The Narcissist

Understated.

2010-05-14T22:03:00.004-07:00

Happy hour on a Thursday provided a much needed break from a week of hectic intensity. I walked into Earl's with my shoulders back, walking tall. Flip flops, jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt set me apart from the after-work crowd. I'd worked from home. Ha! to you wearers of slacks and pressed button ups. That's my every other day. My old friends have become casualties of my east side work-crazed life. I was meeting a new friend. A fellow east sider. I sat down at the table and was quickly introduced to her friend and two men sitting at the bar nearby, then more as they came and went. I smiled as I sat quietly looking around me watching the people. This is the scene. Martinis and red wine, buddies from work, old friends and new, people in their thirties and above. I ordered a Stella Artois. It's a rebellious phase I'm in. Resisting the fakery, overeffort. I decided when I was in Vegas for the first time in January and then again in March and watched women young and older trotting around in 5-inch heels with their asses and chests hanging out while guys walked around fully dressed with sneakers or leather shoes on, that I didn't want to look like those women. Not that I ever really have, but there is a certain ridiculousness in it. You can look hot with clothes on, and you can look fashionable without dripping effort, so simple has been my theme of late. It's a phase. I already know that, because I miss the high heels. But I like being different. I ooze confidence because I'm not looking for my outfit to substitute personality. An older new friend and her friend are blingers, or Rhinestone Cowboys. Gigantic rings, necklaces, even rhinestone shirts. Bling. I went to a wine tasting with her and another friend and one of the pourers asked where my bling was? I smiled, don't need it. I'm me. And I like me, and I don't need garnish. A piece of cheesecake is just as good without the pointless sprig of mint.

From Earl's we went to the roller skating rink. Yes, you read that right. I freakin' went roller skatin', yo!! If that doesn't rock your face off I don't know what will. I tied on the same tan roller skates that women have been tying on since the place opened years ago and shakily pushed off first one foot then the other. Round and around the rink I went smiling ear to ear at the roller dancers who form lines with fancy steps and special day glo shirts that pick up the black light. It smells the same as the roller skating rink my dad managed in North Pole, Alaska, where I owned my own roller skates and won races and limbo. It was my every weekend. My body has forgotten much of that ease on skates. I fell twice trying to skate backward, but I've decided I must return, next time with flask in hand, a larger group and an awesome theme costume. Ah, yeeeaah. Did I mention I had a VIP pass to the rink? Oh yes. VIP all the way. It's the only way to roll.

Where Are You Now?

2010-03-07T20:53:00.003-08:00

6 am in New York City's JFK airport. I'd been in the air nearly 6 hours. An aisle seat.

Damning myself for being too scared to take the Ambien I'd been given just hours before takeoff (have you heard the horror stories?), I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes to look for my driver. Ah there he was, my last name scrawled in black marker across a Carey-branded sheet of paper. He chuckled at the obvious exhaustion with which I carried myself up to him, and I stood wearily by the baggage claim as he hustled to retrieve the car.

Oh, did I mention the white knuckled landing conditions? Friday morning's landing put me right in the middle of the storm as snow and wind pummeled the Big Apple. The plane may have slid around on the runway a bit, and I may or may not have peed my pants just a little. I was hard pressed to stay awake on the drive to the city. Listening to the comforting tones of the driver's explanation and exasperation at the unplowed roads and his upcoming job to Massachusetts (it's gonna take me owas!) lulled me into closed eyes and a wish that this had been my cross country experience rather than the extreme discomfort that is a red eye in coach on the aisle no less.

An hour after landing, he dropped me at the Sheraton New York, just blocks north of Times Square. I dragged myself to the reception desk, fantasizing about the comfy bed into which I would soon be falling. Oh, why oh why hadn't I the foresight to ask for early checkin? Hours, they said before a room would be available for me. Hours. 7 am in the City? No sleep? Starbucks called to me. I pulled out my trusty Android device and tapped Starbucks into Google maps and practically ran the few blocks north to a grande extra hot skinny cinnamon dulce latte. The first sip was a bee line to cloud nine. I perched on a stool in front of the window as New Yorkers scurried by in the snow on their ways to work and dragged out my laptop, reluctantly diving into work. Hours disappeared and the last drops of my latte became an icy dreck. So I packed up my laptop and braved the blizzard again to walk back to the hotel in hopes that my room would be ready.

It was, but there was no time to sleep. The West Coast was waking up and with that came email after email, conference call upon conference call. And the snow kept falling and my exhaustion was mounting. I couldn't believe that I had come all the way to New York City to hang out in a Starbucks and a hotel room. What a crime. From desk to bed to easy chair to desk to chair to bed, I was like one of those scenes from a movie where they speed up the footage as time goes by. Night fell and I still had hours to go before I could break. I grabbed the Room Service menu. Could I really let my fist real meal in NYC be room service? Why not? Breakfast had been a Starbuck breakfast thingy and lunch had been trail mix from the mini bar, so why not order a $22 BLT? Damn my three friends for being entirely unavailable - one in Vermont skiing (jealous!), one in Philly visiting a friend's newborn baby (jealous!), and the other working (same boat!). So much for knowing people. A Chicago friend recommended a place in the Village - buuut I can't remember the name and I didn't go, because it was snowing, and I was determined to walk everywhere. Another friend recommended Junior's. He had me at cheesecake. So my $22 room service BLT turned into a $20 Chicken Salad BLT and piece of New York cheesecake accompanied by a stroll into Times Square. If you like bright lights, do I have a place for you? Just like Piccadilly Circus, only I prefer Piccadilly Circus to Times Square because it's in London, and in the stack up of cities I've been to, it goes London, London, London, Chicago, NYC. And so, I walked to Juniors and they sat me all the way in the corner, because what else do you do with girls eating alone in a big restaurant on a Friday night. I wondered what I was doing there too.

I stared at my phone, refreshed my Twitter feed repeatedly, posted a picture to Facebook of my corner vantage point on the restaurant and wrote something witty about putting Becca in a corner. Oh, and I eavesdropped on the two young British chicks sitting next to me waxing poetic about putting themselves out there to find the perfect guy. Overrated, I wanted to say. It's not all that life's about, I wanted to say. Here is my long list of mistakes, I wanted to interject, learn from them. And then I chuckled to myself wondering how I'd gotten to the place where I thought I might know better. I don't. Except, I do know to stay single, at least for now. This fool isn't rushing in anytime soon.

And then I took my cheesecake back to my room and worked until 1 am when I collapsed for good in a vow to catch up on sleep and refrain from touching my laptop for the entirety of my Saturday.

And that was my first day ever in New York City.

How to make a phone call

2010-02-17T23:05:00.005-08:00

At the stoplight, I checked my side mirror at the car behind me, as I always do, and felt as though I were gazing into a window on the past. The driver sat in her car sobbing, mopping up her tears with a white Kleenex and saying what appeared to be "Oh, my God!" if my lipreading skills are to be trusted. My heart broke for her as I empathetically remembered over and over doing the same thing. Was she alone? I peered as hard as I could in the rearview mirror and right side mirror, but in the dark, rainy night could only make out the shadow of a male shape. How could she be so clear and he so..not? I watched her cry and cry in the two minutes we sat at the light, and after it changed I drove toward the ramp to I-5 South. She kept going straight, and I blamed him. If the cause for her distress were anything other than him, she would not have been driving...he would have made her pull over and either comforted her immediately or taken over driving until she was no longer so upset.

I kept thinking about that woman long after I got home, wondering why the tears, how she happened to have a Kleenex when I never do, and what happened next. Was I right in my assumption that it was the man's fault? In my experience, it always is. From my dad, to the Swine, to Steve, to all the men who hurt the women that wrote to me with their stories when I before I erased this blog because of the Swine back in 2006, I have tale after tale of male-induced horror stories. There are good men, I know, just why so far and few.

But that wasn't meant to be the point of my story. The point of my story is, yet again, that I am happy about the new chapter. The one where I'm not the girl sobbing beside an impassive male or because of a awful betraying male.

In other news, yesterday I had a moment that was hilarious to me:

We just moved into a new place in a town just south of Bellevue, Newcastle, it's called. And we now have a home phone, where before I only had a cellphone. Because Audrey is now old enough to stay home for short periods of time by herself, I want to make sure she can contact me or the police in an emergency. I called her downstairs, so I could show her where the phone was and the list of numbers. "Do you know how to use it," I asked. "No, what do you do?" she said picking up the phone. "Dial my number," I told her, and she punched in the corresponding keys "How do you make it call?" she asked staring at the handset. I laughed..."It's already ringing." "It is??" and she hung the phone up to her ear, "Oh yeah, it is." We heard my cell phone ringing from my room upstairs. "See, that's all it takes." "How do I make it hang up?" she said looking at the handset again. "You just put it down," I answered. "Really?" she said incredulously putting the phone back in its cradle. And with that I taught my daughter how to use an old-fashioned land line...where you don't need a call or end key. How awesome would it have been if we had a rotary phone?

Mmm, mutton.

2010-02-16T22:59:00.004-08:00

Tonight Audrey and I watched the Men's figure skating short program and made slight fun of the Russian guy (how great was it when Dick Button said he'd cast him to be the evil agent - he really wanted to say evil Russian guy, but couldn't because that's not PC) because he has awful hair (and I secretly wished he would bite the big one because he won so big lat time that he's the Yankees of men's figure skating). And we spoke again how she had never watched the winter Olympics before. I said, "Well, yeah, it was four years ago, you were practically a baby."

Audrey laughed and said in exasperation, "Mom, four years old isn't a baby!"

"That's right, four years," I said smiling and then again, "Four years..." And it hit me. I wasn't with her four years ago. That was why she'd never watched the winter Olympics with me. I wasn't with her last time. Four years ago. And it all crashed on me. Funny how that happens. Four years ago. I've wondered over and over recently why I barely remember the Olympics at Torino when I can clearly remember so many other winter Olympics. And bam, it clicked. Four years ago, the Olympics started the day after Oliver was born and ran till just days after he died. I wasn't with Audrey, and I was with Oliver and then I wasn't with Oliver. Those 16 days of Olympics were a shadow to the events that colored my existence.

I sent Audrey upstairs to get her pajamas on, and I waited for the wave of memories to pass before going upstairs to read aloud another chapter of Ronia, the Robber's Daughter. We laughed hysterically as her dad told the sheep that they didn't know what it's like to have a dead child before he realized that he always eats their children.

New memories of joy and laughter pave my heart.

"Does the Olympics Have Singing?"

2010-02-15T22:53:00.002-08:00

Because I was in Dallas enjoying their biggest snowfall in recent decades from a hotel conference room on Thursday, Audrey spent the night with my mother. I was devastated when my Friday morning flight was canceled due to the horrible conditions, but my agency quickly rebooked me the last ticket to Seattle and I was able to make it back in time to pick Audrey up from school.

Driving through that South Seattle neighborhood always fills me with a sort of pathos. It's not unlike many other neighborhoods in the city, in fact it's typical Seattle, but going there is like taking a plunge into Swineville. When the Swine first moved there and Audrey began going to school there in 2008, I got lost often trying to find his house, trying to find the school. Over and over I would get lost, and I didn't feel safe, and I felt like I was in another world. So engulfed in my Bellevue bubble, and not traveling as often as I do now, I found myself shocked by the abrupt contrast between where I live and the long street I had to drive to get to Audrey's school and daddy home. On the Eastside it's Beemers and Blondes. In Seattle, it's just reality. And I preferred denial. I didn't want my daughter to go to school there, I wanted her to have the far superior top education the school my district could offer her rather than the poorly ranked alternative school her father won the right to send her to. An alternative school offering community rather than scholastics and somehow that's okay.

Going through boxes of my old memories I found some school work from 1988. I was 8. I had long paragraphs of neatly written cursive giving a review chapter by chapter of a book we'd been asked to read. Audrey is 8. It's funny, by the time I was 8, by 1988, I'd lived in so many places including Ireland and the Phillipines and gone to 7 different schools. It's a wonder I learned anything. But I am not comparing myself to Audrey, I was also in the fourth grade by that time, so it was fourth grade level work I was looking at, and she is in the second grade. But I also found stacks of honor roll certificates, awards of achievement, letters from the two South Carolina Senators congratulating me on my college scholarship, and I can't help but fear that she will never have a taste at that success because of her father's choice in schools that do not value academic achievement but rather "seeds of change". Which is all well and good, except that's not the way the real world works. Oh, I know how all of this sounds, but I don't care. I have a smart kid, but she has a dumb dad and is going to a dumb school, and I'm not with her enough to counteract the effect, so pathos it is.

The parents at the school know the Swine and they know the Warrior Princess. They've seen me. I'm the one that shows up to events now and again, keeps to herself and wears makeup and business attire (I once heard one mother comment negatively on my high heels to another mother...le sigh, Seattle). They don't know me. We have about as much in common as sushi and beef jerky. Except one mother, the mother of the child that happens to be Audrey's best friend, how serendipitous. She too wears makeup and business attire (we are an army of two), and she too abhors the school and would pull out her daughter if it weren't for her kid's dad. Yes, pathos it is.

Friday afternoon, I swooped in, picked up Audrey and we drove back to my Bellevue Bubble. I told her about the snow in Dallas and she told me about her roller skating party. We snuggled and ordered pizza and watched iCarly.

This afternoon we watched figure skating and marveled as Audrey oohed and aahed as the pairs glided over the ice. How had we never watched figure skating together? She loved it. And after watching the Olympics all weekend, she looked up at me tonight and asked, "Does the Olympics have singing?" and I grabbed her up in a big hug to soak up her innocent adorableness. "Because it seems like one big talent show," she continued. Yes, that it is. But no singing, and no paragraphs of painstakingly written cursive. There are all kinds of competitions in life. It's one big talent show. And it's our duty as parents to provide the foundation for our children to be successful in whatever path they choose.

February 9, 2010

2010-02-13T19:44:00.003-08:00

I woke up in a bed that was not my own in a hotel room not far from here - one of two hotels I would sleep in this week. I threw open the shades and looked out on the view of things that are familiar to me. And I got dressed in an outfit I wouldn't normally choose for the office. I didn't think of it and the day went by in a rush of typical busyness.

My hair is shorter than it was, but longer than it's been.
My heart has more scars, but it's more whole than it's ever been.
I smile more. I have "happy points" and muscles and friends.
I sketch and play the piano and sing and laugh.
I live.

I thought of it the day before and I remembered it the day after, but it was the first time I wasn't pummeled with emotion the day of. The day after I felt so guilty, but also relieved. While he'll always be apart of me, the loss of him no longer paralyzes me. Last year I had lunch with the father so we could console each other, and I left that lunch feeling icky and it was the last time I ever saw him. And I feel good about that. This was the first year we didn't reach out to each other. The connection is really dead, and it's as if he never existed.

The ashes sit in a wooden box on my piano, but I no longer have any pictures around. I don't like questions, explaining is too complicated. It was nine months that made twelve days. He would have been four.

the lines

2010-02-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

"This is Rebecca."

"Mom, where are you?"

I looked at the time...12:40. Ha! Turns out that it was early dismissal Wednesday. Le sigh. Warrior Princess had picked up her sick son and assumed I was picking up Audrey, because Audrey told her so. And though I had an amazing mass of work to do and a conference call that I'd already rescheduled twice that day, I crammed my laptop into my bag, grabbed my keys and bolted for the elevator. This mother-of-the-year had a kid waiting in the rain and another mom was taking said kid to the city library to await my arrival. Just great.

As I drove, I tapped out a text to Warrior Princess asking her what had happened. Gotta love miscommunication. Le sigh again.

Flying into the library, I collected my daughter and we made the trek back to our new home. I immediately dragged out my laptop and jumped on the yet again rescheduled conference call. Boxes still litter my rooms and Audrey stared at me for a while, as I listened to my agency present the newest round of creative. All I wanted to do was toss away my phone, slam down the lid to my laptop and grab Audrey in my arms and twirl around till we collapse in a pile of laughter and twisted legs.

Instead, I wrote emails approving this and sending on that, and she put together the giant floor puzzle of the United States.

But then we ate dinner and watched iCarly, our favorite show, and after her bath came the absolute best part of my day. We cuddled together in her new bed, in her new room and cracked open a new book, which she received for Christmas. And I read to my darling child with all the enthusiasm I could muster complete with special voices and accents. We laughed together as Ronia, the Robber's Daughter smartly defied her surroundings and sat on tenterhooks when the harpies nearly got her. Audrey snuggled deeper into her covers, and I knew it was time to say goodnight, though I could have read for hours more. "What's the name of the next chapter, Momma?"

"Three."

And we collapsed in laughter again. These are the moments I treasure. The readings. The analysis of the characters actions. At the end of chapter two, Ronia encountered her first child. And as I drove Audrey to school this morning, we tried to figure out where this other child came from, and how Ronia'd never met him before. Then I couldn't stop waving as Audrey ran up to the playground. I wished I could stand with her till the school bell rang. I wished that I didn't have to rush to the office to start a non-stop day of meetings, conference calls and catching up on emails during the five-minute transitions between it all. But more than that, I wished that it wasn't really 7 days until we will see each other again. 7 days until we can read chapter 3, till we can laugh and hug and twirl and sing.

And that's why the next 7 days are filled with my other life. The one where I go to the gym and work all night or hang out with friends and meet new ones and never mention my child. The next 7 days, I'll wonder about Ronia, but I won't peek in on chapter 3. The next 7 days, I'll wonder about Audrey, but I won't call her as often as I want to. I shouldn't have to call my daughter. Mothers aren't supposed to have to call their children.

outstretched wings

2010-02-05T23:21:00.001-08:00

I named my first blog Narcissist Flight, because I started it on the heels of my separation from the Swine. Escaping that sinkhole of a marriage was a victorious self-indulgent leap into the air. It was a flight that landed me in the arms of another soul sucking man almost immediately. And I am happy to announce that life since Steve is great. It's like I'm breathing fresh air for the first time in over a decade. I made a toxic mistake marrying the Swine, followed by the caustic error of being with Steve, and boom, my twenties were gone in milliblink.

Year 29, though, that was the year. I did things I've never done before, I widened my horizons, I explored and I experienced. In other words I lived. I went out with boys and didn't marry or have children with any of them. I went to Chicago and San Francisco and Hawaii. I smoked a cigar and did a pub crawl. And this year a month in, I've been to Vegas (for CES) and learned how to ski...in Whistler of all places. And I'm due to go to New York City for the first time at the end of the month. What boundaries? I'm reluctant to get a boyfriend. I push them away when they get close, because when the result of my two longterm relationships is a Swine and a betraying Brit, I sometimes wonder if all of the experiences I'm having in my new found state of celibacy is much preferable to the stultifying other.

Besides, my job, the one that I got to replace the sucky one I was laid off from ( thank you, truly horrible boss - I mean it), really, really rocks and for the first time, I've had a job for 14 months and counting and still like, nay love, it. Of course, it's demanding and I travel, but I rock at it. And it's a life changer. I'm a stronger, more confident person since I started working there.

I'm entertaining and fun and people love me. Is that narcisstistic to say? Who cares? It's true. My work life rocks. I just kind of suck at real life. One guy told me that my schedule is stupid. One friend got pregnant and had her baby in the space of time that I went without seeing her. I've mostly made new friends, ones that don't mind not seeing me often. They don't know any different. Relying on my calendar and giving two hour time slots two weeks apart doesn't work for most men, so I shrug my shoulders and plug myself into experience. I build relationships and network and sniff the air around me. It smells good up here.

new digs

2010-02-04T22:45:00.001-08:00

Three years we lived in that apartment. It is a complex filled with history. I lived there so many years ago where the stories of the deleted posts take place...stories of endless knocks and tears and decisions that brought me there again a year and a half later, to a bigger apartment with a bigger view and bigger heartache. I'd been warned that the juju was too much, but I liked it there. But with the case over and yet another loss under my belt, I deemed it time to move on. And so move I did, for the 35th time in my 30 years.

So weary I am of packing my belongings, carrying them somewhere else and laying them all out again. I try to get rid of things, but can't bear to toss the Day tickets for the London Underground, I look and them and I hear "Mind the gap," and wish I was there once again walking the streets of Chelsea and through Hyde Park and then I remember how much pain I felt there. Packing up my belongings, I came across journal after journal I've kept over the years, and I found the one I kept in London. Flipping straight to January 2006, the stream of excitement that is so quickly quelled by the horrible unveiling of a wicked plan executed by the Swine is a clash that jarred me as abruptly now as it did then. To one moment be wild with anticipation for the arrival of one's daughter and impending birth of a son, and the next anguished over the betrayal and realization that a battle would have to be fought and now the son couldn't be born fast enough to allow for a return to the States to fight that battle is a heartbreaking juxtaposition of emotions that is only heightened when that son dies and all that is left is to fight for the daughter whilst mourning the loss of that son. Packing away that journal with the Underground tickets, playbills and ten-year high school reunion namebadge, I felt as if I shouldn't have read that, as if I'd violated my 26-year-old self's privacy. And I realized that I prefer the fog of the years over those memories. Reading that journal brought back the acuteness and extremity of those emotions in a way that tore at the scars in my heart.

Even as I packed it away, I sat in the mess of that apartment thinking about the journal entries I read from other years that are sprinkled with pain and with drama. Part of me wished I could share them with my siblings, the ones who don't get me and my gruff, me exterior. They don't know me anymore, and I don't know how to let them in, because it is the stuff of those journals that brought me here today, to the girl that calls herself narcissist. I don't want to talk about it. And to tell the truth, they don't want to hear it. Perfection they demand, but only from me, and since I have only imperfection to offer our relationships will be as they are.

London happened. It's easier to go away. That's what my dad taught me. And so I go away from that apartment where I lived with Steve, the man I thought I would love for everything despite and in spite of everything, the apartment where I tried to pick up the pieces when my mom had surgery on her brain tumor, Steve betrayed me, the Swine started another war, I lost my job, and two out of three siblings showed me their backs because I didn't deal with all of that very well. I thought I did all right. I had a friend who landed in the psych ward when she was laid off. I managed to find a job in two months, help nurse my mom back to health, kick Steve to the curb, hire a lawyer and figure out how to pay her. So bite me, siblings. \I got grouchy, so what? I was dealing with a few things. Ever hear of empathy? Moving on.

Defying Gravity

2010-02-03T21:27:00.004-08:00

Starting a new blog never happened. The prospect of starting from scratch was too wearisome, and then I went through a lot. What else is new?

In a nutshell...the Swine did more swine-like things and I spent a year fighting him and lost. Steve betrayed me in a most unforgivable way, so he is out of my life forever, and I try not to remember how silly and childlike I was about him from the beginning. Ah, crossroads...how very defined they are in my life.

Determined to make better choices and live a good decade for once in my life, I defy those that have tried to bring me down. Of course, I'm filled with vitriol toward the Swine and his Warrior Princess wife...because how else do you react emotionally to people that do everything in their power to take away and manipulate your child. But we're not talking about that now. We're not talking about the custody battle that I lost, because uh, I have a job and at the time, neither of them did meaning they can spend more time with her than the big, bad working mom. We're not talking about the fact that almost immediately after the case was resolved, he accepted a job in Afghanistan and won't tell me when he's coming back and I have to let my child continue to spend more time with a warrior princess than her mother because the world sucks and I live in it. Bringing lawyers into the mix again and wondering how one man can change so much that only the name Swine suits him for all eternity no matter how he might henceforth try to redeem himself, not that he would ever attempt such a thing.

And so I swirl on with my life, a bifurcated life of part time motherhood and most time single girl in the big, bad world. A life lived floating from person to person. Nothing is steady; all is ethereal. And I marvel at how many chapters 2009 had. There was the month I hung out on boats. There was the month that I saw new cities. There was the month one fell in love with me, and I didn't fall back. And the backstory of every chapter is the drama with Swine.

New friends, which I make all of the time in this odd, single, third-time mother life I lead, are suprised to learn I have a child. Most learn on Facebook rather than through me. I don't bring it up. To bring up being a mother begs the question, where is your child? And then more questions and I hate answering questions about that part of my life because it is painful. Mothers of 8-year-old children aren't supposed to be able to hang out on boats or visit new cities so often, but that's the life I'm used to, and now it's weird to be a mother. Mother time is special and treasured, but I feel so disconnected from my daughter's real full life, and I hate that. So I don't talk about it. Because not talking about it makes the days without her more livable.

So here I am, and though I can never go as deep below the surface as I used to because of them that know of the site, I can write about them here, and that will provide deep satisfaction. Their evil can be as evil is, and I will just record it. And the great thing about kids is that they grow up, and if Audrey ever wants to know the why of it all, I'll have a place to point her. This, this is what I dealt with for so long. Olive branches mean nothing to Swine, darling, only slop, and I've been dealing with his slop for forever.

new year, new you, letting go

2008-12-29T23:44:00.001-08:00

It's not as simple as all that, is it? Revolutions, evolutions, resolutions. The tick of the clock to 12:00:01. How I wish that I could scrinch my face up like adorable Hiro from Heroes and make all the things I wish I could change about my life done in an instant. New year, new you. Letting go of the horror that has been 2008 without letting a drop of its dirt sully the unmarred beauty of 2009, the carte blanche we all envision coming to us with the movement of the second hand.

My new year doesn't start until sometime around my 30th birthday. For the day before, on July 13th, the trial begins, wherein I battle for the right to my child. It is fitting this year that my birthday falls on Bastille Day, the French version of our Independence Day. I'd hoped to celebrate my 30th birthday in Paris, watching fireworks shoot from le Tour d'Eiffel and pretending they were just for me and my new decade. However, I'll be in the courtroom with a different kind of fireworks. People tell me I could go the next year, and yes, I can, I suppose, but it won't be the same.

Anyway, 2009 approacheth, and for the reasons laid out above, when my friends invited me to the Seattle Bash, I was less than thrilled. $65 for entry to a party with thousands of Seattlites? Um, hmm. No thanks. I'd much rather spend the money on a nice spread and have friends over. But they'll be there. I'll be on my couch. Alone. And that's okay, because my crappy year clock doesn't stop ticking for another six and a half months.

You can bet your bottom dollar that I'll party my socks off when that final gavel bangs. And you're invited, and you, and you, and you. We'll drink champagne, the best I can afford on my lawyer fee depleted income, because then there will a new year, a new me. I'm sure of it.

Need advice STAT

2008-12-23T23:37:00.003-08:00

So, I'll be in touch about that other thing, but first, I need your help.

I am Audrey's mother, and the Swine's wife is Audrey's stepmother, and it works out that she spends more time with Audrey than anyone, isn't that great? Uh....

Anyway, so there is an issue of names here. The other day I was on the phone with Audrey, and we'd been talking for a while, because she was really missing me, so I decided to read her the story of the Tailor's Helpers. While I was reading to her, I could hear the Swine call, "Audrey, are you still on the phone with Rebecca?" His use of my first name startled me. I never call him "Sam" to Audrey - it's always Dad or Daddy, always.

I just set up an email address for Audrey, so the dark side has been emailing her. And the stepmom signed hers Her Name (Warrior Princess) Momma. And then in an email from the Swine, he said, "me and Momma will pick you up..." I couldn't believe my eyes.

I'm Audrey's Momma. The Swine has completely stripped me of being her mother, mom, momma, mommy, and now I'm just Rebecca. The Warrior Princess is now Momma? No wonder the poor girl is confused. No wonder she is having trouble figuring out who her real mother is. Because at his house, I'm not her mother at all. He has stripped me of that respect.

Audrey called Steve "Papa." But only after I called the Swine up and asked for his permission. I never would have let Audrey call Steve something the Swine didn't approve of - I give him that respect (though God knows he doesn't deserve it, hence the blog nickname). And Audrey certainly never called Sam "Papa," never has, never will. Completely different sound and starting letter from dad, daddy, father.

I know that the Warrior Princess doesn't respect my place in Audrey's life. She colored my daughter's hair - she wanted to color it purple, but Audrey said no. So I ask you, who colors the hair of a 6-year-old, much less one that has never shown interest in coloring her hair before? I'll tell you! A woman who wants to stick it to the real mother, that's who. They didn't call me to ask if it was okay, to notify me that they were doing it, or even to let me know after the fact. She just came home with streaks in her hair. Seriously?!? Oh, she also cut this weird style into my daughter's hair, which I immediately took to my aunt to fix. The Warrior Princess then had the gall to tell Audrey that I cut the "cool" part out of her hair! Boils my blood, that woman does. She's never shown an ounce of respect for the fact that I'm Audrey's mom. Because as far as she and the Swine are concerned, Audrey's new Momma is the Warrior Princess, and I'm an unnecessary hindrance to their plans to turn my daughter into one of them.

Anyway, this whole Momma thing is really, really, really bothering me. Can you tell? I need to know. Am I being unreasonable because I can't stand the woman that has never made an effort to connect or show respect for the fact that Audrey already has a mommy? Should I just let it go because Audrey loves the Warrior Princess and oh, isn't it special that she gets to call her momma? The Swine gave a reason that her stepbrother calls the Warrior Princess Mom, and the new kid calls her mom, so Audrey would be the only child that doesn't GET to. Bah. Audrey calls the Swine dad, and the new kid does too, but bet you a million the stepbrother doesn't call him Dad, making him the only kid that doesn't GET to. Wonder how he deals with the blow of not being able to call someone who is not his dad, dad? The mystery of it all. Help!!

Am I being unreasonable?

Falalalala Merry Christmas

Settling in

2008-12-20T20:33:00.003-08:00

Making myself back at home in the work of blogging has proved a little challenging for me. While the writing companion in my brain has been largely silent for 18 months, it is now in overdrive, coming up with posts spanning the entire period. And while I wish that I had time to write all of the entries, I also find myself wishing that I didn't have the fear of the Swine reading my writing and finding some way to use it against me.

So I don't know if I CAN continue at the url after all. Deep sigh. Email me.

In other news, Seattle has been blanketed in snow since Wednesday night. And I have been in heaven for just as long. I seriously heart snow. Adore it. I don't, however enjoy driving in snow. And it is for that reason that I haven't driven since it snowed. It doesn't help that my driveway is a veritable mountain slope, and my useless property managers haven't come by to salt, sand or shovel. It's now a slick slab of ice.

So we've been walking everywhere, and I love it. I walk a lot around Bellevue already; that's why I live where I do, but the best part of about walking everywhere when it snows is that there are tons of other people walking as well. And people talk to each other and smile at each other and it is all very shocking.

Living in the Seattle area is to live in the land of the cold shoulder. There ain't no Southern hospitality here, y'all. Sure Seattlites are nice people, but unapproachable is one of the pick-3-describe-Seattle-residents words. It's one of the reason dating is so hard in Seattle, and the reason I was so surprised when a couple of youths said hello, how are you as I walked down Belelvue Way. Youths usually shuffle, heads down, only talking to people they know, only referencing the unknown around them to make fun of it. They giggle and look not-so-furtively in your direction. They don't smile and ask how you're doing. But then they do when there is snow on the ground.

We smiled at passersby, we merry band of three, and they smiled at us, nodded heads, told us to have fun, in reference to the red sled we pulled behind us. And have fun we did, where, at the Downtown Park in Bellevue, we found an untouched hill of powdery snow and sled on our bottoms, backs, stomachs and feet before trudging to the grocery store for such necessities as marshmallows and rice krispies, and then on to home for some hot cocoa and more DVRed Christmas specials.

I hear snow.

"What a Creep"

2008-12-17T23:02:00.002-08:00

Dealing with the Swine has proved the greatest challenge of my adult life. Every day a new struggle. Remember back in January of 2006 when I was surprised with court papers? Well fast forward to August of 2008 and it was much the same. Only this time, I wasn't as surprised. When someone does something so dastardly once, one can hardly put it past them to repeat such dark actions.

And so it was that I was served with papers at my last job. Papers full of deep, dark allegations and which brought to light a betrayal by the one that once inspired me to write that I would never love another. The Swine had started gathering his "wow great dad" declarations in March, but it wasn't until Steve, with whom I'd been struggling until I finally had to break up with him, gave the Swine just the lies he needed to seal the deal on his second grand attempt to remove me from Audrey's life. From accusing me of having an eating disorder to beating Steve (um, what?), the Swine's court papers described a person I didn't even know, much less be.

