Confessions of a FFG (Former Fat Girl)

Enough bellyaching already

2011-09-21T10:34:00.004-04:00

Back in the saddle again!

So . . . I am beginning Day 2 of the 5 Day Pouch Test - a nifty little plan I found online for folks like me that have had bariatric surgery, lost the weight, and gained some back.

Turns out, my carb snacking is a common thing among the post-surgicals . . . something about the simple carbs being easy to digest, easy on the little stomach, but hell on the metabolism. NOW you tell me.

No matter, lesson learned. I have sworn off the evil little pretzels, and I am getting back to the original plan. If all goes well, I and my pouch will ride happily into the sunset, protein shakes in our saddlebags.

Happy trails, ya'll.

The 35 year war rages on

2011-06-15T09:57:00.015-04:00

Yep. Read it and weep.

30 pounds. 30 fucking pounds heavier than I was this time last year.

This time last year, my body felt reborn. I was about 2 years post surgery, and my weight had stabilized. My clothes fit the same from month to month. The scary drops in weight had stopped, and the bouts with nausea, and the problems with digestion. Everything seemed to have stabilized.

This time last year, I was packing to take the kids to Myrtle Beach. Matty was recovering from a month in the hospital - he had been diagnosed with cancer just a few months before in February, and the pain that landed him in the hospital seemed to be under control, and the chemo seemed to be working, and we were feeling hopeful.

This time last year, I didn't see my parents much, but I knew my dad was getting weaker, and my mom was growing more forgetful.

Within 6 months, I would watch a great many things.

I watched my dad slowly fade away in ICU. I'd bury my dad, move my confused and addled mom into my house, and see the extent of her dementia first hand and the extent of the cancer in her bones, and in her liver, and in her kidneys on MRIs in her kind doctor's office. It would feel oddly familiar. The same doctor had broken the news to us about my mom's breast cancer recurrence 6 years ago, and had gently told Matty and me about HIS diagnosis just the year before.

I watched Matty endure torturous, inhumane, painful treatments that he bravely faced so that he could live through this goddamned thief called cancer and be here for me and the kids.

I also watched all of his friends gather in his honor in NYC to help us celebrate his being able to be there and our marriage which we managed to wedge in among the tragedy and loss and just before his stem cell transplant - yet another hellacious procedure he faced head on without blinking.

Not once.

I tried to be as brave as him when I saw tubes sticking out of his chest that carried the poisons through his body to kill the intruder, and I tried to keep a steady hand when I flushed the lines with saline solution so he could keep receiving the poison.

I watched my kids go though all this too, without complaint. I watched time tick past, and mourned the time lost with them while I worked, or sat in a hospital, or sat with my parents. I mourned time lost with my mom when I was sitting right with her, seeing the look of confusion on her face and realizing that she didn't quite know who I was.

I watched it all. I sat through it all, very still, with hardly any movement at all.

I worked. I remained calm in the face of this shitstorm. I kept plugging.

And slowly, slowly, I relied on what I've always relied on to keep my nerves in check. Food.

I snacked. I rationalized. I began to fall back on old bad habits.

The worst part is, it all feels like vanity. I didn't care that I wasn't exercising. I didn't care that the weight was hurting my heart, or my back. I cared that my clothes didn't fit anymore. It didn't even dawn on me to step on a scale until my summer shorts felt tight. I blocked everything else - the lethargy, the aches, the depression, the loss of strength. None of that clicked, not one damn thing.

Just the shorts.

Stepping on the scale felt like climbing on to the platform and putting the hangman's noose around my neck. Breath held . . . . watching the numbers flash . . . ..

199.6.

I thought my heart was going to stop right there.

I had fought so hard, gone through so much, endured years of waiting, gone to so many doctors, endured so many exams, endured so many years of illness just to qualify for the surgery, and I had lived through all the aftermath, all the throwing up so that I would never have to see numbers like this again.

It took 2 years to recover and stabilize. 2 years.

I fucked it up in 6 months' time.

I am thankful for small favors, I guess. For whatever reason, seeing that little "1" on the scale made me believe that I could fix it . . .something about still not weighing 200 made the panic immediately flood my brain with "it's ok, you can fix this . . . . it's not so bad . . ."

But it is bad. Bad for my heart. Bad for my back. Bad for my body. Bad for the long term prognosis of me remaining free of this disease, or addiction, or shitty set of genes, or collection of habits determined to kill me, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Bad for my kids that are relying on me to take care of them and bad for Matty that has fought so hard just to be able to LIVE to have me sit here and toss my health in the garbage can.

I owe it to all of them to stay as healthy as I can for their sake. They deserve that.

I barely made it through the day yesterday. Today, the panic is gone, but the sadness is just washing over me in waves.

I must have stepped on that scale 4 times yesterday. I've already been on it twice today.

