they're great!" he said. The last time I tried to sell books, it was a highly humiliating affair, with a twenty-something visibly sneering at me and informing me that I clearly didn't grasp the particular bookstore's niche, which was especially irksome given that I'd bought almost all those very same books there in the first place. The Sober Husband won't take my used books around to used bookstores, having come to view it as a humiliating exercise in wasting time.

A bit more pedestrian miracle -- but also one which had never occurred before -- happened when we went to the grocery store. Not only had I remembered to bring reusable cloth bags from home, our groceries fit perfectly into those bags. No space left; no need for an additional, non-disposable bag. Additionally the middle-aged, well-dressed woman whose access to the mini-quiches we (meaning Iris and Lucy) blocked was not cranky with us, but instead exchanged a cordial conversation upon the joys of tiny frozen quiches.

The geekier amongst us might also marvel at the fact that I did some group quests in a pick-up-group on World of Warcraft, and not one person complained, looted inappropriately, stomped off, or otherwise behaved poorly. Instead, some tricky work was well-executed by total strangers cooperating and communicating delightfully.

And in that same day, some exhibitionist with too much money made an offer on that wretched new house.

I'm not sure when we will experience another day of oddities like that one. Today seems all too unexceptional, with me being awakened by Iris informing me that "Frowsty killed a mouse in the garden, and there are lots of bugs on it."

the state of things

For ten months, I've been engaged in a dysfunctional relationship with a rather sociopathic contractor building a luxury home close to mine. He finally finished his house and put it on the market, not without some over-the-top disregard for the neighbors by completely blocking off the street for most of two days in order to "stage" the house for sale (a friend trying to drop off his daughter at my house was particularly inconvenienced by this).

Not surprisingly, the sociopathic contractor has delusions of grandeur: he is asking two million, one hundred seventy nine thousand dollars for his little house. Over $2.1 million! Evidently the pocket-sized sociopath felt there would not only be one sucker at that price, but several. He and his realtor team set up a ridiculous, height-of-the-housing-bubble, auction-style sale. Open houses were held constantly, including on untraditional days (in San Francisco, the practice is that open houses for anyone to stroll into are held on the weekend, and during the week, there are only broker's tours, which are held on Tuesday afternoons and no one allowed in unless chaperoned by a licensed real estate agent). A huge, glossy booklet trumpeting the property as "sexy" was handed out. This was all to come to a head on July 2nd, when the agents announced they would accept offers (and presumably oversee the ensuing imagined and anticipated fierce and furious bidding war).

The brochure advertising the property as "sexy" was hilarious to me, as clearly the architecture revealed something I'd rather not contemplate about the sexual desires of the pocket-sized sociopath. The master bedroom is designed for exhibitionism. One wall is all glass, and indeed where that wall meets a side wall, the side wall is glass. There is no conceivable way to put curtains up. It is not a particularly large master bedroom, and anyone living in it would be getting dressed, undressed, and, hopefully for them but not for the unwilling neighbors, having sex in full view of everyone who lives nearby. We dropped by one of the open houses, and I saw to my horrified fascination that the master bedroom's bathroom had a large wall cutout rendering the nearby door somewhat ineffective. Not only would anyone willing to pay $2.1 million for this smallish house need to want to conduct their sex life in public, that person would not be able to move their bowels in their own master bathroom in private.

Perhaps there are well-heeled exhibitionists with a passion for sterile modern architecture, but here it is July 8th, and no one has put in an offer. I was a participant myself in a good old-fashioned San Francisco real estate bidding war, and I know those proceed apace (the Sober Husband and I went through several rounds of bids over one morning, jumping each time the phone rang. By noon we knew we had a new house, and we both felt like we'd been punched in the stomach). The house isn't done causing me annoyance, though. Today the little sociopath came and applied some form of extremely stinky chemical to the roof of the $2.1 million house.

