sueeeus

I added a ticker to my blog to remind me that I should be paying attention to my health. To give myself a boost I calculated my ’43 down’ based on the high point I reached when I was full term with Boo. I lost quite a bit of fat while carrying him, and was actually down a whopping 62 lbs after taking a strong diuretic called Lasix, to combat the extreme edema that happened in that last trimester. Sadly, I’ve put some of the offending weight back on. Although 62 is a much better number than 43, 43 is still better than zero, so I should not beat myself up too much about this, and continue to remember that it’s a battle worth fighting and not to give up.

Perhaps it’s not psychologically good to call it a shameful reminder then. I shall try to come up with a more positive title.

I found him! Happy Jack is Back! We celebrated his 89th birthday with some yummy chocolate cake. Note the happy chocolate mouth mess.
Boo had fun trying out the wheel chair.
He and Uncle Jack had plenty to talk about.
We had a nice visit. I’m so glad we found him. Somehow I’ve made it forty years without losing someone close to me (apart from my Grandpa, who died when I was around twelve). I don’t know how to say goodbye. I will miss him when he goes.

I love Saturdays (apart from highway rants). Saturday is my day to be a Stay-At-Home-Mom, the epitome of my life, the dream of dreams I’ve dreamt for as long as I can remember.
Wake up, pump, play with Boo. Change his diaper, tickle him, love him. Breakfast together. Big boy oat cereal for Boo, old fashioned super thick oatmeal for me. Snuggle and play some more. Bake a cake. Make frosting from scratch. Actually follow a recipe with almost no alteration (substitute whipping cream for heavy cream and semi-sweet chocolate for milk chocolate). Package cake, paper plates, napkins and forks for afternoon outing. Feed Boo a bottle. Play some more. Nap time for Boo. Pack the diaper bag. Pump again. Read a magazine. Read a magazine!! (It was worth repeating.) Clean the kitchen, do the dishes. Have a salad. Jump in the shower (quick, before he wakes up!) Load the car. Pack up Boo. Hit the road. A nice Saturday drive. Visit an old friend. Eat cake. Play. Sing songs. Say goodbye. Drop by the fabric and craft store. Contemplate fountain designs (new project brewing). Look for bargains. Drive home. Happy boy. Arrive home. Unpack car. Play some more. Another bottle for Boo. Take a little nap with my beautiful boy. Pump again. Green beans and rice for my good little eater. Beets, yams, and potatoes for me. Sit on the swing with Daddy and Boo. Enjoy the evening air. Make Boo giggle.
Play.
Get tired.
Play some more.
Get very tired.
Night night bottle. Sleepy bye for Boo.

Movie time for Daddy and me. Download photos. Pump. Blog.

A glorious day.

On the highway
Driving speed limit
Prepare for lane change
Blinker is on
Check rear view mirror
Red car closing fast
Changing lanes
Red car zooms past
Duelling lane change
No signal
Red left front
Grey right rear
Only inches apart
Male driver, young
Dark hair
Car full of people
Mostly children
Driver’s side
Small fuzzy head
An infant on his lap
I . N . F . A . N . T
On the DRIVER’S lap
WHAT IS HE THINKING
Some people
Should not be parents
Should not be driving
Plate number is a blur
Can’t call him in
Say a prayer instead
God protect those children

My life revolves around milk. How long can I make it before the next time I must pump It’s a game I play. Mostly because I’m lazy. There is the setup time where I have to get myself locked and loaded. There’s the time on the pump, which is usually 3o minutes, and sometimes more. Sometimes I fall asleep on my midnight shift and wake up an hour later (with bottles nearly full). There’s the cleanup time. All the parts must be washed every time. Of course measurement is necessary. How many cc’s this time, I ask myself, hoping I at least produced 90 from each side. I’ve learned that I can live with a six-hour cycle without too much pain or leakage, so I pump at 6 a.m., noon, 6 p.m., and midnight, plus or minus a bit. How long can I be away from home, without packing my pump Life is planned in 5 hour increments (the 6th hour is for pumping, cleaning, etc.) How much can I get done, how far can I go, how long can I sleep (the answer is always ‘not long enough’). These are questions I constantly ponder. I track, calculate, and plot my milk supply. I’m neurotic. I know.

It’s so hot here in Suburbia. The sun blazes through the windows and the house feels like an oven. Mr. Squished wanted to cover the big half moon window and suggested a fitted accordion blind. Mrs. Squished thinks fitted blinds are cheesy dust catchers. She does not approve. Mrs. Squished thinks decorative films are often cheesy as well, but the lesser of two evils. The Squished couple agree to use a light blocking film. Mrs. Squished finds a film that, as luck would have it, blends nicely with the wall color and doesn’t compete too intensely with the light fixtures.

Yesterday’s project: add light blocking film to living room window. Small project. Simple project. Terse words spoken in unfriendly tones are exchanged between Mr. and Mrs. Squished. Dare they attempt to build an entire house (It’s part of the grand plan, the great American Dream.)

The light is still bright, but nicely diffused. The house is less of an oven. Family Squished is at peace.

I watched a movie entitled In America last night. Before I became a mother, I would have enjoyed this movie, but I don’t think I would have had such strong emotional reactions. I had to keep asking Mr. Squished Piggy to check the DVD jacket and reassure me that it was rated PG-13, when it looked like something bad might be going to happen to children. I can’t handle seeing anything bad happen to children.

