Musing

If my husband really loved me, he'd buy me one of these.

(Knock knock, motherfucker!)

Father's Day

When I met Michael 23 years ago, I knew pretty quickly that I'd found my person. (After our first official date I called my best friend and told her, he's the one.) But all through our whirlwind courtship (we were engaged in less than a year and married ten months after that), it never occurred to me to wonder what kind of father he'd be. I knew that he would always be my best friend and safe haven, and that he'd make me laugh often, but as I'd never been the kind of girl with fantasies of marriage and parenthood, the thought never crossed my mind.

How lucky I've been. Especially in this past year of major changes and unbearable stresses in our lives, Michael has been my rock and the glue holding everything together, from getting up at 4:30AM to put Garrick on the French class's bus to Quebec to ensuring that Quinlan was properly decked out for the ninth grade dance. He's cooked the family dinners, refereed the fights, negotiated the bedtimes, overseen the chores. For the last year, he's been the complete parental package.

In taking such good care of our kids, Michael's given me the freedom to work the hours needed to prove myself at my new and incredibly challenging job. He's allowed me the space to spend time with my mother as we grieve my father's slow passing over and over together. And he's picked up all the pieces when I come home at the end of the day completely spent, incapable of doing more than taking off my clothes and going to bed.

I couldn't have chosen anyone better to make babies with.

Theatre Widow

For the last eight weeks, my husband has abandoned me and the kids three nights each week to rehearse the leading role in "Deathtrap" at the Players Club of Swarthmore. Being a theatre widow is nothing new for me; we met in the theatre (got married there, too), and spent the early years of our married life together hop-scotching theatre projects and waving to each other as we passed in the green room.

This one has been different. The stresses of my job and my father's health, when added to the general fatigue of living through the winter, have taken their toll. I get home at night after Michael has left for rehearsal, and I'm asleep by the time he gets home. I (almost literally) haven't seen him since Sunday morning and I feel worn to frizzle.

But! The show is in good shape and opens this Friday for a three week run (info and tickets here). It will be fun to take the kids to see their dad in such a bravura performance. And it will be such a relief to get my husband back.

I just have to make it to Friday.....

Grounds for Divorce?

Michael has uploaded the score to Les Miserables to Quinlan's digital music device, and Quin has abandoned his nascent adolescent broodiness in favor of singing "Master of the House" all over the house at the top of his lungs.

I think any reasonable judge would award me the house, the 401(k), and spousal support for pain and suffering, don't you?

Be Vewwwwwwwwwwwy Quiet

Michael flew out this morning to Nashville to talk to music industry types, leaving me alone for four days. We all know what tends to happen when Michael leaves town, right? Send good, preventative mojo, stat.

I've ordered up some Clooney from Netflix just in case I need him. For medicinal purposes, you understand.

Think I can convince Garrick to cook dinners?....

Tragedies both Great and Small

Chuck and I met when I was fleeing the non-profit sector in my late twenties and he was busy launching yet another business venture, which eventually turned into a successful internet promotions company. As a consultant I helped him develop financial projections for his new business plan, and for months, we met in the classrooms of a local computer equipment store (snitching some of the truly awful coffee laid out for the students), as he did not yet have office space. Possessor of a hugely entrepreneurial spirit, Chuck always assumed the best of people, and he placed abundant trust in me with very little rational justification. As the company grew and acquired capital funding (and office space) I grew with it, becoming employee #5 of a staff of over fifty and learning the foundations of what has become a successful and lucrative career.

Chuck did not stay with the company for long after funding, preferring to chase down new ideas and business ventures. I stayed long enough to max out my earnings potential, and left six years ago to pursue growth possibilities at what has become my dream job. But Chuck and I always stayed in touch, and he and his wife have been fixtures at our annual holiday party. Larger than life, always the most exuberant person in the room, Chuck's enthusiasm for everything from marketing to motorcycles to cigars to food was infectious, and he was always quickly the most popular person in whatever room he was in.

On Friday afternoon I received an email from Chuck's wife. "Chuck is very sick, and I thought you would want to know." It took me a few hours to reach her by phone, and when I did, I learned to my shock that Chuck had been diagnosed with liver cancer in May, and the situation was hopeless. Hospice care began Friday, and he died at home yesterday morning.

I am so grateful to have had a chance to say goodbye to him, to thank him for his trust in me, and to tell him how much I've valued his friendship. My life has been infinitely richer for the doors he has opened for me, and it's difficult to comprehend the loss of such a brightly burning light.

