So far away from me . . .

I recently re-connected with an old boyfriend that I haven’t seen or spoken to in over twenty years. When I say “re-connected” I mean to say that I may have Web Stalked located his e-mail address via Google and we have exchanged a few polite e-mails. And when I say he was my boyfriend I really mean to say that as a 16 year old I was madly obsessed in love with him and may have lost my virginity to him on an October evening in 1985. I remember that evening as if it were yesterday. I wonder if he does? I won’t be asking him. If I would have forgotten anything about that evening or any other evenings that I shared with him over a span of several years I could be easily reminded by the painful diary entries that are still hidden in the bottom of my cedar chest at the end of my bed. Should someone keep painful memories at the end of their bed for over twenty years?

Today I sent him a long e-mail letter that went over a little bit about nothing. I did not share intimate details of my life only silly things about recent camping trips and that I have an amazing partner who loves me to death and worships the ground that I walk on and that someday we’re going to sail in South America and after that I’m going to teach writing at Berkley.

I didn’t ask him some of the stuff that I am dying to. Like does he still have that photograph of me in the nighty that he took that day in his bedroom? I’d love a look at it–I bet I look smokin’ hot (and young and skinny.) I didn’t ask him if he had weird dreams about me like I’ve had about him for over two decades or if he ever regretted breaking my heart a million times–and why. I didn’t ask him if his wife was frumpy and ugly with saggy boobs, glasses, grey hair and bad posture or if he had gained weight and lost his hair. I don’t think I want to know the answer to that–he’ll always be 18 in my mind and that is the image I would like to keep.

In the first e-mail he sent to me he said, “you haven’t changed a bit.” No I didn’t send him a photo of me–he was saying that based on my words not my looks. I responded and told him I had but didn’t mention just how much. I did tell him that I’ve turned into a person that I really, really like–and that is probably the biggest transformation from the girl I was way back then to now–and that’s a hard thing to explain over e-mail.

Inside I have grown (wiser, refined, confident)–outside I have grown (into a more mature but lovely lady)–my heart has grown, my soul has grown, and my everything has become more beautiful.

My life has been somewhat like a perennial that has been damaged by the frost. It died back to nothing in the winter–but in the spring it grew eight feet tall and continues to grow and flourish every day.

That young girl who loved that young boy is so far away from me but they both live in my heart just a little bit so that I won’t ever forget where I first learned about the beauty of love. Unrequited or not, it was still love to me and I will never forget–no matter how far away from me it becomes.

It’s funny how the past is never truly dead. What you see in the rear view mirror is always closer than it appears and accepting and making room for that in your life is almost always necessary. Coming to terms with pain and disappointment, mistakes, and bad decisions only paves the way for further growth and development. Embracing the movement of change allows fresh and new people, energy, and experiences to come along–creating more memories that tell the story of your life.

The past may be so far away–but it’s not so far that you can’t see it–and looking at it from the perspective of being over here is a much better view.

Let’s for fun–just take a look at me then–

and now–

Older yes. But so much happier!!!

Blogged Down

I have deadlines. Newspaper job deadlines, school deadlines, laundry deadlines. Today I finished a big project for school. It wouldn’t have been as big as it was except that I am a wee bit of a perfectionist and I have to do it all perfect. Plus, Melissa Lion refused to come over and do my MLA citations for me. My perfectionism is a good thing sometimes–I was notified by my Institute of Higher Learning that I am on the Honor Roll. I would be on the Dean’s List but I didn’t take enough credits last term. Honor Roll is good–I’ve never been on it before!

I’m still ill and tired from my new medicine. HG is about over it I believe but for some reason she sticks around with me. I do cook for her. And put out. Except when I’m nauseated, like now.

The sun is out today, my girls have gone to their dad’s until Sunday. Sunday is Mother’s Day and I will be expected some lavishly made homemade gifts from my girls and a very overpriced dinner out from HG (we couldn’t get brunch reservations.)

I’m blogged down peeps. My brain is empty and my head is light. I guess one would call it Blogger’s Block. So I’ll leave you with this:

Everyone thank their Mom this weekend. Be nice to your mom, or moms as the case may be–including mother’s in-law and out-law. It’s hard to be a mom–sometimes you feel as though all of the energy is being sucked out of your mind, your body, and your soul just for the sake of another person. And your entire life you spend waiting. Waiting for something bad to happen, for some tragedy to occur that may impact your child–you never know what is going to be up ahead and around the corner. You look at your sweet child and wonder how they are going to turn out. You could be raising the next president of the United States or the next serial killer. They come hard-wired and it’s a crap shoot most of the time and the job of mothering never gets any easier. Not ever.

