Inspiration

Hullo, Blogland! I've been inspired to get writing again. By Douglas Adams. Go read Hitchhiker's Guide. Or if you have already, pick up The Salmon of Doubt. And then after you've picked it up, read that.

That's about it, really.

A Speculation on the Second Coming and Bedtime

The other day, while vacuuming under the influence of caffeine and lack of sleep, I was thinking about the second coming of Jesus. And also of environmentalism. And I started to wonder, what if Heaven is like bedtime and we're the children...I suppose bedtime is a bad analogy. As far as my experience goes, kids don't actually want to go to bed. So...Heaven is the bedtime story. Don't ask me what that makes the actual bedtime. Anyhow, we're the kids, Heaven is the bedtime story, Jesus is the parent.

What if we can't hear the story until we clean up our mess?

Hear me roar. (a parenthetically hyphenated post about laundry, mostly)

My washing machine is on the fritz and as there is not a disposable diaper to be found in my household, I just hand-washed a load of cloth diapers in my bathroom sink. This event was blog post inspiring because, as bizarre as this sounds, I thoroughly enjoyed it. (I feel it's important to note here that none of said diapers contained poo.) I get a kick out of doing things old school. And while I was slushing urine and laundry soap around in the sink, I tried to pinpoint just what about this experience was so significant. Here's what I came up with...I think it keeps me in touch with my humanity. (Nice little bit of psychoanalysis there, eh?) Humanity in the I-can-handle-this sense. Possibly the same feeling women get when they birth a child without drugs. (Yes, I just put natural child birth on the same level as washing pee out of clothes.)

Side note: Love the cloth diapers. I'm a gDiaper (cloth inserts) by day and a bumGenius (one-size 3.0) by night. My Happy Heinys, which I was prepared to adore, are more of a fill-in, a booty call of sorts. Gotta love how well that term works here.

I wonder what the ratio is, worldwide, of people who hand-wash their laundry to people who use a machine.

Rar.

Living Large (a post in which I do make it to the point, eventually)

So, my husband and I are looking for a new place. Actually, I think it's necessary to paint a little picture of our financial/housing situation to fully appreciate this post...

You see, back in the day, we lived in Gainesville, FL. That's where we met and I had my brief interlude with a college education. That's where I busted my ass as a waitress and Danny discovered his passion for making (at the time, not-so-) great food. That's where we had, really, a decent income and blew it all eating at restaurants and fixing broken cars. Then there was a pregnancy scare in which we both panicked and started planning how our now horribly ruined lives were going to be carried out. Then I realized I wasn't pregnant and almost immediately after the freakout subsided, the baby-crazy set in. It's actually pretty surreal how that happened. At the time we were both working full-time and planning our move to Orlando where Danny could get some culinary learning and I was to enroll at UCF for art. The baby-crazy only got worse and we decided "not to try, but not to not try." Fast forward one month and you'll see me crying tears of joy, bouncing around the bathroom with three positive pregnancy tests. We told our parents it was not planned.

So, we move to Orlando right about the time the real crazy set in and I became a depressed vomiting hermit. I didn't find a job in Orlando until the vomiting stopped, or rather lessened, which was a little past 5 months into my pregnancy. And then, when I did get said job, it was lousy and I made no money. Colson was born and our financial situation had gotten so bad over the pregnancy that was now a cute baby girl and a not very cute hospital bill that we were a month away from not being able to pay rent. Then Danny got a great job offer, salary, a sous chef for a casino in Mississippi. We took it. We bought a house there and we planned to stay there for at least 5-10 years. We had a lovely fenced in yard and a beautiful garden that produced an inordinate amount of tomatoes. Then Danny was dealt with horribly and fired along with 30 people under him they were gracious enough to lay off. Hourly employees, of course. For the next three months, he was a job hunting machine. And after nothing, nothing, nothing...we had my dad ask a very old family friend for a good word and Danny ended up with a job here in South Florida.

Over the three jobless months, three of the last four of my second pregnancy (the one that really was unplanned), we accumulated credit card debt while we managed to pay our bills until we had nothing left, at which point some of the bills began to not get paid. We rented our house out and then our mortgage went up due to insurance costs and taxes and now we're forking over $280 a month. Anyhow, here we are, paying all our bills again even though we aren't saving anything. We love his new job like no other he's ever had even though the pay is less than fantastic. We love this town and the beach and the gorgeous trees even though our apartment is falling apart. Here we are, crossing our fingers that our house sells quickly come November and that our current renter will go for a month by month deal until that happens.