By breaking up with Steve, I'd made him hate me, by going to Wynn's wedding then staying the weekend with my mother, I sent him over the edge. Convinced that I'd run away with some dude from Cabo, he contacted the Swine and filled his ears with everything the Swine could hope for. And of course, rather than questioning it, the Swine built it into his case, and it was a nightmare of epic proportions.

That the Swine was trying to figure a way to get Audrey and that Steve had a mental and emotional breakdown at the same time was a coincidence that I'd never have foreseen. But as is the norm, I was concentrating on one challenge while ignoring the sleeping giant. So all of a sudden I was confronted with challenges on all fronts: job, boyfriend, ex-husband, and more.

Getting rid of Steve was a blessing. There was a reason I couldn't bring myself to marry him, and I'd always cited the horror of the ex that is Swine as the prevention for my wedding again. I'm not sure if that is the complete reason, but whatever it is, I dodged the second divorce bullet. And I'm completely free. But it is so hard to believe that someone that I'd loved so much could be so bitter that they would be compelled to actions that not only harm me, but an innocent 7-year-old as well.

There is no getting rid of the Swine, however. And dealing with him and this everlasting case has become like a second job, a constant struggle. Compounded to that is the child herself. The struggle she herself is going through is heartbreaking, and no matter how much I reach out to the Swine, he maintains his horrid manner with me.

I can handle going through this trial, because I pray at the end of this Audrey will indeed be the recipient of a schedule that actually works for her and not her father. But what I can't handle is my daughter's heartbreak that her life is split between two completely different worlds - worlds that have no intermingling at all.

I helped coach my daughter's soccer team this past fall. The Swine was there nearly every Saturday. He said maybe one word to me despite my attempts to reach out to him and have a civil conversation. And on and on to school events, social events - we stand at opposite ends of the room and the tension is palpable.

He married that daycare worker by the way. She quit her job after she was knocked up (they had a healthy baby boy - how nice for them) and they got hitched. Now she's practically my daughter's stay-at-home mom. No, I don't care for her. Even before they married, she was cold to me whenever I'd pick Audrey up. She never even gave me a chance, and tonight my daughter was crying because she is confused about who her real mother is (drive a stake through my heart) and the two people that care for her the most are too different and aren't even friends. I tried, but the Swine always prevented us from talking, even though she was caring for my daughter after school. Tension has been the order of all of our relationships ever since my return from England.

When I told my mom tonight about Audrey's struggles, she brought up that trip to England. As if that would help things. I have no Steve, and I have no Oliver. I struggle to maintain my rights to my daughter. My reasons for going to England no longer exist, but the repercussions of that trip will affect Audrey for years to come, and I say Audrey because she was the one crying tonight. And I told my mom about how the Swine closed the door on my face this afternoon when I picked up Audrey. He never said a word to me. "What a creep," she said.

Yep, that about sums it up.

Existence

2008-12-16T21:06:00.002-08:00

I've missed blogging. 18 months is a long time, and it's been on my mind, but I've stayed away for a lot of reasons. The Swine being probably the largest reason. The Swine who is too dumb to even know the name refers to him. The Swine who was my friend, but who betrayed me and lied to his daughter. The Swine who would that I did not exist, and has, in his mind found a preferable replacement. I'm superfluous, expendable. We're currently embroiled in a bitter battle, because fortunately for Audrey, I don't agree with his biases.

So this isn't about him or her. It's about me. I am the narcissist, after all. Except that doesn't really describe me, because my every thought and action is for my daughter. But it does describe who I am on this blog, so I'll continue in a vein that is true to my initial charter. I will no longer be bullied out of something that I love, on a forum to which I feel a connection, because of some sicko's misguided vendetta (yes, I mean you) and attempts to use things he doesn't comprehend against me. FYI crushed skull is metaphor for desire for counter pressure to counteract sinus pressure. Capeesh?

Wow, I'm surprised how wonderful it feels to be back. I haven't written, really written, since my last entry here. And my fingers and mind have been itching to connect to the keyboard. Hours at the piano exercise both, but doesn't provide either a release from the thoughts and words that pile up in this mind of mine.

I'm still reeling from everything I've gone through since I started blogging in July 2004. And I'm sad that I trusted people that I trusted, married the person that I married. Thought the best of the people I thought the best of. I've been punished for the actions of others, some have punished me for their own actions. I could have been stronger, but at the end of all of this, I'll emerge less innocent, less trusting, harder and more cynical.

But my heart is not there yet. I teared up today reading the blog of an old blogger friend. She just had her first baby on Sunday. A beautiful healthy boy. I didn't expect the tears. I thought the ache had dissipated enough. But contrary to my mind's belief, the grief hasn't gone away. Though Steve and I are no more, the longing for my son carries on. The impact of those twelve days surprise me.

I'm at a new job now where no one knows of Steve or Oliver. If I want, they can just never be a part of who I am again, and it's weird to be just the mother of one, to have no son to anyone but me and Audrey. He is nothing to no one.

I didn't mean to write about him tonight. I didn't have a plan though, and I like the lack of pressure. While I have no idea who might still have me bookmarked or subscribe to my feed, the thought of no one or everyone being out there is soothing. And while I wouldn't be surprised if he still follows, I hope not. I don't want him to be the only one I write to. I rather no one than him. But I could have found a new url, a new blog. So if he is the only one:

Hi, Swine, wish you weren't here.

the giant ampersand

2007-06-04T21:56:00.001-07:00

When I dropped Steve at work Saturday morning, it was already quite warm, and in my mind, there is nothing like a hot and sunny weekend to erase, if temporarily, Swine induced stress. Over the bridge I went with Green Lake in my sights. I love Green Lake – it is probably my most blogged about Seattle locale. Sure there are a million trails on the eastside, but nothing beats its circularity and peopleful path for a fun-filled excursion of leaping over dogleashes and cooing at the adorable offspring donning the latest Tutti Bella in the newest McClaren. Babies are everywhere and if there is a patch missing a baby, there is a woman one breath away from screaming for an Epidural, so help me God! Some days all this baby, baby everywhere and not a one for me atmospherics is more than I can handle, but this day I can only smile happily for the blessed and enjoy my flat belly and the exercise and sunshine.

After I’m done, I head to my mother’s house, so she can douse my head in hair dye, which she succeeds in painting all over my face. I leave looking a wee bit violet, Violet. Damn mahogany tint!

I’ve decided to play tourist, so my sister and I drive to downtown Seattle and park just north of my soon-to-be-former office and walk to the water front and north toward the Olympic Sculpture Park. Upon our arrival at the fountain near the entrance, I marveled at how beautiful the day was – the sunny sparkled so fantastically off the naked man holding his arms out to the naked boy. I call this one “Public Pedophilia.” As Kiki and I giggled for the first of many times that day, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see two young guys standing there grinning goofily holding up a cell phone in askance.

“My friend here was wondering if he could take a picture of you with his cell phone,” the taller, less goofy one asked. Hmm, strike one for my ego. So they took their picture, and I took one as well, because we had to, duh. Then the tall guy said he needed a picture with me because I’m taller. Well, at least that’s something. He gave me a big smooch on my cheek, which I wasn’t expecting at all and why all of my teeth, tonsils and esophagus are showing. Then he asked if I wanted some of his Pepsi. No, thanks! He confided that it was actually whiskey, the liquid courage necessary for him to be talking to us right now. That explained the breath. They were from Portland, they explained and didn’t know anyone, had never been to Seattle, and were looking for fun. So after they harassed us to hang out with them that evening, despite my protests that having a boyfriend makes such a thing impossible, we escaped from their company. Who knows I’m probably on some MySpace page somewhere now along with the rest of the day’s gallery, so heh, heh, heh, they’re now a part of mine.

Now, I’m all for sculpture. Yes, sculpture’s nice. Have you ever seen the David? Well, I haven’t, not in person anyway, but I’m told it’s magnificent. You can stand in it’s wonder in awe of the artistry and the craftsmanship. Same with the Venus, and well, what do you know, I’ve exhausted my sculpture knowledge. Moving along. I know sculpture is not just a piece of marble chipped away until it looks more like fabric than fabric does, but take a look at the images below. High-brow art or Fisher Price on a grand scale? Behold the typewriter eraser, the giant neon ampersand, the Lincoln logs, the big silver tree, which looks like a wooden tree that’s been spray painted.
I can’t stare in awe of the mastery of some over-sized building block no matter how hard I try.

So we had fun taking pictures of each other and laughing at the “art.” These pictures remind me of how little alike we look. Strange.

And I wonder, if you were commissioned for a piece of the work for this Sculpture Park, what would you make? I think I’d make a giant date stamp, complete with that satisfying cachunk sound.

Tomorrow - our trip to the Pike Place Market Festival.

I'll just call the police

2007-06-01T01:59:00.000-07:00

Steve was going to take the day off, but his clients were coming in, and his news that he would not be home until late dampened my mood more than it should. It would be dinner à sole once again. I tried not to let it show when I returned from Rite-Aid where I’d gone to stock up on treats to continue my week of spoiling my coworkers, but Mary, the one who’s been diagnosed with a serious type of cancer and has been undergoing so much besides, asked me if I was okay, and when I said I was, asked if I was lying. I had to shake myself. I’ve been so stressed out over the Swine that little things bring me down farther than they should, so I decided it was time to try to talk to the Swine about the daycare situation, so we could settle that issue at the very least.

After work, as I soaked up the luscious, warm, rare rays of the sun while I slowly made my way toward the bus stop, I pulled my phone out of my LeSportSac (are those even cool?) and dialed him hoping he’d ignore my call, so I could leave him a voicemail asking him if we could talk later about everything. But to my chagrin, he picked up just as I was crossing the street in front of Cost Plus World Market. I sighed and asked him if he would have time to talk later, and then a bus hit me, and I floated up to heaven never to hear his voice again, because the Lord and I both know he won’t be meeting me up there, and you’ll know it too after I share the rest of his diabolical ways.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Well, I just wanted to see if you could talk. Later.” I stressed the last word, but he pressed. “Okay, I, uh, I just got a job offer in Redmond that I couldn’t refuse and as a result, it won’t really work for me to continue to take Audrey to the daycare here in downtown Seattle. I just got her a space at the daycare she used to go to before, which incidentally she has been asking repeatedly to return to, as you know it is only a couple of blocks from my apartment, so she won’t have to be at daycare as long. And as an added bonus, if she ends up at school in Bellevue, they will pick her up from school everyday, so we wouldn’t have to worry about it, isn’t that great?” I had gushed in all in one breath when I realized that my speech was met with silence. “Hello? … Are you still there? … Hello?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said slowly. “I don’t want Audrey to go to school in Bellevue. And it’s not my fault that you moved to Bellevue or that you took a job in Redmond. Those were choices you made, which you have to be responsible for, so that’s really not my problem.”

“You would really want Audrey to have to travel all that way unnecessarily?”

“You agreed that she would go to school there, so that’s where she’ll go.”

I was trying desperately to keep my cool, but, “Yes, and you agreed that I could move to London – sometimes things change.” Yeah, I totally went there. Ugh.

“Uh huh. And it’s written in the court documents that she has to go there, and that’s the way it going to be.”

“Can you please give me one good reason why she couldn’t go to the daycare near me just when she with me?”

“I don’t have to. It’s in the paperwork.”

I stood stuck on the phone on the verge of tears in the middle of Pike Place Market in front of the vegetable vendor from whom I wanted to purchase a few carrots for the Thai chicken red curry that I intended to make for dinner. No matter how I put it, he was unwilling to budge, no amount of appealing to his sense of reason and logic (yeah, I know, what reason and logic, and for that matter, what sense?) broke through, and I could stand it no more, so just before clicking the off key, I snapped, “Sue me then, I’m taking her to that daycare.”

I bought 35¢ worth of carrots, and the vendor said, “That’s it? That’s an awfully long phone call for a couple carrots.”

“Never have an ex-husband,” I shot back.

“You’re too young to have a husband.”

“Don’t I wish,” I said stuffing the bag of carrots into my sac and considering telling this guy just how terrible ex-husbands can be, but alas, he moved on to the next customer, so his chance to be regaled with the miseries of a broken woman was sadly lost. I carried on slowly toward First Avenue. Soon I got my phone out of my bag and noticed a voicemail from Sam. I nearly burst into tears right there after listening to this, “If you take her to that daycare and I find out about it, there will be no suing. I won’t go through the courts, I’ll just call the cops. It doesn’t get simpler than that.”

Oh. How was I to react to that? I carried on down First Avenue past one, two, three bus stops, until I’d gone a mile through crowds and crazies, tourists and yuppies. I sniffed, wiped a tear, and forwarded the voicemail to Steve with the message, “This is what I am dealing with.” Not that he doesn’t already know, but he doesn’t often get to hear it for himself.

I got on the bus a few minutes later and tried to figure out what to do. I tried to understand what would motivate him to make life so pointlessly difficult for me and even for Audrey. I tried to contrive a game plan. What was there to do? What to do? What should I do? What would you do? What would you do?

Back in the sockets

2007-05-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

What better way to make people rue one’s departure than through fried pastry? Well, that was the question I asked in an email announcing the Krispy Kremes I brought in to work this morning as a kick-off to my big Week of Treats to celebrate my last one here. My leaving is a hot buzz right now with my boss coming up to me saying things like “Redmond – what’s in Redmond? That’s where I went as a kid to go strawberry picking – it was just one big field. There's nothing but a bunch of white people. And great Thai restaurants - oh wait, they only have white people restaurants like Claim Jumpers - quantity over quantity. Yep, enjoy the diversity there in white people land.” And then worse, “Oh, Rebecca, we’ve got to figure out a way for you to come on the retreat with us. I wanted to party with you. What title can we give you?” And he sat in Wynn's side chair staring in my direction as he pondered how to make it so I could still go to the trip to the San Juans just three weeks away, but two weeks after my goodbye. I suggested Freelance Editor, which he considered, but I just laughed – like I would go on a retreat with my former company. The dinner, cocktail hour and free time at the local dive bar would be fun, but a day of panel discussions and speeches before? Thanks, but my calendar just closed up. When he walked away, Wynn gasped, “I couldn’t believe the way he was looking at you! If he looked at me like that I would never wear skirts to work. He’s so lucky you don’t care, or he would have a real problem on his hands.” I shrugged. Most of the time I don’t even notice – people have to tell me. I’ve become inured to bosses being more than a little inappropriate with me, but this one does take the cake. Perhaps I just don’t mind all that much because he is so handsome and wealthy and well dressed. I find it nothing more than flattering, though at times a little shocking and embarrassing.

He likes to give those low fives when he passes you where you just stick your hand out and your hands slap together – kind of a keep up the good work sort of a gesture. So one day he put his hand out, and I put my hand out in response, but rather than slapping my hand, he slid his arm around my waist, pulled me close and spun me around in a little dance before continuing on his way. That was a lot of contact to say the least, and I walked away after my courtesy laugh wondering what the heck just happened.

Another day, Wynn and I were talking to him about the holiday party I was planning and the site we were about to visit. I yammered on and on before noticing that he wasn’t really paying attention – he was staring again. I thought it was at the floor, which demonstrates how oblivious I can be. “Rebecca, have you even done modeling?” he blurted suddenly. I stuttered an incomprehensible no, and he said, “It’s just the way you’re standing right now is right out of a magazine or the catwalk, and you walk so well in heels.” What could I say? I wanted to melt into the floor. He laughed, “You’re turning beet red!” Of course I was! I hate it when people say that kind of stuff in front of other, because then all attention is on me and I have to figure out a response to the modeling thing and I hate it. Sometimes I wish that I hadn’t been such a self-conscious ninny ten years ago, when I could have modeled, but most times I don’t care, and I certainly don’t want to talk modeling when I am talking business. Wynn and I went to the car to leave for Canlis, and she was shaking her head, “The poor man could not stop looking at our legs.” I looked at her knee-high leather boots and midi, and down at my pencil skirt and heels and shook my head, “It must have been too much for the man. He couldn’t handle it.” His poor, poor wife.

****

In other news, Audrey announced last week that she and the Swine and the teacher and her boy are all moving into a house together with a big back yard and oh won’t that be swell because she can maybe get a hamster, which ew! why would anyone willingly keep a rodent? One big happy family – I give it a few months – this is his third try since we broke up. I think the Swine’s slovenly behavior turns off the woman – big time, but no surprise there. I’m happy for them all – really, I am. But what really pisses me off, is that Audrey will be sharing a room with the Boy. I’m sorry, but I just don’t approve of non-related children their age sharing a room, and I don’t understand why they don’t see it. Additionally, the Boy is a naughty, little sod, who keeps Audrey up far past her bedtime, so when they’ve had *cringe* sleepovers, Audrey returns from the Swine exhausted with dark circles under her eyes. I’m so fed up with this situation. So. Fed. Up. And some things I don’t even want to mention, because who knows if the Others are still reading. I just really don’t need the Information Highway leading toward the Swine’s ears, which could spoil everything. So mum’s the word, I guess.

****

I had a Girl’s Night Out last night with several of my coworkers. It was a real scorcher yesterday that must have broken a record, so sitting outside was a must. We headed to the Garden Terrace downtown where they have free (random) tacos and delicious margaritas. Scattered across the fifth floor terrace where tables with an interesting mix of geriats and jetsetters. I smiled as I heard whispers about my cream patent leather Paolo’s with the peep toe and forty’s heel, as I walked from our table to the dining room to grab a taco – I think it was those shoes with the slim skirt I had on that drove my boss a’starin’. That’s why shoes are so fun – a great way to send people a’ twitter.

After Happy Hour and a half, we went to see The Ex with Zach Braff, Amanda Peet, and Jason Bateman. Of the four of us that remained to see the movie, we were split in our reviews. Wynn and I were rolling, thought it was hilarious, though in hindsight, it could have been the two margaritas, while Jackie and Frenchie sat quietly. At the end, Frenchie said she’d had a hard time suspending her disbelief, but it’s a good, fun movie - I wasn't looking for realism. I wouldn’t normally see a film like that in the theater. I tend to reserve that kind of expenditure on a huge action flick, but for girl’s night – you have to go to a chick type flick, no? At the beginning of the film, Peet is having Braff’s baby, whose name ends up being Oliver. As you can imagine there was quite the twinge, especially because they were always holding him- and the baby was adorable, so it was hard to not imagine him as my Oliver, but it was only a slight twinge, and I fared well, for which I am proud. Rent it, or go see it in the theater if you want a non-sequel, which seem pretty non-existent this season, that will have you laughing – if you have a quirky, Scrubs-like sense of humor, that is.

Does anyone else have inappropriate boss stories? I really don’t want to be the only sap that puts up with that. And if you were me, would you react as I do or get mad and take action?

First, the farewell

2007-05-29T09:52:00.000-07:00

At my company, employee departures are always accompanied by a rumor mill. For some reason no announcement is ever made, and the leaver never really says anything, so eventually it filters down that so-and-so is leaving, so you walk up to so-and-so and say, “So, I hear you’re leaving. Why? Where are you going? What are you doing?” And so on. I’m not really big on the idea of people whispering and wondering about me behind my back, so I took some unprecedented measures. I *gasp* sent out an email to everyone explaining that I would be leaving. My departure just happens to coincide with one of the architects, so I decided to wait until his goodbye party was over, because Lord knows that I didn’t want his party to become our party – I want my own, dammit! Here’s the email –

From: Rebecca
Sent: Fri 5/25/2007 2:40 PM
To: Fellow Office Grunts
Subject: Friday Funny/ Farewell

Hello all,

First, the farewell. Now that we've enjoyed Rl's farewell party, pizza, Pepcid AC and all, I wanted to share with you the news of my own departure. It has truly been a wonderful experience working with you all - I can actually say that you are the best group of people I have worked with by far. I will really miss that je ne sais quoi S has going on, but it was time for me to take the next step in my career, so I have accepted a position with a firm in Redmond. I know you will all have fun at the BBQ and Christmas party that is all planned and ready to go, so think of me when you order that cocktail or burn that bratwurst. I am sure you will be in good hands with my replacement, who will no doubt turn Chocolate Wednesday into Chocolate Monday through Friday, that is until C baulks at the candy bill. And please don't forget to load the dishwasher, wipe up your stains, clean up microwave explosions, and for the love of all things holy and beautiful, put the right paper in them there machines in the copy room - you wouldn't want poor Wynn's head to explode now, would you?

My last day will be June 7, so make your cracks at my ever-present, impossibly high heels while you still can.

And now for the funny...

DILBERTISMS (Or are they frontdeskisms? You tell me. ;) )

I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day and tomorrow isn't looking good either.

I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.

Am I getting smart with you? How would you know?

I'd explain it to you, but your brain would explode.

Someday we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car.

There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives.

Tell me what you need and I'll tell you how to get along without it.

Accept that some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If she isn't there the first time you need him, chances are you won't be needing her again.

I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.

My Reality Check bounced.

On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.

I don't suffer from stress. I'm a carrier.

You're slower than a herd of turtles stampeding thru peanut butter.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, 'cuz you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.

If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

Rebecca

The Dilbertisms I found somewhere on the internet, and I must say, they wryly denote my attitude of late. I am just so happy to be out of there. The admin staff always ends of cleaning up after all the dirty architects, so I had to admonish them to be better, because Wynn and I had teamed up on the battle front, but now it will just be her. My little email went off really well, with most people coming up to me saying how well it was written – one person suggested that I should write a book. I had to laugh because it just proved how short on writing skills these architecture types are – doesn’t take much to impress them. But it was nice to hear, nonetheless. I love these people – and the cracks they make about my shoes. The guy that is leaving, incidentally the only other person with an “R” name – they will soon be “R”less, doesn’t like that I wear heels at all. He thinks I am too tall for heels and they look too painful anyway. I merely scoff in his direction. My boss absolutely adores them – when he gave me my year-end bonus, he said he couldn’t wait to see what shoes I would buy next. So I’ve built up sort of a reputation around here. I personally don’t think they’re that exciting – I don’t have any Kate Spade or Blahniks or Hollywoulds, but I have been amassing quite the collection of Paolo’s, which I adore. I must post about my shoes soon, I think.

So today, everyone wishes me well. I wish me out of here sooner. How difficult it is to push through these tasks for nine more work days.

Arsenio Whooo Accompanied by pumping fist

2007-05-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days. I got to work and realized that my cell phone was in the red. Then the red disappeared. The battery was empty. The green light angrily flashed at me. I really am the only person in my entire office with a Blackberry. I stared at my phone, waiting for it to ring before it died. I turn it on quiet to conserve energy. I waited. And waited. And then…then I missed the call. Horror of horrors! I called her back as soon as I could, but to no avail, she was in meetings. Hours went by, and no call back. I realized that I was going to have to go to the second interview with a company I sort of like that I had scheduled earlier in the week.

I looked up the company on the website and half-heartedly filled my head with knowledge, wondering how on top of my game I was going to have to be. But still nothing. So I pulled on my sneakers for a Working Girl look, tossed my sling backs into my bag and headed toward downtown. I love the location of the office. It is right in the heart of the shopping district with views straight into the Westlake Center, and for a girl with a shoe addiction, this is mecca. But as I spoke to them, I just knew I would be looking for a new job within a year if I were to accept a position with them. Though it is difficult to explain the exhilaration I felt when I was shown the desk where I would sit, the one not in the lobby, and the refrigerator stocked with complimentary soda, that I wouldn’t have to stock. That was enough to make me accept any job that would take me away from my current one.

I walked back to my office wondering what next. I grabbed the office portable phone and hid myself in the changing room. She apologized for the phone tag. I considered apologizing for calling her like a stalker, but figured she may not know, but then she said that she was on the phone and could hear the beeps and thought, oh man. And I thought oh man, she knew it was me. Damn. Anyway after that terrible period of runaround of American Idol elimination night proportions, she said, “and they think you’d be a wonderful fit, not just for their needs now but to grow and succeed for the future of the company.” And then I passed out. When I woke up, I was sitting in my supervisor’s office.

“So, it probably won’t come as a surprise –“ I started.

“You’re resigning,” she finished for me, smiling. Relief spread through my tense muscles. “You didn’t have any job satisfaction in your eyes.” She offered in explanation. The understatement of the month, I’ll guaranDAMNtee it. (use of the phrase a gratuitous inclusion for a coworker’s benefit.)

So I walked out of her office breathing easy, though now I have one of my stress stomach aches. Ugh. I am very, very, very excited. I love you all. You are the best possessors of crossed fingers, well wishing, juju bee mojos that a girl could ask for. I GOT THE JOB!!!! Well, probably two jobs, but I am only taking the one. No more answering phones! No more ordering supplies! No more mail distribution! Gone is that horrible stuff. I never ever want to do it again. June 11 will be the wonderful day when I write stuff and design stuff and plan stuff and all for a very wonderful company that has benefits of near Microsoft proportions! I could sing. I’m lighter than air. I’m dancing on the wind.

I have more disturbing Swine news, but for now, let’s focus on the happy fact that I get to edit my sidebar. And I totally need to get rid of those snowflakes. The sun is blasting over Elliott Bay right now even as a sailboat cruises past in the light breeze. Okay so my new job means I won’t have the best view ever anymore or be a ten minute walk from the Pike Place Public Market, but I get to write! and stuff, and I think I’ll be okay. Hurray!!! I'm definitely having a mojito tonight in celebration. Join me?

mojito: the marrying kind

2007-05-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I try really hard to find the Swine’s redeeming qualities. I figure there must be a few, after all Audrey does love him and her teacher must to put up with his atrociously disastrous apartment, but at the end of the day, what’s to like? Let’s ponder this topic for a moment, shall we?

Okay, moment over. What have we learned?

1. At one time he had good taste, because he married me, naturally. But then he covered himself in tattoos, piercings, grew out his (trying to grow a chin*) hair, and shaved his end so he looks like a troglodyte biker dude, which doesn’t really suit him, trust me on this. So, that cancels out his good taste quality, as it apparently no longer exists.

2. I add a #2 because back in the 5^th grade when I learned how to make outlines, my teacher told me that you couldn’t have an A without a B or a 1 without a 2, and not so much because I actually think there could possibly be two redeeming qualities in the person whose very existence seems bent on making my life a living hell. So, thinking...thinking...God, I’m drawing a blank, oh except my use of the word “God” just reminded me of one redeeming quality, or at least something that might redeem him in somebody’s eyes,though not very necessarily in my own. He doesn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. Yep, that’s it. I however have a terrible habit of saying “God!” never “Jesus!” or “Jesus Christ!” or even “Jesus H. Christ!”, but God! I do say on occasion. And because he hates it so much when people do that, he would say “F*ck!” loudly and obnoxiously to counter my abhorrent use of the word god. I don’t know about you, but that just served to make me not like him very much. Any one still wondering why we got a D-vorce?

3. As I’m still trying to find these illusive redeeming qualities, I figure that I might as well endeavor to find a third - no matter what. (Did anyone else just pan to the gum commercial with the cute, blonde Brit and her twinkling teeth?) I’m done trying. I give up. Sorry, Swine, you are completely lacking in discernible redeeming qualities, but feel free to have the ones you call friends contact me and set me straight because I would be more than happy to learn something good, positive, upstanding, or redeeming about the person I told I would honor and obey in sickness and health, because I am at a complete loss.

I really want to write “and on another note” because I how great would it be if I had one, so I can move on from the Swine subject - here goes – So, on another note, I worked 60 hours last week, which was why there were no follow-up posts to my “hallelujah, I’m back!” pukes. But I really loved working that 60 hours because I was working with Wynn doing stuff that I truly enjoy, and it was a tremendous week. Hey, what do you know I just thought of a redeeming quality for the Swine – he wants to spend time with his daughter, and it was because of the time he spent with her last week that I was able to throw myself full throttle into work, which I never do on her weeks with me. So thank you, Swine, for the every other week option to be a workaholic. Yum!

And, you know that one sentence in my sidebar with that part where I mention how great my ass looks in those jeans (trust me, they really, really do)? Well, that part right before, I am working really hard on that and something just might come to fruition before the end of the month, so I can use all of the crossed fingers, well wishing, juju bee mojos that you can spare, because the good Lord above knows how much I want and neeeeeed this. Oh, and it must be said that the word mojos reminds me of mojitos, and yum, I love me some mojitos. Love. It was pretty much forever love at first sip. Yep, I could maybe marry a mojito. Uh huh. I could, really, because you can be damn sure that a mojito would never tell you it was okay to move to London and then ha! sue you for full custody citing abandonment as the reason. Now, my dear chickens, that is a redeeming quality if I ever saw one!

* a frank zappa song, no?

Lamentations

2007-05-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

I don’t know why I haven’t been writing about this more often. I mean, why keep it all locked in when I have the perfect outlet with which to vent my ever-growing frustration with this forever alliance with the worst thing that ever happened to me? For the past year and a half, the Swine has done seemingly everything in his power to make me feel like and appear to be a horrible mother, an unreasonable person, and a downright bitch. And for what? I still can’t figure out the satisfaction he reaps from this but that he is getting revenge on the woman who could no longer abide his filthy habits (see? another reason why living together before marriage is such a brilliant idea), terrible ideas (oh, now you want to be an architect? since when have you ever looked twice at a building? [it was really just the paycheck]), and lack of pride in appearance (you don’t have to be a GQ model, I wouldn’t have been with him if that was what I was looking for, but the raggy t-shirts and stained shorts that you would have worn to church if not for my interference? Too much to abide. [is it my fault we live in an image-conscious world?]). All right so maybe I can understand why he would hate me just a little – we are so completely different. I wish I could post a picture of him on a Monday morning heading to work and a picture of me – the external dissimilarities are an exact match for our internal variations. I try to understand the twenty-year-old me who met and “fell in love” with that twenty-year-old him, the me that swore I would never think I was too young to get married, that swore I knew what I was getting myself into. That me I don’t like very much, because that me has affected my life in more ways than I ever thought possible. But I like that him much more – much, much, much more – than this him. That him would never have lied and betrayed me like this him did. That him would understand the importance of telling the truth and that you reap what you sow – respect or lack thereof, kindness or lack thereof, honesty, etc.

Some days I am just so taken aback by who he has become and what he has grown to stand for and value – that when I ask him the reason he wants his daughter to go to the alternative school far from where either of us live, his answer is “they have a climbing wall.” How do you not explode in the face of such utter immaturity and stupidity all wrapped up in the form of my poor daughter’s father? How can he not value academics and giving his daughter the best chance to succeed in this world of our? How can he deny her the chance to go to one of the top 20 school districts in the country because of a climbing wall and his girlfriend’s son? Why does mediation have to be the first last resort? Why is he so willing to take me to court if I want to pay for her to go to the daycare near my house, the one she went to before that fate encrusted move to London, the one to which she been begging to return since we moved back to Bellevue? Why doesn’t he put her first ever? Why does he just have to spite me to her detriment? I spent good money to sign her up for swimming lessons, which he said he would take her to if I did so, but out of the three weeks he’s had her for them, he’s taken her once. Explain to me how he thinks he is putting her first. “Oops, I forgot.” Never wonder why I hate that man so much. The greatest challenge of my whole life is not letting my daughter in on that truth, but she asks always why she didn’t get to move to London, she asks always why daddy won’t take her to the lessons. And I have to ask God why I must pretend that man is worth her love. But I know that some day Audrey will know the whole story, and he will have to answer to her as to why he denied her the trip to meet her little brother, why he lied to her continually about the trip and why he is not making a point of taking her to something she loves and enjoys. He says he puts her first. I’m still waiting for the evidence.

Audrey says that they always have to go to his girlfriend’s apartment, which is in the same building, because her daddy’s apartment is way too messy. Audrey says that she runs late for school because her daddy can’t find her shoes in the big mess. Audrey says that being with his feels like one hundred days, and she wishes being with me could last one hundred days. Audrey says that she has a smart, clever mommy and a silly, messy daddy.

I say that Mondays are my favorite and most reviled day. I love Mondays like yesterday. Mondays where I smile all through work, then practically trot through town beaming with anticipation as I walk to pick her up. I hold her close to me as she squeezes me so tightly she may never let go. I grasp her hand in mine and shower her with smiles, as we walk to the bus stop. I beam; as I watch her legs grow week to week toward matching my long, rapid stride. I read the book, currently Secret Garden, on the bus as we travel to Bellevue and she snuggles against me looking for words that she knows among the hundreds on the page. We get home, and she helps me decide what to make for dinner before hurrying to grab her footstool so she can help. We eat and discuss our days. She bathes, and we sing “Summertime” after which she heads to Slumberland, though some Mondays Steve gets home before she falls asleep in which case their reunion is a tear-worthy event marked by cuddles and statements of affection so endearing my heart nearly bursts at the sound of them. And while she sleeps, Steve and I sit contentedly on the couch, happy to have her home at last for the next six days, neither of us wanting to think of the horrid Monday to follow, the one where she returns to the dark side to be surrounded by mess and ignorant thinking for another week.