196 this morning. That little part in my head that always rationalizes was the first to say "See? It will be ok! You'll get back to where you are supposed to! Just need to keep your eye on the ball . . ."

Then that part of me that lived through 35 years of obesity reminds me of how many times I have tried and failed, how many times the weight has come back, how many times I have given up, how many times I have beaten myself up.

I want to do harsh things, of course I do. I want to do nothing but drink hot coffee and melt the weight off through starvation. I want to beat myself up and run until I drop, but I'm so weak, I feel like I can't get up from this chair.

People always say, "Treat yourself kind - take good care of yourself. Don't be so hard on yourself." No part of me wants to be kind or gentle. If kind means eating right, exercising, and abstaining from my crutches, that's about the last thing I have wanted to do lately.

The kind gentle part of ME is the part that lets me keep pretzels in my office drawer, and a bag of jelly beans to absentmindedly pop into my mouth during the long boring hours while I sit here on conference calls, hearing people bitch about our company, and our jobs, and about each other. The kind part of me gives me treats so I can distract myself from the losses, and the sadness and the fear and the shitty hand I'm holding while bluffing fate with an unbreakable poker face. The kind part doesn't make me exercise, and helps me ignore the obvious while I grow weaker and heavier.

That's the part of me that feels kind - the part that feeds the addiction. Making me stick to the plan doesn't feel kind - letting me have what my body craves and playing a nonstop reel of justification in my head feels kind. Like all addicts, I guess.

And that's the part that gets you in the end.

Repost:: Eternally vigilant

2010-09-11T02:45:00.000-04:00

Today's a tough day for him.

He was right there when the towers came down, you know.

He was there to witness the carnage. He lived through the soot, and the screams, and the sirens, and the shock, and the semblance of life that the survivors were forced to cobble together in the aftermath.

The names of the dead aren't just names that grace a memorial wall - they were people that he joked with, laughed with, welcomed into his bar, talked football with, celebrated births and marriages with, and mourned death with. The normal passages of life, not this horrific hell on earth that no one was prepared to face.

The people that died that day were real, they were his friends, and then in an instant, they were gone.

He marked his body to honor the fallen, and to commemorate the spirit of the city, and the people - both those that perished, and those that survived. I see that symbol on him every day, and I try to imagine what it was like to offer his flesh up as a living memory of the worst day in our country's history.

I try to imagine, but I really can't.

My world is so much smaller than his. I've been sequestered here, in the state of my birth, never venturing more than a few miles from the city I grew up in. I've tried to equate anything in my experience to what he endured.

I don't think I can.

I mean, how do you gain an understanding of that horror and that level of loss? How many words would I have to hear? How many pictures would I have to see? How many times would I have to watch the clips of the attack on the towers to grasp the reality of what happened?

It's human nature, I guess, to try to compare and contrast things that you encounter with the Rolodex of memories and experiences in your own head.

That's what we do, us humans. Compare and contrast. Is this better or worse than that was? Is this anything like what I have seen before?

It's how we cope. We try to make sense of everything that we encounter, and draw parallels to it, dissect it, turn it over and over in our minds to find the logic in it so we can file it away.

And then we do file it away.

I think that's one of the most upsetting parts for him in the years since - the "filing away" that seems to have occurred as a nation. Fewer and fewer people make the pilgrimage to NYC on September 11 these days to remember. Fewer channels devote the time to broadcast the ceremony that is held on every anniversary to commemorate the passing of all of the victims.

Which sounds cold and unfeeling, and in a way, I guess it is, but the parts of us that allow us to continue on after a tragedy are the same parts of us that "file away" the horror of the experience.

Survival mechanism, I guess.

So on this day, I put myself through the exercise of reliving that day, or my version of it. Like most of the world, I was far removed from Ground Zero. It almost feels like I don't have the right to participate in the mourning - certainly not in the same way that he has earned the right to mourn.

So I move to the next step - drawing parallels so I can understand the level of loss and fear and grief and being thisclosetodeath.

Cause that's what we do. We want to make sense of it. And we want to empathize.

Maybe for me, it's when I hemorraghed after my surgery last year, and I was floating in and out of consciousness, only vaguely aware of the flurry of nurses and doctors and bags of blood and equipment that were wheeled in and out of the room.

Or maybe it's the day that I sat with my mother when the doctor told us she was terminal.

Maybe it was the night that my newborn baby daughter was being frantically worked on by doctors and nurses in the emergency room, and I wasn't allowed to be in the room, and a kind nurse gently told me that everyone was doing everything they could, but . . .

Or maybe it was the morning of my c-section with my son, when I laid there, waiting and waiting to hear him cry . . . minute after excruciating minute, as I watched the pediatric doctor and nurse quietly but frantically work to resuscitate him - the longest 10 minutes of my life.

But then I decide that no, it's not the same. Not nearly.