And we are looking for a new place. What we really want to do is downsize, get a nice one bedroom and save a couple hundred bucks a month. But here's the kicker, it's apparently not okay for a family of four to live in a one bedroom house. Before you start saying how crazy I am for even thinking of this, read on. We live in a two bedroom apartment. Our master bedroom, the one where all four of us sleep in the same bed (a king size, by the way) is huge. We spend about 8-12 hours in there a day, collectively...sleeping. Then the doors are shut so the cats don't pee on the bed. There's a bathroom in there that is used almost exclusively for giving the girls baths. Then there's the girls' room. The main purpose for this room is to accommodate clothes and toys and for Finley to nap in. Sometimes they play in there, but most of the time the toys are brought into the living room that is also my art studio and our office. So I got to thinking about the wasted space we're paying for. But that's the way it's done here. We live in small groups in big houses. We sleep each in separate rooms in separate beds and have separate bathrooms.

I'm not judging those who want to live this way. I'm not saying it's wrong. All I'm saying is that our way isn't wrong either. And, while I can somewhat understand the reasoning behind only allowing so many people in a given space, I do find it a little absurd that we are not allowed to choose to live smaller. I find it a little absurd that someone else can tell me how many rooms or square footage I need. I know it would be different if we weren't renting. It's just eye-opening and frustrating.

So we've decided to move to a small village in the rainforest. No, just kidding.

Apparently, I suck at this.

On one hand, I'm pretty sure only two (maybe three) people read this. On the other, the point, or at least one of the points, of this blog is to get me writing. So what have I been not writing about for over a month?

I've been attempting to build a website. Not as easy as I'd hoped. I've also had a whopping two commissions to work on every night after the girls are in bed. And then there's unearthing what I fear is the Trekkie in me. Oh and baking. Some attempts at baking. And some successes also.

What I have not been doing is being very active. Brings to mind a Scrubs episode. (Readers should know that almost everything in my life somehow brings to mind a Scrubs episode.) Where the Janitor and Ted become environmentalists and Elliot decides to put on weight with her patient. Carla tells them at the end that it's human to be excited about something and then get complacent again. Sure, I've joined a few website news lists and signed a few petitions. I watched Food, Inc. And I've held strong against the force of exorbitant prices and bought organic food. I just haven't actually done much. Complacency. Another purpose for writing here.

Also, as I've been trying to marry my tree-hugger spirit with my fear of fluttery things and dying from various uncommon outdoor disasters, I took the family for a hike at John D. MacArthur State Park. The walking trail was sufficiently rugged, unbearably hot and humid, and, unfortunately for my less than vigorous approach to taming my butterfly fear, infested with Florida's state butterfly. In my defense, I did make a second attempt at the hike after I'd dug a beach towel out of the car and draped it over my head. In my...not defense...before I got to the car I was cowering on the ground bawling and begging Danny to help me. Colson was super sweet about it, though, and for our second round walked beside me holding my hand so I wouldn't be scared. The mosquitoes were pretty stoked about the feast we'd laid out before them, which is why said round two was also short-lived. Then we went to the beach like real Floridians.

So, the baking: homemade graham crackers. First attempt, not so good. Second try, epic. They are delicious. Nabisco can kiss my unpreserved, honey sweetened, unhydrogenated ass.

The Trekking...We'll go there later. Suffice it to say that Spock may have my heart in a Vulcan death grip. Wow, did that just go way beyond nerdy? I think it did.

And finally, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it looks less like light and more like Godiva chocolate cheesecake. Less than a week left and going strong. Can I get a "you're awesome" please?

Live long and prosper.

One, Love

Over the past few months, I've taken up playing tennis again. I played in high school and was decent. By decent I mean that I was generally able to make contact with the ball, most of the time with the racket. But I more or less gave tennis up after graduating and so it's been 6 years since I've really played.

So I started playing again, against a wall at the park, and have been regularly for a while. It's amazing how quickly and exponentially one can improve when you start with bloody awful. I mean, it was bad. I was more than a little worried that I just didn't have it in me anymore. But I'd even venture to say that I'm better now than I was in high school. Maybe it comes with age, the ability to take direction and apply it. Because I hear all the lessons from my coach in my head, but the difference is that I can actually manage an effort to do it right. Or maybe it had something to do with the coordination issues of an already klutzy-by-nature teenager.

I like to fantasize that the firefighters at the station next to the courts have been watching me improve over the past months and are cheering me on. But in reality they probably just do firefightery things and never even notice I'm there. And if they do, it's more likely that they see my goofy ass chasing after a stray ball and wonder how it's possible that I ever manage to hit it with the racket at all.

