I’m Not A Player I Just Mitten a Lot

Yesterday in yoga, we were asked if we had any requests. It doesn’t really matter what the poses were, let us just say that I wanted a banana split and at that moment when my mouth opened at 6:17 a.m. what came out was “I would like a monkey shit sandwich on nettle bread please.”

I did not even know I’d gone wrong until I set up for it. DAMN! It was my least favorite pose, the one we did three times last month and it was painful every time. I imagined people were shooting eye daggers at me, since other people had complained about it as well.

At the end of class, I heard the chatty lady talking to the teacher.

“I thought that was going to be horrible because of last month it always hurt but it was fine! I’m better at it.”

“I meant to ask for pigeon pose,” I confessed. Several people turned to look at me. “Sorry, everyone. I shouldn’t speak before 8 a.m.”

“WELL,” chatty lady said. “It was really good today. I think I went in with no expectations and so it went very well.”

This is the summary of this week so far: accidentally asking for things I don’t want, and then enjoying them when I get them. Not bad.

Checking In

“My teacher says that most kids start kindergarten at six,” Strudel said, who was eating First Breakfast of sliced bananas, cinnamon, and cream.

“Really?” I asked. “That seems kind of late.”

“Yes, I think most kids should start around five because their parents don’t want the kids to bother them anymore.”

“WHAT, really! No, I think it helps for kids to start school so parents can work more. Parents feel relieved that their kids are in school because their kids are learning, and parents can make money to pay for a house and food and can care for their kids better.”

“Oh,” she said, and speared another banana slice. I watched the cream dribble down to her chin. This one never cared about her face being messy.

“Do you believe me?” I asked. She nodded.

“Did you want to have me?” she asked.

“Of course. You were a choice I made happily. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Okay,” she said.

I think she asks these questions because she’s not afraid of the answers.

You Move So Fast, Makes Me Feel Lazy

I took Strudel to Port Townsend last week. She is SIX now! I used to take her sister places and she asked why I never took her anywhere.

Internal Voice: Because you’re INSANE.

Out Loud: Because you are not quite old enough.

Strudel: How old do I have to be?

Internal Voice: 37.

Out Loud: Ummm, six?

She held me to it, too. Naturally my goofball gets into the car and when we arrive, I discover that in spite of reminding her two or three times, she has not packed or taken her coat.

“You did not remind me ENOUGH, Mom.” Christ on a fucktaco crumpet. So we bought a fleecy windbreaker thing since I knew downtown and the beaches are crazy windy. I took her to see “Rango,” which was really cute but she started crashing around 8:30 or so. How fun is it to see a movie out of town, anyway? I love it.

We had to leave the movie, but that’s okay. She was so tired she told me I was ruining the WHOLE TRIP, but she slept it off. Then I turned the news on quietly and saw Japan and cried a little.

My sister moved in with me. WOW! BIG NEWS! COOL! CHANGES! I am happy I have one last member of my dysfunctional family that I did not actually make with my own body standing. It’s not a yardstick or gold star, but it’s nice. I think she was feeling really good about her decision until she came home on Saturday night and I was wearing cat ears and kicking Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, LOUDLY.

The Current Wait for a Child Support Hearing is ONE YEAR.

“So don’t expect money anytime soon,” said the nice lady with a pink fuzzy sweater vest that was both awkwardly too loose and too tight behind the counter at DCS.

“Uhh, I expect money never, but I thank you in advance for trying,” I said.

I did not shame myself by throwing up in a government building or buy a pack of cigarettes, but I confess I did smoke one later. Okay, two.

Also, I learned something NEAT today. My mother has left me $100 in her will. MONEY MAN! What can you do?

HOLLAR FOR A DOLLAR, SPANK FOR A FRANC.

My kid is making yummy-smelling enchiladas but I suspect they will not be ready in time for me, as I am off to a one-off comix class for funsies.

And the cloud that took the form

This morning the daffodils are tilting forward gently, like they do right before their heads pop open. I like it–I have this vision of some fancy old timey lady with a lot of costume jewelry and a cigarette on a looong holder.