The movie is set in New York, and the young family live in a very creepy building that I fear, sadly, is extremely realistic. There’s a scene where the mother sends her two little girls out for ice cream, ALONE! OMG, nobody sends children anywhere alone any more! I was squirming in my seat, certain that something horrible would happen. There are too many unpredictables and crazies in society these days, and especially in the film, in their own building. They knew their neighbors were drug addicts and crazies so how on earth could that mother have sent her kids out I was so appalled! In another scene, the baby came early and was sent to the ICU. I lost it there. I just sobbed and sobbed, looking at that little baby that might not make it.

The film was very well done. It stirred emotions and captured human desperation, love, beauty, and triumph on many levels. I was still sobbing when the credits rolled.

Meme Pea Soup:
Fred, a teacher, has taken George Ella Lyons’ poem ‘Where I’m From’ and asked his students to write their own story, using Lyons’ poem as a base. He also opened this project up to the world, inviting people to participate via the internet.

It’s a beautiful project. If you try it, please link back to Fred’s site.

Pea Soup posted mine on her blog before I mustered the courage to become more than just a blog stalker myself. Now that I am a bonafide blogger, here is my poem.

I am from the old copper tea kettle, dinged, battered and sticky, from Coats and Clarks All Purpose White (the economy roll) and the rummage sale blue pants, three sizes too big, but triumphantly made of denim like the other kids wore.

I am from the house on Nora Creek Road, chipped red shutters and tired white paint, a red metal roof that sings in the rain, dark orange water from a well nearly dry, sour and unforgiving.

I am from the honeysuckle that grew wild on the hill, from pinecones scattered everywhere, and poppies with papery orange petals, out back by the old church pew.

I am from choosing birthday dinners and megalomania, from Nelsons, Outhouses and Applegates, from HCK and all the Cerethes there ever were.

I am from the over indulgers and bewildering intellects.

From be careful or your face will freeze that way, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, from dumb Kopf, idgeyut, spiteful wench and don’t be schtewpid.

I am from Thanks be to God, the Lord be with you and also with you, from Be Not Afraid and Beatitudes, from In the Stars and On Eagle’s Wings, from Glory Hallelujah.

I am from a land that’s evergreen, and amber waves of grain, from teachers of kings in a faraway place and Yankee ingenuity, from rice with everything (but NEVER milk and sugar), and a block of ice cream cut three by three for all to get their fair share.

From an ancient tiny woman squatted with a bread board across her knees making wontons the way they’re supposed to be made — the only time I ever saw her. I am from red suspenders and the yellow straw hat with a hole worn through, from you’re a good kid and I believed it.

I am from a stack of boxes tucked in a closet that survived hundreds of miles and dozens of addresses, from fervent poems scrawled on scraps of paper, and every letter I’ve ever been written. I am from walls adorned with nearly a decade of Fourth of July masterpieces wrought from the hands and imaginations of the people I love.

Sue: (f) English diminutive of Susan, from Hebrew shoshan: “lily.”

I bought this groovy eyeshadow years ago — “Big Bang” by Urban Decay. I seldom wear it, however, as it is hot fuchscia and hard to pull off without looking like a sleep deprived and hungover woman, however, since I am a sleep deprived woman, it works quite well these days.

This is the kind of collage that would frighten the Baudelaire orphans and bring glee to the wicked Count Olaf.

Known to some as ‘The Colonel’. To others, he is ‘Jack’, or ‘Happy Jack’. Me, I usually call him Clayton, which is his given name. I think he was born in 1916. I’ve gathered clues for years to learn his age, and finally, I think I’ve got it. Today is his birthday. He usually tells me he’s 39, or maybe it’s 29. What stories he has to tell! If only somebody had captured them. I have only fragments. He was an Air Force pilot back in the day. A fighter pilot, a regular top gun. He flew so many missions and lived to tell. By the grace of God, he would say. He’s the only person I know who can recite the Sermon on the Mount. He used to hang out at the stock exchange on his off time when he had nothing better to do, and he got the hang of things, invested, and made his million. That was back when a million was alot. (It’s still alot to me, actually.)

Once he asked me to marry him. I said no. I’m no Anna Nicole. He used to try and sneak a feel anytime he could get within arm’s reach. Dirty old man. That is, until I got married. I think it hurt his pride a little that I married someone else (who really was 35 –and broke). The moment I became a wife, he ceased his flirting game, so he’s a dirty old man with some principles. I love him all the same, my friend Happy Jack. I hope he’s still with us. He was fading fast the last time I saw him. But he still had a keen wit. A woman asked him if he’d lost a wife. He replied, I lost five. Ha! She stopped making small talk after that. (She was at the nursing home proselytizing her dad, getting him ready for heaven, I guess.)

He told me that each wife cleaned him out so he’d have to rebuild his million. He’d do it again, marry again, divorce again. I don’t remember why he didn’t stay married. Something about incessant nagging, perhaps. I guess it’s worth a million bucks to some people to get an old bag off your back. Maybe I should have married him. I might have a million bucks to my name by now.

I’ve enjoyed his friendship. He’s got such a twinkle in his eye. I wanted him to teach me what he knew about the stock market, but it’s a different beast these days, since the dot com explosion.

Funny thing, I’ve noticed with depression era millionaires. (Okay, I only know two, so it’s not of statistical significance.) They are very frugal. Frugal might be an understatement. Clayton wore the same faded grey Members Only jacket every time I saw him in the past fifteen years. He didn’t have it the last time I saw him, although I think I recall seeing it in his closet at the nursing home. This time he was wearing a warmer grey zip front sweater, however, it was pinned closed with five giant safety pins (almost the size one would use for diaper pins). I asked about it and he said the sweater was still good, but the zipper was broken. It’s wasteful to get a whole new sweater just because of a silly little zipper, you know. Millionaires.

Where is Clayton Where’s Happy Jack I want to wish him a happy birthday. I hope he’s still with us.