Happy anniversary, my love. This below gift is from Ralph; he went with irreverent. I went with sincere – a tailored waxed canvas coat with brass snaps – and thoughtful: a Botch LP.
Heading out to Olympia! Child photobomb – expertly placed.
Nels rocks some Saint Germain at MAC, this evening before we headed home. I think he’s going to be my MAC BFF!
This morning it wasn’t entirely nerves that made me feel I had to go for a run, even though I’d done the same yesterday and according to the training program I’m following I’m supposed to take the day off. Sophie was finishing her sleep on the couch: I woke her, told her I’d made up oatmeal for breakfast and set the table, and to mind her brother if he woke before I got home. She nodded and settled back into the blankets, first requesting that I engage her playlist on my computer’s iTunes and – I could tell – enjoying some time to herself. Both of my kids are thinkers, and totally content with their own company. The house smelled warm and homey like fresh oatmeal and hot coffee. It was sunny and only a tiny bit cold; a crisp fall day, giving us a prelude to winter.
Running has helped me feel more energetic, more present, more alive. It’s given me just a little bit more “space” to exist, and I’ve felt wonderful about my body and breath (I also, it must be confessed, enjoy listening to Justin Timberlake, The Gossip, and Santogold at volume 11). Despite feeling wonderfully stretched during the day I am having a harder time falling asleep just lately – no matter how much I run, then swim, then busy about the house cooking and cleaning, when it comes time to sleep my mind won’t settle easily. Tonight, though, I hope for an easier time, because tomorrow we rise early and drive down to the Portland airport to put my little girl on a plane and it will feel like a punch to the gut. My brother is taking the day off and will be squiring us about the City of Roses; I’m hoping our time eating good food and running about town (and later that night staying at the Hawthorne hostel) can distract me from the discomfort I know I’ll feel.
In Sophie’s departure, though, I’m looking forward to having more time with my son. He’s been bringing the real ball-busting material lately. I’m thinking of today where in the space of a morning he doused the cat in Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint soap, made his sister cry a half dozen times, and yelled “Fuck!” in Denny’s (sadly, it wasn’t one of those “at least no one else heard” scenarios, either). Nels is a wonderful child in that no shaming and yelling at him really works; it only makes him more frantic to be forgiven, or angry at being treated this way. My son’s existence is an exercise in patience and compassion for me – also, in Not Getting My Way (kind of funny, because in my FOO I had the reputation of Always Getting My Way – hogwash!). Yet I know that my two weeks with my son are going to be wonderfully peaceful together. As much as my children love one another, they also love space of their own.
Today when we got home from lunch (and walking around Crackton, Aberdeen) Sophie spent quite a bit of time in her “studio” drawing picture after picture. When she was ready to be with me, and for a little lighthearted entertainment (I snark), we watched The Orphanage* as I attempted to cast on stitches for a pair of gloves (I abandoned the effort when I realized the movie was in Spanish and my eyes would be needed to read subtitles, rather than count stitches). My kids are enjoyable movie companions; they usually out-think the film and make some pretty hilarious assessments. In tonight’s installment ( ::spoilers:: ) when the tortured heroine is trying to unravel a mystery of her missing child, she finds as a clue this horrific little doll wearing a terrible mask; my daughter says casually, “That’s a little creepy for a doll, don’t you think?” Yeah, like why in the fuck would someone create something like that, ever?
Good point, little girl.
* Talk about a great film for any mother with children! No, scratch that – it was a horrible idea. To be fair, I’d advocated for Let The Right One In but she wants to wait until her dad can watch it with us.
My son is four. He is awesome at spelling and computer-ness. He has his priorities straight. It took him a while to type this all out (done while I was cooking) but, it was important to him.
For the second time I find FM transmitter technology just isn’t cutting it for the enjoyment of my iPod. Oh sure, sure – it’s lame I’m even buying something so chintzy with a weird, cock-like appendage and an even weirder, cock-with-elbow-like secondary extender. After all, there are classier, more expensive ways to put your massive iPod music library in your vehicle. However, the well is not bottomless, and even though my iPod was this year’s sole Kelly expendeture from the Hogaboom coffers – well, I am looking for a more reasonable solution. After returning original FM doohickey (and vowing to hate radio technology, despite the lovely and informative article on the cellular phone I read in last edition of Invention & Technology magazine, P.S. I am not kidding, I really do read that magazine) today I find out from an IM conversation, innocently enough, that a simpler and more mechanically-based adapter is available in town. I rush my daughter and I out early for our date so I can hit the store in question and grab it up (and a quarter the price of FM device).
Inside the car I begin tearing at the packaging like a monkey (“That’s a little bit awful,” observes my biscotti-eating child-date watching me scratch at the vacuum-sealed sarcophagi), finally breaking the seal thanks to my keychain swiss army knife (yes! I’m a dork. But who’s laughing now?!?), plug the “cassette” in, mash everything on the face of my iPod (Sophie requests Starsky & Hutch‘s “Two Dragons” for our maiden listen), only to have the stereo readout tell me in its fuckspeak: “c | n ” – a code meaning either, “Please clean your tape deck” or, “I will never work again”. Don’t know which yet and get to find out.
Once again, no instant gratification for yours truly.
Oh, tonight’s movie; Eragon. Don’t see it. Billed as “Lord of the Rings Light“, I’d phrase it “Lord of the Rings LITE (TM) with ‘artificial meat flavors’ and Miracle Whip“. Why do I watch this crap? Oh yeah: because I have a daughter, and we go on dates, and I refuse to watch kiddy films. This movie works for her because she has a huge affinity for anything scaly (and an even huger affinity for anything huge and scaly). And even SHE was bored by the end. Your average crap fantasy film: a young boy’s turn to manhood and the loss of loved ones (you can predict exactly when they’ll go); evil badguy (with repetitive idle threats toward his minions that remind me of so many parents on the playground and their errant toddlers, and John Malkovitch enough already and retire please), his really evil-henchman (whose makeup inexplicably gets re-creepified 2/3 of the way through the film, but I still find Robert Carlyle cute only when he’s playing a psycho); token buff warrior dude with obligatory horrific mulletude (P.S. Hollywood, I want my Djimon Hounsou served up in a loincloth, gladiator toga, ass-cheeked thong, or half-nude in a period drama, thank you!), blah blah. It actually started to get better by the end, especially when I realized they were going to save some of the typical storyline for, yes! another film. P.S. I think something sexy was going on between the boy dragonrider and his dragon. Or maybe it was just my feverish, bored mind casting for something to enjoy. I gotta admit, it was kind of hot.
So in looking up links for the last paragraph I stumbled upon the fact I have seen two movies in one week with a main character named “King Hrothgar”.
Um… look. I’ve watched a lot of movies in the last few days, people. No really… I’ve been sick and had nothing else to do. Wait, don’t leave …
I’m going to go hang my head in shame now.