But before that! I dreamt I was having sex. Something was in my mouth and I could barely breathe…was it a paper napkin? (I suspect I was snoring.) No matter! I was having sex! Then I woke up. OH, SAD. But WAIT! I just dreamt I woke up, because then my alarm went off for real. I keep waking up at about 3:30, gripped with anxiety and all my dreams for the rest of the night are pretty much bad ones.

This weekend was busy busy busy moving sorting cleaning things. Goodwill runs! Changes are afoot, I will tell you in a few days. Nothing bad, I swear. I also moved the Todds into their own Todderdome. Now the hens are on their own with three spare Todds. They are getting VERY LARGE already and running around like whirling dervishes with their feathers growing in. I cannot believe how fast it happens.

Otherwise, it is quiet here. I am doing little crafty projects that were laying around like loose ends. I hung some pictures I had been neglecting since I moved in August. I was trying to avoid the cluttery feeling of my old too-small place, but I think there is room for a few more things around. I hung family pics on the wall in one of the staircases, not too straight. P. was helping. “Wabi-sabi,” he commented.

I am always wabi-sabi. I am putting up another mirror soon that I had ignored because the label was covering a crack in it, and I was insta-cross when I brought it home, but now I have reconsidered. It’s okay hang a cracked mirror, I guess. I don’t understand why these things change sometimes.

Also, it would not be a weekend without a stupid argument with my babydaddy that I actually LIKE. This is sport.

“I’m going to hang up that poster of clouds that I’ve had forever,” P. said, as I was doing some dishes.

This is where it immediately goes off the rails and some people (not me) are sorry they opened their mouth at all.

“Really, why?” I said.

“So I can see what the weather will be like.”

“SEE? WHAT THE WEATHER WILL BE LIKE?” Suddenly I was Gordon Ramsey on goofballs. “It’s GREY, you stick your head outside and it’s ALL GREY!”

“That’s not true at all,” he said. “There’s lots of different weather patterns here and you can tell if it’s going to rain and–”

“OF COURSE IT’S GOING TO RAIN, IT IS THE PNW! Save your poster, here is the only chart you need.”

I drew a chart for him on the fridge where the grocery list normally resides.

“Now in the Midwest there are actual cloud patterns besides grey–” I began.

“I don’t want to HEAR about the MIDWEST,” he said. “At least I know how to spell ‘G-R-A-Y.”

“GASP!” I gasped. He walked off. Where would either of us be without our weekly pointless bickering? The girls basically pass the salt over us when this happens now.

I also spent a little solo time with Franny, who needed a skirt for a field trip to the Symphony. I already mentioned this on the Twittergraph, but I was holding up not-pink things, because she does not dig the girlie pink stuff, and she was also insisting, “BLACK, ONLY BLACK CLOTHES.”

I teared up, for real. You can kind of tell we’ve been watching a LOT of Drag Race right now. Franny thinks of these types of shoes in a fabulous man context so we had to have a little breakdown about the clear stripper shoes. “Ladies wear these too, hmm,” she said.

When I Awake I Awaken with a Tingle/2-Mar Rainbow

“Are you SURE you don’t want to trade places?” the woman whispered to me sharply. On Monday she had asked me the same question. I was sitting on my yoga mat in the back, trying to stretch a little.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. It seemed notable that she had taken my spot from the immersion last month. “My friend is new and I’m staying back here to keep him company.”

She looked at me with her bitchy face. I overheard her talking smack about the teacher last month, too. Snide comments about other things. Really? In 6 a.m. yoga? WHY?

REALLY BITCH? Get out of my happy place. The worst part is she’s a teacher there. Put your Zen Bonnet on for an hour, ok lady? She can HAVE her assigned seat on Friday.