Meanwhile, at our more private home nearby, it's been pretty peaceful. The current batch of foster kittens are extremely conscientious about litter box usage and delightfully playful. Lucy has two loose teeth she delights in waggling to gross her sister out. The Sober Husband is floating in a sort of bliss at the moment. It reminds me of how I felt after I recovered from nearly dying due to undiagnosed gallbladder disease (the worst doctor I saw during this period gave me a snap diagnosis of HIV and, when my blood test came back negative, had no further ideas and just sent me home. Later I was admitted to the hospital on an emergency basis when my liver and other internal organs were failing). When I finally got back to full health, I was overwhelmed with joy at being alive. Everything was miraculous and beautiful to me; I wandered through the days with delight. That all came crashing to a halt on 9/11, which certainly harshed my mellow, but it was beautiful before then. I hope nothing so drastic occurs to bring the Sober Husband down, so happy at being back in regular family life after our big falling-out where I asked him to move out temporarily. Since he came back, I was rather distant and cranky towards him, sort of the Mr. Burns to his Smithers, but lately I've been softening. I don't want to stay angry. It will all be tested by fire in a couple of weeks when we set off cross-country for his mother's ridiculously selfish birthday party, but it's been peaceful for now.

a new level of sleaze

Eight year-old Iris scolds five year-old Lucy: "That is a new level of sleaze, EVEN FOR YOU!!!"

microchip a cat, adopt a kitten, peer at the Drunken Housewife

Today (sorry for the last minute notice; I didn't line this up until yesterday) I will be taking my foster kittens to an adoption event, in connection with a Free Microchipping Clinic, at the insane and incredible Cat Safari, 3233 Sacramento St (at Presidio).

Pet Camp® has completely rethought the traditional boarding kennel. Since the beginning, one vision has shaped everything we do: what would our pets like?

In keeping with that vision, Pet Camp now offers two great adventures to choose from – our main campground for both dogs and cats and Cat Safari, our strictly-for-cats “outdoor” adventureland.

Main Campground. Dogs and cats can play and stay at our expansive main campground located in the Bayview district. It’s the only facility in San Francisco to offer off-leash, outdoor space where your dog can run and romp with other dogs and play amid slides, tunnels and agility equipment.

Cat Safari. Cats who crave a walk on the wild side can head uptown to Cat Safari located in Presidio Heights. In our Safari Gardens, your cat can get a taste of life in the Serengeti, climbing live tree limbs and traversing bamboo bridges.

Whichever campground you choose, when your pet stays with us, you're assured that they are enjoying the next best thing to your being with them. Take a moment to explore our site, or call us at 415.282.0700 to take a personal tour of either facility during our regular office hours.

Our Cat Safari facility is heating up the summer with two very important events. Up first on Sunday, July 6th, is a just-for-cats microchip clinic. This Animal Care and Control clinic, hosted by Pet Camp Cat Safari, will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m at Cat Safari, 3233 Sacramento Street (at Presidio). We suggest a $20 donation for all San Francisco residents.

I have some of the most amazing kittens imaginable, including a rather simian black kitten whom I would dearly love to keep for my own, but as I'm teetering on the brink of crazy cat-ladyhood, must adopt out.

hiking with the drama princesses

Today I wanted to get some exercise and some fresh air, and so we set out to explore the much-neglected San Bruno Mountain Park, bringing a light picnic along. For a long time the Sober Husband and I had been intending to visit that park, and on one pathetic occasion we'd tried to find it without success (that outing devolved into a squabble and a tense drive home). Today, though, we found the park (not without a couple of wrong turns first) and set out on a trail. "The children can walk a mile," I said optimistically. "Anyone can walk a mile."

San Bruno Mountain turned out to be just what we'd hope for: a beautiful expanse of open space (albeit crossed by a four lane divided highway) which was weirdly deserted, leaving us to enjoy the birds, views, and wildflowers. Usually in the Bay Area anytime I want to do anything remotely enjoyable, I find myself navigating through throngs of others with the same ideas and goals, but San Bruno Mountain is rarely visited.