It's not the same because these were all near-misses. I survived. So did my daughter. And my son. And my mother has outlived the prognosis many times over.

I've been able to file these things away, and continue on with life, without being continually reminded of the pain and the anguish. I've been allowed to compartmentalize these things and distance myself from the fear and the shock.

But for him, and thousands more like him, there is no filing away. It was too big, and too senseless, and too . . . much. So the survivors commemorate the day, and watch the ceremonies, and relive the horror, without being able to file it away.

Call it survivor's guilt. Or maybe the mind's inability to process something that monumentally evil. Regardless, it never goes away. It just gets turned over and over and reprocessed and reconsidered and re-mourned and relived.

Eternally vigilant.

This Old House

2010-07-26T14:32:00.009-04:00

I've been really antsy about the house lately.

Since the divorce, it has felt like I have just been marking time here, versus really living here. In case you have ever wondered, I can say with absolute certainty that it's hard to stay in a house after a divorce, especially if you keep all the same furniture, and all the same dishes, and all the same pictures on the walls, and all the same linens . . .

You get the idea.

What (I think) has been a comfort for the kids has been more than a bit uncomfortable for me.

By my choosing.

Since the divorce, I have worked hard to make sure that everything has stayed the same, physically, for them. At first, I thought that was supremely important. Somehow, I thought that maintaining their home and their neighborhood and their surroundings would make the divorce less difficult.

Maybe it has. Then again, maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.

Consistency was my battle plan for getting my kids through this whole debacle. Of course, who could have imagined a year and a half ago that we would be sitting here in July 2010 in the situation we find ourselves in now. Matty is here with me, living in this house with me, the kids, the dogs and The Ghost of Marriage Past, battling cancer, and we are living across the street from my ex-husband and his family in a home that I have always loved but now somewhat resent.

Let's don't even talk about the housing crisis, or the economy, or the 2 chances we have for selling this home and walking away with a penny in our pocket (those two chances being slim and none.)

Even if we could sell, it would be a terrible time to try. We need to stay put and get through Matty's treatments, and keep the kids in the schools that they are used to, and I still think it's good for them to have their dad and grandparents closeby, even if that's not the most comfortable thing for the adults (them or us.)

All of these factors have kept me from doing, well . . . anything.

It's taken over a year for me to consider what I could do to this place to make it feel like a living, vibrant home, versus a marital graveyard. I know it's been hard on Matty, too, moving into a ready-made home.

In a perfect world, we would have sold this home, and disposed of the furnishings and found a new place.

But you know what they say . . . nothing's perfect.

But when you find yourself in the situation that we are currently in, you take stock of what's important, and what can be enjoyed in the here and now, and if having Matty here has taught me ANYTHING, it's that the day is what you make of it, and you can choose to enjoy life regardless of the circumstances.

I love him so much for that.

So, with that in mind, I found my mindset start to slowly change about the house.

I do still love it here. I love my kitchen, and I love my walk in closet, and I love my basement office, and my wooded backyard. I love my flowers out front, and I love my dining room, painted just the exact shade of blue as my beloved Pfaltzgraf stoneware.

I even love the neighborhood, and the pool, and the sidewalks.

All of the things that I loved about this house are still here. Everything that made it felt like I would shrivel up and die if we didn't get this house are still here.

That realization has been slow to catch fire in my head, but it's been smoldering for awhile now, and seems to have worked up a little flame. It's only been in the past month or so that I have begun to assess the situation and make plans to remake this home into one that feels less like a monument to what was, and more of a comforting place to enjoy what is.

It really started with a couple of small things, but I've learned that it's amazing how encouraging small changes can be.

Matty bought me a new gazebo for the deck (my old one had been destroyed in a bad storm last year.) Somehow, having him make that effort led me to want to make the deck as nice as I could for us to enjoy, so I ordered some solar light caps for the deck railings.

And, oh my sweet Home Depot . . . it took me FOREVER to pull the trigger on the damn lighting.

I looked online for DAYS, agonizing over every choice. It felt like I was making some kind of life-or-death decision, which is crazy.

Well, it is.

Anyway, I finally took a deep breath and clicked the "buy" button.

Then I noticed how neglected the deck was, and how badly it needed to be cleaned and stained and sealed, so we started collecting bids for that work, and it wasn't too long before I took a good look at my exterior porch and garage lights and ordered some that are as pretty as the deck lights. (Sea Gull Yorktown 1-Light Forged Iron Wall Lantern, retail $104, EBay new in box $54.00.)

They are in boxes at my front door now, and I am giddy with excitement to see them adorn the entrances.

We also picked up some new showerhead sets for our bathrooms. If you don't have a rainshower soaker/handheld shower combo, I can't recommend them highly enough.

