Memory

I will never again see the bees on my dahlias without thinking of my mother. Jesse told me that she was gone and after I wailed and screamed, “You’re lying!” and “That’s not true!” and cried harder than I knew I could, I pulled myself together and went down to the dahlia jungle to calm myself before telling my children. The bees were swarming-an orgy of bees danced across each bloom and I stared in disbelief, sure that the world she‘d left behind shouldn‘t still hold such beautiful things. Lighting my cigarette, I inhaled poison and exhaled hatred like a dragon and tried my damnedest to self-destruct.

The next day, Natalie and I went to Mom’s apartment to pick up her cats. I stopped at the Holiday station on the corner for a soda and more cigarettes. I wandered to the refrigerated cases at the back, feeling like I was walking through water, looking at everything around me without really seeing any of it until I began to scan the beverages. My eye landed on bottles of Fuse, labeled “Slenderize” and “Replenish” and I wondered dully why they didn’t have one called “Grieve”.

I will miss her eyes, and her pierced ears, and the beauty mark under her left eyebrow. I will miss the way she smelled, and how it felt when we kissed one another hello and goodbye. I will miss her arms around me and what it felt like to climb into bed with her. I will miss her laugh and her smile and the way she used to twist her mouth to be funny. I will miss laying my head against her breast while she stroked my hair or held my face in her hands and kissed me over and over. I will miss her fingernails and her toenails and her heels and her elbows. I will miss how she called, “Ange!” and how she’d tell the kids, “Come to The Nani!” I miss the world that had my mother in it, the security in that, the every-day-ness of that. I don’t want to forget.

I want to remember that she was more than all of the good things, too. She was demanding and manipulative, jealous. She could hold a grudge like she’d invented them. What I loved is that when you combined the good with the bad, (her cleverness, her sense of humor, her kindness, generosity and love for her family, her talent, her sense of style, her organizational skills, her complete and total mastery of the English language) she was the kind of fascinating, complicated, beautiful woman that inspires songs and tortured poetry.

Now every song on the radio is about her. A moth lands on my arm and I wonder if it’s a sign from Mom, letting me know that she’s not afraid of them anymore. Or maybe it’s the sun breaking through the clouds or the stranger who held me and prayed when I broke down crying in Target’s parking lot. I am looking for her everywhere.

Love Thursday: I'm Not Loving It

Female Atlas by Ozz Boyd

I have a problem. Well, problems. I need to: find and sort all of our paperwork. Make roughly one billion phone calls. Do the laundry. Finish swapping the kids' room with the art room. Clean my whole house. Make 40,000 trips to donate 40,000 items to Goodwill. Scrub 1,000 miles of tile. Shampoo the carpets. Paint the bathroom. Find a new job. Clean out the van. Mow the lawn. Divide the lilies. Wash the walls. (And) that's just the short list.

My problem? I don't want to do any of it. I don't. (And) I'm not. All I want to do is curl up in a ball on my bed and take a nap. No, it isn't depression. It may be grief. It may be exhaustion. All I know is that I have three hours every day now while my youngest takes a nap to tackle that list and instead I'm...sleeping. Tucking the baby in and then crawling into my own bed with Katie, wrapping myself in my blanket and shutting out the world.

Mohn Babies-First Day of School 2009

In Memoriam

My Beautiful Mother

Patricia Cecilia Noll

April 19th, 1956-August 19th 2009

I love you so much, Momsknees.

Why I'm Not Posting

Angela wanted to mention that she hasn't been posting because she's going to a

Wedding in Washinton (say that ten times fast) ,so frantically preparing to go

Out of town to see her best friend from highschool get married (and have alone time with Jesse at a very nice B&B on the water.)

Lots to do, "see" you soon! ~Shangrila <3

Sweet Jebus and Other Deities

Is it really taking a name in vain to exclaim, disbelieving, in response to a difficult situation? Don't answer that. I already know.

