Road Trip!

We've been talking up our family road trip to Avila Beach to the kids for a while.  Today, after about 4 hours on Hwy. 101 Oliver asked, "does road tip mean I have to sit in my car seat all day?" Well, yes actually, it does.  But it also means junk food, sing alongs, you-touched-my-toy fights, and:

Funny face contests (competing against me is useless).

Trains that last forever.

The relief at finally arriving.

And, in our case, a little hula-hooping to rid ourselves of the road.

Today is the Mister's birthday—38 and he's still got it

A thing I like

Our guesthouse.  If you ever find yourself in San Luis Obispo and you are a sucker for great style, huge bathtubs, and a TV-free evening every once in a while, this is your place. I walked into what I thought was the lobby (what is, actually, the lobby) and it was a painting studio.  And there's our host, wiping paint off her hands to hand us the key. Plus the beds are amazing.  The Mister is snoring right next to me as I write just to prove it.

  

I'm in a fog

My street on a typical summer day

In my defense, it was 50 DEGREES in San Francisco this past weekend, with the gray sky lurking overhead like a bad conscious. No wonder I was so crabby. Much better now, thank you very much. The sun is out, at least in Menlo Park, and yesterday, after seeking out the sun (see # 17 here) in Marin, we played Tinker Toys and Oliver kept telling me my propeller building was "really kewl" and, I don't know, everything that seemed to be crumbling down, was suddenly ok again. Tender, but ok. And that's how life is when you are a stressed-out, exhausted mom who was pretty moody to begin with, I guess.

Oh, and Italy is back on. A family-free week in Venice on a canal with nothing but my camera, my laptop, and a pair of cute but comfortable walking shoes (any suggestions for this holiest of grails?). I plan to write three novels and a really funny collection of essays. As my friend Brooks said, "A week is nothing in adult time but it's an eternity in mom-time."

I miss my kids already. Funny how that works.

A thing I like

Mint. Right before I write three novels and a collection of essays, I am going to organize and manage my finances and make everything ok by using the computer and this website. Phew! I read about it at Decorno (I heart Decorno).

Mommy Mojo

Back in the halcyon days of sleeplessness and fretting about milk production

Last night I was supposed to go to the movies but I got too lazy. Plus, there's nothing good playing. So instead I just hid in the office with a glass of red wine and wrote while the Mister took the kids for ice cream and then began the completely boring, monotonous, I-can't-believe-this-is-really-my life bedtime routine.

All was well in the world, or all was tolerable, made rosier by the fact that I was freed for at least 24 hours from having to repeat the words "don't splash water out of the tub" ad infinitum.

Because here's the thing (and I know even writing this makes me the object of scorn or pity in the eyes of some—not that I care what those judgemental a-holes think): I am not really enjoying this parenting thing at the moment.  In fact, it feels like a giant pain in the ass.

My friend Molly hates admissions of parental distress that are preceded by claims of love for one's children because of course we love our children like nothing else in the world, and of course we would throw ourselves in front of a bus to protect them, and of course we want them to be happy and well-adjusted and to feel loved.  So, in honor of Molly, I'm going to spare you that part and just say that if I hear one more sentence that begins with the words, "Mommy, I want..." I am going to scream.  Actually, the screaming started a long time ago.  

Which brings me to the other thing: I'm sort of tapped out.  I need to figure out how to get my happy mommy mojo back.  I need to find the joy in completing the Eric Carle puzzle yet again and stop seeing every single activity as a power struggle just waiting to happen.  Because right now, every trip to the playground is just a fight about going home that hasn't happened yet. 

A thing I like

I worked out with Tina Vindum this morning and let's just say that the next time you see me I will look exactly the same but I will be a better, happier person.  I don't really like personal trainers and I don't really like the word "awesome," but she was awesome.  Seriously.  You can buy her new book (just that picture of her on the cover will inspire you to do a few lunges) if you can't afford her in the (incredibly firm) flesh.

I don’t mean to whine, but IKEA only serves Pepsi

I’ve been kind of down in the dumps lately (I know, just what people want to read about after a long day in the trenches, but bear with me).  It’s hard to explain why, but it has to do with some curdling mix of trying to write a novel, and reading Mountains Beyond Mountains and feeling as though doing anything that is not in the service of others is shallow and meaningless.  There are so many people out there who are fucked unto the Lord, as Anne Lamott would say, and here I am trying to write amusing sentences about a twelve-year-old girl.  And, like, who needs me when the world has Michael Chabon and Lorrie Moore and Richard Yates?  

Mixed in to this existential crisis is the fact that my kids have learned the word “hate,” and the little scraps of patience I was sometimes able to muster have mutinied and fled. Then there’s my inability to be skinny, and my irritation with myself for still believing, after all the evidence to the contrary, that skinniness equals happiness. 