I hate Mondays and I love Mondays. I hate the Swine but I loved Sam. I must have. I must have.

I like the day about me.

2007-05-14T22:49:00.000-07:00

I planned my own perfect Mother's Day weekend, because sometimes it becomes necessary to take charge of such things. Drama ensued, because in my life, when does it not? But I don't want to focus on that, because part of me knows that I caused the drama, because a lot of me is unable to cope anymore. I wondered why until I read an article some time ago in the New York Times Magazine about post-traumatic stress syndrome felt by female soldiers who fought in Iraq. The author of the article mentioned that many of the women who enlist in the armed forces have come from hard lives, which means their resiliency reservoir, the one we each come with, is already pretty full, leaving little room for more pain and hard experiences. Of course I haven't been to work, but life hasn't really given me the chance to empty out the reservoir. I'm running on full, which means I overload quite easy with results that aren't that pretty. I look forward to peace. I have faith that I will find it. I will once again be strong, resilient, able to cope. So as I mentioned, I will skip the drama, focus on the positive.

Saturday we played Seattle tourists and went to the waterfront for the Maritime Festival and tugboat races. It was a typical Seattle day - cloudy and cool, but luckily it did not rain. And though at times pangs of wistful longing for South Carolina's warmth and sunshine press themselves upon me unbidden, the waterfront and skyline were enough to keep them at bay this day. Audrey played with a pirate, we took a one-hour harbor tour on the Argosy cruise curtesy of the Port of Seattle, we explored the Odyssey Maritime Museum. And after that, we went to Pike Place Market and bought a whole salmon from the fish throwing guys and some flowers from the stalls. I totally scored three free bunches of lilacs and a hundred people laughed when I was hit on the head by a stuff salmon the fish throwers let one of the myriad spectators try to toss as sideshow entertainment. Walking through the market, which I do several times a week, makes me feel so lucky. Especially when I pass cute tourists with their curtesy maps and eager faces. I love to be asked for directions. I love to pass on my expertise. And though I will never love the lack of sun in Seattle, I will always love that it is Seattle. People come to my city. I just wish less of them would stay.

Sunday we went to the Mother's Day service at my church and then to brunch in Kirkland, where this young guy my sister's age was totally macking on my aunt. We were all tres, tres confused. It certainly made her day though, and we all had a laugh when he gave her a little wave and he, his mom, dad and sister walked out of the restaurant.

We went to the park, I bought myself a gas grill for Mother's Day, we grilled the salmon we'd bought the day before, and we took loads of pictures.

All in all it was a good weekend. I miss Audrey all ready.

p.s. thanks for the warm welcome back. Damn it's hard to get back in the habit, but it's nice to know I was missed. :) And for the record, I really, really missed y'all too.

Peek a Boo

2007-05-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

I've been staring at the blank posting screen for some time now, and I honestly don't know what to say. Where have I been? Steve got really sick after my last post, then Audrey got sick, then my ovarian cyst burst, I didn't even know they were in there, and apparently the ultrasound I'd had a couple of months before didn't show them, so that was fun, childbirth worthy pain. And that experience more than any I've had recently would be very blogworthy. So why haven't I blogged? I've been trying to figure that out. Every morning I wake up and think, Crap, I didn't post again last night. I meant to, really I did. Or at least I think I did.

I started my blog because I love to write. I continued my blog because it was a way for me to deal with the horrible junk I was going through. And while I am not by any means free from the junk, the motivation to record it has dissipated. But why today of all days to return? I think because I no longer want to write for my audience. I don't want to care about the number of comments or returning the favor. I don't want to care about the numbers I had when I blogged regularly. I just want to write without the worry of the other stuff that's bogged me down and impeded my ability to express myself. I sort of miss the old days at my old blog before anyone read me, when I wrote the stupidest stuff because it was really just for me.

I love having readers and I love having comments and I love the blog friends that I've made especially the ones that were there before the big delete and stuck through all of the absences, but I can't make this blog about that anymore. Maybe that is the very essence of a blog, and I break the rules by saying any of that, but guess what? I DON'T FREAKING CARE ANYMORE.

So I'm going to make every effort to get back to blogging, because that means I am writing again, and by golly I've missed it. I'm still reading and enjoying and love to discover new blogs, and honestly there are some whose links I've lost, so if you're one of the blog friends and I haven't said hello in a while, let me know where I can find you. Also I'm horrible about returning emails, so I am wiping the slate clean. Thanks for all of your kind words, I'm sorting and sticking them in folders, but I can't write everyone back, though from today forward I'll endeavor to be better.

Okay I'm done with this windy bag of nonsense that probably contradicts itself. Bear with me I haven't written in a while, and to top it off my computer ate all of my photos from December onward. Why, for the love of God have I not learned to back up my crap?

One Year On

2007-03-01T07:34:00.000-08:00

Funny, last Tuesday, I was so proud of myself and totally thinking that maybe I’d get on a roll. I had a really thoughtful, expressive post planned for Wednesday, which I outlined in my brain on Tuesday, and I even knew what I was going to write about Thursday and Friday and with a jam-packed weekend planned, I figured I was golden for at least a couple of posts after that.

Turns out, it was one thing to outline last Wednesday’s post, but it was a whole other thing to write it. I was doing so well that day, especially compared to how I did on Oliver’s birthday, but then on my lunch break, as I walked to Pike Place Market to pick up a sandwich, a screaming, flashing ambulance roared past me, and at that moment, I was transported back to February 20, 2006…

And the nee-nah nee-nah of the siren rings in my ears as Oll-lee oll-lee. Oliver is spread out in a pod surrounded by wires and beeping machines, and I’m watching the crew as they sleep, their head bobbing side to side as the ambulance weaves through the heavy rush hour London traffic. “You’re supposed to be watching my son!” I scream silently even as I feel the overwarmth and movement of the speeding vehicle start to lull me to sleep as well. But I shake myself from it and jump each time the machines squeal for attention, but the female sleeper only picks up the cane next to her and uses it to turn off the alarm from her seated position. My eyes bore holes into her head, and I wonder if those alarms mean anything. Alarms by their very definition are alarming, and I am very definitely alarmed, but they carry on sleeping, and we carry on weaving through London traffic. I tear my eyes from the scene before me and gaze out the window. I watch as curious drivers crane their necks for a glance at the occupants of the ambulance, and I think back to all of the times I’d done that very same thing, and I wished with all my might that I was merely a commuter on her way to a job no matter how dismal rather than working my way to Great Ormand Street Hospital with the hopes that they could do what Northwick Park Hospital could not, figure out what the fuck is wrong with my son and fix him. Even as we sped past cars stuck in traffic, the ride still took over an hour, and I know that it will be a long time before Steve will make it, so I sit alone, sequestered to a cold, harsh waiting room, wearing the same clothes I tossed on the day before when I’d only thought I was heading to the hospital to have my back pain checked out. Never in a million years did I imagine that I would instead be watching my son’s life slipping away before my eyes.

I rode that ambulance all through the day Wednesday, every time I sat at the computer to write, I heard the sirens, I saw the pod, I screamed at the ambulance crew. I couldn’t get past it. So I couldn’t get past the first paragraph of my post, so I couldn’t post, and then I couldn’t write, or at least finish anything, but I will finish my Oscar post dammit. I don’t care how yesterday it is.

Steve and I dealt with this dreadful anniversary so much differently from his birthday. This time it isn’t silent understanding and comforting hugs that takes us through the day. We snap at each other and yell, and I cry. We take our pain out on each other. We’re mad and don’t know what to do with that anger. We had plans, and they got me through the day at work, but by the time he picked me up, he was so grumpy and my head hurt so much that we just growled at each other the rest of the way to Bellevue, cocktails at an upscale restaurant in Seattle no longer on the table. When we’d said what we had to say, I sunk into myself and my headache and stared out the window waiting to get home, waiting for the day to be over, waiting for the final hours of the worst year of my life to tick into oblivion.

It was a good two hours before Steve and I were done storming at each other. We capped off the evening with pizza and beer and American Idol and miserable calm. A February 21 so very different from the one a year before.

In 2006, early that morning, we let them turn off the machines, we held our son when he breathed no more for as long as they let us, we let him go only because they needed to run more tests to find a diagnosis, posthumous though it may be. We went home, where we hadn’t been for 2 days and cried afresh, for everything was as we left it. His bed, still beside our bed, his diapers and wipes still in the basket, his laundry still hanging on the radiator, dried to a crisp. It was all wrong. I mourned that we had washed his laundry, thus losing the precious baby scent. I took a bag and packed the freshly washed clothes and everything he hadn’t a chance to wear. Steve moved the Moses basket into another room, and I gathered the couple of sleepers that hadn’t been washed, his hats, his blanket around me and inhaled deeply and sobbed. I wrote the post for the website. I downloaded various versions of “Baby Mine” and “You Are My Sunshine” because I sang those songs at his hospital bedside and listened to them all on repeat until Steve made me turn them off. I wandered listlessly about, my purpose gone.

One year later. The first year is the hardest, they’ve said to me. After the first year anniversary the pain will subside a little, it will get easier. I think I need another year.

I end with the lyrics of a song by an artist from the London playlists. It is the song that quintessentially sums up this year.

"I Cried For You"
by Katie Melua

You're beautiful so silently
It lies beneath a shade of blue
It struck me so violently
When I looked at you

But others pass, they never pause,
To feel that magic in your hand
To me you're like a wild rose
They never understand why

I cried for you
When the sky cried for you
And when you went
I became a hopeless drifter
But this life was not for you
Though I learned from you,
That beauty need only be a whisper

I'll cross the sea for a different world,
With your treasure, a secret for me to hold

In many years they may forget
This love of ours or that we met,
They may not know
how much you meant to me.

I cried for you
And the sky cried for you,
And when you went
I became a hopeless drifter.
But this life was not for you,
Though I learned from you,
That beauty need only be a whisper

Without you now I see,
How fragile the world can be
And I know you've gone away
But in my heart you'll always stay.

I cried for you
And the sky cried for you,
And when you went
I became a hopeless drifter.
But this life was not for you,
Though I learned from you,
That beauty need only be a whisper
That beauty need only be a whisper

six weird things....

2007-02-20T18:42:00.000-08:00

I've seen this everywhere, and as y'all know I rarely do memes, because they are everywhere, but after sunShine posted hers twice, I figured the world needed another weird things post. I don't know how weird this stuff is, but I know I haven't mentioned it here before, so have at it:

1. I hate PBJ sandwiches. HATE. But I like peanut butter, and I like jelly. I HATE them together. And heaven help the soul that gets a molecule of peanut butter in the jelly jar or vice versa, I will taste it, I will barf, and I will come after you. We always had to have PBJs for lunch when I was a kid. So I just slathered one piece with jam and the other with PB and got along just fine. So, there.

2. I pass gas and burp A LOT. Like more than a human being ever should. Like I need to seek medical help, but I never would because who wants to tell her doctor she farts too much. So I spend my work days in misery and my evenings and weekends making Steve and Audrey miserable, well not really. They just laugh at me. And laugh. And laugh. Ok, guys, you can stop now.

3. I married the Swine because I didn’t believe in living together before marriage. Holy heavens! I love God and all. I believe that Jesus is my savior, but never ever will I ever espouse that being the driving force for marrying someone you love. Ever. I knew it was a mistake within weeks, but I also didn’t believe in divorce. Nearly four years later and all those tunes changed. I’ll live in sin till the cows come home and the angels sing Gloria from the heavens if I have to.

4. I graduated from high school never having kissed a boy. My pastor said it was because I had “pretty girl” syndrome. Not the kissing thing, but the no boyfriend thing. Why my pastor was interested in my dating life remains an unanswered question. He was wrong, though. Really, it was because I was deathly afraid of boys wanting The Sex. Or really, I was afraid I wouldn’t say no because Friends and my one promiscuous pal, Jacquie, said The Sex is really, really nice. So my first time was with the Swine. Ah, isn’t that special.

5. I have half a middle fingernail on my right hand, and by golly, is it ever embarrassing. It all started with the manicure. It shore looked purdy, but then this little bit of white grew at the nail bed. And then there was pain and swelling, and Steve calling it my “penis finger.” Ha, ha, really funny, Steve. So along with the pain and swelling, came my nail separating from the base, and stuff would get stuck in there, which is just gross. So now I have to keep the right have of my nail trimmed down to the cuticle and all my doctor told me to do was grow it out and paint it. I can’t do that. It hurts and stuff get stuck down there. Did I mention how gross that is? I used to keep a bandaid wrapped around that finger, because it’s so embarrassing when someone notices the nail while I am talking to them and gesturing with my hands. Now I just reserve the bandaid for special occasions like my triple homicide trial when I go down for popping the Swine, the WWN and my doctor, whose ability to earn her MD baffles me. (Disclaimer: To the prosecution, should any of those nefarious people die, I know that I have motive, many in fact, and I just said that I would kill them on my personal website, but please note that this is an idle joke, for the amusement of my readers and not an overture for something I intend to do in the very near future. Thank you.)

6. I am a complete and incurable nerd. I try to elevate myself by reading thick and notable books (like the chic lit I mentioned in my last post), knitting, playing the piano, but by George do I love me some video games. When I first returned from London, I stayed with my mom for a couple of weeks. My sister and I played hours of Mario Cart on the Nintendo 64. Hours. Like, send out a couple resumes, play 4 hours of Mario Cart. It was really kind of pathetic, a 26 year-old playing the same tracks over and over. I’m going to fix that though. I scouring Craig’s List for the perfect deal on a used Nintendo GameCube. I converted Steve from the History Channel to Fox, now I’m going to turn him on to the world of Mario and then my domination will be complete. *Insert evil laugh here* All I can say to redeem myself in your eyes is to inform you that I do indeed play wearing kick-ass jeans and BCBG stilettos. If I’m going to be a nerd, I may as well look good in the process, thank you very much.

stupid, stupid presidents

2007-02-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up all-too-early to the obnoxious morning show on KISS 106.1. I’d set the alarm and hour earlier because I really, really wanted to get up and do my exercise DVD because since summer turned to fall, my exercise regime turned to sleep in late, watch TV in the evening, because it’s rainy and there is no sun. So my fab abs are now flab. I HATE THAT FEELING, but it seems I hate it less at 5 in the morning, cuddled up in my warm bed next to my honey. So when the alarm went off, I nudged at Steve to attend to it, telling him to hit the snooze button while pulling a pillow over my head. Ah silence returned to me. Steve came back to bed and spooned me and I settled in for a 9 minute nap until Jackie and Bender blare from our clock/radio again.

Steve turned the alarm off. He didn’t hit snooze. He turned it off. So I woke up at the exact moment I was to be stepping on my bus. Cue me on the verge of tears, freaking out because I was GOING TO BE LATE! Where are the chill pills when I so desperately need them? I threw on a chunky turtleneck, my lesbian pants and sensible loafers (holy Lord, do I need to go shopping), brushed my hair into a ponytail and raced out the door – to wait. On top of it all the damn buses were running the freaking holiday schedule because my freaking work doesn’t like freaking presidents. So I stood in the freaking rain, freaking out because I was LATE.

Chill. Pill.

When the bus finally came, I sat down and read from my book, The Other Woman, by Jane Green (haha, no, it’s not about me) when the stomach pain wrenched its way through my gut. And that my friends is all I needed to confirm that yes, my freak-out have a cow moments are directly correlative to the kill-me-now torso pain I get.

Great. Now what? Wynn is going in for her stick a hose up the rumpus appointment tomorrow. I’m wondering if it’s time for me to get one of those colo-wha-scopies, maybe to see what exactly happens at the moments when my body and mind are so stressed out that the only thing left for it to do is sic the belly urchins on me.

Luckily it didn’t boil into a full-on episode. Because the second I felt it stirring up I gave myself the “Calm down woman, are you insane?” pep talk and the belly urchins crawled back into their hole to bide their time for the next occurrence of the Rebecca Freak-Out Moment™.

replay

2007-02-18T20:38:00.000-08:00

I normally don’t drive to work since I am a bus rider, but Thursday I did, so I could leave early and be home quickly to relieve Steve from sick-Audrey tending. Wind tossed my hair every which way when I walked out on to the streets of Belltown, and as I drove home, waves beating against the 520 bridge splashed water against the Durango. After I got into the apartment, Steve, Audrey and I stood on the patio watching the trees sway with the gusts and branches poke at the window of the spare room.

When I lay Audrey down for her nap, I decided to lie down on the couch and take advantage of my afternoon off by getting a little shuteye myself.

And the wind blew in a great snow. Gusts of white powder built up against the building. I ran into Audrey’s room and it was filled with snow. I grabbed her out of bed, and she was shivering from the cold. I carried her to my room and lay her down in my bed, and I couldn’t figure out where Steve had gone. Frantic that he had left me, I ran into Oliver’s room, relieved to see it wasn’t filled with snow, and I held him close to me and took him to my room. Steve still wasn’t there but his wallet was on the bed. He wouldn’t leave without his wallet.

And the wind blew in a great snow. Gusts of white powder built up against the building. I ran into Audrey’s room and it was filled with snow. I grabbed her out of bed, and she was shivering from the cold. I carried her to my room and lay her down in my bed, and I couldn’t figure out where Steve had gone. Frantic that he had left me, I ran into Oliver’s room, relieved to see it wasn’t filled with snow, and I held him close to me and took him to my room. Steve still wasn’t there but his wallet was on the bed. He wouldn’t leave without his wallet.

And the wind blew in a great snow. Gusts of white powder built up against the building. I ran into Audrey’s room and it was filled with snow. I grabbed her out of bed, and she was shivering from the cold. I carried her to my room and lay her down in my bed, and I couldn’t figure out where Steve had gone. Frantic that he had left me, I ran into Oliver’s room, relieved to see it wasn’t filled with snow, and I held him close to me and took him to my room. Steve still wasn’t there but his wallet was on the bed. He wouldn’t leave without his wallet.

I jolted awake. The dream had repeated again and again. I could still feel Oliver in my arms, smell his little baby smell. I couldn’t understand why every dream I have of him, he’s always alive. Shivering, I called Steve. My dream was so eerie, so frightening, so preferable to the real world if only because it is a world wherein Oliver lives and breathes. I don’t take naps. The rest of the day the dream played again and again in my brain as I analyzed every moment, every feeling.

My desire to have a baby has been so strong lately, almost unbearably strong. I’m sure it has to do with a subconscious desire to suppress the pain of February. My friend Lee had her baby on February 5, but I haven’t been able to call her to congratulate her yet. I haven’t been able to face it, haven’t been able to speak to her, visit her. In all honesty I was waiting for the two week mark, because I needed to see her baby make it more than 12 days, but now that she did, I still can’t call. I’m jealous. I want to be the one who just had a baby. I want to sit on an inflatable pillow because I can’t sit down. I want to have cracked nipples and a puffy belly. It’s not the right time. And that sucks. Planning sucks. If it happened we’d make it work, but right now isn’t the right time if we’re going to plan. So like I said, planning sucks.

Maybe I’ll call my friend tomorrow. Maybe seeing her baby, her beautiful baby girl will give me the right dose of baby to tide me over. Maybe changing a diaper will tide me over or maybe it will do nothing more than feed the fire.

This sucks.

I’ve spent the weekend attached to my laptop, typing and working trying to fix one of the things that are making me miserable. It’s one of those projects that makes all of your insecurities rise to the surface and your love for yourself diminish as you begin to doubt all of your talents and abilities. I pray to God that I am successful.

I discovered that I’m kind of an ogre. And really, I’m not all that funny. I’m the depressing, not funny one. Sure, I can write. I can string a series of words together and make them slide down your gullet, but they are not going to make you laugh. You are much more likely to shed a tear than crack a smile. I’m that not funny person. I’m the one that should something I say actually make someone laugh, I am going to find a way to work that joke into at least four other conversations. I’m the kind of girl that has her comeback two hours later or sometimes never. When I graduated from high school, I still had braces, and I’d had a baby tooth removed so they could pull down the adult, but it was taking FOREVER, so I was forced to go to First Week at Myrtle Beach, SC with metal and a hole in my mouth. Sitting trying to be ultra cool in my friend’s red Jeep Wrangler, a few guys walked up to us, and while chatting up the “fine” guy, he all of the sudden said, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.” I just froze and waited for him to walk away. I still can’t think of a “yo’ mama.” I guess the problem is my sense of humor. I can’t find humor in some of the things I am going through, and they are the things that most compel me to sit at this laptop and write for my blog. So I feel sorry, both for the readers of my blog whom I reduce to tears and for myself, because I’ll never be that hilarious blogger. I just don’t want to depress everyone away from me.

And lastly can I just say STOP! REALLY. I know you’re never going to see these words but where are the people who love you? You look horrible, not that looks are the most important thing, but could you at least put on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, cause, Honey, that is not a bikini bod you’re sporting. Oh and the hair! Demi Moore, sure, Natalie Portman, absolutely, you? Not so much. What were you thinking? And doing it yourself? You looked stoned, out of your mind. And all I can think of are those two beautiful boys. Did you know that you were once named the worst celebrity pet owner? They said it was because you were seen with them everywhere when it was cool to have dogs as accessories, and when the fad died, so did your poochie love. I now name you the worst celebrity mother. You were all about having kids when they made you a happy family, but when your marriage died, so did your dreams of the Brady Bunch. You realized that you didn’t want to be a twenty-something stay-at-home mom, you’re single, you’re rich, you’ll stay out all night and party if you want to. Why can’t anyone stop you? What is your problem? Why the downward spiral? Why are people like you blessed with beautiful, healthy children when the last thing you could ever do is appreciate that blessing? That more than anything in the world is the question I want answered.

Can you smell the gouda?

2007-02-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

There were no roses, no chocolates, no jewelry. How much thought purchasers of those items must put into it as evidenced by the packed card aisle and picked over florist department at the Bellevue QFC. I could only laugh as men young and old seemed to compete with each other. This man’s basket had a balloon, large card and box of chocolates, and that man’s had card, teddy bear, and plant. Ah how we women treasure the grocery store gifts.

Me, I had my treasure in the car waiting for me as I put the evening’s dinner in my cart. There was to be no candlelit dinner, or bottles of wine shared at a linen-covered table surrounded by the rest of the requisite couples who dutifully made their reservations early enough so as not to be stuck with the 5:30 in and out as my friend Wynn and her fiancé had. No, Steve, Audrey and I were content to be in the company of each other.

We had turkey sandwiches to eat, a race car track to build and an episode of American Idol to watch. Our first evening at home in quite a few days, the ordinariness of our time spent together was a blessed relief from the hubbub of activities that surrounded Dan’s stay in Seattle.

And so it was. Steve is not the kind of guy to surprise. He’s the kind of guy that pitches in at the time of need. He’s home right now with poor, sick little Audrey, who blames the “one who went to Hawaii” (Dan) for her illness. But you know, when it comes down to it, I would much rather have the man that treats another man’s child as his own, that treasures the very sight of me and tells me so more often than I can remember, than the one who stops last minute at QFC to pay Hallmark $3.25 to say it for him.

According to my calendar, we have Audrey for the next four Valentine’s Days, and I’m glad. It will always be the day we spend together as a family – I’ll never get a sitter. Maybe we’ll always have sandwiches and watch American Idol, I’m sure it will still be around in 2010. Why do so many couples have the same Valentine’s Day? I never will. I don’t want the flowers. I don’t want the chocolates. I don’t want the jewelry or the reservations. I’ve got what I want – love, a love that is evidenced in a hundred ways that no amount of credit card swipeage could never show.

Okay wait, did I just read that Amalah's husband gave her a day at the spa? Maybe a little credit card action couldn't hurt. Hint. Hint.

Just so you know...

2007-02-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

I love it when you toot and act like it's the first time you ever did in front of me.
I love it when you smile and your eyes go all crinkly like they did just now.
I love it when you use silly voices and make me laugh and laugh.
I love it when you teach me about music and tell the same stories over and over because they never get old to either of us.
I love it when you snore a little, so you wake up and get all embarrassed.
I love it when you tell me I am beautiful even though my hair's pulled back, and I've not a stitch of makeup on, and we both know you're lying but it makes me feel good anyway.
I love it when you grab my hand in yours when we're driving or play with my hair while we're cuddling on the sofa together.
I love it when you wake me up in the morning when you're feeling rather randy.
I love it when you let me hold the remote, which is always, because you know that no one can fast forward through the commercials like I can.
I love it when you make us mugs and mugs of PG Tips because you know that I'll always suck at making a cuppa, but you're okay with that because I make the best eggs Benedict.

Happy Valentines Day, Darling.

not just another day

2007-02-12T21:30:00.000-08:00

I awoke Friday morning with the distinct awareness, after I gazed with bleary eyes at my alarm clock on the dresser across the room, that it was the very same minute during which Oliver was born exactly a year before. It had been a sunny afternoon in London at Northwick Park Hospital that he was pulled by a team of doctors from the warmth and safety of my belly to the world that would only harbor him for twelve short days. My mother here in Seattle was just waking up when Steve called her to give her the good news. Her morning a year ago was so different from my morning now.

As I lay in bed, watching Steve mill about in the bathroom, I contemplated the past year and what this day meant to me. My eyes remained dry, and that was a good sign I would make it through the day. So I got out of bed and got ready for work alongside Steve, both of us replaying the same memories of events 365 days prior. We hugged silently. Our eyes said enough.

Steve decided to drop me at work rather than having me take the bus, and when we pulled up in front of my building, he grabbed my hand and asked, "Are you sure you don't want to take the day off? I can stay home with you if you don't want to go in."

And then the tears came because I could tell that he wanted me to say yes. He wanted to stay home. He just needed a reason that wasn't himself. I sighed, quelling the longing to stay in bed with him and reminisce about what might have been, "I can't sweetheart. I just can't dwell on it today." Knowing that the day would become a black progression of hours of sadness that would be so much worse than a day at work, I wiped my eyes and kissed him goodbye.

Once in the office, I pressed into action, willing myself to ignore the tears that hung in my throat. And it wasn't until I sent the email to my boss with a request to get off a half hour early and her reply, "that's fine," brought the deluge. I couldn't stop the water pouring from my ducts, nor could I figure out the reason the exchange set me off. I pinched my finger again and again. My boss walked up to my desk and laughed nervously when she saw my tears, "We'll just have to keep you very busy," she said, putting a stack of paper down with a flourish, "So the day will go by just like that." I made a joke about running out of tissues, but the rest of the day I was fine – at top form, actually, which felt good, like I was the boss of my emotions.

After work, Wynn and I went to Fox Sports Grill to meet her brother and fiancée for Happy Hour. Steve was working late, so he couldn't make it. But I drank three margaritas and toasted my little guy before heading home on the bus bound for Bellevue, a bus driven by a nasty guy in bike shorts who snapped at me both as I stepped on and stepped off. It was probably because I had my cell phone glued to my ear, as I was yet again appealing to the Swine to please be reasonable and not vengeful when it comes to choosing Audrey’s school. Frustration and resentment surged through my every vein and artery. (But my exposition on that will come later.) He didn’t know what the day meant to me and how much pain I was in. He didn’t understand that all I wanted apart from anything else was for him to be genuinely sorry for his responsibility for Audrey missing the birth and short life of her baby brother.

When I finally got home to Steve, it was our peaceful understanding that melted all of the isolation I’d felt all day. Only he knows what this is like. What this day means. My own mother, my own family forgot. They didn’t realize or remember what February 9 signifies. And it hurts so much to realize that his significance to his grandmother was no where near the significance he held for his parents. And I realized that Oliver will have to be memorialized in our hearts, just the two of us, because we are the only ones who can, who will. He’s our little blip in the enormousness of all the seconds of all the hours of all the days the earth has ever been, a blip that will not long be remembered. He didn’t have a chance to have an impact on the world, but the affect of this day will long have an impact on me and on his father.

Happy first birthday, dear Oliver Harry. In my heart you just learned to walk, you’ve cut teeth, you’ve had a haircut, and every day is an adventure of discovery.

I broke Steve

2007-02-08T18:37:00.000-08:00

“Did you hear the news?”

“Yes, it’s terrible. I was going to call you, but I didn’t want to bother you at work.”

“It’s so sad. I hope her baby has a good home.”

“Her son just died, too. How untimely.”

“Well, I better get back to work. I just wanted to share that with you.”

And we both hung up. No names were mentioned. No actual mention of the thing we were talking about. And this, folks, this is why I love my man so very, very much.

When Steve and I met for the second time at a friend’s party, we fell in love that night, spending hours excluding fellow party-goers with our discussion about opera and Maria Callas. Very highbrow, no? Fast forward over three years and what do you have? A couple who calls each other when cheesy reality stars collapse and die. Anna Nicole Smith – we will miss your platinum locks, your slurred words and your boobalicious figure. Really. We will.

Steve and I are now the couple that eats up the reality TV world. And the funny thing is, it’s Steve more than me.

When we were moving, we were debating whether or not to continue our digital TV/ HDR subscription.

“Can we still watch American Idol?” Steve asked, brow furrowed in all the seriousness that such a question necessitates. I just laughed at him, guffawing when he continued with the question, “Well, what about Beauty and the Geek?” before noticing my response. “What?”

I’ve created a monster. I took an IFC – History Channel watching Englishman and turned him into a reality show fiend. He doesn’t even get excited about episodes of The Closer or Monk anymore. When he’s had a bad day, I know exactly which show to access to put his mood aright. I might as well be doing something naughty to him for all the pleasure he harvests from these shows.

Last night we were lying on the sofa watching one of the final episodes of Beauty and the Geek. We’d just returned from visiting the school I really want Audrey to attend, and I’d already told Steve that the Swine and the whole school thing was going to have to preempt my planned post on his reality show addiction, but what happened next and the conversation we had this morning (he called me, by the way), ensured him today’s spot.

So anyway, there we were watching BATG, when he got up during the commercial break to tend to his laundry. I hate commercial breaks, and I couldn’t fast forward to the commercials, so I turned off the show and put on the Hills, which we used to watch together, but since he works so much now, I’ve been savoring it on my own. It was a particularly juicy episode of the Hills. Heidi went to dinner with Audrina, who told Heidi to watch out because Spencer was totally hitting on her behind Heidi’s back. Steve came back and I filled him in on all the drama, and just before the commercial break, they teased with Heidi staying home from her planned trip to Colorado and going to the same club where Spencer was hanging with some blonde playboy pinups.

Steve hopped up from the sofa and literally skipped to the kitchen to turn on the kettle for some good ole PG Tips, and then he actually sang a song that went something like “Yippee, yippee, there’s going to be some drama. Spencer’s going to get it.” There was more, but my hysterical laughter kind of outdecibeled his chanteuring. When he returned, he said, “Rebecca, I don’t think we have enough drama in our lives. We need to move LA because we’re missing out.”

See? How can I not love with my whole heart the 44 year-old Englishman whom I’ve converted into a dancing, crap-TV nut?

moved on up to the eastside

2007-01-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

Thank you all for your constructive and kind words! It really helps. I went to the doctor on Friday for that crap and for the mysterious stomach attacks that have been plaguing me, perhaps they're connected. I'm getting an abdominal ultrasound on Wednesday, which should be fun.

But the best part is that I moved to Bellevue over the weekend. My place is now 3 times larger, and I have my precious piano back, which in itself is an anti-depressant. If you read me when the soap opera was in high gear, you'll remember how much I turned to the piano for an emotional outlet. So for now, I am going to try to get the stomach stuff figured out and play a ton of piano.

I have no internet for now. So bear with me through the infrequent posts. I am still trying to figure out what company to use. I piggybacked on someone else's wireless (with permission) at the old place. Any suggestions?

So this is my snuck-in update for now. I just wanted to say that I am doing better, mentally at least.

