I Mean Gah

Is anyone else like this? I just hate having stuff on my daily calendar, like things to do at pre-scheduled times. When I look ahead to the next day and there are several, like, appointments, it kills my joy a little bit, and I feel dread and assume that I will spend the whole day feeling harried and gritting my teeth. And it doesn't take much. I guess I am kind of a delicate orchid, 'cause like, three scheduled things in a twelve-hour period and I'm all I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS.

Today's agenda was...
Sleep late because Hank is out of school: This did not present a problem
Morningish: Get Laura a dress for her graduation
2:45: Go help set up the gym for the fifth grade dance tomorrow.
4:30-5:00 Hank swim lesson at our pool: this is a new thing this week and not assimilated into my routine
Clear dining room table of Legos for Matt to have a board game night with his buds
Prepare dinner?
5:15-5:45 Hank karate
6:00 play a tennis match
Laura swim practice, either at her swim club 5:30-7:45 or in our pool 6-7:  not gonna happen

Because every post needs a picture.

Okay, looking at that list, my stress could have been that lots of these things overlap or potentially would overlap if they all happened, and it makes me feel that I am not doing well with logistics when I can't be in two places or feel like I'm letting something slide. And some of the things are optional-ish, like Hank's karate and Laura's swimming. They just need to be done a certain amount every week, so every day I'm alert to whether we can squeeze those activities in or not. Matt helps with the kid transport some (he usually retrieves L from her practices) but 5:15 is a bad time to ask him to participate. Really the three things at 2:45, 4:30, and 6 were what was crowding my joy, but there was no problem with their overlapping or with the things themselves. All perfectly pleasant! And yet, seeing them in my calendar, I just wanted to take to bed.

So all day I'm twitchy and jumpy and I'm not sure when unscheduled-but-important things (shopping, cooking, cleaning) will get done. I asked Matt about taking Hank to karate and that was a non-starter.

Then later Matt comes to me and says, "About later, I need to go to a thing at 6, it will take an hour." And it's a thing that is kind of a fun thing, sorta, but also a work/networking thing. And I'm all instantly pissy, and I go, "Well I have tennis, what are you going to do with Hank?" (I am delightful.) And he says, "Can you really not take him with you to your match?" And so then I'm into a big thing of "Well I don't knooow, what if I take him and our match lasts three hours?" And he goes, "Well maybe you could take him with you and then I could come retrieve him," and I'm like, "I guess I could leave him here with Laura..." and we're into this sort of stand-off thing, and it's NOT EVEN A BIG DEAL except for the schedule! The SCHEDULED THINGS have got me all twitchy and feeling like we're all caught in a net. So then I sniff, "It seems like when YOU want to do something, I need to be super flexible, but when I want to do something, there is NO FLEXIBILITY." And Matt, with this tone of infinite love and patience, says, "Do you really think that is the truth?" And I realize I can't argue with him because it's not like he ever does anything except work his ass off. And I was like, okay I'll stop now.

So this is what the scheduled things do to me. The scheduled things!

And then, THEN, none of it amounted to anything! Unsurprisingly, I was able to do everything in sequence like a normal person and it all got done. Laura skipped neighborhood swim practice to stay home with Hank. (The game company boys were downstairs too.) And whereas I thought the whole day would be one long endurance test, I was finished with my match by 7:22. I arrived home to find Matt welcoming his friends, pizza ordered, and Hank asleep in a chair. Matt carried him to bed, there was tons of daylight left, Laura had her clothing plan for tomorrow's graduation all set, and I was like, "Oh." Then I drank a beer and watched Mythbusters with her. I am a crazy person, you have no idea.

Or probably you do.

I don't know. I mean, I have no problem having things to do. I am busy all day long. But as soon as there are certain times things must be done, I am like, FORGIZZLE. The kids' dentist appointments? Cast a shadow on my brain for days in advance. Just me? You?

I mean, praise be that I don't have an actual J-O-B. God forbid.

Smacks,
b

Fantabulous Wedding in LA

At the start of the evening...

...and at the end of the evening.

Last week I was so flustered with Hank's end-of-school stuff and playing vast quantities of tennis, badly, that I might not have told you guys that Matt and I were going to our friends' wedding in Los Angeles. And then I told you on facebook (you should "like" me 'cause I like you!), only I might have only said that we were in an airport (and that I yelled "Dark meat!" across the concourse because I was seized with fear that even after sixteen years of marriage, Matt might not know my chicken preference). So gosh, there is just so much living that sometimes bits of it slip away from the narrative grid upon which I want to index all of life.