The children seemed to think it should stay unvisited. Five year-old Lucy was appalled at the very idea that we'd expect her to walk on a hiking trail. "I just want to sleep in the car," she explained. When that request was denied, she burst out with "I'm tired! I'm cold!" When this was ignored, she shouted, "KILL ME!"

Eight year-old Iris set out in fine style but soon turned to inquiring, "When will we be at the parking lot? Can we eat now? When can we stop? How much longer?" She was comforted when our hike brought us around to the side of San Bruno Mountain affording her a view of our Volvo in the distance.

When we finally returned to the parking lot, Iris ran to the car and hugged it dramatically. I picked up a map. "Next time, I want to take some of these other trails," I said.

"WE'RE COMING BACK???" asked Iris in disbelief.

Buttopolis

I have chronic insomnia, and yesterday I was sleep-deprived to the point of misery. I proposed to the children after Lucy's dance class that "Mommy take a nap!" and the children try to play quietly. This was viewed with suspicion and unhappiness, as each child felt evidently that she was not safe from the other without the active supervision of the Drunken Housewife. I overruled their misgivings, undressed, and climbed into bed.

I was just drifting off when suddenly five year-old Lucy burst out into the sort of hysterical sobbing that can probably be detected by orbiting satellites. I called Lucy to come tell me what happened. Between her sobs, she managed to get a few words out. Tragedy had struck! Lucy had set down a lemon tartlet which she'd been carrying about and slowly nibbling upon, and a cat licked it! The lemon tartlet in question had been the subject of much angst over the preceding week, as dumb old Mommy had committed a crime against humanity by buying Iris a lemon tartlet while Lucy was in dance class. Never mind that I bought Lucy a cupcake and that I had thought the lemon tarts were too tangy for her; Lucy had become obsessed with that lemon tart consumed by her eternal enemy, Iris, and now that finally she had gotten one of her own, a cat had licked it. I explained to Lucy that cat germs are not so dangerous to people as other people's germs and that, in my opinion, she could safely finish her lemon tartlet.

Lucy went back downstairs, where she discovered that while she had been telling me that a cat had licked her lemon tartlet, another villainous cat had eaten the whole lemon filling. This is what comes of leaving pastries unchaperoned. Lucy's grief and rage were epic, and I got out of bed and abandoned the prospect of a nap. I actually had a beautiful cupcake on hand, purchased because there was a possibility one of Lucy's friends would be coming over who could not be expected to eat a lemoncentric treat, and I gave this to Lucy, but it gave her no consolation. Lucy waved the empty lemon tart shell about, crying, and Iris asked for permission to eat this defiled shell. ("Those lemon tarts are so good," said Iris later, "that I didn't mind Lucy germs AND cat germs").

I should have gone back to the bakery for another one, but my fatigue had grown to the point where driving felt unsafe. I was supposed to drive Iris to a friend's for a sleepover, but I didn't feel safe behind the wheel. I instructed Iris to call her friend to tell her that she wouldn't be there until evening, when the Sober Husband would return from work and could safely drive her. Faced with crabby children, one continually bursting into noisy, lemon tart-related tears, but physically and mentally exhausted, I fell back upon an old diversion I had used for Iris when she was a toddler. I told the children that they could add to Mommy's tattoos. (The children love Mommy's tattoos and take it for granted that they will get some as well. Lucy has become a bit worried, though, since she learned that tattoos are painful. "When I am a woman and I get a tattoo," she said recently, "isn't there a way without a needle?")

They spent all afternoon drawing all over my arms and legs. At first, they had high-minded artistic goals. Iris practiced writing "Iris" in kanji, and Lucy drew a rainbow. Soon, however, it deteriorated. One of them drew a butt, and then both decided what would truly be nice would be if they covered me in pictures of butts. My left leg was renamed "Buttopolis" and my right leg "Butt Heaven." The height of wit was reached when Lucy drew a butt which had evidently just released some foul gas, as a fairy princess passing by was depicted with an expression of disgust.

"Why don't you draw some flowers?" I suggested, a bit tired of the nonstop butt humor. "I will draw a butt with flowers coming out of it!" Lucy said cheerfully.