***

And in other news, Michael took the kids to the pediatrician yesterday for their well visits. Our afternoon phone call ran thusly:

"Any news from the doctor's appointment?"
"Well, Garrick is almost 5' and Quin is 5' 4.75"."
"No, that's not right -- Quin's not as tall as me yet, and I'm 5' 4". He's 5' 3.75"."
"The nurse said 5' 4.75"."
"She's wrong. He's been keeping track of this, waiting to surpass me -- I'm telling you, he's not there yet. The nurse misspoke."

So when I got home that evening, of course we had to check, first back-to-back, then up against the wall with comparative thumbnail scratches in the paint.

Sonuvabitch.

Guess how tall Quinlan is?

So it was a tough day, all told.

(And, for the record, isn't it against most laws of nature for a kid to grow a full inch in two weeks? 'Cuz that's what seems to have happened.)

Shrapnel

I don't know whether I'm coming or going these days. Maybe both at the same time? A lot's been going on.


LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING

I turned 42 a few weeks back. I was really feeling very low-key about the whole thing, but Michael and the boys sneaked around behind my back and bought me lots of cool gifts, like a bottle of tequila and a Zen Stone. Mine is just like this, but bright red. (Michael obviously knew better than to buy me a pink one.) Isn't it the cutest? And he pre-loaded it with some great tunes.








I also received a big package of Shamwows, proving definitively that I married the right man.


THE LAST WORD ABOUT MY HEALTH

I'm so frocking tired of thinking about my health. Part of the reason I haven't been posting is that anytime I open my brain all that comes out is "Ifeellikecrap mykidneysarefailing I'mtiredasshit mykidneyshurt wahwahwahwahwah." SO, I hereby declare a moratorium on posts about my health, unless there's something really new to report.

(The current bullet is: my kidney function is at 32%; I have no anemia or thyroid issues that would otherwise explain my pervasive fatigue and lack of stamina; I feel some degree of pain most days; my nephrologist thinks we'll start talking transplant in 1-2 years or when function is at around 25%; I am extremely lucky in that I have family members who are willing and able to donate a kidney to me. If you have questions I'll be happy to answer them in comments or by email, but I'm DONE posting about my frocking kidneys. For now.)


BUT WE CAN STILL TALK ABOUT PKD -- MY BLOG, MY RULES!

I finally mustered the energy to put up a fundraising page for the October 2009 PKD walk. I'm expecting it to be a really tough year for fundraising, so support at any level would be most appreciated. Clicky here or at the top of the right-hand sidebar if you feel so inclined. We will also be having a silent auction/cabaret fundraising event on October 2, so mark them calendars...


WHAT HAPPENS IN FELLS POINT STAYS IN FELLS POINT I SHALL NOW BLAB TO THE INTERNET

My glorious friend Maureen and I finally got our collective crap together after 5 months' stalling planning and ran away for the weekend to Baltimore. We stayed right on the water, across from the building where they filmed "Homicide: Life on the Street". See?




































Cool, right? We shopped, spa'd, drank beer and ate crabs. And we spent an hilarious evening at the Cat's Eye Pub making fun of with the whitest man in America.
























I am protecting his identity for his own good -- he had less rhythm than an elephant on crack and was under the delusion that he looks like Mike Schmidt. (In his dreams!) But he did endear himself to me by asking Maureen whether she and I were "together." Bless her quick-witted Irish heart, she answered "Well, we're together this evening!" I love messing with clueless, rhythm-less drunks.

The Cat's Eye Pub is fun not only for its excellent bartender and its ridiculously rhythm-less white guys, it's also a great place to pick up a Fells Point Boyfriend. Meet Omar.



















I was drunk by then struck dumb by the size of his biceps. And look how talented he is!




































A man of many parts, is Omar. Call me, doll-face.

The closest I got to baking all weekend was the Domino Sugar sign.




































Thanks for running away with me, Maureen. I needed that.

He Does Have His Good Points

After 19 years of marriage, I still get flowers.

Deja Vue All Over Again

Have I mentioned before how bad things happen when Michael goes out of town? Guess who's in New York for the weekend?


























Kill me now. Or, bring tequila. Y'know, whichever. 'Cause I'm certainly not mopping up this bitch by myself.

Every Day a Little Death

In our house it is birthday season, which begins with Quin in April, follows with Garrick in May, and concludes with me and Michael in June and July. As Garrick requested a pool party this year, we are carpetbagging at the YMCA (to which we do not belong) and I am inwardly grateful to be avoiding a house party.