This past weekend, we bought some beautiful forged iron pulls for my kitchen and bathroom cabinets ($1 apiece at a closeout of custom order kitchen hardware, retailed for $8ish each), and I've ordered some replacement lights for our bathrooms (this Kichler 3 light set was $225.00 retail, $39.00 new in the box on Ebay. Her 4-light sister was $295.00 retail, got two of those for $49.00 each!)

I've also begun to assemble all of the things that will be leaving our house. I plan to have the mother of all garage sales very very soon.

Once the house has been cleared of all of the unwanted items, the biggest project of all will commence: painting. It's the only project I am actually nervous about, which is silly, of course. I'm sure once I actually start applying the paint, it will be a breeze, but deciding on the colors, and preparing properly, all that . . . it feels like a big challenge.

Additional frugal wisdom from Dwight Schrute

2010-07-23T12:23:00.001-04:00

Tough Times? Tough Noogies

The economic crisis began with mortgage lenders throwing money at dolts who couldn't afford their payments. Sad stuff. Lucky for me, I've lived my entire existence in an economized state. I'd like to share suggestions with all those super-sized Baconator chateau-living goons out there, who are making their first attempts at being resourceful and cutting back.

Dwelling
Your house can be more than just the spot where you rest your head or butcher your pigs - it can also be a vibrant moneymaker. The spare rooms at Schrute Farms have provided beautiful memories for excursionists, while bringing in gobs of additional cash for Mose and I. I also rent out my basement to a part-time dentist, which means even more money coming in, and free travel toothbrushes whenever I desire.

Clothing
I laugh in the face of your Goldie Hawns, your Diane Keatons, spending thousands on inane wardrobes that are hot one moment and offensive the next. I sport most of my dead grandfather's garb - classic, durable, free. And Mose knits our wintertime attire.

Sustenance
If you're 85 or younger and your appendages are still mobile, you should be hoeing your harvest every morning. I've been living off the land since I escaped the womb. It's not only cheaper than those preposterous yuppie grocery markets like A&P, but pasturing also gives you brawn. No need for a gym membership. Two birds, one garden stone.

Transportation
I bought a Pontiac Firebird in 1987 and haven't looked back since. No car payment in 19 years. Most of you halfwits forget that your vehicle is a machine, not an ornamental showboat to arouse the neighbors. So trade in your cutting edge Accords and Eclipses for something more affordable. If it has airbags, it's too good for you.

Take all of this advocacy and run with it. Or don't, and forever be a penniless idiot.

Alternative Consumption

2010-07-23T09:39:00.007-04:00

So, lately I've been thinking about alternative consumption.

Is that a thing? If it's not, then I hereby claim that as of today, it is.

Finding cheaper ways to do things is nothing new for me - I am a longtime coupon user, thrift store shopper, and bargain seeker. I'm one of those people that turns a $200 grocery run into a $50.00 spree, with a crazed look in my eye, a sales paper in my left hand, and white-knuckle clutching a stack of coupons in the other.

Up to now, my consumption has all been cash-based. Granted, I use less cash than other people, but still . . . when I get things for my family, the bottom line is, cash changes hands.

I am attempting to teach my children the ways as well. They are well-versed in the ways of Play and Trade (game swapping store), Goodwill, yard sales, thrift stores, etc., so much so that I can proudly say that my 9 year old often walks through retail stores scoffing, "Yeah, right . . . I can get that for like a DOLLAR at a yard sale!"

It brings a tear to my eye. It really does.

This past week, I have been seeking out other ways to make my junk/stuff/assets work for me. It started innocently enough when I started taking stock of my "priceless treasures" (aka junk) in anticipation of a mammoth yard sale that I plan to have as soon as Atlanta reaches temperatures that WON'T melt my face off in my driveway.

See, I have a whole list of things that I want to do in the house. Painting, redecorating, fencing, sprucing up, yadda yadda yadda.

I also have lots of things that I no longer want, so that's where the yard sale comes in. Except yard sales are really just a way to throw things out. Generally, yard sales aren't a way to generate any real cash, they're just a way to free up real estate and eliminate clutter.

So I started thinking about that, too. This "clutter" is comprised of things that I purchased. Cash traded hands. Cash that was earned by my work, which is the fruit of my labor. My energy and labor are finite resources.

That made me look at the junk differently.

For instance, I looked at a bulging rack of DVDs that has amassed over the past several years. These days, we don't watch DVDs. We have streaming Netflix, so these movies are gathering dust. At a yardsale, I could reasonably expect to get a couple of dollars each for them.

Which is a shame, considering that they cost $15 apiece new.

Most of them have only been watched once.

Now, is it cheaper to buy a DVD than go to the movie? You bet. By the time you buy tickets, popcorn, candy and drinks, a movie costs a typical family of 4 about $60, so the DVD looks like a great buy in comparison.

But when you have watched the DVD and it takes up space in your house, it quickly turns into clutter, and appears to be of no value.