Upson Downs

2007-01-25T11:19:00.000-08:00

This past year really has been a learning experience. As I trudged up the hill trying to find that peak we like to call Normalcy, I’ve hit and fallen into a few crevasses, and in an attempt to be “okay,” I isolated myself from my true feelings, so when they hit me, they hit me hard, and I woke up to the realization that more and more I was staring out the window, whether of the car, the bus or my office and picturing my gruesome demise as never before. I guess the reason I was perturbed was, rather than disturbing me, the thoughts of such things occurring created that same relaxing escape frame of mind that might ordinarily be produced by imagining yourself at a spa getaway. So though I’ve been trying hard to reach that aforementioned peak, I’ve come to the conclusion that really I’ve been walking up a down escalator that moves faster than I do.

I suppose I’m surprised by that. I’m supposed to be able to handle anything. I’m tall. I’m pretty. People give me things when I bat my eyelashes. Life is supposed to come easy for the taller, more attractive individuals of the world. Whole studies have been done. I’m supposed to be “strong” enough to handle it all. Pain is supposed to bounce off of my Schwarzenegger-esque emotion maker thingies.

So what went wrong?

Perhaps, for starters, I looked for “normal.” I looked for “supposed to.” I ignored resources for help that people so kindly sent my way. Because, as I said, I’m “strong.” I don’t need that fluffy deal with your problems stuff. I can handle it on my own.

Now, I’m thinking, not so much.

I know I have a lot to live for, and I don’t like that thoughts of my refrigerator crushing me to death are so comforting. So maybe it’s just a matter of me realizing that my “blues” have become EEK! “depression.” However, I don’t know that I want to go the medication/therapist route. It’s hard for me to grasp that I can’t handle “it” on my own. (As an aside: maybe I really just need help for my excessive use of quotation marks.)

I’m sick of these ups and downs. I know life isn’t full of highs, unless, of course, you’re a crack-smoking gangster lover. Hey! Now, there’s a path. Okay, maybe not. I just need the lows not to be quite so low for a while. Please bear with me as I try to make that happen.

*the title is a reference to Auntie Mame, but then if you didn’t know that you aren’t my friend, and those that did, you’re positively top drawer, dahlings.

White stuff from the sky

2007-01-23T20:21:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like ~~having~~ getting to take two days off of work because of your child, which I did last week. Once for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Apparently my bosses don't like black people, or at least that is the opinion of Wynn, who is half-African American. The next day, Sam text messaged me. "just in case you didn't know, school's canceled today"

I lept out of bed and whipped back the curtains. "ARGH!" There was snow everywhere. Glorious, beautiful snow. Great! I love snow. Except when the week before, I was late 3 hours one morning because I needed to argue with Steve, and late 3 hours the morning after that because a couple of inches of ice decided to turn the streets into a bumper car arena. So now I had to take a half-nationally recognized holiday and a freakin' snow day?

Well, Audrey and I made the best of it. After much cursing into my pillow, I dug my snow boots out of my pile of summer sandals and other shoes I haven't worn in months, searched hopelessly for Audrey's boots and then we trudged through the snow to Green Lake. We played at the park, threw chunks onto the iced-over lake, a sight I never thought Seattle would see, and built a snowman.

We even went to Starbucks, something that I never ever do with Audrey, because I never knew the name of any coffee shops when I was five. I suppose it was inevitable though. So we went in, and I got a Chai tea, because I don't drink coffee, and she got a hot cocoa of course. She gulped it down before moving on to my cup, declaring chai tea to be the "bestest drink in the whole wide world" and renouncing her previous allegiance to hot chocolate.

When I got back to work the next day, back to the grind, the ringing phones, for the first time in a long time I felt a twinge of sadness that I wasn't able to be at home with Audrey. I was home with her the first year, and while I've always treasured that time, I was ready to start a career. Entertaining a child all day every day, tending to a house, laundry, and those are your everyday aims and goals? I needed hours away from that. But now, Audrey has this great little personality, and we have actual conversations, drink Starbucks together and share an affinity for America's Next Top Model, I have a new appreciation for this little newt of mine.

It's always a day away

2007-01-18T21:40:00.000-08:00

I’ve been a grumpy bump lately, snapping, crying at the littlest thing, moping about like a miserable puke not wanting to do anything except play BrickBreaker on my BlackBerry. I was so excited when the final stroke of midnight finally brought 2006 to its bitter end, but January has royally sucked. Positivity (okay if negativity gets to be a word, why can’t positivity – screw Webster, I’m using it) has eluded me these several days, and I’ve been puzzled as to why.

Except that everywhere I turn there seems to be stress curdling and building up. There is so much that I don’t even want to write about here, because unlike before the big delete, when I wrote about everything, I can’t be as open anymore. Even writing this, the words feel stilted because of this censoring, but there is no alternative. I am weary of my life, though, and several of its crucial components. I feel like I am in a room full of chairs, but desperate as I am to sit down, every seat is bursting with thorns. I am strangled by the bad choices I have made in my past and cannot escape the ever strengthening hold they have on me.

At night, when I am trying to sleep, all of this churns over and over, and I whimper unknowingly until Steve wakes up and asks me what is wrong. How do I explain that it is the same thing as last night and the night before that? Instead I tell him he is dreaming, bite my lips in an attempt to prevent more sounds from escaping, and cover my head with a pillow with a hope that will somehow muffle my thoughts.

I have felt my agitation grow this month as Lee’s pregnancy comes to an end almost simultaneous to the first anniversary of the birth of my dead son. I find myself staring at her belly while we are at work, and I try to see through the layers of clothing, skin and flesh to the girl that kicks and flourishes within. My throat starts to close up as I fight the urge to warn her how all of this can be just fine, but babies die. My baby died! But she knows that, and I can’t say that. I know that everything will be okay for her, and maybe that is why all of this is hard for me. Because I knew everything would be okay for me, but it wasn’t. So I try hard to ignore what has happened and is happening to me. I keep our conversation lightweight and speckled with bits of advice now and again. But still as the days march on, she comes closer to giving birth, and Oliver comes closer to turning one in my heart.

I had a dream not too long ago that I got home from work to see Steve and Oliver there, just like it was normal, everyday. Steve had picked up Oliver on his way home from work. Oliver was 11 months old as he would be now, and as I knelt down in front of him, he let go of the couch and toddled over to me. His first steps. Steve and I marveled over him – so excited by his milestone. But then the phone rang. It was the doctor. Oliver had terminal lung cancer. I woke up crying, but for days after I replayed his first steps over and over in my mind, smiling to myself with pride, while trying to ignore the dire end.

I’m trying to pretend that I’m okay, with the thought that if I do, I will be okay – just like that. Today, I’m not okay. But that’s okay, because maybe tomorrow I will be.

music machine

2007-01-10T18:55:00.000-08:00

Like so many people, I love music. As a child I had sleeping issues, so I would lie awake singing every song I knew then making up my own. I wanted to be a songwriter, a creator of music, and though I never followed up on that particular dream, I still adore those little black dots that float along five black parallel lines to make sweet, sweet sounds, though, except for that one time in Ireland where part of our tin whistle education was to write notes into an exercise book, I’ve never created my own music. Instead, I’ve satisfied my love by teaching myself to play the piano and broadening my musical horizons.

Because my parents are very devout Christians, secular music of any kind was strictly verboten. But we still had plenty of music around, just different music. I grew up listening to Nathaniel the Grublet, Antshillvania and Psalty the singing songbook and many other Christian kid tapes. When I hit my tween years, I began listening to Amy Grant and several other Contemporary Christian artists. I never knew what I was missing. One night I was at a sleepover birthday party, and one of the games was to stick a word or phrase on the back of the guests and through hints, you were to guess who or what your were. Everyone else had long-since guessed hers, but I was the last one standing. Finally the mom stepped, because she realized I had no clue. When they took the sticker off my back and showed me the name, I shrugged in ignorance. Nirvana. I didn’t even know who Nirvana was.

So in recent years, I have been discovering artists to whom I was never exposed before. Steve has introduced me to a realm of 70’s and 80’s music I have come to adore, though my s nineteen year-old sister, who is firmly grasped by the twenty-first century is appalled by my new musical tastes.

But I am amazed by all that there is out there. I’d never heard of Roxy Music or the frontman Bryan Ferry, David Sylvian, or Al Stewart, and now I adore their music. David Bowie and Queen I’d heard only negative things about and of course Queen’s arena songs, but there is so much more to them. I’ve been devouring and entrenching myself in these new sounds that are old to so many: ELO, Kraftwerk, Leonard Cohen. I have however discovered newer recent artists as well. I was one of the first on the Snow Patrol wagon, I fell in love with Rufus Wainwright’s musical majesty, I adored Damien Rice, and Maria Mena, Rachael Yamagata, and Hooverphonic.

My favorite discovery of 2006 is definitely Regina Spektor. The depth and variety and creativity in her music confirm that she is a truly gifted musical genius, everything I dreamt of being as a child, I’ve found in her. She is me, the me I would be if I were true to the fullness of my childhood dreams.

So in the spirit of furthering my discovery of the world of music, I turn to you. Who is your favorite musician and/or 2006 discovery?

The me me

2007-01-08T23:31:00.000-08:00

So because I'm tired from a day playing with email settings and the Blackberry Pearl that replaced the sucky, sucky BlackJack and the only other thing I'd write about would be how I groaned and moaned and spent Saturday night on the throne (oh did I forget to mention how awesome the Seahawks game was on Saturday? That Romo guy on the Cowboys has my luck.), I'm posting this meme, with which I was tagged forever ago by the lovely and terribly patient Dawn, whom you all should go say hi to as her New Years present was a pink slip . Don't worry, I won't tag anyone. I am fully aware that Christmas is completely over. I don't even expect anyone to read this. On another note, in case you're wondering, Audrey and I are better now, and as a favor of remembrance, the carpet is holding on tightly to the aroma of stomach contents. MMM. Boy was I glad to come home to that after work tonight. Nothing helps me come to grips with missing Audrey during her week with the Swine like puke fumes. Without further ado, an oh so tardy Christmas meme. Take it for what you will.

1.Wrapping paper or gift bags? I love paper when it's all Martha Stewarty, but since I don't go to that expense as it all ends up in the garbage anyway and use the same roll for everything, paper can be a little boring.

2.Real tree or artificial? I love a real tree. The smell, the feel, the appearance just can't be duplicated, but I am trying to decide which is worse for the environment, killing a tree, or the energy that goes into making, shipping and packaging the artificial tree. I'll think about it this year and let you know.

3.When do you put up the tree? I didn't this year - my apartment is too dad-gum small.

4.When do you take the tree down? Typically New Year's Eve. Every year only needs one Christmas tree, not one at the beginning and end.

5.Do you like eggnog? Yum. I never go to Starbucks or drink coffee, but this December I lived on their eggnog latte. But my favorite way to drink eggnog is in a chilled glass with ice cubes.

6.Favorite gift you received as a child? A keyboard - it was the closest to a piano I would get for years. I loved it and played "Heart and Soul" over and over and over and over....

7.Do you have a nativity scene? No. I plan to some Christmas when I get around to buying myself Christmas decorations.

8.Hardest person to buy for? My aunt, and for good reason. Even this year, she opened the gift and gave me tips for how I could have done better. Argh!

9.Easiest person to buy for? Steve. I could go broke getting him all the things on my list. I know how to make him happy. This year I got him a remote control Aston Martin DB5 among many other things. I knew he would like it, but not as much as he did. He eagerly ripped open the box and set it up and raved and raved. He'd always wanted a remote control car, and finally, at 44, he had one. I teared up a little.

10.Mail or email Christmas cards? Neither.

11.Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A puppy. I desperately wanted a kitty cat. I said I wanted a kitty cat, but the swine decided to fulfill my childhood wish of waking up Christmas morning to a holey box bearing a dog. Sweet, but not want I wanted. We got rid of the dog a few months later when I got pregnant. Me and dogs just don't mix. Some people like other people's children and are happy to go home without one of their own - that's how I am with dogs. They are just too needy for my taste. Did I just lose half my readership?

12.Favorite Christmas movie? Christmas in Connecticut.

13.When do you start shopping? Day after Thanksgiving

14.Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes. I gave my sister the shoe organizer, which my boss gave me at the holiday party. It doesn't work with my closet.

15.Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Goodness, I love it all, and lots of it.

16.Clear lights or colored on the tree? I love clear lights. Love them.

17.Favorite Christmas song? Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" from "Meet Me in St. Louis"

18.Travel at Christmas or stay home? I want to go somewhere warm - just get away next year. The weather here has been disgusting. My brother will be stationed in Hawaii

19.Can you name all of Santa’s Reindeer? I think

20.Angel on the tree top or a star? Star

21.Open the presents on Christmas Eve or morning? This year we did it all on Christmas Eve, because that is when we had Audrey. We pretended Santa came then.

22.Most annoying thing about this time of year? How stressed out people get about buying the perfect present. Christmas is supposed to be a happy time and gifts are just a gesture of love and thoughtfulness.

23.Do you have Jesus in your heart this Christmas? Not as much as I should, but yes.

24.What would you like for Christmas? An end to all the crappy drama in my life.

Huff, puff, and blow chunks

2007-01-06T23:39:00.000-08:00

My apartment smells like puke. But it wasn’t me this time.

Yesterday, Audrey’s daycare decided to close early, something about in-service time or whatever, so that meant that I had to leave work early. My superior looked at me doubtfully when I told her, and I actually felt like I was leaving under false pretences. Isn’t it weird how we can make ourselves guilty for things totally above board? Or is it just me, the neurotic one.

Anyway, so I had to leave work early, and what do you know, Seattle was having another of its wannabe-Florida-but-with-hurricane-force-winds-rather-than-
sunshine-and-tanned-bikini-bodies storms. What is up with that? I walked as quickly as possible south from Belltown. I’d given up on my umbrella, for it was no good despite the pounding rain. I pushed down the street, laughing at those around me fighting their bumbershoots in the wind. Others pointed out how smart I was for carrying mine rather than trying to make it work. We all smiled at each other, marveling at the strenth of the system and mused at the way people's clothing was plastered against their bodies by the gusts. Nice how such things induce eye contact between strangers that would ordinarily deny the existence of each other’s presence. And even as the rain streamed down upon my uncovered head, like every good Seattle pedestrian, I waited at the crosswalks for the little white guy to appear before crossing the road. I felt like one of those reporters in a wind machine to demonstrate how this mph wind feels, except I was really in it. Each step was a workout, and I could actually lean into it at a forty-five degree angle and the wind held me up. I envied those with hoods and hats and was soaked by the time I reached Audrey’s daycare, thanking God that Steve had coincidentally needed to drive into Seattle to pick something up simultaneous to my need for a ride home.

When we arrived back at the apartment, Audrey and I set about drying off, and then had dinner before I noticed her looking a little peaked. She began burping A LOT, and went to bed early.

Steve came home hours later, and we cuddled on the couch together to watch an episode of “Are You Being Served?” to which I paid no attention. The sound of Audrey crying jumped me from my comfy position, and I burst into her room to find her standing in her closet – throwing up. Oh God! I grabbed her shoulders and guided her through the living room to the restroom as she threw up across the rug and the linoleum and then into the toilet again and again. My gag reflex went into overdrive, and I rubbed her back all the while wishing that the Swine had gotten this instead, since he probably gave her the blasted bug. I can’t remember when was the last time Audrey puked. Neither of us really knew what to do. She left strings of bile hanging from her mouth rather than spitting it out, and I was trying to comfort her without getting any on me, cause YUCK, and then I realized, I’m the mom, I’m supposed to get sick on me. So yeah, I smelled like puke, she smelled like puke, the bathroom, living room, kitchen and her room smelled like puke. I then ran screaming from the house vowing never to return until the putrid scent was gone, gone, gone. Either that or I drew Audrey a hot bath and marveled as Steve set about cleaning up the trail of puke and the dumpage in the closet.

As he scrubbed away, I went up to him and supervised for a moment before feeling a wave of emotion. A tear welled up in my eye, as I watched him gag a little. This wasn’t his kid, and yet there he was scraping up half-digested peanut butter and jelly. And then? He drove to the store to pick up some Febreeze even though he’d worked until 8, gotten home at 9, and was really, really tired. He totally wins. What I don’t know, but he definitely wins it. And I win too, because oh he’s the best.

After Steve Febreezed the crap out of everything, Audrey got hugs and pampering before we tucked her back into bed with a bowl and the instructions not to use the closet as her puking grounds next time. But she had no recollection of puking into the closet. Seems she was sleep puking, and the closet just happened to be the place to do it. Hmmm. I think tonight I’ll go whisper to her sleeping self that sleep puking should only be done in approved bowls and toilets that’s an order.

This morning, I smelled puke, but not fresh puke, 6 hours old puke, and I groaned, and then I groaned again and again. Oh my stomach. Ugh. It was horrible. Audrey’s came out the mouth, mine didn’t. I haven’t decided which is worse. So Steve went to work and we sick girls did fun things like watch stuff on the DVR all day, Meet Me in St. Louis and the Little Women with Katherine Hepburn were on the menu.

Tonight as I was tucking her into bed, I sang our favorite nighttime song, "Summertime," and she cringed, "You have bad breath, Momma." I slapped my hand over my mouth and she giggled, then sobered. Audrey wrapped her arms around my neck tightly and said, "I wish that I could be with you always."

"Me too, sweetheart," I said, smoothing her hair gently, and then I blew my breath in her face, and we crumpled together in laughter. It's an old parenting trick - deflecting pain with humor. I bid her goodnight, then promptly brushed my teeth. Twice.

She came into my room a little while ago. The burps were back, but I sent her back to bed hoping it was just a tad psychosomatic. However, my gut is still a'rumbling. Ugh. This sucks because I have a birthday party and candle party to attend tomorrow, but I don’t want to spread stomach rot. Guess we’ll just have to veg out with E.T. and the Little Women with Elizabeth Taylor.

Holiday Party Throw-up

2007-01-05T13:18:00.000-08:00

Wednesday morning I nearly blew away when I walked into the office building, so when they said the storm on Thursday was going to be bad, I believed them. The office was abuzz with speculations and rumors and excitement, made all the more intense by the knowledge that our Christmas party was to be right as the storm was near its worst, and there was a home Seahawks game to boot.

The day of, we all stared out the windows waiting for the trees to start moving, but the branches were eerily still. We knew it was the calm before the storm. As the day aged, I wore out the weather websites and news updates trying to determine when exactly the storm was to hit. I had a hair appointment to get to.

I left the office with my boss, who wonderfully offered to give me a ride at the last minute. It. Was. Raining. Argh. I realized with a slap to the forehead that not only had I forgotten to change from my stilettos to more manageable walk through gusting winds and horizontal rain shoes, but I hadn’t grabbed my umbrella either. The wind hadn’t started yet, but the rain definitely had. Just how was I going to get back to the office with my hair looking anything like that of Bride o’ Frankenschtein? Oh, boy.

I ran into the salon, ten minutes late for my appointment, to find Wynn sitting in my stylist’s chair. He was running way behind. I painted my fingernails a deep merlot, while sitting at the station next to them and chatting away about living in Seattle and all the changes that Bellevue has undergone, and forty-five minutes later, Wynn emerged from Chuck’s talented fingers with her little afro smoothed into a sleek bob. After running out to Wynn’s car in torrential rains, I returned with her umbrella and settled in to have my hair done.

“I want red carpet,” I said, as he pulled out my ponytail, “Curls, big ones, but no prom hair. Definitely no prom hair. I’m going for Hollywood , not Sweet Valley .” And I cursed myself for not remembering that picture I’d pulled out of InStyle the night before.

He pulled his fingers through my hair, gazed at me critically for several moments, and an hour and a half later, I stood up with gorgeous locks reminiscent of that the models sported on Victoria ’s Secret Runway Show that was on the other night, just shorter. I thanked him profusely, then went up to the counter to pay.

“It’s much worse out there,” the receptionist warned as she handed me a plastic rain cap, “I’m so worried about your hair.”

What could I do? I had to get back to the office. I donned my coat, pulled the plastic over my pretty, pretty hair, pulled open the door and propped open the umbrella. Out into the tempest I went. As soon as I turned the corner, the umbrella was yanked inside out by the gusts of wind, and I found myself being pushed down the street. It wasn’t raining that much, so I tucked the umbrella under my arm and slipped and tripped my way as quickly as possible the 6 blocks back to my office.

By the time I returned the office was next to deserted. I grabbed my makeup back and quickly slathered on eight pounds of the good stuff, threw on my pearls and donned my dress. It was nearly six. Steve had left work in Bellevue at 4:45. I called him to find out how close he was.

“I haven’t even made it to the freeway yet,” he said gruffly. Traffic, the storm, hunger, and feeling bad that he was going to be so late were making him quite the irritated Englishman. “You’ll have to find another way there – take a cab, find a ride.”

I protested a little saying something about wanting to get there on time but with him, but that only upped the grump factor, so I asked one straggler at the office if I could ride with her. She said, sure, that we only had to wait for her husband. And wait we did. We stared out the windows at the traffic and wind and rain and waited and waited. Seven o’clock came and her husband still hadn’t arrived, and a call to Steve revealed that he still hadn’t made it to the freeway. I wished that I could call the Tower and tell them to hold the party off for an hour. Here I’d planned the whole thing, and I was but a mile away unable to enjoy it. If it hadn’t been for the water streaming from the heavens, and the high, high heels and the freshly done hair, I totally would have walked, but as it stood, I was all dressed up with no place to go, or no go to the place as it were, but that’s stupid.

I did get there eventually. Her husband arrived; we crawled through traffic, and took three elevators up to the 75^th floor where the party was in full swing. I made a bee line for the bar, where I ordered a lemon drop. I gulped it down before hungrily throwing down a coconut crusted jumbo shrimp. I ordered a vodka tonic and settled in to enjoy the party after calling Steve to find out that he was just minutes away. Everyone shared their horror stories about getting through town to the party, and all the ladies admired each other’s dresses. We all looked fabulous. And of course, there was one woman in a red dress. I joked that I was supposed to be the diva, but it’s okay. My shoes made a good splash.

There was much more drinking and eating in the next couple of hours. We had a great time. My boss handed out the little presents, which had been our secret mission to find. No one knew they would be getting anything like that except him and me. So there was great laughter. He ended up getting me this hilarious shoe organization thing. Then we got our “office presents” – a $50 gift card to Starbucks and a spiral notebook Wynn and I designed. With that, the party was pretty much over, some people left to brave the storm, others like me went across the hall to the bar, where I had my fifth and final drink. Shouldn’t have done that.

The storm was rocking the building. Everyone was saying so. Not me. I kind of remember people pressing their faces against the windows to get the whole effect of the back and forth motion of the building, and I kind of remember people asking me if I could feel it. I suppose the alcohol canceled out the motion. Or something.

When we left the bar, I went back to the room to collect my gifts. Gone! What? I asked everyone. None of the clean-up crew had seen it, the desk staff was clueless, and I was one pissed off little drunk chick. “This is a private club,” I ranted. “I shouldn’t have to worry about theft here. My things were right here,” I motioned to the table we’d occupied earlier.

I wish I could say that the items were recovered, but it turns out my stuff and the gifts of three others for a grand total of $350 went “missing.” I was pissed, but there was nothing to do about it then.

Steve collected me and got me home where I promptly ran to the bathroom, struggling with the zipper to my dress to I could throw up without getting anything on it. I was a sight to behold, boobs hanging out, throw-up streaming out, and a dress gathered around my waist as I knelt my the toilet. After I was done, I drunkenly realized that because I’d left my camera on my desk at the office, I didn’t have any pictures of me. I pulled my dress back on and mumbled to Steve that he needed to get a picture of me.

But by the time he came into the bedroom, I’d passed out. How gentile of me. Below are the pictures he managed to get with my Blackjack phone. All that money spent, and this is all I had to show for it.

The next morning, Steve yelled at me to get out of bed. I was going to make him late for his meeting. The world was still spinning. I felt HORRIBLE, but I didn’t want to be the girl who stayed home because she had a hangover. Oh yeah, and there was no power. Lest I forget to mention, there was a huge storm. It knocked out the power. But life goes on, so I eventually pulled myself out of bed, stumbled around in the dark to put on whatever clothes were nearby (we are so not even emergency prepared AT ALL) and somehow made it out to the car. I realized dropping Steve at work was out of the question, since my blood alcohol still must have been point one something, so we drove together to my work. I shielded my eyes from the blinding street lights and groaned in agony, begging Steve to turn down the radio. I groaned and groaned, and when we pulled in front of my office, I realized that there was no way I would be able to handle it just then.

“Take me to your work; I’m going to have to sleep this off in the car. That’s all there is to it.”

So we went to Bellevue, he went to work, where there was no power, I went to sleep in the cold, cold car, woke up took three hours to go 10 miles because of accidents, trees in the road, no street lights and really, really bad route decisions. Work was deserted when I arrived. Most people had no power, or the streets were too icy to even get out of hilly driveways. So I sat at work with theworsst hangover of my life until lunchtime when Lee and Wynn took me to Dick’s for some greasy hangover cures. Bless them.

The club where we had the party gave us a gift certificate to make up for what was “lost,” and when I went home I had power, but Audrey’s room was flooded. Whee.

So that’s it -the story I have written in bits and pieces, probably wanders too much and desperately needs some editing, but I’m done. I really only posted it because I’d built up the dress so much. Here it is.

Auld Lang Swine

2007-01-03T12:29:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, the new year. Thank God we made it. 2006 is the year that I will block from my memory cells for all eternity. Double oh seven has a certain ring of luck and intrigue to it. And three days in, I already feel like things are looking up.

We're moving back to the Eastside. Bellevue, here we come. We're actually going back to the same apartment building for old times sake, so it's a new beginning, but not really. It's a bigger, better apartment with views of Meydenbauer Bay, and no chance of flooding, which you know, is a really, really good thing.

I thought that the new year might bring new revelations that would perhaps brighten my dismal view of the ex-husband, but with the whole credit report thing and today's conversation, well that just isn't happening.

As I mentioned before, Audrey has been in Denver with the Swine et al, they are returning even as we speak. Early this morning, my phone woke me up, since it was the Swine, my heart started beating and I answered expecting something dire.

"Hey," he said, "I know it's early but Audrey really misses you and wanted to talk to you. Here."

He handed the phone to Audrey, and her chirpy, cheerful voice filled the phone, "Hi, Momma."

My froggy, groggy voice answered in return, "Good morning, Baby Girl. Momma was sleeping, but it sure is good to hear your voice. I love you."

"I love you too, Momma. Is Papa there?" she asked.

"He's sleeping darling. It's not time for us to wake up yet."

"Well, when the sun comes up will you tell Papa that I love him and miss him sooooo much?"

I said I would and with that she was done talking to me.

Later in the day while I was at work, Sam called me again. This time Audrey was crying and really, really, really missing me. Sam said, "Audrey really wants to see you, so can I drop her off when we get into town tonight?"

"You mean like at eleven?" I asked.

"Well, it'd be more like eleven-thirty, but yeah, then," he answered gruffly.

"Sam, I go to bed at eleven, and her room isn't back to normal from the flooding. I wasn't expecting her until Thursday," I said hesitantly, not wanting to come off like I didn't want to have her back.

"Okay, so I'll just tell your crying daughter that you don't want to see her. Is that what you want?" He was really pushing it.

"Of course not, Sam," I said, "Just call me when you get back into town."

After we hung up the phone I called my mom and told her about the exchange with Sam.

"You know," she surmised, "he has probably just had enough of her and doesn't want to have to bother with her in the morning, getting her ready for daycare and whatnot. They are going to get back so late, Audrey will fall asleep in the car and won't even notice if Sam tells her you will pick her up at daycare on Thursday."

"Well, he spent so much time with her in London. I don't see how he could have "enough of her," I said, pointlessly defending him.

"No he didn't," she retorted. "Audrey was either with me or his mother. They were hardly ever together."

"You're right," I remembered, wondering again why he pressed so hard for full custody. "I'm going to call him back right now."

So I did, when he picked up I said, "Sam, I just don't think it's the best idea for you to drop Audrey off tonight. She ---"

He interrupted me, "Fine! I'll tell Audrey. She's standing right here. Audrey! Your mother said you can't come home tonight. She doesn't want to see you. Do you want to talk to her?"

Anger surged through my veins, as I steeled myself for Audrey's tears.

"Hi momma," Audrey chirped.

"Hey there. How are you?" I asked.

"I'm happy now. I have to pee really, really bad."

I struggled to find the connection between happiness and the urge to urinate while relaxing with the knowledge that she most likely hadn't heard a ridiculously mean word with which Sam had attempted to upset her. Audrey handed the phone back to her dad, so she could find a potty, and he shut the phone without a word.

I decided to let it go at that, but I couldn't believe what he'd tried to pull. It's written into the divorce papers that neither of us shall ever disparage the other parent in front of the child. If you ask me, that was a blatant attempt to disparage this particular parent. Where's Trump when I need him? Because that Swine deserves to be fired.

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Things sure did get pretty shaken up after my holiday party. I still have a half written post and some photos, but that will have to wait.

The past few weeks have been nutty - the storm brought flooding to my apartment, then more storms brought more flooding, so I exiled myself to my aunt's house in Kirkland, where alas I had no wireless internet, nor the desire to brave the weather in an attempt to find a cafe with internet purely so I could post to my blog. I went through some withdrawals, but mostly I knitted and enjoyed my family and shopped and shopped.

Christmas was great. My sister gave me fur, to which I shrieked, "Are you trying to get me sprayed with red paint?" before wrapping the rabbit puff balls around my neck and falling into a luxury-induced coma. Mmmm, furrrrrr. Thanks Bugs. Thumper, you're the best.

New Year Eve was okay. Yesterday was better. A whole bottle of champagne to myself? Yummm. Okay, so it was two bottles. Just don't tell anyone.

Audrey has been in Denver with her dad and his consort braving the storms down there. When I spoke to her today, she was morning the melting of her bestest snowman, so I suppose they'll be able to fly out of there okay, which is definitely a good thing.

Let's see, what else....oh yeah. I decided to take advantage of that free annual credit report thing, and all over again I want to urdermay the Swine. Folks, why didn't I do a better job separating our credit after the divorce? I was so not even paying attention to so many things I should have been paying attention to. So yeah, he's pretty much screwed me on a great many fronts. Objection! Operation Get Swine's Financial Ass Out of Mine is in high gear. GOOD LORD do I hate credit. Apparently his damage will be undone oh in about two thousand freaking thirteen. Shoot me now! I am going to be old, blind and incontinent before I can even think about getting a house. Add it to the list people. Add it to the list.

Blow harder

2006-12-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

Posting was definitely interrupted by the huge storm of '06. Hopefully my home internet will be restored today, so I'll be back later with a post about the holiday party/storm, which occured simultaneously. If that isn't enough - we were on the 75th floor. Ha!

la vie dans la mort

2006-12-14T08:04:00.000-08:00

I read in someone’s blog the other day about how after death she would like to be cremated and the ashes spread over the Pacific Ocean, and it got me to thinking about how my wishes have evolved.

When I was younger, I always thought that funerals, headstones and lavish coffins were a horrible waste of money, so I always said that I wanted to be buried in a recycled wood box in an unused field somewhere. That was fine with me for a while, but then even that seemed too much, so I just said that it is all stupid and the best thing for all would be for me to be cremated and my ashes flushed down the toilet, for what does it matter. I’m dead, after all.

Then Oliver died, and while I couldn’t imagine burying him in cold English soil, leaving him so far from his parents who would soon be living again in the United States, flushing him down a toilet was unfathomable. Just the thought sends shivers up my spine. So we had him cremated and put in a little tin urn where he still sits to this day on a table in our bedroom.

From time to time we discuss what to do with the permanently. We tossed around the idea of spreading the ashes over the Atlantic Ocean – the divide between his homeland and his parents, mixing the ashes with the soil in which a bonsai tree is planted, putting it in a capsule and burying it under a bench donated in his name to Green Lake, or just buying a fancier urn and keeping him forever.

It’s this attachment and concern for what to do with the ashes that reminded me that it’s not about the dead one, it’s about the living. We all have our wishes that we hope are respected, but in the end I’ve learned that my family could never flush me down a toilet. They wouldn’t be able to do that no matter how much I requested it, and I feel silly for ever dismissing the significance of mine or anyone else’s remains.

I’ve learned a lot about life and death this year, more than I have in my entire life. Losing a child will, I suppose, do that to you.

But still, does anyone really need the Cadillac of coffins? Nobody’s body is that special.