So for one freaking day of the year–be nice to your mom–even if she drives you batty or is a bad cook or hates your significant other or never remembers the details of any conversation that you ever have or hates your hair. Buy her flowers (or an iPod,) and take her out to dinner. And remember, she could have left you in the pumpkin patch for someone else to find!

Happy Weekend!

We’ve been DP’d

Busy weekend, beginning with a busy day on Friday where we declared our legal responsibility towards each other and became Domestically Partnered under Oregon’s new Domestic Partner Law.

It was without fanfare, but it meant a lot to us.

Our day began when we drove to our friend Stacy’s office where she printed out the legal papers for us and her assistant did the notarizing. Then we headed out to Banks, Oregon (a rural, rural area in Western Washington County,) where we met a fantastically wonderful man named John who owns a great farm where we purchased our Worm Factory.

John was a wealth of worm information and I highly recommend anyone who is interested in vermicomposting or purchasing worm castings, contact him.
From the farm, we were off to the county building.

We paid our money, the lady stamped the paper and we were partnered. That’s it. We walked out of that building a couple protected under hundreds of rights not afforded to us in any other way. That little piece of paper, that little legal document supersedes any of the legal documents that we had or could have ever had drawn up privately, and it was a very good feeling holding it in our hands.

From the county building we drove to SE Portland to a lovely woman’s house to purchase some worms for our worm factory. She was such a nice woman, and when we told her we had just come from registering as DP’s, she was so excited she jumped up and down. Then she handed us a perennial that she had separated from her garden and gave it to us as a gift.

From there, we went to have a celebratory cocktail and lunch.
Martini’s were in order.

HG had a Dirty Martini, I had a Cilantro Martini.
Yum.

It was truly one of the happiest days of my life, filled with good fortune, nice people and celebration. I am a very lucky woman to have HG as my partner, and even luckier that I found true love in my life. I am eternally grateful for her and our family and I truly give thanks every day of my life.

It is a wonderful feeling to know that we have some legal protections as a couple now, and I am thankful to all of the people who blazed this trail for all of us. It’s a step in the right direction, and one that we certainly are able to pause and enjoy for a moment.

Oh, Happy Day!

More Good

Congratulations to everyone who became Domestically Partnered yesterday! Special wishes go out to my good friends, LeLo and AdRi! We are looking forward to celebrating with you very soon. . .

HG and I are waiting just a little while to register, not because we’re afraid of our rights being taken away, but because of HG’s work schedule. It will be great, I may even skip class that day.

Last night was a celebration that we were unable to attend, which was a bummer, but motherhood occasionally stands in the way of certain things I would like to do. Yesterday motherhood included a basketball game for DD#1, and my taking DD#2 and #3 to see the Hannah Montana movie.

What genius thought of that?

So not only does the girl sell out coliseum sized venues for upwards of $1000.00 a ticket, she then releases a 3D movie of the concert, charging $15.00 bucks a pop that only runs for a week and sells out every show. Pure marketing genius. I wish one of my kids was talented enough to exploit that way.

With the capitalistic, sarcastic comments out of the way, I will say this:

I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the show. The Hannah Montana part was good; the Miley Cyrus part was truly amazing. DD#1 pointed out to me, “Mommy, they’re the same person.” I realize this, but the music was different and her persona was very different. Miley’s music was edgy, rocky, interesting to listen to, her dancing was fab, and she had a little bit of sexiness that was not ewww, she’s a teenager and she’s being sexy (like Brittney at her age.) It was feminine and expressive with just a little something mixed in; a girl beginning to realize that she is in fact a sexual being. I may even download a few of the Miley songs that we don’t already have and burn a CD for my ride to school (a frightening concept for someone who was trying to figure out a way to not go to the show!) I think the young lady will do well–assuming she doesn’t get herself knocked up in the next few years. (That was sexist, she can’t get herself knocked up, some guy will have to participate, him being just as responsible.) Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen, for the guy’s sake for sure; that Billy Ray is kind of a big guy.

Ginger gets her tube out of her butt, and the cone off of her head today. This is a very good thing, as we are all pretty tired of her incessant whining. I do realize that she is probably uncomfortable, but we haven’t had any sleep for three nights, she can’t go outside by herself, she can’t sniff to go potty (the cone is in the way of her sniffing,) and she has to be carried up and down the stairs. It’s actually quite, quite pathetic. I’ll be happy when our fab lesbian vet gives us the thumbs up that she is fixed.