Our friends Mike and Amy got married at a place called Hollywood Castle in the Hollywood hills. It is, well, this castle place. Or it is a house built to look like a castle in a kind of Disneyland way. And also like Disneyland, before you get there you're not sure what to expect, and then when you arrive you're like, "Oh, wow, this is just pure fun. Castle, YES!" And even better than Disneyland because open bar.

View from the driveway

The setting of this place, right on top of a hill, was wonderful. We could see the Hollywood sign from one side and the city from the other. The wedding couple was beautiful, and we got to see friends we haven't seen since we left California six years ago. Half of the wedding guests (three-quarters?) were in costume of some kind--medieval, fantasy, steampunk, who knows--and the whole effect was lovely. Definitely an unforgettable night.

This was the moss topiary dragon that watched over the table assignments. He was charming. His name is I Cost More Than College. Ha ha! jk, higher education has gotten crazy $$ the last few years. And the bride told me his name is Edgar.

The ceremony was on a green lawn overlooking the city, and then while we were having drinks, magic elves set up tables for us to have dinner out there.

Our table

My date

I'm not sure why this pic came out tilted; it can't be all that mead I drank.

This picture shows the little moat surrounding the castle, a charming wee moat that I almost fell into when the heel of my shoe got stuck between the boards of that bridge. I only went down on one knee though, so I'm sure everybody who saw me just thought I was kneeling in sudden prayer. I kinda wish I had fallen in because I probably would have come out clutching Excalibur. Usually that is what happens when I fall down at parties.

Then there was cake and dancing. Matt and I got to practice one of the two dance steps we know. And though Matt is against the idea of our renewing our wedding vows, as he believes our original vows are still in force and why cast doubt on that, I always feel a little like when we go to a wedding, those vows renew themselves a tiny bit.

Have you ever been to a themed wedding that you really loved? This was a nice one. For more pics of the scene and lots of pics of me but only one lonely picture that shows my shoes, click here.

Word Power

Hank soaks up all kinds of words and then peppers his conversation with them. Sometimes he is not even in the ballpark of their actual meaning.

Today, walking in to see Pretty Neighbor and me working out in her basement, Hank goes, "Mom, you are looking really predictable." Only he pronounces it pwuh-dictable. He said it a few more times, with great relish, but I was huffing and puffing and could not stop and unravel his meaning.

But sometimes he nails it. A moment later, PN and I began doing the part of the Jillian Michaels workout where you do "fast feet," up on your toes like a football player. Hank, joining in, goes, "Well this is ex-scwushiating!"

I had to concur.

Tonight, at bedtime, we were talking over his imminent pre-k graduation and all the things that his classmates want to do with their lives. I said, "Remember last year at graduation, the little boy said he wanted to grow up and be Batman?"

Hank laughed, and then, embarrassed for the naïveté of his preschool colleague, said, "Well that's not even plausible."

I said, "Hank, what does plausible mean?" He said, "Batman is science fiction." Then he looked at me like, duh mom, and goes, "That means it's never gonna happen."

I started to suggest that maybe the little boy wanted to take his idea of Batman and make it real and Hank was all, that wouldn't BE BATMAN, and I was like, okay, you have a point. Now stop talking and go to sleep.

....

Words, man. Any good vocab got you excited lately? I was reading something in the last few days where a person was described as "raddled," and it was such an old word and one I see so rarely that I had to stop and enjoy it for a while. Raddled. Not rattled. Just the right word, you know? The right word is a balm to a weary soul.

Is Mother's Day Monday Not A Holiday, Really?

Hank and the beloved Annabelle.

Hey y'all, Happy Mother's Day Monday! (It's a thing.) I spent the morning at Hank's end-of-preschool class bowling party. It was fun but if we are being honest, it must be noted that five year-olds cannot bowl for crap.

Then, because I was down in its vicinity, I went to the Goodwill to look for jeans for myself and Matt. I went to the Goodwill not even because it is cheaper, but because it is closer, and if I have to go all the way over to the Gap at the mall, just no. Like I should spend my precious life force doing that.