Truly, when I say, "Christ on a crutch!" I am asking for help just as surely as I cried for my mother during childbirth. Today the kids and I painted, finally dragging out the easel and paintbox after a week of artistic sloth and my living room may never be the same again. Yes, I did sit down right at the top of the stairs with the toddler to paint while his siblings chose their colors and spread out across the room. But Walky has red paint in his hair and down his cheek, and after I took his diaper off (don't ask) he somehow SAT in the paint (think "butt-rainbow") after which of course he stepped in green paint. He picked up his empty red cup and I could see the wheels turning in his head as he looked down at his penis, then back at the cup. Yep, cup on the penis! Wow. Two points for making the toss to the sink.

Then he stepped on his sister's artwork.

Then his sister slid the box of baby-wipes onto her paint palette. Then she slid the box across my carpet. Blue carpet. That's hot.

Walker now has his finger buried to the hilt in his nose. Dear Jesus, Zeus, Allah, Mother, ANYONE...send me patience, and please ignore all the swearing.

RTT: Tuesday Titles

Wildlife Encounters

Last week, as I left my house at 2:30am to get to my sister before she gave birth, I was shocked to see a huge deer standing just a few feet away on my lawn. By the time my brain registered "deer" it was gone in a flash of tail over my hedge, it's hooves clattering down the road. I was crazy vigilant as I drove to the freeway, thinking, "Where the hell do deer live in Brooklyn Park?!"

A few days later, during an early morning potty-run with Katie, I noticed a baby robin in the long grass beside my garden. I tried to shoo it away, as Dom loves hunting, but the poor little thing just tried to run deeper into the grass (and failed.) Thinking he'd run like hell, I reached over and picked him up. He was fine until I lifted him up-then he screamed, "PEEP-PEEP-PEEP-PEEP! I carefully placed him as high as I could on the branch of a tree and then watched his brothers and sisters practice attempts at hang-gliding awhile before going inside.

I'm Totally Screwed

This morning Walker climbed into my bed already covered in black marker. I gently reminded him that coloring on anything but paper is naughty. "Why?" "Because it makes mama and daddy feel sad and angry when you color on our things." "Why?" Well, crap.

My daughter just informed me that the baby told her, "Shut up, Stupidhead!" WTF?! Not okay!

My Head is an Empty Room

I'm having difficulty thinking randomly. I can't tell if I'm feeling peaceful or completely refusing to deal with reality. I keep trying to concentrate and am rewarded with white noise. Not good, Bob, not good!

My Children Could Nag the Leg Off a Mule

I am being worn down by the constant, "Mom?! Mom, can I play Neopets? Mama? Hey, mom, I really wanna play Neopets. When can I play Neopets? Hunh, Mama? Hunh?! Mama!" that my son is dishing out. I give.

While I'm eating Butter Pecan ice cream for lunch, visit Keely. Or I'll send Westie to pester you until you do.

Spin Cycle: Day In The Life

I'd like to say that I'm the kind of mom, nay, the kind of woman, that runs her life in a smooth and regimented way. Sadly, this just isn't so. I blame it on the hippie artists I fell in with. :p

On a typical day:

I wake up when a) my husband crawls over me to get up or b) my boys climb into bed with me, lugging an army of Pokemon guys. If I was clever enough to bring a diaper and wipes into my room the night before (usually not a problem) I change Walker and play with the boys until a) my bladder screams at me or b) Katie's bladder makes her bark and do the potty dance. Sissy lolls around in bed reading until I call her to please take Katie outside. I head to the bathroom, fending off little boys (with help from a locked door) long enough to change, wash up, shove my hair on top of my head, etc. Somewhere during all of this, West will holler, "Mama?! Can we have fruit snacks?!" and I'll holler back, "Only if you get some for your brother and eat them at the table!" Peace reigns for 3.7 minutes.

I get upstairs in time for my husbands first call of the day. This is only the first of many calls that I will receive from my beloved over the course of the day. He'll say, "Just making sure you were up!" I'll say, "Yep, I'm up." We'll make small-talk for a few minutes, he'll give up and get back to work. I'll make the kids breakfast-usually French toast or waffles, fruit and milk. (My kids'll only eat one kind of cereal: Peanut Butter Spheres. They can't market them as peanut butter balls, because then they'd sound like Chef on South Park.) On a good day, I'll grab a protein drink or Bolthouse Chai but really, it's too damn early for me to eat. I feed the cats and Katie their canned food and tell West to drink his milk.