Thing the second is a question I keep asking myself over and over again: WHY? Why am I personally dealing with my mother’s alcoholism now? Why not years ago? My mother’s favorite thing to say to me is that I need to “get over my childhood” and she’s right…to a certain extent. Her idea of getting over things is to stop making weeping vagina noises and to go play in the street. I think I’m over it, but I’m not going to stop thinking about it. I’m not going to stop asking how I am being and treating my kids, and how it still affects me as an adult.

I had an aha while talking to a friend this morning about why now: because NOW it is affecting my child. I don’t move until they are suffering. I did not leave SeaFed until he was neglecting Franny.

Which is really only part of the story. I have been motivated in recent years to stand up for myself and make things right on other things. It’s getting better. Spacey is a good person and knows about these things, and she said “You are not required to deal with this on your own.”

I don’t think I can handle any kind of group experience at the moment, so I am going to do some reading and some self-inventorying and some other stuff that sounds like therapy hoomhaw. Happily and with purpose. There seems to be very few moments of coasting. When I was a kid I thought you grew up and then coasted. Uh…until you died. HA!

Okay, so there is my weeping vagina moment of the day. I am grateful to my friend for listening to me word barf until I had an epiphany about something that has been nagging at me.

I did not remember my dream until I was driving around this morning. The wind was blowing, the sun was shining, and it was raining, or as my grandma would say “the devil is beating his wife.” I saw a rainbow and I remembered, then, dreaming about one. Spring is coming, or possibly Sring.

The Wee Raptors Notice Something Is Amiss

Your chicken digest (they’re almost a week old). Wings and tail feathers are coming in. I thought I had an Ancona (black and white) and a black Jersey giant, but it looks like both of my remaining black chicks are getting black and white wings. Curiouser and curiouser.

I have named all the roosters, which I suspect are Rhode Island Reds, “Todd.” DOWN IN FRONT, TODDS.

I was discussing “males included for warmth” with my friend earlier, and he said he would have titled this post with that phrase.

A Fistful of Hot Cocks

Well, that should make the referrers amusing for the next ten years or so.

My chicks came yesterday, WOO! I called the post office when it was getting late, and the clerk told me they put the chicks on the mail truck. Uh…Woo, still? That seemed a little weird, but okay. I knew the truck usually comes between four and five which means they probably spent most of the day on the truck, bump bump peep, assuming my mailman started in the morning. When he saw me on my front lawn waiting like some sad, desperate beagle or something, he honked and I ran over.

“Do you know what this is?” he said, holding a box of PEEP PEEP PEEP WE ARE COLD chicks sideways and waggling them at me.

“Yes!” I said, and thrust out my grabby paw for the box. I got them into the house as quickly as I could…and then… POP.

WHAT THE FUCKTACOS there were 25 birds in this box. I ordered ten pullets. I looked at the invoice. There was a menacing notice rubber stamped on it in red ink. “Males included for warmth, Thank you.”

Fifteen roosters. Fifteen of these orangey guys. Maybe one or two is mis-sexed and is a pullet by accident, but I very much doubt it. I offered to pay the extra fees to just have ten shipped. I said “PLZ NO ROOSTERS THEY ARE ILLEGALS HERE.”

I’m going to need more brooders, more waterers, etc. And there will be lots of boys in the freezer in a few weeks, I think, especially when crowing kicks in. Is ordering exactly the sexed chickens you want such a smokin deal when they send you FIFTEEN BOYS, I ask you.

I have TOO MANY CHICKENS, Y’ALL.

Mère supervises while my sister holds her.

Strudel admires my naked neck pullet.

So, for the chickeny people who are interested, I got 4 easter eggers, because we love our Calliope so, a naked neck, a Rhode Island white, a black Jersey giant, an ancona, and a silver Kraienkoppe. You know I like to roll fancy. I also got an Australorp, which I had a couple of 4 million years ago, but you know what, she up and cacked it this morning. She was a weak one. Sad, though.

The girls were slightly appalled I put her in the yard waste bin, but my philosophy is that I had known her for less than a day, and she is made of chicken…which I often put in the yard waste bin. Nature is a cruel mistress and I’m her pimp.