But you don't want to give it away, either, since you PAID for it.

This guilt has pretty much stopped me from purchasing movies, or music or books altogether. Between the notion of "Pffth, I can get that at a YARD SALE!" and the stash I have at home already, I can't really enjoy walking through a bookstore to contemplate purchasing anything.

But I do love books. And music. And movies.

Imagine my glee at my discovery of swaptree.com. This wonderful place allowed me to create an account and list all of my DVDs and books and games that would have either continued to sit dormant or be given away for pennies at a yard sale, and also create a wish list full of all of the DVDs and books and games that I wish I had instead. Instantly, this magic site matches MY unwanteds with others that have things that I covet, and facilitates a trade.

No money changes hands, yet I am supplied with new movies and books and games. It's like having a big circle of real friends that let you borrow things.

(LOL! Just kidding! I don't actually have a big circle of real friends, since I mostly live in my basement, and rarely go out, but I IMAGINE that this would be what it's like to have a circle of real friends that let you borrow things.)

I've already made 5 trades, and instead of dusty Scooby Doo and Barbie DVDs, I now have 4 really good books that I have wanted to read for a couple of years now.

It's a simple concept, I know, but I think it is going to revolutionize the way that I approach the "consumption" of media.

Swaptree - trade books, CDs, DVDs, and video games for free

2010-07-19T16:39:00.001-04:00

Found a cool new site that lets you trade books, movies, CDs, games, etc. with other folks.

It will even import your Amazon wish list and find people that have what you want, and want what you have.

Neato.

Swaptree - trade books, CDs, DVDs, and video games for free

With apologies to Layne Staley. And eggs. And possibly toads.

2010-06-18T10:05:00.025-04:00

Who says Twitter's not good for anything?!?! Au contraire. You can learn many useful things on Twitter, like how to ruin a perfectly good bagel and a few innocent eggs.

Enter: Toad in a Hole.

It's known by many other names, evidently. According to the gospel Wikipedia,

Egg in the basket, also known by a variety of another names, including frogs in a hole, birds nest, cowboy eggs, etc, is an egg fried in a hole of a slice of bread.^[1]^[2]^[3] The slice of bread can also be substituted with a waffle or bagel.^[4]^[5]

Imagine my surprise that I had never heard of this delicacy until Twitter, and for a self-confessed foodie, that's saying something.

I had NO idea what it was when I saw the first mention, and after scuttling across the web like Charlotte, I was eager to try my hand at this interesting little breakfast tidbit.

From what I could gather, it was comprised of carved out bread that served as some kind of egg container while the egg softly cooked to near-done.

Sounded easy.

It was not.

My attempts were a bit shaky at first. What kind of bread? How much do you cut away and how much do you leave? How many eggs?

Without much direction, mine looked like this:

And in case you are wondering how hard I am able to make this process, I had no idea what to do with this part:

What I did know how to do, though, was turn a perfectly good song into a horrible breakfast ditty. In my head. While the eggs were scorching.

Maybe that's why I can't figure out the simple things, cause so much (like how to ruin music with a song about burning eggs) is rattling around in my head.

Anyway, please to enjoy . . .and if you need the tune to sing along, here you go!

Toad In A Hole
(An homage to Alice in Chains and eggs everywhere)

Bury my yolk in this bread toooomb
I cut a hole to make some rooooom
Salt rains down and here I sit
Holdin my fork, startin to droooool (on you)

Toad In A Hole, and I don't know if I can behaaaaaaaaaaaaave
It's taking too looong to get from the pan to my plaaaaaaaate
Aw, I don't understand what they thought this was supposed to be
Look at my bagel all carved out and full of debris

Toad in a hole
Mouth is the goal
Toad in a hooooole
Eggs in a bowl
I want to fryyyyyyyyy
But the heat in my pan's way to hiiiiiiiiiiiigh

Toad in a Hole and I put all the eggs in their plaaaaaaaaace
Took one little lick so my tongue has been burned of the taste
I have been guilty of getting egg stuck in my teeeeeeeeeeeeth
Grabbing the jelly and now gettin’ ready to eeeeat

Toad In A Hole
Might need a bowl
Toad In A Hole

Could use a roll
Toast’s always niiiiiiiiiice
And bagels are harder to sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

Bury my yolk in this bread toooomb (all eggs want to be inside of you)
I cut a hole to make some rooooom (all eggs want to be inside of you)
Salt rains down and here I sit (all eggs want to be inside of you)
Holdin my fork, startin to droooool (all eggs want to be inside … )

Toad In A Hole
Hard to control
Toad In A Hole
Eggs start to roll
Toad In A Hole
Sellin my soul
Toad In A Hole
Might need a bowl
I'll eat a sliiiiiiiiiice
But French toast sure would have been niiiiiiiiiiiiiice

P.S. I love you Layne. You can stop spinning in your grave now.