Most days, we snap on PBS (oh thank you, Jesus, for PBS!) in time for Sesame Street and maybe even Dragon Tales. I pull up the internet on my laptop and read or post blogs. This is it, peoples. That's all the time I can promise you, although I may stop back around the time that I should be sleeping. During this time, I'll field another call or two from my husband ("I just wanted to hear your voice." "I'm on break." "How's your day going?") and several whiny, "Mama?! Can I play my DS?"es. I will misspell tomorrow (tomarrow) and drive myself crazy.

At this point I normally take Katydid out again and putz in the yard while she does her business. I pull weeds and corral toys and love on my plants:









At 12ish, I slap lunch together (typically pb sandwiches and a veggie-a Lean Pocket for me) before changing the baby, hunting down a Nukie and putting him down for a nap. He'll generally start with, "No! No nigh-nigh time!" and end with gratefully snuggling into his pillow. I kick the kids outside, or let them do some kind of art or play DS or a computer game. Jesse comes home for lunch and I generally touch base with my mom and sisters in a flurry of phonecalls.

When Walker wakes up, we could do most anything: Head to my mom's, where the kids take turns pushing the buttons for the elevator, or run errands:



or play at the park:



or hang out with friends:



At the end of the day, Jesse and I take turns making dinner and taking care of bedtime The boys go to bed first most nights, as Sissy is allowed to stay up "late" every other night. I lay in Westie's bed and read stories and the kids take turns picking songs for me to sing, usually "Over in the Meadow" and Grover's "Wubba Wubba" song. Then we say the same prayer we've said since Sissy was born: "Thank you, God, for this day. Bless me, and everyone who loved and took care of me today. Amen."

I make the sign of the cross on each child's forehead and say, "You are my beloved. On you my favor rests." I walk to the door and say "Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite. If they do, whack 'em with a shoe, then they'll cry, 'Boo-hoo!' Mama loves you." I shut the door.

For the rest of the night, I clean, watch Gilmore Girls with Winter or a movie with Jes', shower, some nights blog or water my plants until well after the sun has gone down. Typing this out, I'm reminded that I've got a pretty damn good life. Routinely, even.

For more posts about routines, head to The Spin Cycle!

(P.S. If anyone knows how to make my pictures fit on this @#*!ing blog without changing my layout or cutting and pasting from the top of the blog where the "add a picture" blog feature keeps loading the damn things, for the love of God, tell me!)

I'm An Auntie Again!

My youngest sister just gave birth to her second child (let's call him "Nugget") and we are all thrilled! He was born 7/13/09 at 4:25am, 7 lb 4.4oz and 19.5". Welcome to the world, baby! We love you!

The Rambunctious Penii

First of all, this isn't as exciting as it sounds.

I refrained from writing about it because, well, because I generally only rant about this kind of stuff to my mother.

But then, Mrs. Jelly Belly asked and I thought, "Well, why the hell not?!"

My youngest son, Walker Cash, has a talent that I'd never heard of before he joined our family. He can, at any time, pee out of his diaper. Now mind you, after MULTIPLE instances of him standing up in his crib and peeing all over his bedding, or walking upstairs and accidentally peeing on his little feet I check his diapers for gaps EVERY TIME I DIAPER HIM. So what gives? Well, I'll tell you...

His little peenee* somehow sneaks out of the leg hole of his Pampers and lays there against his leg, open to the cool refreshing breeze and more than willing to christen anything lower than his groin with tinkle. It's infuriating and adorable all at the same time. My son is darling (if I do say so myself) with red-gold curls and big grey eyes and a rosy pout. Add a cute wayward penis, his signature glower and arms held out for help and he's absolutely irresistible. Unless you haven't had enough children to be immune to urine.

Despite that, some days I just do not want that extra load of laundry, to negotiate the extra bath, to re-mop that part of the floor...you get my drift. (And) then I wail and gnash my teeth to my mother, crying variations of, "What the hell?! Why me?!" She told me that he must have a rambunctious peenee. I don't know why I made up a plural form. Probably pee poisoning.