So I went to the Goodwill and one of the benefits of being my new smaller size (single digits, OMG I'm telling everyone!) is that there are lots of cast-off jeans that fit me. I think that most women must be a size 12, because that's what I used to be and I could hardly never find good jeans that fit me at that size. Actually I was a 12 for a long time, and then I was a 14 for a while and then maybe I was kind of a large 14, I don't know. So today I had a choice of three good pairs of nearly new Gap jeans, and Hank sat patiently while I tried them on. Then I bought one of the pairs for seven dollars and got Hank a vanilla milkshake to reward his patience. Really, I complain sometimes but he is good as gold. Oh, and I found a pair of new boy's Sorel snowboots for ten bucks. They will fit Hank in a couple of years, so score.

I couldn't find any cheap jeans for Matt because of his inseam.

....

Yesterday morning, Mother's Day, it was raining, making for nice sleeping-in weather. At a perfect hour, not too early but before Matt or I was up, Laura appeared at my bedside with a cup of coffee and some buttered toast. She doesn't know how to brew coffee, but she had very enterprisingly microwaved a cup from the day before.

She climbed into bed with me. Then Hank appeared, proudly bringing me a carrot and the jar of peanut butter.

Breakfast in bed, from each according to his abilities. I ate the toast and the carrot and the peanut butter and it was the perfect amount of food.

Bedside coffee is awesome and I told Laura I want it to be a new Sunday tradition. Though I might teach her how to make a fresh pot.

Then I sat up against my pillows and read my book, and had Laura bring me a refill of reheated coffee. Reader, I did not leave my bedroom until it was time for us all to go to lunch. Then we ate and went to see The Avengers.  


Did you mothers have a nice day? I hope you got some R&R time. Oh and every moment of the day, I had that song "Motherlover" lodged in my head. Nice.

xoxo

They Came Back

Dad, 50 pounds lighter since December; kids inherit his old pants.

My mom and dad were in Australia forever but now they are back and badder than ever. We went up to the mountain house on Friday night to see them, not having enjoyed our preview of their deaths. Guess who else was there? Baby nephew guy, Gabriel!

A happier baby there is not.

Gabriel brought his parents too. We didn't do much. A little eating, a little hiking. I noted with happiness that Katie has completely blossomed into motherhood, and I listened to my brother tell me the plot of the first 250 pages of The Brothers Karamazov. In case there is a quiz. And Dave played the guitar and we also entertained the baby.

Did you guys get to see the Super Moon? It really was a super moon! Even if it did take 4-evah to clear the ridge behind the house, not becoming visible to us until 11:30pm, when Hank had given up and gone to sleep on the couch. We had a great view of it with Laura's Astroscan telescope, and we stayed for a good long look. Laura and I kept trying to put our phone cameras up to the eyepiece of the telescope, which did not really work.

Oh, also, the whole family dived into this pit of facebook crazy--one of those terrible political threads where you argue with people you don't know in real life and it just goes downhill fast, fast, fast. I just can't even. It is really not like us to do this. Everybody was mad, I took to drink, and my mother had to shut the whole thing down by quoting scripture. It was like that.

Aussie beach glass

Mom brought this beach glass home from the beach in Kiama. She also brought me a zillion tea towels and another jacket that says "Australia." Oy oy oy!

We had to leave early this morning so I could get down to Atlanta in time for my tennis playoff match. The bummer-ish way this works is that the two teams play until one team has won three matches. For me playing in line 4, this meant that we were 4-3 in our first set and then my team finished losing the first three matches and we had to retire. Like, our match was over right there. We shook hands and left the court. And there had been ugliness in one of the matches over someone reaching over the net and a lot of other hysterical lady business. I am glad I got to play even a little, but I left the mountains early for that noise?

Oh well. Did you have a good weekend? Whatcha doing?

xoxo

PS: Sherlock on PBS tonight.

Useful Information

A few nights ago when I was in the throes of my daily blogging adventure, I asked Matt, "What should I write about?" I asked for his input in spite of the fact that a few days earlier, he admitted that he had only skimmed some of my April posts. Skimmed! He goes, "I kind of read for the main idea; there's been a lot of tennis."

!!!

So then I got onto him about never having commented on my blog, never in FOUR YEARS, a period in which my father, my brother, all of my male friends, my brothers-in-law (ALL OF THEM), and my MALE COUSINS (3!) have dropped by my comment section. This conversation was on my blog anniversary, and I said to him, "So this is four years of your unbroken record of silence. Congratulations!" And he was all, "Well at this point it's kind of part of the schtick, right?"

The schtick!?! I mean, honestly! I can't even.

Okay. But obviously we are still in love and we can work through this.