For the love of puppets

2010-06-07T10:05:00.026-04:00

I love puppets.

I know that's creepy. And unusual.

I've just always loved them.

Back in '66, when I was born, TV was fast becoming the babysitter of choice for my generation, but the choices for kids' TV were still pretty limited. Moms were working more, and staying home less (at least mine was), adults were preoccupied with the world that the TV brought into their living room at night, and while they maintained a front row seat for the war, and the moon landing, and the rising national debt, and the climbing divorce rate, and women's lib and bra burning and hippie uprisings and desegregation, TV also (and rather insidiously) filled in large blocks of kids' time that would have otherwise been spent interacting with the big people in their house.

Looking back, my early years (66 - 76) were a kind of golden era for kids' TV, and in those days before CGI and cheap cartoon rendering, puppets often filled in the gap between reality and imagination.

My first puppet was a Romper Room Do-Bee puppet, and I remember being absolutely mesmerized by having the Do-Bee puppet ON MY HAND while I was WATCHING IT ON TV! I was not quite 2, I think, and was pretty convinced that the people I saw on the screen lived IN the screen, and I remember excitedly showing my Do-Bee puppet to Ms. Bonnie (who NEVER saw Rita through her magic mirror, by the way).

No matter, I spent countless hours happily animating my Do-Bee puppet and playing with my Scoop-A-Loop and occasionally tottering around on my Romper Stompers.

I was also already pretty heavily invested in Mr. Rogers by this time, too. Anyone that knows me knows how much I loved Picture Picture, and the trolley, and the Land of Make-Believe. It seemed completely seamless, the transition from real life in Mr. Rogers house to the land where puppets lived and worked and played and ran kingdoms and lived in clocks and talked even though they were platypuses or tigers.

By the time I was 3, the wonder that was (and is) Sesame Street flooded my little world with bright happy friends that taught me how to read, and count, and begin to understand humor, and see kids that looked different than I did. I felt a kinship with Big Bird, being able to see his imaginary friend when those around him couldn't, and I always wanted to see what Oscar had in his trashcan, and I wondered a lot about what it was like IN the trash can, whether he had a chair, or a bed, and I remember feeling a scary-but-not-too-scary thrill when The Count came on to exclaim his glee and conjure lightning with his laughter. It felt ok to think that the puppets were my friends, since Mr. Hooper and Maria and the other big people on the show visited and talked with them every day. Ernie and Bert and Cookie Monster and even that guy that wore a raincoat and asked in a whisper if you'd like to buy an "O" were real to me.

Wonder of wonders, I received an honest-to-goodness Ernie hand puppet for Christmas when I was 5. It looked EXACTLY like Ernie, with his striped shirt, and his crazy hair, and his three-fingered hands. It even had a little rod that you could attach to his arm so that you could make him point and gesture at things. Never has a child loved a toy more than I loved my Ernie puppet.

As the late 60s gave way to the 70s, my tastes matured just a bit, and my show preferences began to expand. While I still loved Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street, I began to become enamored with all things Krofft. I distinctly remember watching The Banana Splits and assuming that they lived at Six Flags (it was filmed at Six Flags over Texas, as were some of the intros for the Kroffts' other shows, like Lidsville.) It was about this time that I actually got to GO to Six Flags over Georgia for the first time, and lo and behold, there were actual Krofft characters at the park, greeting us as we entered the gates - more proof that the people that lived on TV were real! Whee!

This coincided with my entry into public school. To be honest, I wasn't crazy about school. I had served time in crappy daycares, and this seemed like just another flavor of that, but one thing that I DO remember with great fondness are the magical days when The Vagabond Marionettes visited our school! How lucky I was to live in metro Atlanta, where the great Vincent Anthony (who later formed the Center for Puppetry Arts here in ATL) had chosen to come after the 1966 World's Fair in New York City where he had worked on Sid and Marty Krofft's Les Pupees de Paris and began the Vagabond Marionettes. I remember sitting on the cool linoleum floor of King Springs Elementary school's lunchroom, breathlessly watching the stage curtains draw back and hearing the music starting as those magic stringed puppets brought stories to life.

As amazing as all of this was for me, it paled in comparison to the day that I heard that The World Of Sid And Marty Krofft was opening at the Omni International in Atlanta.

Here. In Atlanta. Opening May 26, 1976. An amusement park with ALL THE PUPPETS!

It was almost unimaginable . . . I remember nearly stuttering with amazement as we gripped the handrail of the HIGHEST ESCALATOR KNOWN TO MAN and rode seemingly up to the heavens to witness The World atop the breathtaking Omni International. The experience was very nearly like arriving at the gates of heaven . . . the glass ceiling illuminating the cloudless sky, the whole place abuzz with happy, busy characters. Billy Barty himself was there to greet us, and I remember standing there eye to eye with him and realizing I was exactly as tall as he!