The weather is, however, absurd. It's already been above 100 degrees. And you can practically drink the air. I love South Florida, but it's officially ridiculous how hot it is here. Oh, August, how I dread your coming.

But, aside from a general lack of harmony among my body parts and the commencement of a typically mad South Florida summer, it's fantastic to be playing again, to be active. To exhaust and drench and invigorate. It is one great joy in my life right now. But that damned wall talks some serious trash.

Paper Tigers

Sometimes I have too much to write about and end up intimidated by a nice blank text box. Here's a mash up. It may get longish.

First of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to commend myself on my excellence in chocolate abstinence. Saturday will mark me halfway. 50 days without it and 50 yet to endure. Although I'm happy to report that "endure" really is, at this point, too strong a word.

I'm also making some very small progress with the butterflies. I've neglected my picture looking, to be sure. But I have been making an effort to be generally closer to any butterflies that happen along my path. Sans freakout. I do feel obligated to admit to one panic attack, where I found myself trapped in my apartment with a moth, flying towards me. Suffice it to say that when my husband informed me of my horror's true identity, a bee, I was more than happy to get up off the floor and pull the blanket off my head.

I've also been brushing up on my classic literature. We've been frequenting the public library. In our year long absence from civilization, i.e. Mississippi, I'd forgotten how much I love a library. So far, I've been into Austen. I attempted Emma in middle school and found it pretty insufferable. I've now read Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park and am fairly certain Emma will hold more interest for me now. At first I felt like Austen's style of writing was strangely straightforward and a little dull. I ended up thoroughly enjoying Pride and Prejudice, although I assumed that I might because I was already familiar with the story. But actually preferred Mansfield Park, at least up until the end. While I really enjoy Elizabeth Bennet as a character, Fanny Price is pretty impossible not to like or at very least respect. I was all but cheering for Mr. Crawford, though, when that blew up in my face. I couldn't ever tell where the book would go, a happy point to me, though not uncommon. I'm a lovely audience, almost always unsuspecting and then afterward quick to forget and therefore likely to read/watch/listen again. But I don't care for the way Austen wraps up a story. So brief and indifferent. What's striking to me though, is to consider the stories rewritten for our time. It's almost impossible and would never work for a good story, I think. It's incredible what changes we've undergone as society as a whole. Really just bizarre to think about. I could get all anthropological here but no one wants that.

So back to the classics...I'm also reading Kipling right now. A Kipling Pageant, and currently Rikki Tikki Tavi, for which I've named a cat. And on the list are, well, the classics. The stuff we're all meant to read at some time or other. 20,000 Leagues, 1984, Animal Farm, Dickens, Shakespeare, Moby Dick, etc. Any suggestions welcome, and of course any suggestions that aren't necessarily considered to be "classic" literature.

I also have something to say on a few children's books. Sam and the Tigers by Julius Lester is undoubtedly one of my all time favourite kids' stories. It's apparently a retelling of another story, Little Black Sambo, which was thought racist. I read Little Black Sambo too, online, but Sam and the Tigers is so lovely and perfect to me. It's imaginative beyond the story itself, witty, with some fantastic similes and written in a great voice. Plus the illustrations, by Jerry Pinkney, are well done and you've got to love the tigers' expressions. We also checked out a cute little book of haikus about a Japanese garden with a little girl. Colson kept calling it the princess book because, to her, all little girls in books or stories are princesses. I love haikus.

So, I've been worrying about our water play. See, we have fountains for kids to play in at the park we frequent, and also at the zoo. Now, at the zoo, we don't have control over whether or not the fountains are turned on, so on one hand I feel less guilty about letting the girls play in it. At the park, we turn them on ourselves and they spout for an amount of time and then shut off until turned on again. So, at the park we're intentionally bringing about the water wasteage and at the zoo only condoning it. What am I to do? It's such a highlight of fun for the kids...Does it drain into a pool and reuse itself? I wonder if that's not the case at the zoo because of the strong smell of chlorine to the water...at the park I'm less sure. Thoughts?

And to conclude, while we're on the subject of zoos. I'm often wondering how the animals feel. I know that a lot of the time zoo animals, for some reason or another, can't live in the wild. But I can't help but wonder about the quality of life of a wild animal kept caged. Heck, I even worry about my house cats being too much confined.

"Oh, restless are we all, until true freedom is realized." -Jupiter Sunrise, "Master Susuki"