Furthermore, it looks as though my trip to Italy may not materialize. I’ve decided I do not like writing workshops. Our chickens are constantly shitting in their water, considerably adding to my stress levels.  I have disconcerting joint pain.  My house feels small and cluttered and there is juice on the floor that has been there a week. I wore out my expensive shoes and now they look bad.  Oh, and I’m losing my job but I don’t know when.

Guess if eating alone in the IKEA cafeteria this afternoon helped my mood. 

 

A thing I like

First of all, I forgot to update you on the completely successful neighborhood potluck I had in my backyard after the weird run-in with my icky neighbor.  It was great, really.  All these people I didn’t know came and signed up and ate chips and drank beer and, I don’t know, it was a little glimmer of hope in my otherwise shitty week.  So, there’s that—the fact that a lot of people (or at least 10 people) want to make our neighborhood a better place.

Then there’s this, which starts tonight and is a big reason why summer is my favorite season.

See? It’s not all bad. 

Chard-from dirt to table

I am not really into food writing. I like MFK Fisher and all, but really, I'd almost always rather be eating than reading about eating. I feel the same way about reading about music (Nick Hornby is the exception here--this, for example, is brilliant) and visual art. Um, can't I just listen or see for myself and, like, skip all your droning about metallic finishes and discordant chords? Huge exception for my food writing friends, who are brilliant and who supply me with useful and delicious recipes so that I may eat (and here we are, back at my favorite hobby).

So, I'm not going to get too food-porn about our chard but I will say that this evening I harvested our rainbow chard, sauteed it up with some garlic and red pepper flakes and then put it on a pizza with a cornmeal crust. And, it was delish. Like I'm-so-not-going-to-look-good-in-a-bikini-in-Italy good. But that's just the way I roll. I will always choose a little cellulite over a dinner that bores me.

Good Fences Aren't Helping

Photo from here.

Because I am crazy and suffer from bouts of civic mindedness and extreme optimism (tempered, thank god, by bouts of dark realism), I decided recently to start a neighborhood collective. I was inspired by a story I edited for the June issue of Sunset about a woman in Portland whose collective is all friendly and community-minded and whose members buy bulk veggies together and knit and walk and do all sorts of other super-earnest activities as a group.

Tomorrow is the first meeting. At our house. Only eight people are coming. Maybe 10. And to tell you the truth, the same thing that always happens in the aftermath of my attacks of vim and vigor is happening; I lose my mojo and start to realize that I am already a stressed-out, over-committed working mother of twins with a dog, a husband, and four chickens.

And then, today, right at the apex of my waning enthusiasm for hosting a civic meeting in my backyard, my weirdo neighbor (not invited), started giving us grief about the chickens. In fact, over the course of ten minutes he threatened to barbecue them, deep fry them, and skin them and gut them in "three minutes flat." He threatened to call Animal Control.

Now, this neighbor has always been someone to avoid—our own personal counter-culture Boo Radley. He's the guy who, during my wedding shower ten years ago, stood in his back yard a mere 20 feet from our hyper-feminine wedding frenzy loudly practicing his bull whip skills. I kid you not. He's also the neighbor who, during our Obama fundraiser last year, started hanging McCain t-shirts in his window and sticking Palin bumper stickers to the glass. This is a man with a bright pink goatee and a completely tattooed head. He smokes pot in his backyard and on occasion has made me look at his "art." He stopped me on the street once and, apropos of nothing, told me he likes to dress his photographic subjects in nothing but leather hoods.

In other words, he's strange and unappealing, but he's seemed harmless enough in an answer-your-door-in-nothing-but-a-pair-of-black-bikini-briefs (which he once did) kind of way.

Anyway, you can imagine just how neighborly his smarmy threats and his unfounded fear of "chicken lice" have left me. Answer: not very. In fact, if it weren't for the comparative unflappability of the Mister, I most likely would have engaged in a very unbecoming screaming match with my unsavory neighbor. Instead I rolled my eyes and huffed while the Mister tried unsuccessfully, but very gamely, to tempt him with fresh eggs.

Neighborhood collective? With this bunch of weirdos? When will I learn to just keep to myself and mistrust the rest of the oddballs out there?

Thanks. I needed to get that off my chest.

Maybe breakups aren't so bad after all

I know, it's hard to feel too sorry for her

Remember this?  Well, it seems to have all come toppling down quite suddenly and with very little forewarning.  For those of you who are thinking "I knew it" I say, shame on you, you old coots.  

It is for me a reminder of just how awful breakups are.  I mean, is there any pain so quite so filled with self-recrimination, shame, regret, and longing?  It is exquisite in its way, but not enough to make up for the nausea and crying-induced sinus pressure.

Is it totally callous to say there is a bright side to all my friend's sorrow and that that bright side is that I get to go to Italy to help nurse her back to her old self and write and drink wine and swim in the blue, blue Mediterranean Sea? I suppose it is.  But, there you go.  Callous or not, it's a pretty good deal for me. Ah, love.

A thing I like

Color Me Katie's Shadow Project