You'd think I would have grown out of the fascination as I got older, but I didn't. When PeeWee's Playhouse hit the airwaves in 1981, I was just as enchanted at 15 as I was at 5. Globey, Chairry, Randy, Pterri, Magic Screen, the singing flowers, The Puppetland Band, I loved them all. My Saturday mornings were spoken for (this was in the days before DVR). I had a standing date to discover the secret word (AHHHHHHHHHHHH!) and disappear into the Playhouse, where real people and puppets were equally awesome.

I'm not sure I would like puppets if I had been born sooner or later than I was. Any sooner, and I would have likely written off puppets as silly and childish. Any later, and I would have rolled my eyes at the low-tech experience of seeing a puppet brought to life and suspending my disbelief long enough to step into another world for awhile, courtesy of some wood and string.

Glad I was at the right place at the right time.

Summertime!

2010-05-24T10:58:00.003-04:00

Lazy blogger here.

Some folks are probably visiting for the first time via my Twitter ramblings. If so, welcome to my museum of old blog posts! I promise to try to jot something here more often so that everyone knows I am alive and an actual person, and not a spambot.

Kids have begun their summer vacation today, and we are preparing for quite a summer, with a pending stem cell transplant for my sweet Matt, and hopefully lots of improvement for his multiple myeloma.

Some things suck, but there is still lots to be thankful for. Love, healthy kids, stable job (for now), and supportive family.

And Twitter!

March madness

2010-03-12T11:14:00.002-05:00

Man - how much can happen in 3 months?

You'd be surprised.

Since Christmas:
My mom came out of remission. Her cancer has become active again, and new lesions have appeared on her liver and kidneys. She's on a new chemo regimen, and she seems to be tolerating it for now. She initially said that she didn't want to go on chemo, that when that time came, she would opt out, but her doctor advised her that she had a better than decent chance of beating the cancer back into remission, so she is trying the meds (for our sake, I think.) I don't know how I feel about it. I don't want her to suffer through a horrible regimen on my account, and I hope I am strong enough to back her decision to stop if it comes down to it.

I hope I am strong enough for a lot of things lately, actually.

I'm nursing some wicked stitches at the moment. At my annual exam, my skin doc noticed some suspicious looking moles, and 3 biopsies later, I was notified that I needed 3 surgical extractions, and that the moles were INDEED suspicious, bordering on malignant, but that they were still on the safe side of the spectrum. Scary stuff, but I am just thankful that they were caught early.

Wear your sunscreen, kids.

Most devastatingly, my dear Matty has been diagnosed with cancer. The holidays were a bit of a struggle for him, and after visiting the doc for some unexplained pain and a scheduled physical, the alarm bells went off and we embarked on a whirlwind of tests and doctor visits, only to land in the office of my mother's oncologist to be given the news that he has multiple myeloma (blood plasma cancer.)

He started treatment, and almost immediately was hit with debilitating pain. He's been in the hospital now for 2 weeks, struggling with the regimen and the excruciating pain that seemed determined to continue regardless of what meds he was given. It's been a hard road, but the docs finally came up with an aggressive treatment plan, and the pain finally seems to be coming under control.

The docs are preparing him for a stem cell transplant later this spring, and they are confident that he will do well, and achieve a long remission, which is the best you can hope for with this kind of cancer. It's not curable, but it's treatable.

In the midst of all of this, I'm still working, and taking care of the kids and the dogs and the every day life stuff. The kids have been so good. I'm so proud of the way they have handled themselves over this past year. Feels like they have gone through 5 years of growing up in less than one year's time, and although I feel guilty that they have been put through so much, I couldn't be prouder of the way that they have handled all of the changes with good humor and optimism.

So - what's that Chinese wish/curse "may you have an INTERESTING life"?

In spades.

Grist for the mill

2009-12-29T14:42:00.004-05:00

Well, I got a jumpstart on the Ebay auctions to start bankrolling some moolah for the house renovations.

Went to GW Outlet (my pet name for Goodwill), and cherrypicked a few items that I hope to turn a tidy profit on:

Brand new pair of Dansko leather clogs - still had the little sticky tag inside. Paid $4.90 for them, and I have them listed with an opening bid of $49.00. They retail for $120ish, so we'll see what comes around.

The hoarder in me wanted to keep these precious, teeny tiny Disney Store Cinderella slippers, but I hope that I make some tiny princess deliriously happy (and add to my house fund!) These were $1.90, I believe, and retail for $36.00. Again, fingers crossed!

Post-Christmas, Pre-New Years Resolution

2009-12-28T16:06:00.002-05:00

Well, we made it.

I think the kids had 4 Christmases. Maybe 5. There were metric tons of wrapping paper, gift cards, boxes, cookies, ribbons, and tissue paper.