So I ducked out of the office today to drive over to the Y and sign the contract, and didn't realize until I halfway there (because I am carpetbagging) that this YMCA is next door to the retirement community where my grandmother lived out the last, difficult months of her life, and I was suddenly grief-stricken. I haven't been to her real home (outside Poughkeepsie, New York) since we buried her ashes in November 2007, and the impulse to go visit and sit by her graveside and strew zinnia seeds was so overwhelming, I nearly headed straight for the Jersey Turnpike.

And I started thinking, while I drove, of all the things she hasn't witnessed (Quin's straight-A report cards, Garrick's incredible creative writing, Michael's songwriting awards) and I thought how proud she would be to know about my baking business (which is not only bringing in revenue but developing a following, lord help me). And I imagined how she would temper her pride with warnings of how hard a life in food service is, hearkening back to the days when she and my grandfather owned a restaurant for all those years, and people came from over 100 miles to have a slice of her amazing cheesecake.

(I learned to make change in that restaurant, my six-year-old self standing on a chair behind the cash register and leaning with all my might to depress the big push-key that rang the total. "Vincent's" was named for my grandfather, who died when I was 15, and whose spirit visited me the day that Garrick was born, almost eleven years ago. The nurse had taken the baby to get washed, the midwife had just finished stitching me up, and Michael was down the hall making calls. In the 2-3 minutes that the room was empty of medical personnel and family members, I suddenly felt my grandfather's presence with laser-like intensity. I was out of the country on a school trip when he died after a horrible battle with lung cancer, and will always regret not knowing him in my adulthood.)

And perhaps it's because our little town lost a beloved community stalwart yesterday, but I can't help but feel today that it's all going by much too quickly. My schedule of late has not allowed much in the way of time for introspection, but I did have a moment of clarity earlier this week regarding the increasingly challenging (if not ridiculous) goals that I've been setting for myself over the last few years. From the first year of PKD fundraising, to the amped-up second year, to opening a baking business: these are all things that, when my kidneys finish failing, I will no longer have the time or energy to contemplate, let alone do.

So.

These days I am feeling a kinship with marathon runners who get a rush from meeting and achieving the challenge: this morning, in my sixth week of business, I delivered my 100th cake to the Co-Op. I've been baking until midnight several nights a week, not even noticing the fatigue until the last pan is washed (usually by Michael) and I'm upstairs in the bedroom. I am somewhat disgustingly proud of myself, and in spite of being so fatigued that I'm in a partial out-of-body haze most days, my brain is saying to me "What's next?". Because it is a splendidly gorgeous spring day out there, and even running on 60% of the sleep I need to function properly, I have an overwhelming urge to go and do and be and create and achieve more and more and more while I still can.

***

It is birthday season in our house and we are celebrating the years-ago arrivals of our incredible, fascinating sons, neither of whom ever had a chance to know my father's mother, who died when Quin was six months old. It is birthday season and the weather is voluptuous and I've baked and been paid for 100 cakes and am feeling omnipotent, and when I drove into town today and saw the impromptu tribute of notes and flowers that has sprung up in honor of our town's lost friend, I realize that time is the key element, time is what we can never have enough of. T.S. Eliot said it right.

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

I'll be in my garden this weekend, up to my elbows in dirt, trying to enliven the dull roots while I can.

Pronouncement

If I were queen of the world, I would decree that Michael make Cobb salad for dinner at least twice per week.

That is all.

Fallout

So.

It could have been much worse -- only one employee out of 30-some went bananas and started acting in a wholly unprofessional manner. Luckily, I was not in the room at the time, or I might have smacked her. But everyone else understood the need for the temporary salary cuts and is committed to the program.

There is no telling how long the cuts will last, though my guess is that it will be a minimum of three months. I've got some ideas and irons in the fire to fill that income gap for my family, but meanwhile! Exciting stuff! Except I really shouldn't write about it, except I will say that it relates to the high level music industry meetings that Michael abandoned me for went to LA for last week. It's VERY VERY exciting, and no, I'm still not jinxing it.

But if anyone wants to suggest dresses in case I have to go to the Grammys, that would be okay....

Husband: FAIL

Last night, without any warning or provocation, Michael said that Sarah Palin is hot.

I then killed him and buried him in the back yard.

Oh hush, not really.

But I'm considering it.

If only I could solve the problem of who would cook dinner in his absence....

Signs

1. ... that it's been too long since we've used the grill:

Mice, mice, baby.

2. ... that I had three minutes to breathe over the weekend:

Red toes make me happy.