So I asked him what I should blog about, and he goes, "I like it when you post useful information." He cited my broccoli-cauliflower post, my health insurance post, and my toilet-cleaning post of yore. I said, "Okay, what else would be useful information, do you have any?"

He offered, "Well, when you're playing basketball and you're really big but you're not that great at basketball, but you still want to make a contribution, remember that when you're guarding someone, nobody likes contact. So get in under the basket and box out. Fight for your spot." He went on, but that was the gist. Hmm, I thought about that. Nobody likes contact. A useful sports insight but I don't know if it's that tailored to my audience.

So here is my recipe for lentil soup instead.

You need:

bag of dry lentils, rinsed (lentils don't need soaking)
four slices of bacon
an onion, chopped
celery stalk, chopped
couple carrots, chopped
clove of garlic
32 oz. box of broth
2 cups water
salt n peppa
bay leaves if you wanna get fussy
an immersion blender or even a potato masher

In your heavy bottomed pot (I use a cast-iron dutch oven) cook the four slices of bacon. Now, I have made this soup with sausage and also with no meat at all. So you don't have to use the bacon. But...why wouldn't you? So cook the bacon and then use a fork to pick the pieces out and put them aside on a plate. Leave the bacon fat in the pot. Cook the onion, garlic, carrots, and celery in the bacon fat. Your kitchen will smell like heaven at this point. One of the guys who works in your basement (you have those, right?) might wander in like a child and just stand there, sniffing the air.

When the onions are looking cooked, pour in the broth and dump in the lentils. Add two cups of water. Add whatever seasonings you feel up to and stir the whole thing together. Bring to a good boil, then turn down the heat, put the lid on the pot, and simmer for maybe 25 minutes. The lentils will start to come apart a little bit and then they're done. Tear up the bacon you cooked into tiny pieces and put them back into the soup.

At this point you need to decide what consistency you want the soup to be. Before I had a handheld blender, I would give the pot a good going over with a potato masher, just to break up some of the lentils and leave others intact. Now I give a few pulses with the immersion blender, but the basic integrity of the lentils remains.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream. Vital.

Even Hank eats this, and there is no greater endorsement that I can give for its kid-friendliness.

Hopefully you will find this to be Useful Information. Enjoy in health, and also remember that when you're playing basketball, get in there and work that caboose.

xo

Flashback And Sort of A Before And After

I was going to share some pictures from my doctoral graduation last summer, because I never blogged about it. So I dug back in my flickr sets and looked at the pictures, and I was like, "Whoa, I was thirty pounds heavier." Look, here I am with my beautiful friend Erika last June, and below that is one taken of me this Easter.

June 2011

April 2012

I don't know that I've actually seen the comparison before. Even with my being slightly hunched over in this pic and thus accentuating my honeybaked ham belly, I can really see the difference in my face and arms. It's funny, in my mind's eye I've always looked the same.

So, my graduation last June. Remember how I had wanted the whole family to go and then I almost didn't go and there was crying? Well I am so, SO glad I went and shared those days with good friends. It really properly marked the ending of that grad school chapter in my life, in a true valedictory way. Before the graduation ceremony, I was always feeling slightly melancholy for Santa Cruz. I loved living there--we had so many happy, major, formative times there. Laura arrived there as a newborn and left ready for Kindergarten, and it was a complete intellectual, social, and emotional passage for me. I guess that is why they call it an education.

Getting my hood

With my friend Jon

Our engagement photo

Braintrust: David, Erika, and Veronica

Beach Boardwalk

Even as we settled into our lives here in Atlanta, I always felt a little like I somehow should still be in California. But somehow going out there and walking in the graduation helped me feel happy that it all happened but not sad it was over. There might something to this whole mark-a-life-moment-with-a-ceremony thing. It could catch on.

If you are into it, more pictures are here.

And you guys! It's the last day of our month of daily blogging. I have loved our talks. It has been more than worth the loss of evening netflix time. (Believe it or not, it takes like an hour to talk about nothin'.) Thank you for coming around and reading and commenting. You are such a peach.

If you haven't already, go click on the facebook button up there on the left and "like" SubMat on fb. That is, if you like SubMat. Then we can be all chatty all the time. I'll be like, "OMG," and you'll be all, "I know!"

I Guess It Wasn't Awesome Behavior, I Don't Know

So this is kind of far up the butt of the rules and codes of conduct governing the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association, ALTA, but it's been rankling me today. I'm rankled! There was rankling.