I know this post has been a little morbid, as some people can't stand to think about what happens then, but there are other people who can't stop. In which camp do you fall?

Happy 2nd Annual Blog Cookie Exchange!

2006-12-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

As I’ve stated a blogillion times already, I love Christmas. Love. It. So when I saw the invitation for the 2nd Annual Blog Cookie Exchange last week over at Susie’s, I counted down the minutes till today with my handy dandy abacus, which, for sure, helps the time go by faster. And what do you know, here we are. You have to go read Susie’s entry, because she is so much more Christmasy lovin’ than even I, because I love the holiday, but because of life crazy haven’t been able to enjoy too many traditions the past few years. But as instructed, I’ll tell my:

Favorite holiday recipes
Special traditions
Favorite gift to give
What you wear when you don your gay apparel :)

One of my favorite things to do every December is to make a buttload of candy. Ever since I was a wee narcissist, I’ve loved to dabble in the confectionary arts. Years of staring at the candy thermometer, pulling taffy, which God bless me, I will never do again, and all the other temperamental duties that go along with making good candy, have made me into somewhat of a pro, though I do emphasize somewhat. So I’m not going to share cookie recipes, because I only make the standard sugar and gingerbread.

Favorite Holiday Recipes

This year, this coming weekend in fact, I am going to hunker down in my kitchen, throw on my apron and my candy chef cap and whip up some pralines, divinity, pumpkin fudge, nutty fudge, peanut brittle, and peppermint patties (insides colored red and green).

One year, my really good friend and I decided to make candy to give as presents for all of our friends, because poor college students can’t afford more and will gladly gobble up food gifts of any kind. The fudge turned out perfectly, so we turned our attention to the divinity. We whipped up the eggs, and started to measure out the sugar when we realized that we were short by nearly a cup full. We went through her mother’s cupboards searching everywhere, but there was none to be found save for a couple of plastic containers of colored sugar crystals typically sprinkled over baked cookies. We looked at each other, then to the red and green sugar and over to the sagging egg whites. “It’s still sugar,” I shrugged and measured it out and dumped it in before she could object. The pristine, white mixture became a putrid, purple hue, and there was nothing divine about it. The little balls we dropped onto the cookie sheet became flat, little pancakes of goo. Oh how I'd wish we'd taken a picture. But once they set a little, we discovered that they didn’t taste all that bad. The taste and texture were nowhere near that of divinity, so we knew that we had to come up with a new name for our unique concoction – thus was the birth of Rebecca and Alyssa’s Mmm Bop Mess-up Cookies. Try it yourself some time.

Special Traditions

Because my family moved around so much when I was young, we never really were able to set up too many traditional traditions. It was never Christmas Eve at grandma’s with all of the cousins, aunts and uncles together, we didn’t go Christmas caroling in our neighborhood, and the times we had open fires, there sure weren't any chestnuts to be had. About fifteen years ago, we started getting a Christmas tree on my brother’s birthday, Dec. 8th, every year, because nothing says “Happy B-day, Son” like a big, bushy fir tree. And we always opened our presents on Christmas Day, no exceptions because of the Dad Nazi, though my mother always lobbied for one present to be opened on Christmas Eve as was her tradition growing up. Sadly, it never worked. This year, I am going to adopt her family’s tradition of the pajama present that gets opened on Christmas Eve. Maybe next year, I'll start another new tradition after I find it. I love traditions, the every year of them, the warmth and routine. One tradition I dropped though, was my dad’s habit of making mince pies and Waldorf salad every year. We never ate them; there were too many other good things on the table - including my divinity. We also used always to get an advent calendar and take turns between the kids who got to open the day, but I can never find them nowadays. Do they even still exist?

Favorite Gift to Give

Well, besides my presence, of course, I enjoy giving real presents. It is actually my favorite part, watching people open the gifts I lovingly chose for them and carefully wrapped and topped with a sticker-backed bow. I also love to give handmade gifts, hence all of the candy. This year I’ve added another handmade gifts generating hobby to my repertoire, so I’ll be posting pictures of those soon. But the favorite gift of all that I am giving this year has to be one of them that I got Steve – his ultimate dream – an Aston Martin DB5. Pictures of that, too, will be forthcoming.

How I don my gay apparel?

Hmm, well sensible shoes and khaki pants aren’t really my thing. Oh wait, I don’t think that’s what she meant. God, I’m bad. I don’t do Christmas clothes either – I love pretty, party dresses, but red velvet, snowman sweaters, Christmas earrings? They are definitely not me. You go ahead though. I’m not knockin’ it, just not rockin’ it.

So fa la la la la la la blah blah blaaaaaah.

I hope you’ll join in on this fun exchange. If you do let me know below, because I would love to read about it. And drop in on Susie, as this is, after all, her party.

Big screen book

2006-12-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

Two days till the holiday party, and three days until the big reveal. I’m not telling which one I got until then that way no one can say I did badly, which might just make this neurotic decide to take the dress back. And Lord knows that I don’t think I could handle that. I did win the prize for spending the most on the dress, but I should have just stopped with the $30 dress I got on clearance from Arden B., but it just wasn’t the dress. I just bought it because it was a cute little black dress. I didn’t even take a photo. My wallet would love me a lot more if I’d refrained from buying the one from Cache.

Last night, I was the biggest old lady on the block. I baked and I did things with yarn. Throw in a couple of crossword puzzles and I would have been utterly geriatric. But it was okay. I watched some Christmas movies, ate leftover pasta and thoroughly enjoyed spending the evening alone.

Steve’s new job has its definite downfall. The hours he works have so far been double-edged. I barely see him, but on the other hand, I really, really enjoy the me time. Tonight I’m having a girl’s night – happy hour and a movie.

When I first saw the trailer for The Holiday, I told Steve, “I’ve read that book, but it wasn’t called that.” And I pondered and pondered, trying to figure out what it was. I mentioned the plot similarity to Wynn, my aforementioned work buddy, and she exclaimed, “I’ve read that too!”

So we both wracked our brains to no avail. Finally I turned to my trusty friend Google, isn’t he your friend too? I entered “Ireland, house swiap, book plot” into the search engine, and VOILA. A site popped up featuring an interview with Maeve Binchy popped up. She was discussing Tara Road, one of my favorite novels of hers. “Duh!” I blurted. And then I looked at the IMBD site for The Holiday. It told me that the film had been written with the four leading actors in mind. Hmm, they forgot to mention how much Binchy was on the screenwriters mind. Oh I forgot. The plot’s a little different. They swap between L.A. and England and not Ireland and New England. Wow! That’s a leap. The film deal should have been Binchy’s.

But I’ll see the film tonight. And I’ll read the book again, for it has been a long time. And I’ll do my own investigation as to plot similarities. Hmmmm

calling for dresses

2006-12-08T12:56:00.000-08:00

Malls at Christmastime… Not my favorite place to be, but sometimes il est tres necessaire. (Aside: I don’t know why, for I am hardly fluent, but I often find myself thinking, writing and speaking in the French I do know. Strange because I don’t know anyone who speaks French, nor have I been to a French speaking region.)

As you all know, I spent the majority of Saturday shopping for my holiday party dress. I was so excited to find so many wonderful dresses and to read of y’all’s input, and when I read the paper Sunday evening and found that the special occasion dresses at Macy’s were 25% off and I had a 20% coupon, the little bargain-loving bug in my belly went hippy-skippy since 2 of the most voted on dresses were from Macy’s. I was so excited about my coupon, so pleased that I hadn’t purchased the day before and would now save 45% off my dress.

At work the next day, I proudly showed off my coupon and cautiously shared news of the sale with my colleagues after eliciting promises that they wouldn’t buy “my” dress. And as the day wore on, I looked at my phone, my 28 days old phone that I bought to replace my perfectly good Razr. I decided I didn’t like it. I decided that I wanted something else, as in BlackJack something else. So, I called the cell company store, had them set a couple aside for me and told them I would drop by later in the evening to change them out.

Steve arrived home that evening and we headed to the mall at 7:30 and decided to hit the S*ingular store first. We were pleased to see our friend working, the one who’d given us a splendid deal on the other phones.

As we waited to see him, we oohed and aahed over the BlackJack features, and sneared at our old phones, which had seemed perfectly lovely less than a month before, in disgust. After our guy was ready to see us, I began my little tapdance, because, you know, momma loves a bargain. It’s a $449.00 phone. Would I ever pay that much? Utter a collective “oh hail nah” please. So I asked our “friend” to work us up a deal.

He said, “Well, I can give you the phones for $300.00 with a $100 rebate.”

I looked at him for a moment, “Earlier a colleague told me I could get one for $200 and one for $300.”

He laughed, “Oh did he, now?”

“If I was lying,” I smiled coyly, “Wouldn’t I have said that he’d offered both the phones for $200 without the rebate?”

“Probably,” our helper said, and began taking my Sim out of the old phone and putting it in the pretty, new BlackJack.

“So, are we going to make a deal here? I’m going to be adding a lot of things to my account right now.”

I batted my eyelashes and made him laugh a lot and pretty soon I had the BlackJacks for $100 each, a 20% service discount placed on my account, and the assurance that from now on, if I come to him I can get whatever I want buy one get one free.

I know where I’m doing my Christmas shopping. And I think I now want a career in negotiation. Aaaah.

I got the deal I wanted and I saved a butt-load of money, but now it was 9:30 pm . That was two whole hours of standing in 4 inch stilettos that my feets just didn’t need. Thankful was I that I’d tried on dresses all ready, so I’d just have to run into Macy’s and buy THE ONE . I hobbled into the store, found tossed off my heels and padded barefoot to the dress section.

It was a sea of nothingness. All of the racks were dangling with sorry excuses for picked-over dresses. My heart sank. How had I ever deluded myself that at the end of the two-day sale there would be any left? I flipped through the nearly empty racks, I scoured the put-backs, but none of the dresses that I had tried at the other Macy's were there.

I begged Steve to drive to Bellevue Square , so we could go to that Bellevue Square , and he agreed. So we drove all the way across Lake Washington , and I scampered into Macy’s just after 10 PM , thank God for extended hours, I tell you. Thank God. I found the dress department and NOT. ONE . DRESS in any size in any style that I liked was gone, and not one size 2 was left in the ENTIRE FREAKING DEPARTMENT.

Skinny coupon using bitches stole my dresses. I grabbed a frazzled sales lady. "Any chance there are any more dresses in the back?"

She laughed and kept walking. Merry Christmas to you, too.

This story sucks. I'm done writing now. Goodnight.

P.S. Shout out to my brother, Red, proudly serving his country in the Navy. It's his 21st B-day today!

too short

2006-12-07T15:57:00.000-08:00

I am a little drunk, a lot tired and my toes feel like someone's been banging on them with a hammer. I only had time to write half of today's post, so I will put it up tomorrow morning.

Today was a good, good day - with a cruddy ending, but that's even okay. half is better than none

the irresponsible woman

2006-12-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

I always had a strained relationship with my ex mother-in-law. I never approved of the way she did things, lots of things. Does it surprise you to learn that I tend to be overly judgmental and “always right?” I was horrified when she wanted to give my little baby chocolate. Why would I give my baby chocolate or sweets of any kind? My mother never gave me sugar for my first two years. It was my grandparents that introduced me. Is that the grandparents’ job? I’ve been fighting a lifelong addiction to sugar. I’m finally overcoming that aching yen for all things sweet. What if I’d never had sugar my entire childhood? But I hold that my mother’s basis of nutrition for my first two years is responsible for the healthy body shape I’ve get even through two pregnancies.

It wasn’t so much that I was trying to protect Audrey from my candy obsession, more that I valued nutrition and wanted to make sure that every bite my baby took aided her physical and mental development to the fullest extent. Chocolate, sugar – not exactly making that list – I was surprised that she even suggested them. When I balked at the idea, she noted that there was a picture of Audrey’s face covered in chocolate sauce. No, no of course not. It was spinach I told her. Spinach, not chocolate.

That was the nature of our interaction. She would want something that went completely against my idea of good parenting and seemingly resent me for disagreeing. Did I think she was a good mother? I’m sure she was. A nutritionist? No. Her children all grew up obese, not mean-spirited, just a scientific fact. Do I think she has a good idea of what children should eat? Not at all. She gives Audrey bad food and drink because I’m not there to stop her, and that’s the price I have to pay. It saddens me – people who think it is kind to let children eat whatever they want, however much they want. It is better to teach your child proper nutrition and help them learn limits.

Nutrition is one thing. This was another. When Audrey was two, she horrified me by driving her only grandchild around without a car seat. In my mind, that’s playing Russian roulette with a life that is not hers with which to gamble. She got herself in a serious car accident reaching for a cell phone. What if Audrey had been in the car that day without her car seat?

Okay, now I’ve just been ranting. I guess my hatred of her spawned the day I got that paper and it showed that Sam got the $5,000 lawyer money from her. I could just imagine her gleefully writing him a check with the hopes that her evil safety and nutrition minded ex daughter in law would soon be a distant memory. Ugh.

So when Audrey told me last night while we were at the gas station that her granny let her go into a gas station alone to look at the candy while she stayed with the car putting gas in, my blood curdled. She’s still playing roulette with my daughter’s safety, my daughter’s life. It only takes a moment for something to happen. A moment. All I could think about was the little girl whose mother let go to the grocery store bathroom alone only to be followed in by a miscreant who molested her. It only takes a moment. It doesn’t matter at all that nothing happened to Audrey while she was alone in the convenience store, what matters is that something could have happened and has happened to other little girls. Why take preventable, irresponsible risks? A five year old does not belong in a convenience store by herself under any circumstances.

I’m not overprotective by any means. I’m not. But there are certain basic safety precautions every individual ought hold to when entrusted with the life of a child. Am I being unreasonable? Maybe it's dangerous for me to have a blog - it's just too tempting to rant about the dark side.

streaming

2006-12-05T13:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve been drifting in and out of my past a lot lately. I pulled up the archives from the first two years of this site that I keep on a memory stick and couldn’t read much at all. I try not to feel ashamed of everything I’ve been through, but that is only possible if I don’t think about it. So I don’t, and I got to thinking about how that is indicative of how I deal with a lot of my life struggles and black experiences.

I was reading a woman’s blog recently, a woman who is dealing with acute pain resultant of the loss of two babies almost exactly a year apart. Her pain is crushing and intense, and as I read it, I reflected on my grief process for Oliver – the whirlwind of those days and months. It still feels like a foggy dream from which I’ve awoken and still am trying to bind the wispy strands together to make a complete memory. Glimpses of the hospital room, the shirt I was wearing, the stocking that fell down my leg during the funeral with only three attendants, the plane ride with ashes in my carryon bag…and sometimes I find myself overwhelmed by them all. Sometimes one moment whelms me, just that one moment when I pushed the button on the door to be readmitted into the PICU ward and stood waiting for what felt like hours to return to the bedside of my dying son while another mother assured me my child would be okay, and I could only smile weakly knowing that in the morning we were to turn off the machines.

But I don’t get those flashbacks, I don’t get that emotion every moment of every day. Oliver is on my mind often, but I block out the pain and deny myself the grief. When he died, I had to get on a plane and fight hard not to lose my other child. How does one grieve with another child on the line? There was no time to reflect and mourn, but to strategize and press toward middle ground.

At Bellevue Square tonight, Steve and I sat on a bench while Audrey played on the tug boat in the play area and both of us watched a little child playing nearby, and I knew both of our hearts went in the same direction.

“Oliver would have been close to walking,” I noted, watching the little pudgy hand slap the carpeted dock. Steve nodded wistfully and squeezed my hand. We allow those moments but rarely. Strength has been our mantra. There have been milestones and rare setbacks, but for the majority of the time our grief is set aside.

Sometimes however, I wonder if I’ve gone about it all wrong. Should I have been more incapacitated, should I be angrier, sadder? Is it better to dwell on him and my loss? What is normal, right?

In drifting between past and present, I have found myself thinking recently of this time last year – when I, a world away from here, was roaming up Bond Street and down Oxford Street maneuvering my growing belly in and around the bustling crowds of Christmas shoppers and tourists. I looked forward to a year so different from the one that is now ending, and I almost feel embarrassed at how naively I envisioned a rosy future. How grey that pink year became. How black.

I’ve become jaded. I’ve narrowed my foresight. I’ve become less trusting. I’ve become less naïve. I feel ruined by 2006, robbed, like I should be holding my arms out, turning circles and shouting curses at the heavens.

But I don’t think about it. Except when I do. Which is why I don’t. I don’t like to think about grief, wrong or right, naïveté, trust, blackness. That’s what the heart box is for. I’ll stop drifting between past and present, and I’ll put that memory stick back in the shoe box. I’ll reaffix the blinders. I’ll pretend.

Everything is okay. I am happy.

Are you?

la vie en rose

Yea! Boohoo( Story tomorrow

2006-12-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

What I got today:

What I didn't get today:

MMM TV GOOD stomach pain bad

2006-12-03T11:13:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's amazing how much time you can spend in blog land. That's what I did this morning - surfed blogs. If I missed yours so sorry. Do you know how many blogs there are out there?

You know what else I did today? I washed my sheets and my underwear. Are you fascinated yet? No, well I also stared at pictures of myself trying to figure out which dress to buy. You guys are so helpful but also very divided. I'm going to decide in the next couple of days and then go shopping again. Party number 1 is this Thursday.

Oh, and I know there are nine dresses posted below, but that was because I posted one twice and then removed it, as the tenth dress, which should have been up there, was actually a happy absence, since upon closer eyeballing I noticed that my red lacey girlie wear was visible. Yeah, not buying that dress and so not posting the picture.

Yesterday on break from all of the dress shopping, my mom and I went to see Stranger Than Fiction. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Will Farrell was quite good, and the story had more depth than I expected. Can I just press upon you how wonderful an actress Emma Thompson is?
Her mannerisms and expressions are not that of Emma Thompson, but those of the novelist whom she is portraying. Isn't it refreshing when an actor is not herself in every film?

This posting every day crap is hard than I thought. I have a stomach ache, wah. So rather than pushing myself to write, I'm curling up on the couch with Steve and the DVR. Adieu

The dress

2006-12-02T15:23:00.000-08:00

I am in a really bad mood. Like wishing the demise of several people bad mood. As I drove home from shopping Bellevue tonight, so busy was I thinking of all of the fun accidental ways certain people could meet their untimely doom, that I did not even notice the pretty Christmas decorations on the ginormous mansions that dot the shores of Lake Washington until my mom pointed them out to me. I always notice Christmas decorations, but I had tunnel vision. I was pissed, seething, and I kind of still am. The bad mood, however has stuck. But here's to hoping a blog post will alleviate it a little.

I went shopping today for the perfect holiday party dress. I brought my mom with me because sometimes moms are the perfect shopping buddies and we could use the bonding time. We shopped a. lot. And I tried on a billion dresses, and I just so happened to have worn exactly the wrong clothes. What a moron. You know - never wear four layers on top, and zip up boots with your jeans tucked into them when you are going to be changing in and out of it ten times in the course of a few hours. Everytime I got into a changing room it was peel off blazer, shell, tank top, bra, boots, jeans, socks, try on dress, try on dress, try on dress, put on socks, pull on jeans, zip boots over pant legs, because I'm cool like that, snap on bra, slink into tank top, throw on the shell and button up the blazer. Repeat, rinse, dry. Geez, that was annoying.

I thought it was going to be more difficult to find dresses that I like, because my Amazonian frame is prone to odd fits of the torso and mammery gland variety, but this year was a banner year. And golly, what a tough time I am having deciding between them all. Luckily I remembered to bring my camera, so guess what? You get to help me pick my dress. Isn't that exciting? Yeah, I know, not so much. This dress is for our Black & White Holiday Party, hence the lack of color in my prissy palette, Steve's Brmmm, Brmmm Party, and my mom's Family and Friend's Holiday Party. So whoopee, I'll get to wear it THREE times. I love it. That means I get to divide the cost by three and spend way more. HA!

So without further ado and any particular order, here are the 10 dresses that made the cut, though Steve and I agree there are 4 forerunners. And yes, next time I'll put a little more variety in my poses. What a bore I am. That's why no America's Next Top Model for me. Yeah...

Sometimes I am hopelessly inept. I can't for the life of me label these and I don't feel like organizing them into one numbered picture, so just imagine them numbered right to left. I'm tired now, and lucky to get this posted with 37 minutes left in the day. What a shame it would have been if I failed on day 2 of my resolve. I'll be visiting blogs on Sunday. Leave the homefires a' burnin'

decks the halls with daily blog posts

2006-12-01T04:38:00.000-08:00

fa la la la la la la la la

I honestly do not know why they picked November for National Novel Writing Month and all of the NaBlo wha who events that have been developed in its wake. Isn’t November a busy month for people? I know that the US is the only Thanksgiving Day country, but even England has Guy Fawkes day. Couldn’t they have picked a different month – say April? Really, who is busy in April?

By the time we hit November, I have just had Steve’s birthday, then Halloween and the first day of the month is Audrey’s birthday and it goes uphill from there. So how am I supposed to find the time to write a 50,000 word unreadable piece of literary waste? And please don’t’ take this to heart, but I chuckled at the blog everyday of the month people, because isn’t blogging in its essence a daily activity?

But it did inspire me just now, right this very minute. After months, well, close to a year and a half of terribly spotty posting, I am going to make it my goal to post daily for the month of December. I want to get back in the habit of writing. I want my brain to start thinking that way again. So it’s time to stretch beyond. So I know, December is much busier than November, which makes it that much more of a challenge. So booya! You can do it too. Any bloggers that skipped the NaNoBloPoHoMo brouhaha care to join me? If so comment below, so I can exercise my visiting other bloggers muscle more strenuously. I don’t have any pretty badges for you to post on your blog, but it can still be fun.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I've changed the name of this blog countless times now depending on my whim and what I've been going through. When my primary blog was Narcissistic Flight, named so because that's how I described my divorce, I started this blog, calling it The Narcissist's Secrets. When all of my secrets were out of the bag, I changed it to The Narcissist. It was hard to feel like a narcissist after Oliver died, so the blog became The Next Chapter. Fed up with the name changes it became Narcissistic Flight yet again. But I think I've finally found the perfect descriptor for me, hence the new blog name. This is it. No matter what, I am never changing my name again.

This and that

2006-11-30T11:57:00.000-08:00

I heart snow. That little rustling sound snowflakes make as they settle to the ground is so peaceful, and the way it covers everything – rusted out cars, litter, bare tree branches – with a coat of forgiveness almost convinces me that the world is clean and a better place for it. But of course that is just the surface.

Enter Seattle. November has been the rainiest month, well ever – we just broke the record. We have now had more than 13” of precipitation. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s Seattle, what did I expect? Well I’ll tell you what I didn’t – snow. Since Sunday, Seattle has been a winter wonderland of sorts – that is if a wonderland is a place where your evening commute becomes a four hour nightmare and hundreds are forced to abandon cars along roadsides. I’ve never felt so lucky A. to live in the city and B. to have four-wheel drive. I love it though. Every moment white fluffy stuff drops from the heavens widens my smile.

I’ve always gotten childlike pleasure from snow, which is why I miss white winters, why I hate the constant rain so much, why Seattle’s rain makes me dreary and why I turn into a five year old every type the watery sky yields flakes rather than drops. My favorite snow memory is from when we lived in North Pole, Alaska.

My parents went to pick my grandmother up from the Fairbanks airport just as a blizzard hit the region. By the time they came home the snowdrifts were 3 feet high and the power was off. Being in the middle of winter, we only had a couple hours of daylight, so it wasn’t as though we had much time to play outside. Instead we stoked the wood stove in our little log cabin and hunkered down as a family. My dad had horror stories of his mother as a child. To him she was an Irish Catholic child-having ogre who bore 14 kids but never told them she loved them, but for those four days she was our loving grandma. We played games, cooked over the wood stove and got to know my grandmother, whom I seen only once before, by the light of the kerosene lantern. We didn’t even have running water. It was just like Little House on the Prairie, only we didn’t have piss pots or an outhouse. Cleverly, my dad melted pounds and pounds of snow for the toilet tank because three days of seven people on one toilet was just not going to work otherwise. I shudder even now. If it hadn’t been for the snowstorm and power outage, we probably would have spent sometime watching television or playing our new Nintendo. Instead every moment went to family time. We couldn’t even do dishes.

It was as if it was meant to be. After my parents left to take my grandmother back to the airport the power returned. I washed the dishes that had accumulated for days and turned on the Nintendo. Back to life as usual.

Do you have a favorite snow story?

Thing Two

So now you know I love the snow. But did you also know that I love, nay adore, Christmas movies? Every time a bell rings, I’ll shoot my eye out for a white Christmas. Yeah, a lot of them are cheesy, but I love love love the claymation from the 70’s and look forward to the nightly holiday magic on the FoxFamily channel, or whatever it’s called nowadays. The Christmas List with Mimi Rogers is at the height of cheesy goodness. When I was a child, my mother taped several Christmas specials for us, so every year after it was a tradition to watch that tape – it has the Chipmunks Christmas, Smurf’s Christmas, and wonderful 80’s commercials for Crayola with a song I can still sing and an ice skating Ronald McDonald. I don’t know what happened to that tape, but I just had to get back the Chipmunk Christmas groove, so I ordered me some Alvin goodness. And then I decided to add some Holiday magic to my basket with a collection – Boystown, Christmas Carol (1938 version) and Christmas in Connecticut. For those of you who haven’t seen Christmas in Connecticut, you are missing out on a tremendous classic holiday film. One of Barbara Stanwyck’s finest films, you have to see it. Come on over, we’ll pop popcorn and watch all three! But no sooner had I hit the purchase order button on Amazon.com and clicked over to read some bloggy goodness than I came across this post. My gasp could be heard round the neighborhood. Okay so not everyone likes holiday films, some even don’t enjoy Christmas music, though I try to perish that though, but it is almost blasphemous. Holiday films no matter how unrealistic or silly, cheesy or farfetched are great fun. Well, at least the old ones were – you won’t catch me at in line for Home Alone at an airport or Competitive Christmas, but happy will my heart be when Scrooge wakes up Christmas morning and finds out it’s not too late to right all of his miserly wrongs or when Kevin McCalister turns around to see his mother standing in the living room. Thanks Christmas movies. I love you.

Thing Three

I’ve always had a love hate relationship with comments. I turn them on, I turn them off, I reply to everyone, I read them and let them be, I get nasty ones, I get nice ones and sometimes I get none at all. For some reason I can find myself getting a little obsessed with comments – like one only gets three comments, was it not interesting enough, what can I do to write better next time and on and on. Right or wrong I figure that the amount of comments is connected to the quality of my post. But perhaps you don’t comment because I don’t respond, which is totally okay, believe me. I don’t know. Personally I just like to read blogs, not comment except on posts that really elicit some response for me. I hate sitting at a blog trying to figure out what to say to a writer even though I’ve just enjoyed what they’ve written, if I have nothing to say why comment at all. I write a blog because I like to write, and while I really do enjoy the comments and the friendship, I am having a hard time finding time to reply to all of the emails that have backed up, I can’t visit everyone’s blog as often as I would like and I find myself going crazy at the hugeness of the blogisphere. And Lord knows I don’t need something recreational driving me crazy. Blogging can be a never ending job or it can be fun. I would just rather it be fun, but I would also like the readers that stuck around through my disappearance to be happy and maybe pick up a reader or two along the way So I put it to you – do you want comments to be open or are you happy for them to stay off for the rest of my blogging days so you can read and enjoy rather than feel compelled to comment? I’ll just go with what y’all want. What are your thoughts of comments in general? What is comment etiquette?

Doopity Do

2006-11-29T14:45:00.000-08:00

My sister called me at 3:48 am . I was sleeping and grumbled, “We were supposed to be out the door by 3:30 . We’re going to be too late now.” I pulled myself out of bed anyway and kissed Steve’s cheek before throwing on clothes and heading out the door just as my mom and sister pulled up. I hopped in the car and off we went. To Best Buy. Pardon my naïve behavior, and I will pause for a moment while you cease your laughing. It was my first time. I didn’t know that you are supposed to miss your Thanksgiving dinner and head instead to the electronics store to line up 15 hours in advance to save $500. It should be banned. Yes, I was surprised by the line that wrapped completely around the store and straight on till morning.

“I, for one, am not getting out in this cold and waiting in that line for something that is sold out before the store opens. No thank you. I don’t want a cheap 32” plasma all that bad.”

My sister decided that it wasn’t worth waiting in line either and kissed her dreams of a bargain laptop goodbye. And my mom sighed. She was just along for the ride, dear heart.

We did drive up to Alderwood to check out the line there and after shuddering uncontrollably at the monstrosity of the thing, by the time we got back to Northgate it was just about time for Best Buy to open. We parked, sat in the car until 5:05 and then waltzed into the store. Once inside we encountered chaos and the type of people that get in line for a TV 15 hours before a store opens and the type of people who join them, uh that’d be me. As the store surged with shoppers, I felt myself losing my sanity. And the employee with the bobbing purple balloons – ooh I wanted to get a beebee gun and shot them all down. He marked the end of the line and he was no where near the front of the store and the gaggle of shoppers streaming before him grew and grew. And then my head exploded.

After picking up the pieces of my brain and shards of skull that had gotten lodged in the cardboard plasma TV box held proudly by a little piglet, I went back to my mom’s car and waited until 6 am , which was when Target opened. Target was much better – a dream compared to the madness of Best Buy. I snatched myself a wee 19” LCD TV and all the Harry Potter TVs and all was right with the world again. And….no lines. It was amazing. I love Target. Target is the best. Go Target.

By the end of Black Friday, I had a TV, 6 DVDs, two pairs of earrings, a necklace, two pairs of jeans, three pairs of high heels, oh yeah baby, four sweaters, one measly pair of slacks (the world was experiencing a shortage on 2 Longs, damn the world) and a partridge in a pear tree. Yeah that’s right. All for me. ME me me. All you bloggers bragging about finishing your Christmas shopping – that could have, should have, would have, been me.

Except, you know, how when you have a really crappy year and you give and give and give, then realize your clothes are too big because the stress made you lose weight again and if you don’t treat yourself soon that Oompa Loompa penguin pant lady feeling is never going away.

Dinner with the Brits

2006-11-28T20:14:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving part two happened just an hour after the one at my mom’s house. Steve surprised me with the accepted invitation at the grocery store that morning, “So by the way, Nigel, the other English guy at work, invited us over for dinner tonight and I told him we would be there for six,” as though it were any other night. I guess that would have to be the way those crazy Brits look upon our night of grateful pigging out day, as if it is different from all the other times Americans stuff themselves with far too much food. Well, that’s food for thought, but moving on, I looked at Steve like he’d just kicked the puppy I always wanted, got, then wished it been a kitten instead. “My mom’s not going to be too happy about this, but um, I guess, okay, let’s go spend the evening with virtual strangers.” I rolled it over my brain and half of me wanted to throw a fit, but the other half realized that I got to spend the day with his family, so why not help Steve spend time with his, as a British coworker whom he has known less than a week must surely be, for they share the same accent after all.

It was hard to swallow the guilt I felt when I informed my mom of the development. The look on her face, which she quickly smoothed away, enhanced the twinge, and I forgot the “but Mom, Big isn’t even coming at all” speech and instead reassured her with promises that we could do whatever together all Friday and Steve should get to have a say in the day just a little bit even though it is not his holiday and he couldn’t care less about Pilgrims and popcorn, and then I threw my arms around her and blubbered because I felt torn.

So after Fruitsaladgate, we packed Audrey into the car and drove over the river and through the woods to Union Jack Nigel’s. When we pulled up to the gigantic house that could fit five of my apartment, we could see into the dining room where everyone sat talking and eating and it filled me with that warm gooey feeling I always get with tradition and family and dining room tables filled with people. I used to spend Thanksgivings with my good friend in South Carolina rather than go home, and one of our favorite things to do after eating with her family was drive around the neighborhood and peak in on other people still sitting around the table. At this house it was the men sitting talking and the women were clearing the table, at that house it was the opposite, and at other homes the tables were full or empty. There was just something about it that we both loved.