3. ... that Michael still loves me after 18 years:

Instead of sulking at my working late on our anniversary, he feed the kids, did all the dishes, and scrubbed out the scunge that the plumbers left behind in the bathtubs.

Blessed

It was eighteen years ago today that Michael and I stormed our local community theater, hung bunting and set up chairs, filled the space with friends and family, and vowed to share the rest of our lives together in our version of a boho-pseudo-Quaker wedding ceremony. My lovely friend Francine sang, a dozen other friends got up and spoke, and the Mayor of Collingdale, PA pronounced us husband and wife. Even the open septic tank and backhoe on the front lawn of the theater couldn't dim my joy.

Happy anniversary, honey. For two people who were so young and stupid, didn't we get lucky?

Wanna See my Birthday Presents?

After all, a girl's gonna need a little bling if we're going to the Grammy Awards next year...

Shards

I have a feeling that the person who Googled "my husband is hard to live with" was not expecting the second link to be this.

Sorry, dude. Unless your husband is hard to live with because he's so damn funny or because he keeps putting the number 5 plastics in the recycle bin no matter how many times I tell him we can only recycle 1s and 2s, I can't help you.

You may want to get together with the person who searched for "marriage after 18 years," though, and trade notes.

***********

I'm turning older this weekend, so I'm going to New York. Alone, with no kids or hubbies. I'll be hooking up one day with a couple of college buds (including my maid of honor), but am otherwise footloose and fancy-free. I'm either going to buy a lot of shoes, drink a lot of mojitos, or sleep 23 hours a day. Y'all get one guess.

***********

Tomorrow is my last day of physical therapy, and I'm slightly panic-stricken. I've been very good at keeping my twice-weekly appointments, but I'm worried about keeping up with the program when left to my own devises. I've been battling deep fatigue (again, still) for the last few weeks, and when I get home, I pretty much just want to take off my bra and lie down until bedtime (you're welcome). We have all the bands and balls and mats and ankle weights, so there's really no reason for me not to continue the program at home -- I even have some old, trashy TV on DVD from Netflix to play in the background. If only I weren't so frocking tired.

***********

So, naturally, I'm taking on projects and planning our PKD fundraising juggernaut and thinking about having dinner parties. (What?) I've got some really nifty ideas about fundraising this year, and I'll post about them all soon. Soon-ish. Eventually. Just after I get a nap or six.

Television Intervention

We have a strange television situation in my house. I can't stand paying any superfluous money to our local monopoly cable provider (the name of which rhymes with..... um.... bombast), so we decided a couple of years ago to only pay for the most basic cable service (just to get a signal), and to subscribe to Netflix instead. We thereby both Stick it to the Man and also get to watch what we really want to watch, instead of hundreds of channels of drivel. Aren't we clever (and cheap frugal)?

(It's probably worthwhile to point out that I grew up with no television in the house AT ALL, and Michael grew up eating frozen dinners on trays in front of the TV most nights. And, of course, I am now the one who needs an hour or more of TV before bedtime in order to fall asleep, while Michael stoically struggles to read the latest Thomas Pynchon opus with reruns of "Scrubs" as background noise. Dudes, marriage is all about compromise.)

The It's-Not-TV-It's-Netflix thing worked pretty well, for a while. We watched "Sex and the City" and "24" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Six Feet Under" and "The Sopranos." After the kids went to bed, we watched an episode (or two) or a movie (or a portion thereof) and then hit the hay. It was very civilized, I got to bed sort-of mostly on time, and best of all, there were no commercials.

Then we got a new TV.

About 18 months ago, we succumbed to the high-definition flat-screen hype and got a relatively modest set for the master bedroom (the only room in the house with a TV). It's pretty and shiny and you can see the razor-sharp picture without squinting. I may have made out with it a little.

Then Michael got hold of the remote control and the owner's manual and he pushed a few buttons and ALL OF A SUDDEN, there were a gazillion times twenty channels showing up. And some of them were playing cool movies, like "Sense and Sensibility" and "King Kong"! We kept channel-surfing into movies-in-progress, surfing away, and then trying to come back and find said movies and not being able to. It was very very weird, and I suggested that we'd fallen into a "Twilight Zone" episode akin to the classic episode of "Friends" where the guys are suddenly getting free porn on their TV, and refuse to turn it off for fear of offending the TV Porn Gods and losing their free porn.

You know where this is going, right?