Our other dog, Abby, not so much.

Yesterday I talked to a trainer who will come to the house and do some “dog whisperer” type training with her. They guarantee their training for the life of the dog, which may not be very long if Abby continues to eat entire bottles of Xanex, nail polish, the girl’s stuffed animals, and HG’s toothbrushes. Frankly, we’re tired of buying toothbrushes and I really don’t think that my doctor is going to re-fill my prescription if I use the “really, my dog ate my Xanex” excuse. Uh huh. Sure.

The next step is convincing HG that this training is worth it; but I guess that will depend on what our toothbrush budget is next month.

Well, cheers everyone. I have about twenty five writing assignments to complete between my school and my freelance writing job, all that need started (hopefully completed) before a meeting I have today downtown.

May the Good keep on coming!

It was a Wii kind of day.

Christmas Morning.

Lots of screaming, lots of noise, massive amounts of garbage produced by massive amounts of colorful wrapping paper, carefully chosen, purchased and lovingly placed on packages only to be ripped apart and thrown into a large plastic bag where it will spent eternity not decomposing in a landfill somewhere in southern Oregon.

My mother bought the girls a Wii. My father bought the girls Guitar Hero. They got loads of other stuff brought to them by Santa and us and others.

It was exhausting.

Because my wife is just a little bit on the side of being a tad bit obsessed with neatness; after the present opening extravaganza we went right to work.

Cleaning up.

After that, I was able to spend the next several hours, cooking. And after that, I was able to help clean up again. All total, two meals were prepared, the dishwasher ran several times, we vacuumed twice, four bags of garbage was produced, seven hours of Wii was played (by the children,) and I was completely stressed out.

To make up for my pain?

My wonderful wife gave me wonderful Holiday presents, including:

A Canon Video Camera (not for those kind of videos Limpy)
New slippers (from Ginger and Abby.)
iLife ‘08
iWork ‘08
Digital photography book
And of courses there were the early presents I bought for myself with her credit card.

HG did all right as well. She got an iPod Touch which I must say, I am secretly hoping that she will get tired of so that I can commandeer it when she’s not looking.

All in all. It was a very stressful, busy, and exhausting, but very fulfilling in an insane kind of way kind of day. It’s a lot of work creating positive Holiday memories for your children, and I must say that I am glad it is over for another year.

Next year. I’m simplifying. No tree, one present each, and soup for dinner.

Yeah. Right.

Hope you all enjoyed your holiday, next up . . .

A Week Without Children, and The New Year We Had No Plans.

Is it over yet?

Yes I realize my lameness of posting that I was going to post and then did not. Lame.

It’s been a complete whirlwind, beginning right after I said I was going shopping. I was all set to come home, bake a little, post a little, perhaps take a nap? No. The nap did not happen.

I had my new desk delivered on Christmas Eve. So while my friend from whom I purchased the desk, who works at an office furniture store, put it together, I decided that it was a swell time to move my old desk into DD#1’s room, which meant moving about six dressers around so that all of the furniture matched, which meant moving all of the clothes around into the dressers, which meant cleaning out the girls dressers and getting rid of everything that did not fit, which brought me to time to get dinner started and the girl’s coming home.

Have you ever read that book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?” I would be the mouse. Except I don’t like mice.

Christmas Eve.

A time for peace and harmony, love, tranquility, remembering the birth of Christ. Well, except that Christ wasn’t really born on Christmas Eve, nor was he born in a stable, nor was his mother a virgin, nor was she un-married at the time for if she had been un-married and knocked up one of her relatives would have “honor killed” her by throwing her down a well or stoning her to death.

But I digress.

Rather than having peace and harmony, we had our neighbors and their two children over for dinner as well as my mother and brother. My neighbor, who I didn’t think actually liked me that much, brought us really nice gifts, which was a little surprising but way cool. Our neighbors, are quite religious. The kind who have a cross-shaped wreath on their door and say, “God Bless You,” on their answering machine. I’m pretty sure their republicans, and I’m pretty sure that they think that HG and I are on the fast track to eternal damnation, but hey? They came over for dinner on a religious holiday to share fellowship with us.

Christmas. A time for the lion to lay down with the lamb, and the Christians to have dinner with the lesbians. Who knew?

Coming up next . . .

Christmas morning.

The gifts, the screams, the gasps of joy.

(I promise it won’t be three days.)

Hurricane Force Weekend

Winter is upon us in the Pacific Northwest, and with the winter weather we are adding to it a hurricane tomorrow.  Or at least hurricane force winds.

We had a sample of it this evening.

