Feb
6
It’s unseasonably warm and sunny here. So there’s that! Unless you think too long about the downsides of it being so warm and sunny. I try not to do that!
I remembered to take the trash out on Monday night. I have almost always been able to remember to do this ever since this became my very important sole responsibility, except once when I had to go flying out there early Tuesday morning in full Oh Shit mode, v embarrassing because my house is kind of super visible to a lot of neighbors since it’s on a cross street, and then I put a reminder in my phone and we’ve been solid ever since. Small wins, I will take them.
Billy is so big now, even though he is still *silly voice* just a baby! Apparently Maine Coons grow for 3-5 years, so their kittenhood is elongated much like their big old fluffy rabbit feet. We have this ongoing game where I catch his eye and gaze at him intently — this is how we know The Game is On — and then go inching around a corner so I can only see him a little bit, while he simultaneously flattens out or slinks behind something, then we carefully peek at each other while his butt starts to waggle then RARGH! He comes flying at me with paws raised! And sometimes even though I am very much aware that he is incoming he still manages to startle me!
My house really feels like my home to me now, which is such a good feeling. Sometimes I get back after being out and about for a while and it’s just like: ahhhh. It feels so good to walk in the door. It feels like slipping into a warm robe.
I have absolutely become the older lady that tells young moms to cherish the precioussssness and I can’t believe it, I know FIRSTHAND how annoying that was, and yet. I was talking to someone recently who was sharing about how in the weeds she felt with parenting lately, her son had just given the whole family some tragic barfing sickness and she was telling me about all the grim loads of laundry, the panicky E.R. visit for dehydration, all the things, and even though I can very specifically imagine the hellishness and even have my own terrible E.R.-for-barfing memory (the oily panic, followed by the relief/exhaustion of seeing a scary-pale child being revived, the lingering feeing of being in WAY over my head) I still found myself saying something like “Oh but you won’t realize how much dopamine they give you on the daily until they’re grown,” what in the absolute sam shit, self.
Speaking of the relentless and surreal passing of time, Dylan turned 18 this week. I have a whole entire piping-hot gumbo of feelings about that, but I will limit myself to saying that he sure is turning into a fine young man. Like Riley, he really is his own unique dude and I love them both so very dang much. 18, can you believe it! I spent some good time with him here and one of my gifts to him was a metric crap-ton of Big League Chew, Original Flavor, because we’ve been noticing that it’s hard to find plain bubble gum flavor in the stores. What, you’re going to stuff in a wad of fake chew and it’s strawberry? Fughettaboutit.
(It goes by so fast.)
Jan
30
It is hard to get out of a loop of wishing things were different than they are.
When I used to visit with my hospice patient Isabelle, something I often did was to use a little cuticle oil pen on her nails. It was something I carried in my purse, just this almond oil pen dispenser with a brush at the tip. She always liked it; I would paint the oil on her nails then rub it in, one by one, until she would admire her shiny nails and I would do my own. It felt like a little manicure session, a tiny bit of luxury, and because she was not able to remember, each time it was equally delightful. Her surprise at how it worked, her pleasure. When I last saw her, when she lay dying in bed and I held her sweet small fragile hand, I wanted so badly to do her nails, and I went digging and digging in my purse and the pen was gone. It was just gone and I haven’t found it since, somehow it disappeared and when I most wanted it I could not use it to paint dear Isabelle’s nails one final time. And I wished over and over for that not to be true, for my last visit to have included the small gesture of rubbing oil into her fingers, or maybe that I would have simply asked for some moisturizer, that would have gladly been given to me, I wish I would have done that but I did not. I didn’t have the pen and I just held her hand and that was okay, I know, but also I wish it had been different.
I wish so many things were different. I wish the election had been different. I wish my divorce was different. I wish my boys were chatty texters who cannot stop themselves from sending me many pictures from their days. I wish my mom and aunt lived closer. I wish that when I gain weight it would go somewhere other than my waist and boobs. I wish if we are in the business of just erasing truths and laws we could go ahead and get rid of daylight savings. I wish AI was being incorporated in truly useful ways and not just shoved willy-nilly into nook and cranny of humanity. I wish the social networks that algorithmically drive our opinions and actions were being run by relatable human beings. I wish guns simply did not exist. I wish delicous salty nuts did not have so very many calories. I wish owning a horse wasn’t so expensive. I wish our cultural beauty standards driven by capitalism would evaporate. I wish avocados and bananas had a lengthier ripeness stage. I wish mouthbreathing idiots would stop loudly confusing global warming with cold temperatures. I wish my cat could live forever.
Anyway. It is often hard to get out of the loop, and I wish it wasn’t.
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