Steve, Audrey and I went into the house, were greeted warmly and introduced to the smiling faces around the table. This is where those food biases that I mentioned yesterday come in. Lovely home, lovely people, wouldn’t it follow that there would be lovely food? You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I know I did. So after naively serving up a plateful of pretty looking Thanksgiving food and artfully moving the gag-inducing mush around said plate, I sat back to enjoy the conversation and get to know my new friends just in time to hear the guy sitting by Steve say, “yeah, my name pulls up nine pages on Google – I’m that successful.” And that was when my eyes glazed over, I pasted a smile on my face and I heard only remnants after that. Remnants such as, “well, we all have Bluetooth in our cars, don’t we?” from that man’s snobby wife with the golf ball-sized rock on her finger. Uh, no lady, but mine has a dent in the side and a cracked windshield. Those are features you just can’t buy, my dear. And then the man started telling jokes. This I did hear. “A very blind man [as opposed to a not very blind man goes into a bar, a blonde bar to be precise. He sits down at the bar, orders a scotch on the rocks, then says loudly, ‘Does anyone want to hear a blonde joke?’ The entire place goes silent. The blondes all look at each other. ‘Well?’ he presses. One of the blondes, a tall drink of water with everything on her walks up to him leans over and whispers in his ear, ‘So were you wanting to tell that joke to me? I’m a black belt. Or to the blonde behind you. She’s a sharpshooter. How about the blonde at the end of the bar? She’s a WWE wrestler.’ The very blind man paused for a moment, thinking to himself, and said, ‘Well, if I have to tell it three times, it’s just not worth my breath.’” The man paused for laughs, but it’d taken him 5 minutes to tell the thing, and I’m sorry that punch line, well it just didn’t have a whole lot of, well, punch. We were silently looking at him waiting for more, but it didn’t come.

“Pie?” the hostess asked carrying a tray of three delicious looking pies. “We have apple pie made by Tony.”

“I used my grandmother’s recipe,” he smiled and we oohed and his wife rubbed his arm proudly.

“And we have a pumpkin chiffon pie and a mince pie both made by Frannie,” our hostess continued putting the pies on the table before us.

Steve straightened up at the mention of mince pies, and memories of the mini variety of which we ate so many last year in London day and night with our tea flooded both our minds. After weighing the merits of each pie, tossing out the apple pie, because well a man made it, tossing out the mince because well it wasn’t the mini variety purchased in a six-pack from Tesco, I decided on the pumpkin chiffon. Steve went for the mince to no one’s surprise.

I eagerly took my plate and took a nice big bit of pumpkin goodness only to discover that in my mouth was a malflavorous (yes, I made up a word for the occasion) concoction, which can only be described as well, gross, icky, don’t wanna eat it, mommy bad. I looked over at Steve and guess from the full plate that his was inedible as well. So much for dessert. I tried to get back into the conversation, but as soon as the man started telling a story from an old Burt Reynolds movie and pausing for laughs as though it were his own material, I tuned out again and instead found my self looking around the table at the façade of the picture. Happy, smiling people around a beautiful table with a beautiful centerpiece with beautiful china, talking to each other, glad to be together again – on the surface it was the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving that’d I’d longed for for so long. But for heaven’s sake, need it have been so dull?

I excused myself from the table and walked around to find Audrey who’d attached herself to a seven-year old girl who had a thing for dropping stuffed animals from second story balconies. As I stood at the doorway of the dining room, I heard Nigel ask Steve is I was okay. Then Nigel came up to me and said, “I just want to make new friends. I like people and I like to have lots of friends. I invited Steve because I really like him. I’m glad you could come. They don’t know this about me at work, but I love to party. I am a big partier. Partying is my favorite things to do. Here let me take you on a tour of the house.”

With my head spinning and me feeling sorry for the two sons he tosses into the playroom with an Xbox and a babysitter while he goes out to do all of this partying, I tried to stem my judgments as I took in room after room and listened as he expressed his desire to buy the much larger home across the way and turn the bonus room into a media center and blah, blah, blah material things.

As Steve and I drove home last night, I was thankful for my life. I have a deteriorating Durango, a terribly small apartment, and a tiny television, but I don’t look across the way obsessing because this neighbor has a theater and I only have a playroom or this neighbor has 4,500 sq.ft. and I only have 3,500 sq.ft. Everything may not be Norman Rockwell, my family may be split to hell, but I learned a lot from those three hours with the rich folks. Thankful I am and thankful I’ll be. Maybe someday I’ll have the 3,500 house, the Bluetooth car and the golf ball ring, but Lord help me, until then I’ll be learnin’ some proper jokes and getting friends who can cook.

Fruit Salad...yummy, yummy

2006-11-27T05:32:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving a friend’s baby died in birth because of the cord wrapped around her neck, and I gave thanks for the twelve days I had with Oliver.

On Thanksgiving my uncle was able to go home, and I gave thanks that the heart attack he had the day before didn’t take him away from us.

On Thanksgiving I learned that my biases for my family’s cooking are not at all overrated, and I gave thanks that my mother taught me how to cook.

Last Thanksgiving I was 7 months pregnant and marooned in London – the only American for miles. Steve was in America – the only Brit for miles. He’d returned for a something important, though it sure didn’t seem very important to me as I wandered around Tesco aimlessly searching for something anything pumpkin. Why oh why hasn’t the rest of the world caught on to that lovely sunset hued squash of deliciousness?

This year, I bought the first pumpkin pie I saw – a gigantic 15” round monstrosity from Costco for 5 bucks. I think I ate the whole thing myself afterwards wondering again why I don’t weigh 500 pounds. This year, I made food for 20, but in the end it was my Mom, my sister, Steve and me around the little table with the old table cloth and mismatched plates. Audrey lay asleep on the couch, exhausted by all of the waiting and asking “Is it ready yet?” There were no empty chairs around this table, but the absences carried tangible ghosts. My aunt, in California tending to my sick uncle, my brother, on a navy base in Connecticut being trained to defend our country, my brother, at some other table nurturing a grudge, my father, last rumored to be in Massachusetts, paying for the sins of his past. Happy we were though, our small little group, the food was excellent, and the company – well, my sister and I didn’t fight, so that was something. Although,

Earlier that morning, I collected ingredients for the famous fruit salad and called my mother. “Should I put nuts in it?” I asked because my sister has been rumored to be somewhat allergic.

“Well, why don’t you just cut them up really small. She won’t even notice,” my mom suggested.

“Okay, you’re the mom.”

So I sprinkled the nuts theatrically and Audrey stirred them in as I always imagined. When we sat down to dinner, we piled our plates full of everything, and after a while my sister said, “Ooh, my throat’s getting itchy. I think I ate a nut.”

My mom and I exchanged guilty looks and carried on, neither willing to admit what we’d done. So we ate and talked and enjoyed, and then my sister went back for seconds. She picked up the serving spoon to the fruit salad and looked closely, “There ARE nuts in here!” And so it began. I learned that you don’t mess with a nineteen year oldand not to trust my mother when she tellsme to put the nuts in anyway.

Rebecca’s Fantastic Fruit Salad…Yummy Yummy

1 can pineapple tidbits

2 cans fruit cocktail

2 cans mandarins

2 medium Granny Smith apples, cored, chopped into bite size pieces

2 bananas, slice

¾ bag of colored mini marshmallows

¼ cup shredded coconut

¼ cup chopped walnuts (Note: Avoid if anyone is rumored to be allergic – just a hint)

1 container Cool Whip

Drain all canned fruit until nearly dry, mix all together with apples, bananas, marshmallows, and coconut. Sprinkle nuts on theatrically (see note above) and mix in cool whip, refrigerate, serve and enjoy.

Not too norman rockwell

2006-11-22T04:20:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving Day is coming

And Mr. Turkey said,

“If I don’t be real careful,

I will lose my head.”

The pumpkin heard the turkey.

The pumpkin said, “Oh my!

“They’ll mix me up with sugar and spice

“And I’ll be a pumpkin pie.”

A long time ago we used to sing with my dad that song complete with hand motions acting out the cutting off the head, the mixing of the sugar and spice and the eating of the pie. I can still see my dad’s facial expressions and hear his voice perfectly as he sang the song again and again until we’d learned everything. I still have no idea how or where he learned the song, but I loved it because it was the only Thanksgiving song I’d ever heard.

This year I taught it to Audrey, and it’s brought memories of those Thanksgivings when my family was complete flooding back.

Family was always important to us. Because we moved around so much, we were all we had. So no matter if it was just the six of us or a mix of aunts, cousins and strays, we valued the time together. My dad prided himself on cooking the Thanksgiving meal, and he always appointed me his helper, and I was always excited to oblige, because I thought this year would be different. It never was. Being the helper meant watching him pour nutmeg or cinnamon into his pumpkin pie mixture and listening as he extolled the spicing qualities of each and lauded his abilities to make each pumpkin pie the best he’d ever tasted and being the helper meant fetching three eggs from the fridge, handing him that bowl and most importantly of all – cleaning up after him. But I looked forward to it all even though my eyes would glaze over when he would theatrically sprinkle nuts into his fruit salad or baste the turkey with gusto. He was just dad.

Nowadays our family is very different. It has been eight and a half years since he was pulled from the house by police bearing a restraining order. See, beneath that fatherly father exterior lurked a lot of bad. I tried to stay in touch because I was the oldest and I felt bad for him. I couldn’t imagine one day having a beautiful family and four children and then next spending all of your holidays on your own. But the burden was too much for me to bear. I had to cut him off, so now he is out there somewhere with a new name and no job, avoiding child support like the plague and stalking my silly siblings on their silly MySpace pages with their silly real names plastered all over the things.

So tomorrow as I make the fruit salad, I won’t be able to help but throw a little theatrics into the way I sprinkle the nuts into the bowl, but I think I’ll let my little helper Audrey stir them in. And I’ll tell her about how I used to help her granddad just like she is helping me, and I’ll think of him and hope wherever he is and whomever he is with that he is well.

He won’t be the only one missing from our Thanksgiving this year. The grudge brother has yet again rejected a family event invitation because I will be there.

Yes, he hates me and has for a while, though it started with his girlfriend and I have no idea the cause now. It’s all in old blog entries that I’ll repost someday soon, but for now I’ll just say that I wrote something, they didn’t like it, didn’t like my apology and now they won’t speak to me. What I did wasn’t unforgiveable…that is unless you are the best grudge grudge keeper in the whole grudge grudge keeping society in this grudge grudge keeping world, which his girlfriend is. Her avoidance of her own sister ended, so it was only natural that she start something with his sister to sort of keep the grudge ball rolling as it were.

When my little brother, Red, came to town just after my birthday in July, I tried to fix it then, but they refused to come to the big family dinner, where even my uncle from California had come to, because I was to be there. Oh how I cried. Buckets. You don’t know how many. And I keep saying that I am going to wash my hands of them. I keep trying to convince myself that I don’t need them in my life. Because you know he did some REALLY bad stuff to me.

Like when Sam knowing of our relationship issues called Big for advice on the whole “try to take Audrey from her mother” bright idea, Big was more than willing to tell Sam that was a great idea. Blood is thicker than...My ass! Big knew before what Sam was planning to do, and he didn’t tell a soul. And then he did not acknowledge that Oliver existed after he was born, and he never was sent any sympathies or acknowledgements after Oliver died, even though he was at my mother’s house when I called her with the news. His nephew died tragically, and even that did not budge him from his grudge keeping grudge-full ways. At first I thought it was because of what I wrote, and then I thought it was because he wasn’t too sure about Steve because of everything that happened before we went to London together, and now? I have no clue, because nothing is bad enough to ignore your sister when she loses her child, is it?

Everyone keeps calling me up now to ask about the whole thing. I tell them if they want it over, they should boycott Big. That’s my honest opinion. If you want avoid family events, well then you shouldn’t get to have clandestine other events to avoid spending time with your sister. My mom says that at this point they just think it’s too awkward to be around me and that his girlfriend has gained a lot of weight and doesn’t want to be around a skinny minny. What? Am I supposed to apologize now for not sitting around porking out on God knows what? Argh!

Part of me thinks that I should just forget him like he’s forgotten me, but I can’t. I keep thinking back to those Thanksgiving dinners of yore. I see him standing next to me as we sing the Thanksgiving song with my dad and I can hear his little voice. I see us all sitting around the dinner table – a dozen different ones all over the country and world – and we’re together.

We’re not the same people anymore, but we’re still family. My dad may be somewhere out there, but my brother, he’s one mile from me.

What would you do if you were me?

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and may your lives be much less Jerry Springer than mine. Kiss your nieces and nephew, your sons and daughters, and never let the petty things keep you from the ones that love you. Maybe I’ll call him just one more time.

In the Navy

2006-11-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

Y ou see, I am a very lucky woman. Despite all of the horrible things on which I write in the post below, I have the little munchin that came of my "lifelong mistake," as he acknowledges himself. She is a sparkle. I love that she takes note of the world around her - birds, clouds, music, style. She wants to be a model. Okay, so we do talk a lot about fashion at my house. She's just a five year old with her own sense of chic.

But she is also athletic, loves books and she knows when not to say certain things that she fears may hurt another's feelings. She is clever and intuitive and likes David Bowie the best, though she has a marked interest in one of the Girls Aloud videos. She's a pretty cool kid, which I must admit worries me. In my mind, the cool kids were always the ones that did the bad stuff. I was a middle of the road kid who got great grades, had lots of friends and had absolutely no idea where drugs came from. But still, she's cool, and that's cool with me.

I love that our camera pose is so similar. These pictures were taken days apart - me in most of my Halloween costume, she in the outfit she picked out for her birthday lunch with Steve. When I loaded them onto the computer, I had to laugh. She is her mother's daughter. And that makes the world spin aright. She is my pumpkin and no matter how many weeks of the year she spends with the dark side, nothing can change that.

Oh and while I have that Halloween picture up, how discouraging is it to me that I am so not endowed in the cleavage arena that I have to wear a tanktop to keep the little I do have...well I may as well just tell the Halloween story....since I'm here.

It was the Saturday before Halloween...You know, the day when Audrey told me about the penis baths...and Audrey and I were on a mission. Steve and I were invited to a costume party and I was determined to get something English, composed Steve would wear. Since he was working all day at a large Seattle event in his suit, I stroked his ego and suggested Clark Kent. All he would have to do is don some fake glasses, throw a Superman t-shirt under his suit and he'd be good to go. So I went from store to store looking for a Superman t-shirt, braving the crowds of people all searching for last minutes pieces to complete their own costumes. Okay maybe the world has run out, maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

My last resort was the costume store. As I neared, I shuddered at the endless line of cars awaiting entrance to the house of prefab horrors and opted to parked across the street and wondered why noone else had thought of it. I clasped Audrey's hand tightly as she took in the hubbub around. We pushed our way up this aisle and that searching, searching for anything beside the cheesy pre-muscled synthetic fibered Superman suit before alighting upon the felt square section. Eureka. I snatched up a red square, a yellow square and quickly found a pair of plastic black rimmed glasses that perfectly fit the Clark Kent look and hurried to the checkout stand, which none to my dismay wound through the store and back to their curious Christmas cisplays. As we stepped into place, I noted how akin the two burly men ahead of me are to the Swine and his Yakimafia when Audrey asked, "Mama, do we get to go home soon? I'm tired of shopping."

I sighed, "Well, after a couple of hours in line here..."

But before I could finish my sentence the Swine lookalike turned around and said, "Oh no, they're very good here, they'll have you out in a flash." And he turned back to his friend just like that.

I couldn't help but cock my head. Appearances definitely deceived me. When he opened his voice, he spoke in the very definitive manner of a gay man. I took in his appearance again - big? check. burly? check. rough stance a la a few years in prison? check. high-pitched voice dripping with lisps and sing songyness. check? I smiled to myself at how wrong stereotypes can sometimes be as he nudged his friend in the side when a hot guy walked by, whom he then proceeded to hmm and ooh at until said hot guy turned a corner at which time Swine part deux (SPD) noticed something else lifted his arm straight in the air and begain fluttering his hand up and down at the wrist. More burly men, who I swear all looked exactly like the Yakimafia (it's what all of the Swine's friends who moved to Seattle from Yakima called themselves - it's fitting), joined them and they began tittering in the same high voices, same lisps and motioning with their hands in that way that you think of when you think of those stereotypes. It was like biker guys and The Village People had been thrown into a blender and this was the result. I still can't tell if my surprise is inflammatory or insulting, but it was amusing.

The SPD was right though. Shortly after his friends moved on, we zipped through the rest of the line. Audrey and I made one last stop at Target (ahem penis talk, ahem), where I bought a blue t-shirt, and then we hurried to my mom's house.

I helped my sister get ready for her party with the loan of my devil horns and tails and fun makeup and she loaned me her sailor outfit, which she'd worn the night before. When I put it on we laughed hysterically as my boobs or lack thereof totally hung out. "Did you wear a tank top with this?" Nope was her reply. I looked at my waiflike self in the mirror. Well I certainly wasn't going to be the sexy, buxom sailor she'd turned out to be, but I'd make it work. My mom teased my hair and I applied some fake eyelashes and liquid eyeliner. When I was done I was more of a cute, 60's sailor girl, nothing sexy or buxom about me, but it was still fun, though the shoes, oh the shoes, 1 size too small and narrow at the toe, I was dying before I took a step, but I was willing to make the sacrifice for my costume. After I was ready, I took out the pieces of felt I'd bought earlier, looked up the superman logo on the internet, cut the S from the yellow, sewed it to the red and had a wonderfully close rendition of a superman costume after I pinned the logo to the blue t-shirt.

So I left Audrey with my mom and went home to await our departure. At ten I called Steve eagerly looking forward to his arrival. His tired voice answered the phone. "So what's this party? Who's all going again? What are we doing" He asked them all at once. I could tell immediatly that he didn't want to go. I mentioned that I was all dressed up and that I had worked really hard putting together and making his costume and he agreed we could go for a little while.

I called Wynn, "Hey there," I said brightly, "Are you guys already there? Steve is going to be home soon."

"Well, actually we had such a long day, so we aren't going to go. I talked to Lee and they aren't going either. I tried to call you at around 7, but your phone said the network was busy so it wouldn't let me leave a message."

"Oh, you guys didn't go? Yeah, it is kinda late." I made my voice as cheerful as possible to mask the dissapointment. The party is hosted by their friend, so without them I lose my in.

"We're just so tired. You didn't get all gussied up, did you?" Wynn asked.

I popped my squinched toes out of the blue suede heels and smoothed the skirts, "No, no, of course not, I was waiting to get dressed because after Steve's long day, I wasn't so sure if he was going to want to go..." I trailed off and we said our goodbyes.

I slumped down on the sofa and waited for Steve to walk in. When he did the relief on his face made my disappointment worth it, and he thought I looked totally cute and made me pose for pictures. And then we curled up together and watched Shaun of the Dead (Best. Zombie. Movie. Ever.), which you know, was nice, but there were no cute sailors.

a spoon full of sugar helps this bitter post go down

2006-11-21T04:08:00.000-08:00

I am fighting fighting fighting the bitterness and hatred that just won’t dissipate, though I can’t decide whether I feed these feelings or try my very best to starve them into nonexistence. Every time I speak to him, my veins go stiff and my head starts to pound. Each conversation shoots me back to that hopeless day, and the pain has not lessened but intensified. Resentment fills my voice when I answer his questions, and I can’t help but bring up my lack of understanding of his action at the beginning of the year. So I do. I bring it up again and again, and nothing he says aids my comprehension because it seems even he doesn’t know why he did it the way he did. How can you lie to your daughter? How can you build her excitement so high only to dash it in one fell swoop? I can still hear her little voice asking me how many more days until she would see me, how many more days until her baby brother would be born so he could see him. And I can hear the pain in her response when I have to tell her that she doesn’t get to come anymore.

The last time I brought it up he told me that he just didn’t think I am a very good mother. So you will understand the rage this incited. My voice was shaking as I asked him if he thought so why he ever agreed to let me go to England in the first place. Why make that agreement? Why? Why? But he doesn’t have an answer.

I have one though. And until he gives me a proper one, it is the only one I have, so forgive me if it sounds overly contrived. When Sam and I spoke of my moving to London, he brought up at the same time his plans to move to Hawaii with his then-girlfriend. We discussed timing and henceforth came to the understanding that because of the timing of my move and the planned timing of his move, Audrey would stay with him first then come to me while he moved and blah, blah, blah – verbal agreement / plan for the future, etc. Silly me. His plans changed. He and his then-girlfriend somewhere along the way decided not to move to Hawaii – could have been the whole impending break-up thing, but that’s just me. So what does my lovely husband do in light of this development? Well, he goes to a lawyer and ruins my life. Isn’t that lovely? Isn’t he charming? Wasn’t I a complete fool to trust someone and hope that we could continue to be friends?

So this is something I haven’t been able to get over nor forgive. Each time I see him, I want to wire his jaw shut for the benefits would be two-fold – he would lose the dreadful gape-mouthed wanderer look and the extra hundred pounds as a fantasy bonus. Each time I hear his voice I cringe knowing that once upon a time he whispered things in my ear and we made love and had a child.

So yes, I hate him. I hate everything about him. I hate that I ever thought we could be friends most of all. I hate that I ever confided in him. That more than anything else in the world is for what I am paying. I trusted a snake, and I got bitten. Should I be surprised? I wish that every one I know could hear the conversations we had about the move, the underhanded trickery he used to get me to send him her passport and to get me to give him my address again after he’d lost it so he could send the court papers.

That big mistake, nay huge mistake, that I made in confiding in that slime was that when we were friends and I thought I could trust him I gave him my blog address. Shockingly naïve of me. I’ll be paying for it for the rest of my life. He gave it to others. So you can see how this pattern of trusting him was just sooooo very wrong and I warn all other women to cease and desist immediately. So these others – apparently they still read the blog. You know to laugh at the pieces that are left in Sam’s destructive wake. Hi laughing others.

One of these others may or may not have been the girl with whom Sam was planning to move to Hawaii. And said person may just have read the entry on Sam’s dating Audrey’s teacher. And apparently Sam did not really do things on the up and up by this poor girl. Raise your hand if you are surprised.

So I apologize for letting the cat out of the bag that Sam is a dirty, rotten creep who likes to lull women into a false sense of complacency and lead them on in a horrible, nasty way. Welcome to my world, my friend. Welcome to my world. You have my sincerest apologies that you too have been hurt by the Swine, which by the way seems an aspire new blog name for my esteemed ex-husband.

And I’m the bad parent? Yeah….

Oh and lest all the others forget…my forum, my blog, my freedom, my perspective, my words. Want to tell your own side? That’s the beauty of the internet…Blogs for everyone!!

P.S. We will hopefully be back to regularly scheduled joviality posthaste.

P.P.S. But first...I totally need this for Christmas. Any taker?

Click

2006-11-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

So, the battle is just finding material now. I have mixed emotions because I feel a responsibility to my reader that I never felt before. I suppose when readers stick around for 7 months without a peep from me, one feels a certain burden to be entertaining, to be the best – but without tragedy, heartache and the other stuff that I don’t like to mention, this is just a girl, who goes to work, gets home late, watches show taped on the DVR while knitting and sleeps next to the man of her dreams before starting the cycle over again the next day. Sure I have a social life as well, and Audrey says the darnedest things, but for a while there I was living that crazy soap opera life. And finally the chapters are closing on that part, so I suppose it’s time to write it up like CH and I talked about.

Perhaps I’m just savoring the good life, appreciating the fact that I fall more in love with Steve every day and I’m still surprised by it, because I come from a world where love doesn’t last. But that’s okay. It doesn’t for everyone, and it’s nice to be surprised.

Still, I agonize daily. What do my readers want to read? Should I ask their opinion for this dilemma I have right now? Well, now that I’ve mentioned it, I might as well…

The Saturday before Halloween, Audrey and I were running billions of errands as I sought out the perfect costume for Steve for a party we were to go to that evening, and just as I was getting her out of the car to go into Target, she said, “I’m so glad that I’m a girl.”

“Ah,” I said to her, smiling sweetly down at my sweet little girl, “Why’s that, Baby Girl?”

“Because then I don’t have to touch penises!” she smirked.

After scooping my jaw off the center console and wiping away the immediate thought that her mind will soon change as I enjoy touching penises very much and I am a girl, I asked, “So when have you seen penises?”

“When Hera gives me and Jonah a bath when we have sleepovers,” she wrinkled her nose and hopped out of the Durango , “I see his penis, and it’s gross. I don’t want to touch it."

“Hera bathes you with Jonah? And you're both naked?" I am incredulous, shocked, incensed, but I try not to show it.

I go into the store with Audrey skipping beside me already forgetting our conversation. I had done anything but.

I called my mom and told her about it. She was shocked as well. I told Steve when he got home from work. He was shocked.

So the next day I decided to talk to Sam about it.

"...so I was just wondering if you could talk to Hera about that," I said, finishing sharing my concerns with him.

"Speak to who about it?" Sam asked.

"Hera." I said.

Click.

He hung up on me. I stared at the phone in wonder. Huh. So it begins. Our commitment to raising our daughter together.

A couple of days later after several emails from me, Sam finally wrote me that he and Hera discussed the issue. And that was that. So I wrote him back asking what was the result of said discussion. No answer. I wrote him again. No answer. I wrote him again. No answer.

So, internet friends, I put it to you.

1. Is five years old indeed too old to have nude baths with a male friend?

2. Is it wise for a person to attempt to parent a child every other week with no knowledge of the goings on in her life during the off weeks, which essentially means that you have nothing whatsoever to do with exactly one half of your child's life?

3. Okay, I'm just slipping it in, but does anyone else think it is ethically questionable for a teacher (Hera) to date a child's father (Sam) thus exposing her to family secrets and biases of which she would otherwise have no knowledge?

Three Kinds of Showers

2006-11-06T03:54:00.000-08:00

The cakes were supposed to look exactly like the ones in the Martha Stewart magazine. Wynn got all of the ingredients. I just volunteered at the last moment to come over and help. But it was that moment when she opted against the fondant that everything kind of just went down hill. We spent the evening staring at the candy thermometer waiting for that crucial soft ball stage, mixing, pouring, baking, and still nothing was frosted. I pooped out at 10 pm with promises that I would return in the morning.

Saturday never really dawned, but more sort of became a lighter shade of grey. Rain streamed from the heavens reminding me that yes, the Seattle winter was indeed inevitable and has indeed arrived. And God decided to give us all the rain at once.

Ick, ick, ick, I thought to myself as I raced to the Durango, wondering why I decided to be the martyr when I lent Lee my umbrella. I suppose it’s that soft spot for pregnant ladies. But still, my freshly coiffed locks weren’t exactly liking the humongous drops of environmental leakage plummeting upon them. I drove through the torrent and near-flooded streets to Target, where I again found myself roaming the baby aisles for yet another baby shower gift. I fingered the soft sleepers and plush toys before deciding on the Boppy, God’s gift to breastfeeding mothers worldwide, and some bibs, because every baby comes with a mandatory oversupply of spit-up and drool and nothing whatsoever so to absorb it all. Sure they wouldn’t be as adorable as the hat with panda ears or the iddy biddy baby robe (really, who puts their child in a baby robe? Totally-scrumptious-pinch-their-cheeks -cute? Hell yes. Practical? I think not.), but I guarantee my gifts will get quadruple the mileage. I may not get the oohs and ahhs upon unwrapping, but like my little tortoise friend, in the long run, I win the baby shower gift race, so BOO-YAH sisters.

So after loading my so very useful but not very adorable baby shower gifts in the car, I rowed my trucks to Wynn’s house. After swimming to her front door and wringing eleventy gallons of water from my coat (why oh why had I worn heels?) I entered her house to save the day.

“Rebecca! You’re here! Thank God.” Wynn cried. “I added food coloring to our buttercream frosting and it curdled to hell, so I tossed it in the food disposal and bought Betty Crocker frosting. Help!”

As visions of exclamations points, candy thermometers, mixing bowls and the recipe’s note that “if frosting curdles upon addition of vanilla keep mixing” dancing in my head, I asked, “Um, did you try mixing it some more?”

Wynn stopped in her tracks, an indescribable look passed over her face and she lifted her chin defiantly, “Well, actually no, I just said ‘F- you’ and tossed it out, but by that time it was so late, and….I should have gotten the fondant, dammit”

Feeling dreadful for abandoning her so the night before, I set about the whipping up the royal icing while she began carving the cake into blocks. After frosting and piping and making a complete mess with plumes of confectioner’s sugar floating through the air, sticking to the moisture from the heavens, no doubt, I compared our efforts to those of our very favoring ex-con home diva and her team and decided that it’s much like the difference between Wal-Mart and Pottery Barn furniture. Wal-mart may strive to give us Pottery Barn styling without the price, but fails miserably in the execution of said goal.

We carefully packed our little baby block cakes into the Durango, and I vowed to drive carefully – no Formula One turns, not one. And she loaded up her Mini with the gifts and we were on our way. No sooner than the turn lane on Northgate did the Durango jerk immensely when I pressed on the gas and the transmission failed to engage immediately. I closed my eyes and slowly turned my head to the cake-filled tray in the passenger seat. Well, let’s just say that the baby blocks because tumbling blocks. I looked at my cell phone. Should I call Wynn and warn her or wait? I opted for the latter, turned up the radio and pretended like nothing had happened.

Half an hour late for the shower, we walked in soaking wet, bearing cake, gifts and tired smiles. We ate and drank and I watched a little two year old terror race around the clearly unchildproofed house while her weary mother halfheartedly breastfed her baby brother. When he was done eating, I asked his mother if she would like a break. She eagerly handed him off to me and went off to fill her plate, able to eat with two hands for probably the first time all day, so I found myself holding a baby for the first time since Oliver.

I smelled his baby smell and kissed his baby cheeks and held his baby hands. His baby eyes pierced my own, and I laughed when he tried to give me a hickey. But it wasn’t until he fell asleep in my arms that emotions overwhelmed me. Looking down upon his little baby lips softly parted in sleep immediately transported me to that day in the hospital when I held Oliver that one last time and gazed down at his little baby lips softly parted in death. Tears filled my eyes, and I quickly turned my back on the party urging the drops to disappear. And as I continued to look at him through the sheen of tears, I felt my heart lift and the joy return. It was a needed moment, and I felt triumphant.

When Steve and I were together that evening, I curled up in his arms on the couch and looked up at him amazed as always how like him little Oliver was even after only ten days. “I held a baby today,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows, “Oh? How did that feel?”

I smiled and kissed his cheek. “Really, really good.”

Like a Jerry Springer Episode

2006-10-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

So sometimes I just think I will never be able to escape drama. If it is not one thing, well, then it is definitely another.

A couple of months after I started my job, I’d already become good friends with two of my coworkers, Lee and Wynn. I was at a Mariner’s game with Wynn and her boyfriend, when she got a call from Lee. She left the stands, so she could hear better, and when she returned she was beaming.

“Guess what?” she gushed, “Lee’s pregnant!!!”

I clenched my jaw to keep it from dropping and pegged up my cheeks in a desperately forced smile. “Wow!” I said with all the excitement I could muster, “That’s great for her.”

“Yeah, and she didn’t even know it – she’s three months along.”

I smiled again and focused my gaze on the pitcher’s mound, trying to ignore the swirl of emotions within me. After Wynn and Freddie left soon after, I crumpled into Steve’s arms. I could no longer contain myself. I was going to have to watch my friend’s belly get larger and larger, and I was going to be subjected everyday to cheerful baby talk. How would I do it?

I made up my mind that night that I would have to tell Wynn the truth. I would have to tell her about Oliver.

The next morning, I dreaded going in to work. I didn’t say anything to Lee about the baby, but when Wynn came in, she said, “Rebecca, Lee has her ultrasound photo! You have to go see it.”

I smiled and turned back to my computer. An hour of so later, Lee went to the bathroom, and I stopped Wynn as she walked by. “So, remember how I said that I just went to London to take care of Steve’s bedbound mother for a few months?” I asked.

She nodded, her brow furrowing in confusion.

“Well, that’s not exactly the entire story. Steve and I actually were going to live there. I was pregnant. I had my baby in February. He died mysteriously after 12 days.” I looked down at my hands as her look of confusion turned to one of pity. I stemmed her words by rushing onward. “I’m okay, I’m getting better all the time, but I just wanted to tell you because I am just not quite ready yet to be happy for Lee.” At this point my eyes brimmed with tears, which I quickly brushed away. “It’s just that, well I didn’t want you to think that I am a complete jerk for not glowing over the ultrasound picture, and I know that this is just going to be a little tough for me to handle for a little while.”