As we stood outside.

Outside.

Watching DD#2 sing with the choir at the Scary Suburbs Christmas Celebration featuring the town tree lighting and Santa arriving by helicopter.

This was following our trudge to the middle of the woods to cut down our perfect Holiday Tree, an 8 foot Noble which there will be pictures of as soon as I’m not too lazy to get them off of my camera.

And also following DD#3’s sleepover last night and two early basketball games (which were inside an unheated gym,)  but before the basketball game tomorrow at 7:40 in the morning.

All I have to say.

Is that my wife is a SAINT and puts up with all of this.  And me.  Even after I snapped at her while we were paying bills.

SHE.

Is my shelter in any storm.

Even hurricanes.

13

My kid is 13.

I’m the mother of a teenager. That makes me…

Old.

We had a small family party for her last night. She had her friends party at her dad’s girlfriends condo last Friday. I put on my big girl panties and tried to be okay with the fact that I wasn’t involved in that, it was fine. She had fun, and I didn’t have any mess to clean up.

So yesterday, on her birthday, I took her out of school early and we went to lunch.

(I had the Bloody Mary, because I felt like it was partially my day too!)

A lady sat behind us with her baby and apologized up front in case her baby stared at us too much. I told her no worries, that this was MY baby and she was celebrating her 13th birthday. The lady said, “Wow, 13, you make it that far.”

It’s hard to believe.

Here she was at 7.

And 8.

I don’t know where the time has gone.

So there you go. I have a teenager and it’s all down hill from here I suppose.  Right now, she still likes me a lot.  Probably because I take her to lunch and buy her very expensive cell phones for her birthday.  That should last for a few months, I hope.

Tomorrow HG and I are going to the PLGFF showing of For The Bible Tells Me So, with LeLo and AdRi.  I’m so excited to be going out on a school night, and so excited for the movie.

Tonight, however I am off to the kitchen to make Stuffed Cabbage Rolls.  What’s better than that on a rainy cold day?

Nada.

Ciao y’all.

The Homestretch of Summer

The girls go back to school next Tuesday. Usually I look forward to them going back to school, but this summer I really enjoyed sleeping in having them around. To celebrate the homestretch of summer we will be going camping with everyone else in the free world. My wife, who rocks, rented us a boat here:

and it will be FAB, I’m sure!

This will probably be our last trip with our tent-trailer/pop-up camper/caravanette because we are going to sell it and buy a BIGGER one so that we can be even more trailer trash!

So until Monday, friends on the Internet (*Thanks Be To Al Gore*) I bid you adieu!

What’s new this week?

We got a baby and a baby rose bush.

Okay, so we can’t exactly keep the baby, but we do get to play with him and hold him and kiss him, (when he’s not crying for his Momma’s boobie…)

That’s baby Benny and he belongs to my sweet friend Corina who is visiting us from very far south in Mexico. Benny’s sweet brother is Killian and he is a very cute, very funny little boy,

Needless to say, the girls are in heaven!

I tried to do a little photo shoot of the boys, I got some cute shots and I especially love this one,

That one for sure goes on the mantle!

Cory has been very helpful with the girls, as she always is, and has taken them shopping and out to the museum which has made the first week of summer vacation a bit easier to ease in to.  I met Cory in 1997 when DD#1 was three and DD#2 was four months old.  Cory was attending the NW Nanny Institute, 18 years old and away from home for the first time.  I was part of the schools Practicum program, which meant that I was a family that the school would use for their students to practice on.  Cory was my first (and by far, the best) student and we have remained close through the years.  She even lived with us for awhile before she headed out on a trip that would change her life, eventually relocating her to Zihuatanejo, meeting her partner and the two of them having a family.  She only makes it back to the states once a year or so, and I cherish seeing her and the babies.  She is like a younger sister to me, and her boys are probably the closest I’ll have to nephews for a long time!

HG and I were able to do some things together, like go to lunch, do errands, buy plants and visit an awesome Heirloom Rose Garden that LeLo told me about to buy my very first baby rose bush.  Well, actually I bought two and I’m super excited for them to grow.  We’ve done so much work on the inside of the house, painting and decorating things, I really wanted to focus some energy on the outside this summer, making it pretty as well.

Cory and the boys go to the airport tomorrow morning and I’ll be so sad for them to go.  It’s been an absolute joy having them here: the smiles, the baby giggles, the funny “Spanglish” that Killian speaks.  Even the crying, the mess, and the baby toys everywhere-I’ll take those things in a house guest any day!

And so that ends, summer vacation, Week One.