* I have always referred to body parts by their "real" names. I have no idea why I always think, "Peenee" when Walk's privates go public. Maybe I just think "Teeny" and "Penis" all at once. He's not going to appreciate this post when he's grown, is he?! Yeah, well...payback's a bitch! LOL :p

Random Tuesday Thoughts: "What?! I have to put clothes on?"

I've had lots of great ideas for blog posts: The Rambunctious Penii, Reckless Cat Abandonment and 1,000 Ways to Avoid Doing Something Useful. Clearly, I chose not to write about them.

I just told my sister how to pilfer a resume' format.

It's 11:58am and I still haven't combed my hair or gotten dressed. How bad would it be to go outside to set up the sprinkler in my nightgown?

I think that my cellphone has fallen into my recliner (because my chair is vibrating. But not like good vibrating.)

My sister just told me that she paid $90.00 to have the rug in her very small LR cleaned. She is freaking high.

People keep fucking calling me. Leave me alone, peoples! Okay, not really. Could we work out some kind of call schedule, though? Because I'm not getting a damn thing done...

except laundry. I've been doing laundry for three days and I'm STILL not done. Stupid laundry.

My lilies are blooming, I cut a huge rose from one of our bushes last night and my dahlias are budding, but taking their damn sweet time about it. My back lawn is attempting to go native and looks like a meadow just now.

I have to go 52-pick-up the house, put on a bra and take my babies outside. Head on over to Miss Keely's for more RTT. :)

Spin Cycle: That One Time...

When I was 17 or 18 years old, my mother asked me to drive my two younger sisters to our grandparents' house in Milwaukee, WI. Mind you, we'd made the 5-7 hour trip hundreds of times as a family, and I think that by that point I may have already made the trip once myself. Mom would be joining us on vacation one week later. No problem, right? Yeah, right!

Almost immediately, the situation Did Not Bode Well. As we drove out of Minneapolis on 94, the heavens opened in a rainstorm of epic proportions. Sheets of rain blinded drivers, and traffic all but stopped for an hour. Somewhere in that hour, our windshield wipers must have gotten tired, because they decided to take a siesta for the rest of the trip. I will never forget the chaos of my sister Lisa, crying and clutching our barking black lab mix ,Brutus, in the back seat or Natalie's long hair streaming with rain as she hung her head out the window, guiding me as I inched the car forward. We would've quit then if we'd been able to turn around, but we couldn't and when the rain stopped we thought our troubles were over and continued on, looking forward to seeing our Nana and Grandpa.

It didn't take long to determine that something was definitely wrong with my car...I called it my Chevy 'Ebrity (the "C-E-L" had fallen off sometime in the distant past). The lights, the radio (and of course the windshield wipers) worked intermittently, if at all. In Eau Claire, we stopped at a gas station to call my dad for advice. He said that it was probably the alternator, and that since we were already at the halfway mark we should continue on to Milwaukee. He gave me two instructions:

1) Whatever you do, don't turn the car off because it probably won't start again, and
2) Do not run more than one electrical thing at once. Since the sun was going down, that pretty much meant nothing but the headlights, and we were mad that we couldn't listen to the radio.

The whole "leave the car on" also concerned us because we had to fill the gas tank. I made the girls take the dog away from the car to stand on the grass just off of the gas station's property. Oh, the copious tears and pleading! They were sure that I was going to explode, and I wasn't too sure that they were wrong. Drama Queen that I am, I bravely told them that I was the big sister, and if anyone was getting blown up, it would be me because I was in charge. Needless to say, no-one blew up and ,despite our disappointment, we managed to press on.

All went fairly well until we discovered that our exit (you know, the only one we'd ever taken, the one that our mother WROTE DOWN FOR US) was closed due to construction. This was before cell phones, I suck at reading maps, and my alternate map-readers were 11 and 14 respectively ( and Brutus wasn't much help, either.) We got horribly, terribly, awfully lost. Driving around in circles until we're almost out of gas and all of the gas-stations are closed and we're on the Wrong Side of Town and we're too scared to ask the pimp and the hookers on the street-corners for directions lost! Driving the wrong way on a one way lost! Oh my God we're going to die and it's all my fault lost.