Lee walked up as Wynn expressed her sorrow for my situation, and though I hoped to avoid telling my terrible story to a soon to be first time mom, I found myself telling them everything, the move to London, the pregnancy, the suddenness of his illness, and ending with the horror of the custody battle crammed on top of it all. They couldn’t believe that I hadn’t said anything before.

And several days later, I found myself sitting with Steve, Lee, and her husband Nic at happy hour in Belltown before we were to head to the Real Madrid/DC United game at Qwest Field discussing that very thing.

“I just can’t believe you never said anything before,” Lee said with awe.

I shrugged my shoulders, “It’s not exactly something you bring up in interviews. Could you imagine?” I assumed a sobbing voice. “Please hire me. I really need this job. My baby just died, I don’t know why, my ex-husband is suing me for full custody of my daughter because he is saying I abandoned her, I don’t know why and my boyfriend is stuck in London until I have an income. So puhlease give me a job!” I stopped the faux sobbing abruptly “Yeah, I’m not thinking that would have gone over too well. They might have thought I needed more mental health time before letting me step another foot in the office.”

“Or, they might have thought you were trying out for an episode of Jerry Springer,” Nic said laughing.

Steve, Lee and I joined him, but I quickly sobered up. Funny though it may seem, it was all too true. My life is a friggin Jerry Springer episode, or even a whole slew of them. He could base an entire season just on my life. And it sucks.

I wonder sometimes exactly how much of this Jerry Springer drama is due to my choices or if I am just doomed. I’m still not convinced I am in the clear, but some days, much like this one, I am sure that the powers that me are out to get me.

My brother, whom I’ve written about many times before (which reminds me, I have all of my old entries on disc somewhere and as soon as I find it and I have my computer up and running again, I edit them and get them up on the site again – I’m also going to fix my template. I hate it right now), still won’t talk to me, despite many efforts on my part to bandaid our relationship. I haven’t even a clue as to the cause of this continued estrangement, but if anyone should be mad at this point, it’s me, my brother neither acknowledge the birth of his nephew, nor the passing of his nephew. If that’s not harsh, I don’t know what is.

So I have a lot of fronts I’m fighting in my battle toward some sense of normalcy. Some days, like today, I feel light years away. Others, like last Saturday, I feel like true happiness is just around the bend. But there is always something or someone. And I am determined to conquer it all. Happiness will prevail.

Won’t it?

Okay, okay

2006-10-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

So I'll come back. I've partially written so many entries, but just couldn't bring myself to publish any of them. I tried and I tried. I avoided my blog email account like the plague, because it fills me with guilt knowing that I haven't written a soul back in ages and I have ignored so many really good blog friends. I've peeked in on everyone though - still following along silently on other journeys through life, yet unable to chronicle my own, even in a private journal. I've wanted to return, but I know it will never be the same for me, and probably not for you either. See, I think I've lost my writing voice. No longer do I narrate my every move, my every thought. My inner Sedaris, if you will, seems to have gone on extended leave. I’ve missed writing, but without the narrating voice I sit staring at the Puget Sound waiting for the words to pour themselves through my now-idle fingers. I can honestly say that this has been the worst year of my life. Who wants to write about that? Or better yet, who wants to read about that. But after many, many months of waiting for it to return on its own, I've decided that if I'm ever to write again, I may just have to force it. So here I am - in a very different place than the last time I posted.

I had to get over the death of my son. Not that it’s something you can ever really get over, but I had to get to that place where I could look at another baby without forcing the sobs back to that corner of my heart where the pain burned. So a couple of weeks ago I went into Target and bought a baby shower gift for a coworker and I wandered through the aisles smiling at this cute cardigan or that cute pull toy, and never did a tear stream down my cheek. I was so happy. I have contained the grief at last.

I had to get over the horror of being taken to court on fraudulent charges of the neglect and abandonment of my daughter. I will always hate and despise that man, and never will I trust him again, which saddens me, because we had a wonderful, friendly relationship before this happened. Betrayal stings so much more when you are caught by surprise on a frozen windy morning when a doorbell you hoped rung by a mailman bearing photos of your daughter’s trip to Hawaii turns out to be rung by a nosy server who reads your personal papers before throwing them in your stunned face and the cause for this is the man you once thought you loved, the man you once thought you trusted. He still maintains that he did the right thing, but there is no excuse for the lying to his daughter, telling her she would go live in England , then destroying his daughter’s dream and her mother’s well-being in one fell swoop. All it would have taken was a phone call. So yes, I hate him. Yes, I think he is worthless. And yes, I mourn everyday he spends with her. How could I not? A good person and father would never have done what he did in the way he did. Bitter? You better believe I am bitter, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a woman that would not be. So we came to an “agreement.” Two days ago the judge signed off on our case. It's over. For better or for worse. It's finally over. We each have her one week on, one week off. Does he spend every day with her? No, he ships her off to his mom and other people quite often. He's dating her preschool teacher, which means he can fill her head with crap about me and bias the school in his favor. Do I think either he or her teacher are ethically in the wrong? Absolutely. Can I do anything about it? Oh how I wish. But for now I just try to be the best mother possible to my daughter. She’s stupendous. And even if she weren’t, I couldn’t possibly love her more, but still I will always rue the day I married that white trash SOB. What was I thinking? And mom, why didn’t you try harder to stop me?

As for Steve and me, well, this year has been no cakewalk. And some shadows tend to stick to us. We are still trying to rid ourselves of the Itch completely, but I will never again speak of that here. Steve and I love each other dearly. We are a couple made in heaven. We live together in a snug, little apartment near Greenlake. Some days it's a little too snug, but it keeps us all close. And most of all, Steve loves Audrey to pieces and she loves him “bigger than all the planets and stars and moons in the universe” (her words), and we hope to have another child. Timing on that, as always, is up to the Lord.

Steve is working at a job that couldn't have been written more perfectly for him. I haven't exactly found my dream job, but I have definitely found my dream coworkers. And that's just what I needed right now. Friends. It's been so long since I've just enjoyed having friends - well, since the divorce when I gave them all to Sam, because not doing so meant having to hang out with him, and after the wonderful party where Steve and I fell in love and a friend of ours starting raging at me for being a brazen hussy because she hadn't gotten the divorce memo, I'd had enough. Friends are great, really.

And I've missed all of you Internet friends as well. I just signed on to my email - I don't think I'll ever be able to answer them all, but I'll give it a go....as soon as I replace the cord on my laptop. It broke, my battery's dead, so I am *gasp* without a computer at home!!!

So that's it. My first blog entry in what feels like a millenium. I'll try my hardest to be a better blogger with a hope that that little voice soon returns...

One at a Time. Please?

2006-03-26T23:26:00.000-08:00

Little overwhelmed since I got back here. Seems to be not much fun to deal with jet lag, a job search, grief, a custody thing, 5,000 mile move, missing Steve, allergies, and healing from a c-section at once. I've done a lot of crying. Seems this all has made me an extra sensitive sod; if you look at me wrong I burst into tears. So writing has been low on my list. Once my plate is a little less full, I'll be back.

the end

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2006-03-15T01:06:00.000-08:00

Going home to Seattle today!!! I am very excited, but so sad to leave Steve. He will follow shortly though, so it won't be for too long, but still. So I have been soaking up all his Steveness the past couple of days, hence the lack of posts. I have a few things on the burner, but will have to wait until tomorrow or thereabouts.

Yesterday I reminded Audrey that I was coming today. She was elated and told me how many times she was going to hug me and tell me she loves me, and then, she asked me if the baby had popped out yet. My heart stopped. I thought she understood that Oliver had been born and died. She had even seen him on the webcam and called him the most beautiful baby in the world. As tears sprung to my eyes, I told her that we would talk about it when we see each other. I couldn't bear to go over it again. it was probably a memory lapse on her part, but I only hope that I can help her to understand what's happened. The important thing is that she gets her mom back for ever.

Ta for now.

Nothing Sweet About the Sorrow of this Parting

2006-03-10T14:14:00.000-08:00

Steve and I argued in the car. We were running late, and I was getting more upset because I wanted as much time as I could get. Running late combined with Steve’s need to make an appointment was turning me into a grouch ten-fold.

“You’re not being yourself,” Steve said, “You’ve just got to calm down.”

I took a deep breath and bit my lip, as I pressed my forehead into the passenger door window. Of course I’m not myself. I’m on my way to see my baby boy for the last time in my entire life, and I’m running late. I didn’t respond to Steve though. I felt like a train wreck, snapping and saying horrible things filled with resentment. The anger has been building within me as has been the bitterness, fear, anxiety, frustration. So many negative emotions coursing through me, and I took it out on Steve. I reached across the car and grabbed his hand. “I’m so sorry, honey.” I couldn’t say any more. He squeezed my hand and smiled gently.

After parking the car, we made our way to funeral home. Sarah greeted us at the door with a smile and an offer of tear before ushering us into her office. Steve accepted the tea, and we sat down on the settee while she made it for him. I didn’t want to sit in her office. Why did she sit us in her office? Didn’t she know how little time I had? I will never see him again. I don’t want to sit and chat. But that’s what we did, or Steve and Sarah did, rather. Steve caught a glimpse of a pamphlet for the cemetery at which his stepfather had dug graves thirty years ago, and he himself had spent many a childhood day playing, so they chatted about that while I stared at the ground, toes tapping anxiously, arms folded. When there was a break in the conversation I looked at Steve imploringly, “Can we go in now?”

“You ready to go in?” he asked.

I nodded my head and stood up rapidly. Sara led us to a door down the hall and turned to us and said, “Now, Baby Oliver just looks like he’s sleeping,” before she pushed upon the door and turned the dimmer switch so that the room was pleasantly, but not overly, illuminated.

I nodded my head absently and waited for her to move out of the way so that I could be with my baby, but upon entering the room I found myself nearly paralyzed. The coffin was so much smaller than I ever imagined, despite the health visitor’s warning; I couldn’t look inside. Instead I pressed my face into the opposite wall and shook with sobs. I barely noticed Steve’s presence, though I have a feeling he was just as affected as I. But I could hear him talking to Oliver. I calmed myself down, and still I couldn’t make myself look at Oliver. Steve caressed his little face and told him how much we love him, but I paced in the background while Steve took a couple of pictures.

Finally, I approached the coffin. I stroked the engraved plaque on the coffin’s lid, which had been leant against the wall behind the casket. It read, Baby Oliver Harry R-W Died January 21, 2006. Such finality in the word “died.” My eyes lingered on it, and my heart seized when I tore my gaze from the plaque to the coffin’s contents. “It’s not fair; it’s not fair,” I moaned. This wasn’t my son, but he was my son. Oliver’s lips were a deep red color, which lent him a doll-like appearance, so unnatural and yet so real. “I can’t touch him, not like this,” I said, tears running in a continuous stream down my cheeks and onto the coffin’s lining.

Steve put his arm around me as we looked down at our little son and said, “It’s hard. He’s cold.” Eventually I got the courage to find his right hand, the one I’d held for so many hours in the hospital. Though warned, the temperature shocked me; his hand wasn’t just cold, it was near freezing. A fresh batch of tears sprang to my eyes.

“Oh, Oliver. You’re so cold. My poor baby,” I said in a whimper, picking up the hand I’d dropped so quickly. His little fingernails were a deep purple color. I tried to ignore it, as I tried to ignore how hard his cheeks felt when I finally brought myself to touch his face. I closed my eyes and put my hand on his head. His hair was just as soft as I remembered it. I tried to pretend that the skin beneath it was warm, and I stayed like that for several minutes. Bringing myself out of it and opening eyes, I felt the anger stirring within me again. I wanted to take him out of the coffin and shake him until he woke up; I wanted to put the lid back on the tiny box and carry it out with me and just keep Oliver’s little body forever. I wanted to kick and scream and make all of it just go away. Instead I stood silently staring at the little boy who’d once eaten so vigorously from my breasts, who’d cried only when getting his diaper changed except when daddy did it, who’d made the most adorable little turtle face. He was gone. Gone.

I looked over at Steve. His eyes were red and filled with tears. “God had to have a good reason for this,” Steve said, “Unless he’s just punishing me for being a terrible person.”

I fiddled with the lining of the coffin, rearranging it around Oliver’s little body, “Maybe he just wants us to grow from this, maybe someday we will help others who experience a similar loss. I don’t know, Steve. He’s not punishing you or anyone.” I moved toward him, and he pulled me into his arms. “I think I’m ready to go now,” I whispered into his ear.

Steve nodded his head and said, “I am.”

We each kissed Oliver’s forehead and told him how handsome he looked in his little outfit, gathered our things, and left the room.

Oliver's Life: A story of death (Part One)

2006-03-09T00:20:00.000-08:00

I stood still staring in front of me while the hustle and bustle of the store carried on as usual. I didn’t think I would be able to do it, after all, how does one decide which outfit is best for her son to wear in the coffin. I could feel tears brimming to the surface and sobs aching to come out, but I stealed myself against all but the tiniest tear, which I quickly brushed away. We’d had so many clothes for him that he’d never even worn, but after he died, so anxious were we to hide the ghosts that we gave away everything but a few choice pieces. When the funeral director asked us about something for him to wear, it hit me like a ton of bricks that not only was my son lying in a cold mortuary but he was not even wearing anything and again the guilt that I had not been to the hospital to see him waved over me. “His spirit is not there; it is with you.” Encouraging words that came to me from more than one source, but the thing is, they haven’t done their job to encourage. I’m still stuck in the events of the past, so try as I might, I just can’t separate my son’s spirit from his body.

Saturday morning it wasn’t a necessity. Everything was as it should be. My back had started hurting me the night before, but I wasn’t going to let it or any healing scars keep me down. Our little family was going to hit the town. I wrapped Oliver up like a little Eskimo, slapped on some makeup and our little threesome headed to London. I was so proud of my little guy and the way people on Oxford Street craned their necks to see the little one in the stroller and then look up at me and smile. It puffed my chest. I was the luckiest girl – beautiful baby, handsome stroller pusher (Steve), and a rapidly healing body. We went all around town. Oliver, well, he did what baby’s do – slept, but his big excitement for the day was getting his diaper changed and nursed in Harrod’s. Not too shabby. And we went, of course, to Hyde Park. By the end of the day, I was exhausted and my back had gone to a dull ache to a raging, full-on scream, so we returned to home, we happy family.

Sunday, the pain in my back was worse. I was absolutely miserable. Holding Oliver to feed him sent me into a fit of tears, so Steve did everything else and I lay in bed in agony. “It’s probably from the epidural,” was the most widely accepted theory for my pain, but I didn’t much care what was causing it; I just wanted it to go away. Steve and I agreed that after he came back from work, where he had to go for a couple of hours, we would go to the emergency room, because being in so much agony that you can’t even hold your baby is just no fun at all.

So while Steve was gone, Oliver and I lay on the bed together. He blinked his eyes up at me and made adorable little baby sounds, and I writhed in agony. I called my mom, because there is no one like mom to cry to about your aches and pains. She listened sympathetically as I ached and moaned, eventually my back started to feel a little better, so we started chatting about other things, but a noise from Oliver caught my attention. I looked down at the little guy and saw that he had spit up. I picked him off the bed. He choked a little. I patted his back. He coughed a little and spit up came out through his nose. Then normality. I laid him back down and picked the phone back up, “That was a little freaky,” I said to my mom. “That’s why the whole back versus belly thing seems like a toss up to me – you have either SIDS the one way or they choke on their spit up the other. But anyway, I don’t know if I am going to go to the hospital anymore. My pain is starting to ease up and the midwife is coming to visit me tomorrow anyway.”

“Well, let me know what happens,” she said, and we hung up.

Steve called me a few minutes later to say that he was on his way and could Oliver and I be ready to go to the hospital when he got there. Funny, the pain came back right after I hung up with my mom. I decided to go after all and told Steve we would be ready. As I got ready, Oliver spit up again and choked on it again. This time his body went a little limp. I got a little freaked out, but I’m thinking, kids choke on spit up all the time. He came around, so I finished getting his bundled up.

Steve came upstairs and picked up the car seat bearing the little guy, and we headed out to the car. “Sweetheart,” I said, “Oliver’s starting to worry me a little bit. He choked on his spit up and went a little limp. I wonder if we should have them check him out since we’re there. I know the midwife comes tomorrow, and I can talk to her about it, but it’s just a little freaky.”

Steve shot an alarmed look my way, “You guys are both starting to scare me.”

A surge of pain hit my back, and I gasped in response. Happy I was to see that there was only one other person in the waiting room. We checked in and moments later a nurse came through the door calling our names. We followed her into a small examining room.
Oliver cooed as Steve set the car seat on the counter in the room, and the nurse, Jennifer, looked at him and smile, “Such a cutie.”

I smile my proud mother smile and then proceeded to complain to my heart’s content as she questioned me about my pain. When she was done, she went over to Oliver. “All right, let’s check you out, mate,” she said lifting him out of his car seat. She held him to her and with one hand pulled down the neck of his sleeper and pressed a finger to his skin. She looked up at us and said, “I’m just going to get a probe from the other room.” She left carrying Oliver with her. Steve and I smiled at each other, full of proud parent glow.

But when Jennifer came back a couple of minutes later, she was no longer carrying Oliver. How I wish I could go back to the blessed wholeness of my life before she uttered her next words. “While I was in the hallway with Oliver, he went blue. He’d stopped breathing. He is in Resuscitation now where they are working on intubating him.” As she led us to a private waiting room nearer to where Oliver was being worked on, though the pain in my back hadn’t eased, the rest of me was numb. Jennifer was just supposed to tell us that babies choke on their spit up sometimes you stilly worry warts, now here is two painkillers for your back, call me in the morning. My son wasn’t supposed to end up intubated.

Jennifer got us seated in the room, “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to go check on Baby Oliver for you, okay?”
Steve and I nodded at her robotically. It still hadn’t sunk it. This was a dream, or a nightmare. Either way, we’d wake up soon.

When Jennifer reentered the room, Steve and I sat up and looked at her expectantly, but she wasn’t the bearer of good news, that much could be read in her eyes. She sat on the sofa across from us and took a deep breath. “They are having to breath for him and pump his heart as well. His blood isn’t clotting, so the places they have taken blood and tried to get a line started won’t stop bleeding. Oliver is a very sick boy.” She emphasized the very and looked at each of us carefully to make sure we understood what she was saying.

I didn’t – yet, “But he is stable though, right?” I asked calling on my ER guided medical terminology.

Jennifer shook her head slowly and with sympathy repeated, “Oliver is a very sick boy. Right now his condition is very critical.”

And that last word was the one that hit me over the head with reality. I crumpled into Steve’s arms a sobbing mass. “He was fine. He was fine.” I repeated again and again. This wasn’t happening.

Jennifer pushed the box of tissues our way, “You guys can come and see him if you like.”

“I can’t. I can’t.” I sobbed. The idea of seeing my son flailed out on a hospital bed with countless people working on him was too much to bear. Steve held me closer and whispered to Jennifer that we needed a little time. She nodded and left the room after telling us she would keep us abreast of any changes.

“It’s going to be okay. Oliver is going to be just fine; you’ll see,” Steve said as he rocked us and pulled his fingers through my hair, but at that moment, I didn’t think so.

(I have to do this in two parts. The emotions that arise while writing it are very hard to bear in large doses, so I must stop here. Today, Thursday, March 09, 2006, would have made my son one month old. Tomorrow is step one in the saying goodbye to the little guy’s body. We have the viewing at the funeral home. Steve and I will be the only ones there.)

This Old Town

2006-03-06T23:05:00.000-08:00

Writing the last part of Oliver's life is something that is just so hard to sit down at the computer and do. But I do it in my head all day. I constantly replay everything that happened in my head. I talk about it over and over with my mother. Steve and I constantly question everything and wonder the typical what ifs that everybody says are a waste of time but you do it anyway. I know it will take me a while with my laptop to actually write down what happened, but I'm not giving myself that time right now.

Steve works terribly long hours at his job - not his fault, so I am left to myself for days on end.
This isn't an overly exciting prospect to one who was supposed to be spending these days nursing, changing diapers and cooing, so I have been hitting the town - London town that is. I had to get over the depressing part of being alone all of the time. Steve said, "People all over the world long to come to London and see all of the sights."

"Yes," I wailed, "But not alooooone." But I'm over that now. Since Friday, I've been hoofing my way up and down Oxford Street, through Piccadily Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, into Westminster, Hyde Park, the museums. Yesterday I learned the difference between a road rage honk and a honk at the girl with two legs and a head walking down the street (I got six of those) and while I was in Hyde Park snapping photos, this French guy came up to me and told me I have beautiful eyes (so original) and asked me to spend the day with him. I held off telling him that my son just died so leave me alone, because for some reason that was my first inclination. I hope that goes away soon. But I was flattered, so I smiled and told him that I have a somebody. He said, "But I would like to see you again." He grinned and waited for me to fall into his arms and say that he was the man of my dreams and I can't imagine living another day without him and his French accent and puppy dog eyes. I laughed and said, "Sorry, I am leaving for America soon. Have a lovely time in London." I saw him hours later as I was walking down Bayswater Road. After we passed each other we both looked back and laughed as our eyes met. Weird that in a city of millions of people I would see the same stranger twice in one day.

So that is what I do with myself while I wait to go back to Seattle. Today I do it again. First a doctor appointment and then I head to the West End to fill my memory card up with pictures like this one.But no matter how much I try to drown myself in the architecture and beauty of the city, I still feel a horrible twinge of pain everytime I look down from the Jacobean harp detailing to see the tens of strollers lining the sidewalks around me. I can't help but look at the person pushing and issue her a silent plea to appreciate every day with her child, because, no matter how trite it sounds, life really can be so fleeting.

Today makes two weeks since we said goodbye to Oliver. That is longer than he was here with us. Still I find that hard to fathom.

Oliver's Life: A story of birth

2006-03-03T13:54:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a girl. She was overdue and anxious to have her baby out of her belly. Then fever struck. Ha! She thought. Now I have a reason to go to the hospital. Labor is not coming, but I bet the doctors will get the baby out of me now. So the girl called her faithful partner and told him he should come home and take her to the labor ward because the fever might mean something bad.

Arriving in the labor ward, they were greeted with blank faces. They know we are coming, the girl thought, why are they not now rushing around me with thermometers and baby monitors. Finally giving up on the staring statues behind the desk, the girl went to the busy lady on the phone.

“We’ve been expecting you,” she said with a smile.

Ah, some attention. The nice, busy lady on the phone ordered one of the idle wage-non-earners to bring the girl to a room. There temperatures were taken, monitors were strapped on and high heart rates were discovered on both the girl and the wee one inside. Hmm, the people looking at the monitors said, why are the heart rates so high? We do not know. Let us get the mother on an IV, give her some Paracetamol (UKish for Tylenol or acetaminophen), and start her on antibiotics and see what happens next. The poor girl has bad veins in her hands, so two blown veins and a shot of local anesthetic later, the girl has two bandaids, or plasters, if you please, on the right hand and a fluid pumping vein in the other. The girl lies in the uncomfortable hospital bed staring at the teeny tiny bubbles in the IV line waiting for one of them to make its way to a vein and cause all the trouble bubbles cause when parking it in the blood stream, but nothing so dramatic occurred and the girl deemed herself a hopeless hypochondriac. But at least she did have a slight fever and the doctors seemed to be validating her coming in in the first place.

Hours tick by and the girl comes to the conclusion that British hospitals are really boring because there are no televisions and there is certainly no cable. How do all the British hospital bound survive, the girl wonders often and aloud, because staring idly at her wonderful partner has ceased to be amusing. The wonderful partner is still in his suit, so the girl tells him to go home and stay there for the night, because observation has just become the order of the evening. Mom’s heart rate came down, baby’s? not so much. They like that sucker to be below 160, this kid liked his at around 185. And when people come in the room and gasp when they see the rate on the monitor, the girl knew she could take all the monitoring they could offer.

The wonderful partner left, but he wouldn’t stay home. Instead he came back and curled up behind the girl on the tiny, uncomfortable hospital bed and held her tightly as her body shook with the shivers and sweat till both were drenched. When they rose with the sun in the morning, the girl knew that she would never love another. During the night, the baby decided it would be fun to pull his heart rate back down, so we slept, but with morning came excitement. The baby pulled it up even higher. More gasps from people entering the room, this time from a troupe of rounds makers, doctors, students and the like. The girl didn’t find it at all assuring that one of the students had a splatter of blood on his white, rubber clog thingies and stared at the blood the whole of the time her room was invaded by the round makers. Why hadn’t anyone told him? Where did it come from? Ick. Make the bloody clog wearer leave my room, puhlease, the girl thought.

The round makers decided the order of the day was induction, so waters were broken and hormones were injected and contractions intensified. The girl moaned for an epidural, the epidural man called her a brave girl for being so still. Why could the girl not handle the IV needle but needle to the back, A OK? When the epidural man left, he told the girl that it ought to last her for another hour. Cue girl freaking out. An hour? An hour? This thing just started. South Carolina paralyzed me and gave me a good few hours worth, what is Britain playing at, the girl wondered as she waiting for the pain to subside. Two hours later, she demanded her top up and then the violent shivering and shaking began. Um, that didn’t come with the first epidural, but nurse kindly informs partner and suffering girl that it’s just one of the side effects. Wonderful partner sneaks out of the room, he worried and asks a doctor to help the poor girl. The doctor reiterates what the nurse says, so the partner watches helplessly as the girl rocks the bed with her shivering shivers and moans for this to be over.

Then they give her the anti-nausea pill and the stomach liner. Looks like a c-section might make it on the platter soon. No more water for you, they say to the girl. The girl’s mouth immediately dries up and she dies of dehydration. Okay, no, but she thought she would, but instead fantasies about Gatorade coolers full of ice being poured down her gullet, the ice at Taco Time, the sweat tea at McAllister’s overwhelmed our poor girl, so when the c-section was deemed an immediate necessity because they stuck a gigantor arm up the girl’s crotch and poked the baby’s head and took some of his blood, tested it, and found that there might be a chance of infection, the girl happily signed the papers and asked how long after the procedure she would be able to drink and eat anything. The room laughed at her. What a one-track mind they tittered. The girl humphed feeling slightly guilty for wanting to cure her dehydration (of which there was none because of all that bloody IV fluid, but still) when she was about to go into surgery to get her excited baby out of the womb. Just make sure that people don’t think I did this because I am too posh to push, the girl whispered to the partner before he was whisked off to the magical smurf outfit dispenser. To the surgeon, who if she cared to admit it, the girl thought was quite handsome, she whispered something about him perhaps sliding a tummy tuck in there while he was at it.

Then began the show. They gave the girl the superduper c-section epidural, which in South Carolina they gave the girl for regular old birth. Hmm. Then there was the spritzing of the super cold stuff to make sure sensation was dead. The girl made them wait until there was absolutely no cold felt absolutely anywhere. Horror stories had been heard, and the girl didn’t care to have one of her own. They erected the curtain and commenced cutting whilst the girl squeezed the partner’s hands. Now, in every episode of the Baby Story that the girl had ever seen, the cut was made and half a minute later out comes baby. So why were they pushing again and again and why was the girl rocking back and forth and feeling them leaning into her? Minutes were passing, still no baby. This wasn’t an episode of the Baby Story. The girl began to moan loudly because it wasn’t fun to be pressed on by four different people trying to get out a baby. And everyone kept telling her what a good job she was doing, which really pissed her off, because lying on a bed paralyzed from the waist down whilst waiting for people to do all of the birthing work for her wasn’t really her idea of a good job, plus all of the moaning specifically made her a wimp, and why wasn’t the baby out yet, again?

Finally, the cry of the infant could be heard, and all the girl could think was, about damn time. She knew the baby was okay, mother’s intuition. The nurse carried the baby boy to be weighed. Mystery solved. Nine pounds, two ounces, no wonder they had to tug so hard, and to boot, baby was deemed perfectly healthy. They wrapped the little guy up and presented him to a beaming mom and dad. The mom watched proudly as the dad held his little guy for the first time and stared down into his little scrunched up face, tears streaming down his cheeks. The mom reached out her hand and caressed her new son’s little head. His hair was lighter than she expected and not at all like hers or the dad’s had been when they were born. But he was his daddy’s little guy. He looked up into the dad’s face with blinking eyes taking in his face for the first time and the mom wept. What a beautiful sight, one that would be forever ingrained in her memory.

And then with baby tucked beside her, all stapling done, the mom was wheeled to the recovery ward. I have no more belly, she said looking down in surprise. The bed pushed laughed, and replied that she was all baby, that was for dang sure. In the recovery ward, the mom and dad were disappointed to see that once again there were no televisions and collectively realized how American they were.

The next couple of days in the hospital sucked royally. The mom stared at the walls – no television – and longed to be set free. She almost tricked someone into letting her out a day early, but a registrar caught on and prevented early release. So more wall staring and wishing that all hospital beds could go to the elephant graveyard and instead be replaced with king size Sealy mattresses. Oh and the mom also HATED visiting hours. Dads should not have to leave moms at 8 pm, no, no, no. Wrong, England. Wrong. You need TVs, or tellies, if you must, and no visiting hours. Staring at the walls is depressing. And lonely. And sucks. The mom was not happy, no she was not. Especially since she made the dad go to work on day two. The mom really really wished she could click her heels and end up in the South Carolina hospital, because people checked on her and helped her with the baby and prepared her baths and she never had to use the call button. The mom was not happy, not one little bit. England, you have work to do, yes you do.

Eventually, come Sunday, the mom and the dad and the baby got to come home. The mom and the dad finally agreed that Oliver Harry was to be the little guy’s name and they spent the rest of the day in bed (a comfortable bed at that, see, England, it is possible) staring at the beauty that had been in the mom’s belly kicking and rocking for 40 weeks and 5 days.

(I found it easier to write this in the second person. I'm not sure why, because I'd already written 1700 words of his birth story from my perspective, but I had to start over and write it again in order to get to the end. I haven't started the story of his death yet, but I imagine that it will take a lot of strength, but it is a story I need to tell. That will complete the trilogy. a story in pictures, a story of birth and a story of death. Thank you all again for your kind words. I am trying to respond to emails, and eventually, hopefully I will get around to the comments and try to visit your sites as well. Steve and I are, as I have said, eternally grateful for the outpouring of love.)

Bear with me

2006-03-02T02:41:00.000-08:00

As the days goes by, I haven’t found things getting easier. Each day seems like an anniversary. Saturday we took Oliver out on the town. Sunday we came home from the hospital. Sunday we took him to the hospital. Tuesday he died. Thursday he was born. Today he would have been three weeks old. And that is so young, but he didn’t even make it that far. And I feel so empty. In my room, his moses basket no longer stands in place, but its shadow is there and I constantly look to it wishing with all my might that I might find it and him there. I only had ten good days with him, two in the hospital for a total of twelve days in his life, but those ten days will stick with me forever. I want to go back to them. I want to treasure each moment more. I want to take more pictures. I want to frame him. I don’t want to know he's lying in the cold mortuary in the hospital any more. I want him here with me. Alive. Well.

I will never understand this. The pain will ease, I know that. But I will never understand why my Oliver had to go so young. He was so beautiful. I just want him back.

I’m trying to write the other posts. They sit in open Word documents on my laptop, but I’m finding it harder to write than I thought. But I will, because already memories are fading and that is hard too. Why can’t my memory be better?

Mostly now, I’m just waiting to go back to Seattle. I don’t ever want to see this bedroom again because Oliver is here. I wake up in the morning and it is the hardest time, because the sun has woken me up and not an infant’s squeals for his breakfast, and again I feel so empty. He’s not lying beside me anymore. But I still see him here. So I never want to see this place again. I want to see my daughter. And yes, I am thankful that in the end she wasn’t here to experience all of this pain firsthand, but I did tell her that her baby brother, who she insisted on calling Bubble even after he was born, rejecting Oliver as his name, went to heaven. She took it hard, and now I feel like a terrible mother for telling her when I couldn’t be there to comfort her. I will always regret telling her over the phone, because listening to her cry over the phone and being so helpless, so far away, so unable to take her in my arms and comfort her, it ripped me apart. I made a big mistake, but I can’t undo it; I can only hope that I didn’t damage her in some way. How am I to know how to do all of this? I’ve never lost someone close to me. I’ve never lost a child before. How does one prepare? How does one know the right way to do it all?