After making this comment, I went downstairs for a glass of water, came back up, and found our TV set to porn (bad porn) and Michael cackling gleefully. Thus convinced we had entered an alternate TV dimension, we kept channel surfing and trying (and failing) to get a handle on which channels were showing the good movies (and not the bad porn). Because

Fake Boobs: Iz not the sexay.

It wasn't until a few days later when we surfed into a showing of the awful Nicholas Cage movie "World Trade Center" that the light bulb clicked on. The movie skips around a bit and there are (mercifully) story lines without Nicholas Cage, and we entered at one of those points. When the story segued back to the Nicholas Cage story line, ALL OF A SUDDEN the movie began to fast forward. On our TV screen. Without any intervention from us.

Not only did we have serious TV gremlins, they had taste! I instantly forgave them for the bad porn -- gremlins who blip over Nicholas Cage are welcome in my TV set any old time.

It took only a few minutes for us to realize what was really happening (because we are smart like that): our fancy-pants new TV was picking up the signals from all of our neighbors' On Demand selections. Whatever they are watching, we can watch. From bad porn to Jane Austen to Nicholas Cage movies, man, it's all in there. You just have to be willing to channel surf and catch it in a timely manner. (And also try not to dwell too much on WHICH neighbors are watching WHAT, 'cause, Dudes. Really. Bad. Porn.)

As you might have guessed, this is a double-edged sword. Because the grass might always be greener on another channel, and someone down the street might be watching the episode of "The Tudors" that I missed, my channel surfing has gotten OUT OF HAND, as I'm sure Michael would agree. The Netflix account lies languishing and neglected, good only for episodes of "24" that Michael watches while riding the stationary bike. An intervention is clearly needed. "Top Chef" ends this week, and then I'm going to fall off the cliff For Realz.

With the exception of a few semi-decent movies on the Universal HD Channel (more about which tomorrow), my TV watching is clearly in need of an intervention. I end up staying up much too late, chasing that ever-elusive show or movie fragment that will provide sufficient distraction for my brain to turn itself off so I can go to sleep. For the love of all that's holy, make me some Netflix suggestions in the comments. One-hour episodics would be best. Big fat smoochy thanks in advance.

One Tiny Flash of Clarity in an Ocean of Fog

Amongst the laundry folding and closet cleaning, I had a single moment of clarity this weekend.

Recently, Michael has been exposing the kids to Monty Python classics, such as the Dead Parrot and Cheese Shop sketches and the Argument Lesson. (THANK YOU, Michael.) I learned all of these skits from audio recordings (remember LPs?) as a kid, and though most of the time we had NO IDEA why they were funny, my brothers and I howled uncontrollably at them. Much as my kids are now doing. Except, my kids are also memorizing them and acting them out NON-STOP.

(Would it be foolhardy to tell them that Uncle Jason once went trick-or-treating as a Cheesy Comestible? Yeah, probably.)

So, you remember how the guy looking for an argument accidentally wanders into Abuse? Yeah, my kids spent the weekend flinging around phrases like "you snotty-nosed heap of parrot droppings" and "you malodorous pervert" (I explained "malodorous," but not "pervert." There are limits.)

My moment of clarity involves Abuse. At one point, the Abuser tells our hapless hero to "shut your festering gobutit!" At least, that's how I heard it when I was 11, and that's how it's been imprinted in my brain for the last 30 years, nonsensical as it may be. It is with some regret that I realized this weekend that the line is actually "Shut your festering gob [mouth], you tit!".

I'll take my epiphanies where I can, these days.

But I still don't understand this one. Please don't try to explain it to me, as that's the way I like it.

Holy Crap!!!!

Dudes, you're SO not going to believe this. Remember the International Songwriting Competition that Michael and his partner were finalists for? And remember how the same song won first place in a national competition just a short time after that?

Guess what?

They found out today that their song, "I'm Not Your Friend", has won the GRAND FROCKIN' PRIZE in the International Songwriting Competition!!! That's not "Best Rock Song" or "First Place", that's GRAND PRIZE for the WHOLE competition (with 15,000 entrants this year).

This is a HUGE deal. This competition is judged by people like Tom Waits and Nelly Furtado and Ray Davies and Jerry Lee Lewis fer cryin' out loud, as well as music industry professionals whose names I don't recognize. The prize package is AMAZING (sorry, Mom, rock musicians just make more money than poets, I guess) and it's all making me just a little bit giddy (even though Michael's likely to spend the prize money on something OTHER than jewelery for his loving wife). There will be a demo CD with all of the winning songs distributed to a vast array of music professionals, and this all could be the start of something very exciting for my honey.

Swoon!