Just when we were about to give up and write our last will and testaments on the backs of gum wrappers, I saw a police cruiser pulled over on the freeway. The police officer was writing out his paperwork for the night with his interior lights on, and I can't imagine what he thought when I parked in front of him and came flying at his window tear-streaked and babbling. I gave him my Nana and Grandpa's address and he began to calmly give me directions. My face must have blanked, because he paused, smiled and said, "You know what? Why don't I lead you there?" I nodded like an idiot bobble head and that good, good man drove us right to Downer Ave, where we belonged. It was past midnight, but my Grandpa was sitting out on the front steps waiting for us. He hugged us hard and I think my sisters may have actually kissed the driveway. Our car had made it just barely there, dying as I pulled in, never to run again.

I remember that my sisters and I crowded into one bed that night and prayed for that good cop before succumbing to the cool sheets and soft pillows. To us, we had survived an adventure filled with drama and danger and emerged if not victorious, blissfully intact.

I have no idea why this is one of my favorite memories. Maybe because I can see my sisters stamped so clearly in my mind's eye, or because it comforts me to remember that kind police officer and how safe I felt in my grandfather's arms and under my Nana's clean, bright sheets. Good times, good times...

Love Thursday: One Love

Take away love and our earth is a tomb. ~Robert Browning

Love me and the world is mine. ~David Reed

Come live in my heart and pay no rent. ~Samuel Lover

A Pity Party

Tried to write haiku
But words wouldn't get in line
Can't write what's in my heart
Have neither patience nor the time

Want to give up
Want to curl up
Want to turn my head away
Cannot shake dissatisfaction
that is standing in my way

Something not quite right here
I do not know what ails me
Try to listen to my inner self
but that bitch too often fails me

RTT: Pet-Fresh Pokemon Wear Pampers

I used some "pet-fresh" powder on my carpet and now the dirt-holder-capsule-thingy on my vacuum looks a lot like a huge sand-art bottle.

I can name like fifty Pokemon off the top of my head.

I have had three baskets of white socks sitting on the side table in my living room for at least three weeks. I still don't want to match them.

We've been buying Huggies diapers instead of Pampers the past few months because they've been on sale, but I like Pampers better and I think that we use more of the Huggies because they get lumpy 5 minutes in and so I'm always sure Walker's wet...and then he often is a teeny bit wet and so I change him and so I wish there was some sort of mathematical formula that I could use to justify buying Pampers determine whether or not we're actually saving money. Someone that didn't major in Theater should work on that.

The yearly ant invasion is well underway, and I am losing the battle and the war, as usual. I found them crawling all over my hoyas yesterday and completely freaked out. Kinda makes you wish you'd been there, hunh?

I'm going to fix my lawnmower today. I don't actually know how, but I found a good article on eHow and know roughly where the lawnmower parts are at Menard's. How hard could it be?

I love you guys, but I'm going to go eat some orange sherbet now. I'd say it's because it's so hot here in MN, but it's really not...I just like sherbet. Scroll down and click the purple button on your left to visit Keely at The Unmom. She probably doesn't have any sherbet, but you'll like it there, anyways.

Wordless Wednesday: Backyard Spring 2009

RTT: Gay Men and Gilmore Girls

My birthday was last Friday, and my gift to myself was giving up cigarettes and caffeine for good. Why the hell couldn't I have picked up some flowers and chocolate and called it a day?! I didn't even get me a card. Cheapskate.

I am so, so grateful to the mastermind that decided to give out stories on cd in the kid's meals at Wendy's. Sometime last year they gave out Magic Treehouse cd's, right now it's Wordgirl. We don't go often, but if they swapped cd's for toys that I throw out almost immediately, I would...go. Oftener.

I stayed up until 2am watching stuff on YouTube. Anyone else remember this?



Also, I'd never seen Adam Lambert, but looked him up as well after hearing about him on the radio:



OMFG, people! God isn't punishing gay men, he's punishing ME by making them off limits! Talent is HOT.