You can’t just escape from it. It doesn’t go away. But I really wish it would.

I thank you all for your comments and your emails. You have no idea how much I’ve appreciated them, and Steve as well. He is so completely touched that so many people out there care so much and have been touched by our loss. It’s been a real comfort to us. And I know some people would never dream about being so forthright with their experience and their pain deeming it to be a private time in life, but Steve and I are basically alone here in London with our grief. The telephone and the computer has been our main source of comfort, whether through the voices and emails of friends and families or comments and emails from strangers around the world. So thank you, thank you. It’s meant so much to us.

Danielle made a lovely and thoughtful suggestion that I select a charity in the UK and one in the US to which readers can make donations possibly in Oliver’s name. I think it is a wonderful idea, because anything that gets people to give money to a worthy cause is a great idea in my book. So after a lot of thinking, I have chosen Great Ormand Street Hospital for Children here in London. They were so wonderful to us and to Oliver; Steve and I will be eternally grateful to them for everything. He died there, but thousands of children that pass through the hospital’s door get well. Helping them would mean so much to Oliver’s memory.

If you would like to send a cheque/check on which you denote that it is meant to be a donation in memory of Oliver, the name you can use is Oliver Harry R-W, Feb 9-21, 2006. For privacy’s sake obviously, I am not giving our last names. You can send your check to:
GOSHCC
Freepost LON20107
LONDON WCIN 3AJ
If it is the donation that is important to you, it is quite simple to log on to the site and donate online. They tell of many different ways to help the hospital.

It’s up to you all if you let me know whether or not you donate. The family liaison will let us know of donations that come in in honor of Oliver’s memory, those that have been denoted in such a way, that is.

As for a charity in the US, I have decided to go with the Children’s Hospital in Seattle, because had I been there, it is where Oliver would have gone. You can make a donation online and denote that it is in Oliver’s memory, and they can notify the person if you choose, but I will not be giving my address, so you can try to put my name, Rebecca R and email address narcissisticflight@yahoo.com . I am sure they will get to me.

You can also send in a check, which you accompany with this form.

Thank you all for your kindness and thoughtfulness. I know things will get easier once I get back to Seattle. And I will try to finish one of my other entries for posting tomorrow.

Song that will not leave my head: Baby of Mine, Dumbo soundtrack. I sang it to Oliver while he lay in the hospital bed covered in tubes. I felt a bit like Dumbo's mum when she cuddled her son with her trunk from the prison. It was as close as they could get to each other but they took comfort from it nonetheless. All of Oliver's tubes and such felt to me like Dumbo's mum's prison. I could hold his hand and caress his head, but I couldn't pick him up and pull him close to me like I wanted to so badly. Sometimes I wonder if those two last days would have been better spent with my son in my arms rather than lying under a blowup heating blanket.

Oh

why

Oliver's Life: A story in pictures

2006-02-27T06:38:00.000-08:00

Two more months to go. Final belly shot before I go to the hospital. I really meant to take them weekly, but you know how it goes.
Nine months? Are you sure your dates are correct? Your belly seems too small. Yes, yes, forty weeks plus 5 days. Overdue. 9 months. I'm ready. Epidural then baby out please.
Welcome to our world little Oliver Harry. We were all shocked that you weighed so much. We had to have them convert the grams to pounds so your weight could mean something to us. You were a giant. How did you fit in my belly? That's what all the midwives wanted to know. Um, me too.

Mother meets baby. This was precisely why I never wanted a c-section (aside from the whole "too posh to push" stereotype) - you can't just hold your baby and nuzzle him and get that great skin-to-skin bonding thing going. Someone just holds the little bundle close to your head and you just kind of caress his cheek to the best of your ability and hope that they finish stapling you back together in a hurry so you can hold your little guy for real.

Our first family portrait. Steve gave me permission to put his picture on the blog. He knows about it now and read and cried about the previous post. He is just happy that we have a medium through which to share our son and his brief existence on a much wider scale, because at the end of the day, Oliver's world was just his mom and dad. Gotta love the blue head nets.
First time nursing little Oliver. I had such a hard time with Audrey. Neither of us could really get the hang of it for the first couple of days. But Oliver was very much a boobman, no troubles here.
This is the second of our two family pictures. Oliver is just a couple of hours old, and Steve and I swear there is just a touch of a smile on his face. I wish the hair and makeup people had made an appearance, because I look as you would fresh from a c-section, I couldn't even move my legs yet, bloody epidural. We're in the recovery ward. I had a lovely view of Harrow on the hill. It was a lovely sunny day, and everything just seemed rosy and perfect.

Home from the hospital, I can't resist taking a few pics of my little man, one in his moses basket and the other on my bed. He was a little jaundiced after a couple days, but it went away just as quickly.

Getting our little guy dressed and ready for his first big day out in London. The outfit is curtesy of his Uncle Jamie. The hat we adore. He wore it home from the hospital, out and around London, as well as to his last trip to the hospital. It had the tendency to cover his eyes, but he didn't mind, for he was sleeping anyway. He always looked like such a little ball in his carseat. My little guy.

We took our little guy to Hyde Park, which we'd been dreaming of doing since we found out we were pregnant. A passing American gentleman offered to take a picture of the three of us. Foolishly I turned him down because I wanted a special picture of father and son - now, how I wish I'd taken him up on it, because then we would have three family pictures.
It's my favorite picture of my little guy. The little expression on his face always cracked us up. This was after our big day out around London. My back was killing me, so I hopped straight into bed. Steve propped little Oliver next to me while I caught some shut eye and snapped this photo - our last one of our little guy while he was well.

It's a sight I wish fewer new parents had to see. These shots were taken on the second morning. With his kidneys failing and no urine being produced, his little body became bloated so that the only things that looked like our Oliver were his tiny ears and button nose. Still, I just wanted to rip it all away and take him home with me.

One of the hardest moments of our lives, well the hardest moment of our lives - holding our dying son after disconnecting him from life support. If it hadn't been for the doctor coming back in to tell us that they would have to begin the postmortem tests, Steve and I never would have been able to leave the room.

He was our light, our joy, however briefly he joined us. The ache is sometimes too much to bear, and I keep thinking of him lying in that cold mortuary and long to go and get him and bring him home, as if everything can go back to normal if I can just get him. I hate this all. I hate it. I want it all to go away and rewind time and do something, everything differently. I want it to be my fault, I want it to be noone's fault. I just want it undone.
* * *

In coming posts, I will write more about his birth and then the events that led us to bring him to the hospital as well as an update on the Sam stuff. This post I needed to do because the more people that I show my son and, in a way, share my pain with, the more strength I garner. This all helps me in a strange way. So thank you all for indulging me as I share these pictures of my son and my experience saying goodbye.

Unpredictable

2006-02-21T11:16:00.000-08:00

I've been contemplating the best way to do this, but really there is no 'best way.' A week ago my story would have been completely different. I would have written about the how my feverish self was admitted to the hospital, observed for the night, induced in the morning and given an emergency c-section in the afternoon to deliver a beautiful 9lb 2oz. baby boy who we named Oliver Harry. I would have written about how they tried four different times to get the iv needle placed properly and how hard they had to push and pull to get the big lug of a baby out of my neatly compacted belly, weren't we all surprised at his size?, I would have written about how astonished we were at his beauty. But things change in a week.

My son, Oliver Harry was born Thursday, February 9, 2006 at 2:14 pm. He weighed 9lb 2 oz. He was the most beautiful baby we'd ever seen...auburn hair, expressive eyes, little button nose, perfect ears, except the right one, which bore the same indentation in the same place as his father's ear. He was his daddy's child through and through. His daddy was the only one who could change his diaper without getting a peep of complaint.

My son, Oliver Harry was born Thursday, February 9, 2006 at 2:14 pm. He weighed 9lb 2 oz. We took him home Sunday afternoon. We were so glad to be home. We got on the webcam and shared him with our family and Audrey, who said that her "baby brother is the most beautiful baby in the whole world." She was completely enamoured of him. As we all were. He was the perfect baby. Never a cry, never a complaint. He just gave a loud shrill scream to let us know he was hungry in the event we missed that he was trying to stick his entire fist down his throat as a substitue for milky sustinence.

My son, Oliver Harry was born Thursday, February 9, 2006 at 2:14 pm. He weighed 9lb 2 oz. Sunday night, a week after we brought him home, we went the emergency room. I was having severe back pain and could take it no more. Right before we left, our little Oliver spit up and choked and went a little limp, scaring me out of my wits, so we decided to have him checked out since we were going to be there any way. The first emergency room was too busy, so we went back to the hospital in which Oliver had been born. We were seen after five minutes. A lovely nurse named Jennifer asked all about my symptoms and I complained to my heart's content and then she moved on to Oliver, who had been sitting contentedly cooing in his car seat while his daddy caressed his cheek. She lifted him out of the seat and smiled at him, then compressed a bit of skin on his chest with her finger to check coloring. She left the room with him, saying she was going to go get a probe or something. She returned several minutes later.

My son, Oliver Harry was born Thursday, February 9, 2006 at 2:14 pm. He weighed 9lb 2 oz. On Sunday February 19, 2006 my son crashed. They spent 45 minutes pumping his little heart for him. In the morning CATS came and we moved him to the PICU at Great Ormand Street Hospital.

My son, Oliver Harry was born Thursday, February 9, 2006 at 2:14 pm. He weighed 9lb 2 oz.
Today, he died. We don't know why. Hopefully some day we will. It is coroner's case now.

I can't describe the pain. Or what it feels like to be home without my son. He was everything to us. And now I have a healing c-section scar and milk-filled breasts that achingly remind me every moment of his absence. We had a lovely week with him. I will always cherish my little son. My little guy, I called him. It wasn't enough time. I want him back so much, but I thank God for every minute and second I did have.

Bless you, Oliver.

Come Baby, Baby Come

2006-02-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

The Sarcastic Journalist had her baby boy. Mrs. Mogul had her baby boy. We all had the same due date. Why do I have to be the last mom standing?

I haven't felt well today, though, and am worried that I am feverish, but I don't have a thermometer. Terrible, I know. So, as soon as Steve gets home from work, hopefully very soon, I am going to the hospital to get checked out. Hopefully all is well.

How could you leave your daughter like that?

2006-02-06T17:32:00.000-08:00

It was when Sam told me that the courts wouldn’t look at my intentions only the fact that I had gone to England that all of the hope seeped out of me. I’d been trying to reason with him. I asked him again and again how he could just file without ever telling me that he realized he had a problem letting Audrey come to be with me. It only made things worse when he said that he didn’t have an answer for that. When I demanded again and again that he tell me why he let me go in the first place, why he didn’t just tell me, why everything, I had so many questions, but his answer for them all was that he had no answer. I was so confused and hurt and more betrayed than ever before in my life, and it had come from someone who had been so intent to posture himself as my friend.

It was in August that Steve and I began to discuss moving to England together. With his mother bed-bound due to a stroke, he wanted to give her a chance to be close to her grandchild for a while. He wanted to be back in his home town for a while. I told him that I would talk to Sam and see if we could work out a way for it to be possible. When I told Sam that we were considering a move to London, Sam revealed that he was considering a move to Hawaii. And from there we discussed actualities and inevitabilities and visitation arrangements. Foolishly enough I took our discussions as reality, his words as truth. In the end our agreement stood that Sam would have the first go with Audrey, because he was moving the following spring. So he would have her for four months, then she would come out with my mother in time for Bubble’s birth. While she was with me Sam would move and get settled in Hawaii. Audrey would then go to him for the summer and return to me for the school year. From that point on she would summer in Hawaii with her father and school with me in London. I bought my plane tickets, explained everything to Audrey and Steve and I flew off to London.

How naïve I was, how trusting. As I read the papers over and over, I wondered how I could be so stupid. But it was confusion more than anything else. Try as I might I couldn’t understand how it had come to Sam filing for full custody without saying anything to me first and more cruelly, allowing Audrey and me to discuss plans of her coming here every time we spoke on the phone. She couldn’t wait to see Big Ben, because it is in Mary Poppins. And she was ecstatic about a trip to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs, which she was determined to “feed.” She couldn’t wait to see Bubble. My heart ached for her and for myself as well.

The “why”s repeated constantly in my head pushing me lower and lower. I wasn’t sleeping or eating. I stared at the wall from my bed for hours on end barely noticing the tears that streamed from my eyes.

By Friday, the fifth day of since the horror had begun, I couldn’t handle it any longer. I sobbed to Steve that I couldn’t be in London any more. I couldn’t bear to be so far away and so helpless. I could see no other way that to fly back to Seattle. I would just hide the pregnancy from the airlines. They wouldn’t need to know that I am 38 weeks along. Perhaps the small belly would be even more of a blessing than just a savior from stretch marks. Steve got on the phone with the airline to find some flight information from me, but then it hit me. If I left, I would have to have the baby without Steve. The idea sent me crashing. I couldn’t bear that either. Swirling in a sea of mixed emotions, the horror of it all just seemed too much to bear. I was caught in the tide between my unborn child and his father and my daughter and her father. In the end, I ran myself a bath and cried until I couldn’t cry another tear. I cried because I knew that I couldn’t fly away. I couldn’t put myself or the baby in that position. I cried for Audrey because the pain of missing her all those long months had intensified so much as everything that we’d planned together was erased with the knock of the door. I cried for the amicable relationship that I thought Sam and I had and wondered where it had gone, wondered how he had gotten to be so hard that he could let me go on about bringing Audrey out here when all along he knew what he and his lawyer were putting together. By the end of the bath, I realized that I was doing nobody favors by crying at the wall, certainly not Audrey and definitely not the baby or myself. As the water drained out of the bath, so too did my despair and hopelessness, and I realized that I had to crawl out of the pit and forgive myself for leaving Audrey, for trusting Sam and for ever giving his mother a hug.

The next week I spent researching online with my newly restored broadband; I tried to focus on keeping myself up and more emotionally stable for the sake of the baby. I had to believe that everything was going to be okay. The hate for Sam is something that I am coming to terms with. I believe it is wrong never to forgive somebody, but I will be hard-pressed ever to find forgiveness in my heart for what he is putting us through. Somewhere deep down he believes he is doing the right thing, he must, but there is no right in the way he went about this. I asked him what changed. He said he didn’t realize the repercussions of his decision, so Audrey and I have to pay. I asked him why he didn’t tell me, look, things have changed, either move back to Seattle or I will file for full custody. He said that he thought that I would just threaten to do the same and then trailed off without completely his explanation. I asked him why he didn’t tell me that he filed instead of letting me find out when I was served. He said he thought it was in Audrey’s best interest. Imagine that. I asked him if we could settle this without a custody battle that will go until at least the trial in December. He said that he wanted it to be settled in court.

I don’t think I will ever understand this, but I have to fight it and have strength to do so.
This weekend was one of the most stressful weekends of my life. For, as I waited for the baby to come, hoping each moment that the waters would break or the contractions would start, each moment that did pass brought be closer to the hearing, which was scheduled for Monday, my due date of all days. It was the hearing that would put into place Sam’s proposed parenting plan, which allows me the luxury of 4 supervised hours with me daughter every two weeks, among other things. My nerves were shattered. The waiting, the expecting, the fright all split between baby and trial. Sunday night the tears were back. What if the judge ruled against me? What then? How bad was I going to look? I knew everyone would be thinking, “How could you leave your daughter?” for more than anything I know wondered it myself. But my question was longer. How could I have left her in the hands of someone like Sam?

This morning I awoke with the hearing just hours away. I felt like David going up against Goliath without any of the smooth stones to fuel my sling, Goliath being Sam’s lawyer. I needed help and God was my only ally. My mother and I prayed before putting the call through to the commissioner of the court. With my armpits pouring out nervous sweat, I answered that I could indeed hear the proceeding. My telephonic court appearance was underway.

“I understand that you have been granted a telephonic appearance purely on the grounds of asking for a continuance in this matter,” spoke the clear, strong voice of the female commissioner.

“Yes,” I said nervously, wondering if Sam was there beside his lawyer hearing my voice.

“Please explain your reasons,” she continued.

“Your honor,” I said, while asking myself if ‘your honor’ is the right this to call a commissioner and did I really know what to say or how long I could talk without making them all start shifting in their seats and looking at their watches. I opted for concise. “I was completely shocked by the filing of this paperwork. I am forty weeks pregnant, and unable to travel. I have found it extremely difficult to find legal help from where I am in London, nor do I have the funds to hire an attorney. I am returning to Washington state on March 15, which is the earliest I feel I should travel such a great distance with a newborn baby. I would like to have time to seek some sort of legal council or advice, because at this point, I really don’t know what I am doing or how to respond to all of this.”

“How long do you think you need upon returning?” the commissioner asked.

“As long as you can give me,” I said, “But preferably a couple of weeks.”

Then Sam’s lawyer spoke, “I have no objection to the continuance, but this is a matter that involves a child who has been abandoned. This is a case, as far as I understand, of the mother running off pregnant with her boyfriend and leaving her child behind. This temporary order puts in place the father’s parenting plan and also if this is left until the end of March that would make 5 months that the father has had the daughter without financial support of any kind from the mother.”

I could take it no longer. To hear myself talked about in that manner. I couldn’t even see myself, but some white trash hillbilly and her wife beater wearing, MGD guzzling, unemployed boyfriend. I blurted out, “May I respond to that, your honor?”

“Briefly,” she said firmly.

“First of all I did not abandon my child. Sam and I had an agreement,” I proceeded quickly to spell that out for her, “Secondly, Sam and I had always agreed that neither of us would seek child support from the other, even though I have always been the primary parent, I haven’t asked a dime of him. I am not working, nor do I intend to be. I am about to have a baby, and planned to take care of both of my children as a full time mother.” I stopped abruptly. The anger I’d been trying to suppress had taken over, but I was glad it was anger and not tears that wore in my voice. I would rather Sam hear how angry I was, that how incredibly upset this has all made me. I tried to remove the emotion from my voice as I continued, “Your honor, the whole reason I am fighting this temporary order is because I feel the parenting plan is far too excessive. I need legal help before you determine anything.”

So it was ordered. I got the continuance. The new hearing date is March 31. Neither of us may remove Audrey from Washington State. But she did say that Audrey would remain in Sam’s custody until the hearing. I was so filled with relief at being granted the continuance that I didn’t let the last part get me down too much. I just had now to figure out where in the world I would get legal assistance and freaking relax because I’d just read that stress was a problem when it comes to getting labor going…something about adrenaline being a labor inhibitor.

I got off the phone with the court and began to cry. I was so glad that I had my own little victory the first battle in my newly waged war against Audrey’s father. I prayed that there will be many more to come and that I will be able to bear further instances of hearing myself painted in such a terrible light. For now, I am going to put this behind me and focus on giving birth and being whole for this baby. When March comes, I will strap on my armor again and grab my sling.

I speak to Audrey every day. She doesn’t understand why daddy won’t let her come to England, and it takes every part of me not to tell her exactly how horrible he is, but I can’t do that to her. I love her too much to hurt her like that. I just count down the days until I can see her beautiful face again. Gone are our plans of exploring Hyde Park, now we are going to go to the nursery and pick out flower seeds and plant a garden together. It’s something we both can look forward to, and it takes our, or at least my, minds off of all that was supposed to be. Bubble didn’t come on Sunday like she requested, but she is still eagerly awaiting his arrival. Soon, she says, he will be her big brother, and he can come and play with her and her (imaginary) sisters, Gina and Sara.

Diversion:

2006-02-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

Or - I just wanted to write about something else.

I’m still pregnant, which is good because I really didn’t want a January baby. February just seems so much more pleasant.

This has been an even easier pregnancy this time around. I think I’m just one of those extremely lucky gals. My back pain is here and there, where as last time it was unbearable, and I rarely get heartburn, where as last time I was a veritable fountain of stomach acid. Not pleasant at all and required sleeping upright, which I hated.

Amusingly enough doctors here were concerned again about the smallness of my belly, and despite my reassurances that it was all baby, and it happened last time, I was sent in for another growth scan. Fine by me. So I went in to the hospital on Friday last. Steve came with me; neither of us had seen a 38 week ultrasound image before. Bubble was beautiful. The technician focused in on the little face and we watched the mouth open and close and then a hand shielded the eyes as if Bubble was hiding from us till we went away. And then Steve began to work his magic. First he finds a common ground. Our technician was Australian. His dad has lived in Australia for the past 30 years – Adelaide, we’re hoping to go for a visit one summer soon. He shares this with her. They chat about Australia while she measures the baby’s skull. Then he goes in for the kill. He mentions hospital policy, which prevents revelation of the baby’s sex. She nods. Then he butters her up until she caves. It was her last day at that hospital anyway she said as she moved the wand to the location of Bubble’s sex organs, which the previous technician Nazi had seemed determined to avoid. There was no denying it. Our Bubble is very much a boy! We were overjoyed. One of each. Of course saying that weakened my smile momentarily, but I regained my focus on the baby at hand and not the trouble brewing abroad.

I would honestly have been fine with either, having a boy makes me slightly nervous, and last time around I’d hoped so much for a boy that upon discovering that Audrey was a girl, I felt I’d jinxed myself. So this time I worked very hard not to focus on either, but I had the distinct feeling that it was going to be a girl, though EVERYone else was convinced Bubble was a boy. Shows what I know. The whole rest of the afternoon, I couldn’t keep the smile from my face and every so often I would say out loud, “We’re having a boy.” It was okay, because Steve was doing it too. We were like a child at Christmas who’d just unwrapped the gift he’d wanted most. Of course we’d opened our gift a little early, but it was the uplifting news we, or at least I, needed.

And as for the size of my belly being of concern, well, Bubble is over 7 pounds already. So I explain to them again, oh great holders of medical licenses, tall+thin=small belly. I’ve gained a whopping 35 pounds – there’s definitely a baby in there, people. So doctors reassured, I merely wait for the baby to come now. And if that doesn’t happen, well then I get to make an induction appointment.

But I think I might help nature along because I really want the baby to come this weekend, especially since Audrey made a special request that Bubble come on Sunday. Not Friday, not Saturday but Sunday, which just happens to be 40 weeks exactly. I aim to please. So I’ve been researching natural labor induction methods on the internet. Let me tell you one thing, I surely won’t be going the castor oil route.

I must say, however, that I am pretty nervous about the experience of having a baby in the UK. Everything was so easy with my last L&D, but it’s like a different world here. I was reading in the newspaper about the high rates of new moms dying in the hospital because of hemorrhaging – bad observation on the part of medical staff. And then Mrs. Mogul wrote how just a week or so ago (we have the same due date and she lives here in London) her doctor prescribed her a medication. She filled the prescription, but decided to research the pill online before taking it. Good thing, because it was something that you should specifically not take after 38 weeks. So forgive me if I am a little skeptical of the quality of care one can find in the UK. I’m almost tempted not to get an epidural for fear that a half-wit anesthesiologist might prick me wrong and paralyze me for life. And to top it all off, the maternity ward has visiting hours. Even partners have to leave the hospital at 8. No such rules at the hospital in which I had Audrey. I think you probably don’t get your own room here, which means I will be checking out at the earliest possible moment.

But hey, they have Stonehenge and Big Ben, Parliament and Buckingham Palace. What need have the Brits of quality, reliable medical care?

Okay that’s just the nerves talking.

I'll write more about the other stuff soon, but for now, here's to hoping baby will decide to come real soon.

The Papers

2006-02-01T06:41:00.000-08:00

There was a knock at the door, which interrupted our blissful morning. Steve got out of bed saying, “I wonder who that could be.”

“I bet it’s the parcel people,” I said, “Sam was supposed to be sending me a disc.”

Steve left went downstairs to answer the door, and I lay back on the bed. I was excited, for since my hard drive crashed taking all of my foolishly unbacked-up photos of Audrey with it, I’d only had the couple of printed photos to rely on when I wanted to look on her beautiful face. The disc, which Sam had promised me, was to contain all of the pictures from the computer I’d left with him before my move and pictures of their three week trip to Hawaii over the holidays. He’d just returned the week before and the day he got back, when I called to talk to Audrey, he asked for my address. I’d given it to him before, of course, but I was so excited about the pictures I didn’t think to lecture him about organization.

A few seconds after he left, Steve returned empty handed. “He said you needed to sign for it,” he said, shrugging, “Some sort of document. I wonder if it has to do with Lori.”

“Oh God,” I said, rolling my eyes, “I hope not.” But with her, anything was possible. Thinking she’d probably found some way to sue me for taking her husband, I got out of bed, threw on my sweats and moved my belly and me down the stairs to the front door. Steve had left him standing on the step with the door closed. I pulled it opened and faced a small, grey-haired, bespectacled man wearing a shirt and tie.

“Rebecca --------?” he said, eyebrows raised.

“Yes?”

He pushed a stack of papers toward me, waited for me to take it, then said, “You’ve been served.”

Immediately feeling as though I’d been transported to a film set, I leaned against the door jam and flipped through the papers without really looking at them. The man didn’t seem in any hurry to go though his task was obviously completed. I got to the bottom of the stack and noticed the envelope, across which was written ‘Becca’ in familiar, adolescent handwriting that sent chills all over my body and froze me in shock as I stared down at it, right as the man spoke again.

“There was a letter with it. I’m sorry, but I opened it,” he leaned toward me and fingered the ripped envelope, “I thought it was a picture. I didn’t read it, though.” He chuckled nervously

I looked up at him. Of course he’d read it. Why wasn’t he going away? “Well anyway,” he continued, “You obviously want to be here. It’s your decision. If you need anything let me know.” With that, he flashed another smile, got out a business card and after placing it in my hand turned on his heel and returned to his car.
I obviously want to be here? Now I was thoroughly confused. I closed the door, and walked to the kitchen and had a seat at the table. Ignoring the rest of the papers, I pulled the letter, which the man claimed not to have read, from the envelope, unfolded the college-ruled school paper and began to read the letter written in more of that familiar, adolescent handwriting.

I got no further than the first line before I broke down. Sobs shook my entire body and shock encapsulated my mind. Steve ran into the kitchen, clearly alarmed, but I couldn’t answer his pleas to tell him what was wrong, instead I pushed the mostly unread letter toward him.

He picked it up and read for a couple of moments as I continued to sob uncontrollably. “Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed, tossing the letter down, himself unable to read all of the way through. Steve put his arm around me and helped me back to the bedroom, by which time anger had begun to match shock’s place in my mind.

I sat down on the bed and took the letter back from Steve, this time determined to read it all of the way through, and I did, from the “Dear Rebecca, I have had an attorney file papers with the court in King County seeking full custody of Audrey” to “I am truly sorry it has come to this, Sam” I read it. It didn’t matter what he said to try to explain his actions, they still didn’t make any sense to me.

I picked up the phone and dialed his number. There was of course no answer. It was only 1 AM there, but I dialed anyway. When I’d left I had a discussion with him about turning off his cell phone at night and how it wasn’t a good idea since he was all of the time dropping her at my mom’s or his mom’s for several nights in a row and if there was an emergency, they wouldn’t be able to get in touch with him. After several weeks of reminding him of the lack of responsibility of being out of reach when his daughter wasn’t with him, he finally was leaving on his phone. I suppose getting him to answer it was an entirely different matter. Getting no answer a second time, I left a message imploring him to call me right away.

I finally picked up the stack of papers to see what exactly had been filed with the court. Reading through it brought tears of anger and rage and hurt and betrayal. I was so confused.

He wrote in his declaration that he felt that I had abandoned Audrey. In the parenting plan they checked the sections under parental conduct to say that I had abandoned and neglected my daughter and therefore deserved severely limited contact with her. The visitation to be every other Saturday for 4 hours and even then to be supervised by an approved adult.

I cried and cried. How could this be? How could he do this? It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. “I just talked to him yesterday,” I moaned as I rocked myself on the bed. Steve stood nearby, pain written across his face. “I just spoke to him yesterday. He agreed about her ticket. Why would he do that? Why didn’t he ever say anything to me? We had an agreement?” I repeated myself again and again; tears soon soaked the duvet cover and my hair as well.

I sat up after a while and dialed my mother. She picked up after two rings, her voice groggy with sleep. “Mom, Sam’s suing me for full custody of Audrey.”

“Oh my god,” she gasped. “Why?”

“I can’t figure it out, Mom,” I whispered, trying to keep from crying again. “He never once said he had a problem with our arrangement. I just spoke to him last night about Audrey coming here. Everything was fine. Why would he do this? This is a last straw, not a first step.”

“I bet his mother’s behind it,” she said.

“Oh, god,” I said. I’d been flipping through the papers and where it asks about attorney’s fees, it mentioned an ungodly sum, source – 'borrowed from mother.'

Idyll

2006-01-26T08:34:00.000-08:00

Ah, London. Getting off the plane filled me with exhilaration. I was here. I had done it, and I had arrived with the love of my life for whom I’d endured so much. I hadn’t a second glance at my belly the entire journey, but it was small yet. The smiles and nods would come later. But there I was in Heathrow airport ready to start the next chapter in my life, preferably one that was relatively emotional pain free.

After the relative shock Steve encountered after greeting his mother in her smoking-related stroke induced bedridden state, we settled into life in one of the world’s queen cities, spending days exploring the West End, wandering through gallery and museum, taking pictures of each other in front of Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace. I was constantly amused at Steve’s reluctance to accost fellow tourists into taking a shot of us together, but I vowed to learn PhotoShop so that I could meld our solo pics together. We had Marks and Spencer sandwiches and fresh squeezed orange juice on benches in Hyde Park, Green Park, or whatever park we were near at lunchtime.

It was idyllic. I finally had Steve to myself and no longer had to worry that there would come a knock at a door accompanied by any number of unpleasantries. We were together.

Weeks went by. Steve had to make two trips back to the States and despite everything I spent our separation in tears biting my fingernails for fear that he would not return. But he did. Christmas came. New Years passed. And we found ourselves in 2006, the birth of our baby looming ever so near. After much going back and forth, we had finally decided on a couple of names, one for each sex, for we weren’t to find out the baby’s sex. If we’d wanted to, we could have had a private scan somewhere, but we weren’t concerned about it, though the fact behind the reasons they decline to tell parents-in-waiting the baby’s gender being that sadly certain ethnic groups give preference to one over the other thus putting the one at greater risk for abortions was entirely thought provoking. So we had our two names ready, all that was needed was the baby and one other much anticipated piece to complete our puzzleand we would reach life's perfection.

And two weeks into the New Year, Steve and I had a perfectly lovely weekend. Friday the 13th was not a day of bad luck but one of good fortune for both of us. Saturday we spent with his Australian half-brother who was working in Belfast and had booked a flight to London as soon as he learned his brother’s new location. Sunday we fantasized about a trip to Australia this summer to show off the baby to his father and other half siblings before heading to Camden Market and Notting Hill then Chelsea where I saw and, I admit with some embarrassment, followed for a couple of blocks Jude Law, but it was for my mother’s sake. She is absolutely in love with him and watched Cold Mountain perhaps 20 times before surrendering the disc back to Netflix so she could change it in for every other film he appeared in. That night I called Audrey, excited as usual to hear her voice. We counted down the days again until her arrival, and I got on the phone with her dad.

“So you are still fine with buying her ticket, right?” I asked Sam.

“Right.” He replied in his usual monosyllabic monotonic manner.

“Lovely. I just can’t wait to see her. I’ve missed her so much. She is just going to love it here.” I gushed in a way I usually didn’t when on the phone with him. And then I decided to ask about his girlfriend and his family, which I also usually didn’t do. Again with the monotone as he answered “fine” to each question. “Is everything okay?” I asked finally.

“Yep.”

We said our goodbyes, and I went to bed. The next morning Steve and I had slept late then lay in bed languishing in the feeling of each other’s skin. Steve caressed my belly, and we marveled as we watched one of Bubble’s limbs pushed out from the uniform round smoothness of my bump and travel across the crest.

“Alien,” Steve whispered creepily. We both laughed then breathed simultaneous sighs of contentment. Life was good.

Perhaps that’s how I should have known that everything was about to come crashing down around me. Things were just too good. My life was going too well. I should have known that I am wrong to trust anyone. I should have known that my belief that people are inherently good is false. I should have been watching my back before it was stabbed this cruelly and from such an unexpected source.

Email

2006-01-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

Those who have kept in touch will receive an email soon.