We hosted a home match today. (I made pasta salad with farfalle, pesto, green onions, tomatoes, and feta.) The rules state that the home team opens a new can of tennis balls with which the match is played. If the home team loses the match, we take those old balls and go home. If the home team pair wins, the visiting team gives us a can of new, unopened balls to replace the ones we played with. We then give them the game balls to take away as a consolation prize. It seems complicated and the first season I played, it was confusing, but it boils down to this: one way or another, the loser is out a can of balls.

Today I played with S, a girl I don't know well but I really like. She is Venezuelan and we have a slight language barrier, but she is very sweet and we have always won together. Today we won again. Now, to set the scene: It was 88 degrees, no shade anywhere. I was wearing heavy-duty sunscreen from my hairline down to my ankles. I'd been hydrating since breakfast and my urine was as clear as a pure mountain stream. I was ready to play. Also a part of the scene: I am a nice person. Okay.

We beat them 6-0, 6-0. They barely won any points in those games. I was thinking, they must be really new, 'cause S and I play fine but we are not, like, killer tennis monsters. I was all Nice Becky during our two quick sets, being cheerful because I AM cheerful, making pleasant chat between games, calling out "good shot" when they hit a good shot, etc. One girl seemed happy enough to be playing but the other one was like a wet rag. I don't know. When we won our match point, I went right to the end of the net to shake hands and all that, and S and I said the standard things, "Great match, thanks for playing, you played some great points, etc." These girls didn't really want to be friends, it seemed, so we all started packing up our stuff.

At this point there is usually the business of gathering up the game balls and putting them in their can. I would say, "Here you go" and give them the old balls and they would hand over a new can. We would thank them, sisterhood would flourish. But that's not what happened. I held out the can of old balls and one girl said, "You keep them," and then they both bee lined for the gate.

When they were gone, S said, "See, I thought they were supposed to give us balls, right?" I said, "Yes, they are." And I knew that they knew it, because in the little chat that we were able to squeeze from them, we established that the wet-rag girl has been playing for two years. They were avoiding the ball handover. Which made me want to make a thing out of it. I said to S, "Do you want to me to mention it?" And she said, "Yes, you do it, you can make it sound better than me."

So I don't know what got into me, and this is not how manners operate, as I have understood them all my life, in years of being drilled in ladylike modes of not seeming to put oneself first and never drawing attention to the lapses of others, etc. But I went and ASKED FOR THE NEW BALLS.

S and I followed those girls to the picnic area and as we got there, I called out, so breezily (BREEZY!), "Lisa, do you have a can of balls?" And that girl did not speak to me, she just rooted in her bag and pulled out a can and handed it to me with a little pronation of her wrist that I can only describe as pure bitch. I am sorry but you would have thought the same if you'd been there. When I am faced with that kind of attitude, I become like the freaking Homecoming Queen. Amy, you know what I'm talking about. I trilled my thanks to her and passed them to S. Then I knelt down to the girl's little daughters who were standing there by the picnic table and said, "Do you guys want some watermelon? And did you see these cookies?" I was the soul of warm, inclusive festivity. Their mother said, "They saw them."

Fun!

So okay, I KNOW that I should have just let the whole ball thing go, and I have on other occasions. New players sometimes don't have the whole ball trading token ritual thing figured out and so what. A can of balls costs three dollars. Not a huge prize. But rules are rules, and the main thing is I sensed that those girls just DIDN'T WANT TO HAND OVER THE BALLS.

HAND OVER THE BALLS!

(At this point I am like balls balls balls, how many times can I say balls?!?)

So Reader, I know I did not exhibit top drawer behavior. I felt equal parts grubby and vindicated after the whole scene. And as we sat on the bleachers, eating our chicken salad croissants and watching the matches that were still going on, our captain came over and said she'd just caught the tail end of a convo at the picnic table in which one of my opponents was saying, indignantly, "Well it's a shame because it's supposed to be about having fun." And I wanted to turn around and yell, "I'M HAVING FUN." But she was probably talking about something else.

I came home and told Matt about it and several minutes later, I said, "But was I wrong to ask for the balls? I wanted S to have them back!" And he was like, "Rules are rules. Are we still talking about this? What?"

I know that you would like it if I would take my tennis balls and jog slowly away toward the horizon right now so you can stop hearing about this world. The good news is, today was our last regular season match. The bad news for you is, we made the playoffs!

Oh yeah baby, coveted bag tag here I come!

Seacrest out.