So pretty out today here in MN-hovering right around 70 degrees. I'm having plant issues which reminds me, bunnies aren't cute! I have a gardening book that advises, "make sure that your neighbor isn't feeding the creatures while you're trying to get rid of them" and that bitch she is! She actually said, "I stopped your cat! He was trying to catch the bunnies!" Um, good?! I don't wanna hear that we've taken their habitat, they're so cute, blahblahblah! We conquered. It's our land now, that's how it works! We win. I actually pulled back into my driveway and got out of my van to chase one of the little bastards out of my yard last week, screaming like a demented Lady McGregor. Crazy.

Oh! Also, our van was hit by a drunk! Pedestrian! I had slowed to turn into our driveway and came to a full stop when he started to stumble backwards. He was fine, though I could've blown a 2.0 after breathing near him as I helped him to his feet! It reminded me of the Gilmore Girls episode where Rory tells everyone, "I got hit by a deer!" "You hit a deer?!" "No, I got hit BY a deer!" Bella Figlia and I have gotten a lot of mileage out of this: "I got hit by a drunk guy..."

Here's my cheesecake recipe:

Preset your oven to 325 degrees. Crush an entire package of Sandies Shortbread cookies (I like to use the pecan kind, and have a package of pecan/chocolate chip Sandies sitting in my cupboard awaiting cheesecakeification.) Mix the crumbs with one stick of melted butter. Press mixture into bottom of spring form pan.

Using hand mixer, beat 2 8oz packages of (room-temperature) cream cheese to remove lumps. Then add: 3 eggs, one cup sugar, 16 oz sour cream and a dash of vanilla. Pour into spring form pan over shortbread cookie crust.

Bake for 45 minutes (middle will look underdone, that's what you want), then pull and cool on counter for 30 minutes before covering with saran wrap and chilling in fridge for at least 4 hours. Try to share! :p

That's all I've got, peoples! Click the RTT button above to visit our girl Keely and have a great random Tuesday!

Love Thursday: Hoya of Love

A day or two ago, I went to check on my hoyas to see if they needed watering yet and found these two lovebirds intertwined. I'll be re-training them onto their own hoops soon, but thought I'd let them visit for awhile, first.

My love affair with hoyas began a few years back, when I came across this website. Like dahlias, hoyas have seemingly infinite cultivars and I was thrilled when my sister Lisa brought me a rooted cutting from my paternal grandmother's "Jesus Tear's" plant. It was, in fact, a hoya. Not long after (two winters ago), Lee and I joined together to meet the $20.00 minimum order from this site. We were beyond sick of the cold MN weather, and by February I felt crazy, dreaming of the gardens that lay frozen beneath the snow. Indoor plants would have to tide me over and see me through!

When the cuttings arrived, we were delighted to find that Mr. Smoley had sent an average of 4 cuttings per plant. EVERY CUTTING ROOTED. In fact, I even successfully rooted two leaves that we trimmed from the Hoya fungii Lisa had ordered! My only disappointment was that a substitution had been made for the hoya I'd wanted most (hoya diptera). I would later hunt this cultivar down and pay a small fortune in shipping to get a gorgeous specimen from Rob's Violet Barn. I now have eight hoya plants, coiled and reaching toward the sun that streams through the picture window in our living room.

Hoyas take several years to develop before they'll bloom. Lisa's plant from my grandmother just started to put out peduncles (clusters) of pretty white flowers in the last month, and I'm taking it as a sign that maybe next spring...fingers crossed, anyway! In the meantime, here's a lovey song for you:

Happy Love Thursday!

Wordless Wednesday: Fun With Mud

Dear Lawn, Please Die

It is spring, and my tulips are finishing their beautiful display. My peonies are starting to bow their heavy heads as the buds swell and ants dance in ecstasy, anticipating the feast of nectar bloom will bring. My columbine have opened, and sway toward one another like the pretty little busybodies they are and my dahlias are green and strong, renewing acquaintance with The Dahlia Jungle. So why am I showing you dandelions? Because they're ALL I CAN SEE!!! Because no amount of Weed and Feed has made a damn bit of difference. Because my pretty gardens just look trashy alongside the Yard From Hell. I dream of replacing the front lawn with a pretty groundcover...but for the work, and the cost...Feh.