In Between

I am feeling In Between.


I am fifty - which gobsmacked me, frankly. 


As expected fifty is a time of taking stock, of reevaluation, of deciding what really matters and what needs to go, about the road ahead. It is a time of realization - I am in the middle of my life.


Where I have been is done, where I am going is undetermined. I am stuck in between. And it is an uncomfortable place for me.


I am reading Aloft by Chang Rae Lee and I came across this:


'... But that's the case with almost everyone in the broadening swath of middle age, isn't it, that we're all fatiguing in some critical way (sex, job, family), some prior area of happy vitality and self-definition is now instead a source of anxiety and dread.'


and it struck a chord


it struck the career/job chord


it may have even broken the strings


I know that I have an awful lot to be grateful for and I am, truly.


But where the heck am I going from here?




                                               *   *   *   *   *


My sister T. is recovering at an amazing rate. The first 24 hours were very scary but from then on she has soared.

About last night

The Bunny Rabbit seems to be going through some boundary stretching exercises.


He gets into his share of trouble because he has an attention span of about a nano second. But he is sweet and loving and really a very good boy at heart.


We have been talking about his moods lately. He seems to think everyone is out to get him. And he is argumentative and questions authority (me) which doesn't sit well with Momma.


Yesterday his teacher took me aside to tell me of his behavior at school.


Same story.


So last night Gapetto and I had a Big Talk with him.


First we assured him that we love him. Then we asked him if anything is bothering him.


Then we asked if he was frustrated. He allowed that he was but was unable to put it into words.


We proceeded with the rest.


Respect. Obedience. Being kind. Doing as you are told. How you might handle things differently.


He began to cry and said everyone was getting him into trouble.


We talked about owning your own actions. About doing the right thing. About thinking independently of your friends.


We hugged and this Mommy was misty eyed.


An hour or so later I saw him alone in the den.


I went in to hug him and I told him I loved him again.


He looked me straight in the eye and asked a little peevishly,


'What were we TALKING ABOUT in there?'

A taste of Bob and Paul

A few nights ago at dinner we were all in high spirits.

There was good natured ribbing and story telling and

LONGGGGGG discriptions of movie scenes, questions

about which Harry Potter movie was our favorite, etc.

Suddenly the Dolly announced menacingly:

'Careful, you DON'T want to get a taste of Bob'

[up goes the scrawny right bicep]

'and Paul.'

[up goes the scrawny left bicep]

Never has so much been made of something so little

Okay so nobody stopped me.

As often happens in renovations and or restorations one thing leads to another. After FINALLY finishing the floor in my hallway I realized that the baseboards (in fact all of the trim), the walls, the doors and the ceiling needed sprucing up.

This is a modest 1925 bungalow with a tiny hallway and the dang thing has seven (as in 7) doorways. That's a lot of trim to repair from all of the twin accoutrements over the years (not to mention the twins themselves).

I have always been a fan of older homes. There is no love lost between me and the new suburban home. However, carrying a child in each arm tends to make a new (and insane) mother wish for wide open spaces. Doorways became my enemy. I had to dip one baby through and then the other. (Prior to that there was the problem of the nine month pregnant with twins body - but that's another story.)

Consequently strollers, cozy coups, baby walkers - all have violated my formerly pristine white trim. There were divots in the paint for goddsakes.

I resigned myself to stripping the baseboards and repairing the rest. Given that there is 85 years worth of paint on that trim one would proceed with caution. I started scraping the baseboards but that decorative baseboard cap was taking a gouging at my hands. So I pulled it all off.

That is some seriously thick paint. It looks like a Krispy Kreme on steroids!

Or maybe a petit four.

I adjusted one corner of the baseboards where the floor dips a good 1-1/2" in a 30" span. I considered having the trim dip stripped - then thought about the toxins - then I thought about stripping myself with chemicals - then thought about the toxins and the lead - then thought about replacing it and then thought about the trees and the trash.

Then I decided to stop thinking - it is too hard for me to figure out and too small of a room to get so het up about.

So the baseboards are painted, the divots are repaired and all of the trim is painted.

What's next? Skim coating the plaster walls that look like H-E-double toothpicks.

Where did I get this chutzpah - this insane drive?

(These kahoonas?)

Why can't it be used for the common good instead of just saving old houses? (My old house, to wit.)

It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it.

A Rose by any other name...

The Bunny Rabbit came home last week with a very red and

swollen cheek - it looked exactly like he had been slapped - HARD.

I asked him what happened.

'Nothing'.

I felt his cheek. It was hot - feverishly hot.

I felt his forehead.

Cool as a cucumber.

He had been developing a rash on the rest of his yummy body

which did not itch. Now this boy is as white as they come.

A rash on his Irish complexion looks like Scarlet Fever.

Armed with this information I began searching the web.

Lemme see 'rash on face and body'

Nope.

'no itch rash'

um, wait!

'rash like slapped cheek on boy'

Eureka!

The Fifth Disease otherwise known as Slapped-Cheek Disease.

Are you kidding me?

These doctors/scientists are (hopefully) some of our most brilliant minds.

They pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for their education.

We entrust our very lives with them and, most importantly, our children's lives.

And all they can effing come up with is Fifth Disease?

or

Slapped Cheek Disease?

What is up with that?

Once upon a time I was in Savannah GA for a wedding and was eating some animal Crackers from the gift basket in my room. My very sore tooth simply crumbled apart.

I was waiting for the white hot lightning strike to my nerve and lo and behold my tooth felt better. Which was a relief as I had a wedding to attend in a city that was not my own on a Saturday. Unless there was a dentist in attendance I would have been S. O. L.

When I returned home I went in to see my dentist and was told I had Cracked Tooth Syndrome.

That's right.

Cracked Tooth Syndrome.

Oh. Come. On. People!

Does years of schooling just kill the creative side of the brain?

Are their jobs so demanding that they don't have any imagination left?

Can they even make up a bedtime story for their little munchins?

Or lie about why all of the cookies are gone?

Now I know that I am a designer so I may have set my expectations a little high but just check out how the other half lives. [The other half being all of the Right Brain people such as myself.]

We may not be able to make a diagnosis but we can come up with some fairly spectacular names if given half a chance [and perhaps several margaritas].

Let us consider paint color names - the pinnacle of creativity in naming [and perhaps alcoholism].

Let's see there is:

Not Enough Chocolate Syrup Mom - who doesn't know exactly what that is? And yet it is totally creative.

Atomic Vomit Green - a Nickelodeon inspired green - who doesn't want to tell the neighbors THAT name?

Then there is Ralph Lauren's Brazilian Ruby which apparently is referring to a certain sensitive skin area color after a certain procedure is performed.

So I wonder... Ralph - are you running hardwoods?

My very favorites are the totally ambiguous ones that could be any freaking color:

Grandma's Refrigerator - guess that would depend on your or her age, or if they are talking about the insides or the outsides. This happens to be yellow.

Inheritance - which is NOT the color of money.

Japanese Maze, Fragrant Cloud [I imagine some foul green colored cartoon cloud coming right out of someone's arse], Precocious, Forever Young, Simply Irresistible, Urban Legend, Leap of Faith [who would use this color?], Temptation, Marry Me, and Beautiful In My Eyes [clearly hideous in anyone elses].

Kind of tells a life story doesn't it?

There is even a paint game test because, really, I ask you - who knows what color the Martian Sky is unless you've been there?

Or your margarita pitcher is empty.