I'm ready to pack every last bit of it away right this minute, but I think you are supposed to wait until after New Years. Something about bad luck if you pack it early, beats me.

ANYWAY . . .

I have big plans that will kick off with the packing of the Christmas Crap. Once the Christmas Crap is boxed, it is going up into the attic with the Thanksgiving Crap and the Halloween Crap that has all been camped out in my garage.

Once the Holiday Crap is up and away, Job 1 of the New Year is going to be to clear out the garage, so that nothing remains outside of cars, bikes and tools. Period.

Building on that, the garage will become a staging ground, of sorts, for my furniture as I begin to revitalize the house. I have big plans this year for Chez Rita. I am going to paint the interior of my house. Myself. Both floors, all rooms. I'm also going to rid myself of some old furniture, and acquire some new furniture. I'd also like to fence the backyard this year, and hire someone to build some additional walls in the finished basement to create 2 additional bedrooms.

Because I'm not made of money (unfortunately), I've also decided to challenge myself to finance all or most of the home sprucing with EBay sales of the crap - I mean TREASURE - that has collected in my house over the years. I got a good start over the holidays, selling some collectibles that I thought I couldn't live without (turns out, I can), and was inspired by the windfall that my daughter gleefully accepted from the sale of her American Girl doll clothes and accessories (better than $250).

So, yep. That's the plan. Ditch some of the old stuff, get some new stuff, paint the scuffed stuff, organize and declutter the remaining stuff with money from the stuff I ditch via Ebay (or maybe a well-timed yardsale.)

Wish me luck!

Happy Holidays

2009-12-21T11:35:00.005-05:00

It's been awful quiet around here the past few months.

Not life. God, no - life has been like a tornado.

I mean this blog. It's been like a ghost town.

I've contemplated shutting her down altogether, but I keep thinking that I'll come back here when things settle down a bit and write like I used to.

I think that about a lot of things, actually.

Truth is, I don't do much of anything like I used to. I don't feel, or think or act like I used to, and in turn, nothing around me feels or acts like it used to. Job. Kids. Family. Life.

The only constant is change, I guess. Despite being surrounded by change, most of it stemming from my own actions, I really struggle to accept it with grace. I constantly tell myself to be thankful for what I have, and not give in to the worry and stress.

By the way, I really suck at not giving in to the worry and stress.

Physically, I feel good. It's been a year and 3 months since my surgery, and I've pretty much leveled out, weight-wise. After the huge nosedive of a loss early on, I seem to chart about 1/2 lb. per month loss these days. I anticipate that will probably stop altogether in the next couple of months, which is fine. The one thing that I don't need any reminder for is being thankful for my improved health. Thank God for that surgery, my surgeon, my job and resulting insurance, and my willingness to subject myself to the procedure.

The kids are excited for the holidays, of course, but it's tempered a bit this year. It's been hard for me to watch the kids go through the holidays post-divorce. I put off decorating the house for weeks because I didn't want to divvy up the tree decorations into "mine", "his", "used to be ours - no longer applicable". It's something I should have done prior to the holidays, but I didn't. I thought about it a few times, and I intended to set aside a day to do it while the kids were in school, but I never did. When we finally got the boxes out, I tried my best to slip his things into other boxes, but kids never miss a trick, so I changed tactics and packaged them carefully, sending them over to the ex with the kids, trying to be as positive as I could and telling the kids that I felt sure their daddy would want to the decorations in time for Christmas. Actually, I've tried to put a positive spin on most things, but I often find that it ends up feeling like more of a bribe than encouragement. For instance, I have found myself telling the kids that they are lucky to be able to have multiple Christmases this year, like that's some kind of consolation prize for the divorce.

I really didn't intend to do that, but I admit I have, just because I couldn't bear letting them ruminate too long on the downside of having their family blown apart.

Which brings me to another thing that I've struggled with - determining what effect all of this has had on the kids, really. I mean, there is a chance that none of this bothers them as much as I think it does. I keep telling myself that kids are adaptable, they spring back. Then I think about all of the times I have heard my friends talk about their parents' divorce, and how bad the holidays sucked from there on out.

I think they call it transference.

Maybe I'm projecting things onto the kids that aren't really there. Maybe when they fight with each other, or sass, they are just being kids, and not reacting to the divorce at all. It's still early days, I guess, but I find myself examining their behaviors for clues about which ones to chalk up to the divorce, and which ones to act upon and correct.

By the way, I really suck at not knowing which behaviors to chalk up to divorce and which ones to act upon and correct.

In the midst of all of this transition, my fiance and I planned and postponed a wedding, which has been both a relief and a disappointment. No one lives in a vacuum, and like everyone else, we were subject to the whims of a bad economy and the constraints of time and budget. We underestimated the amount of time and money needed for a relocation, re-employment, stabilizing finances post-divorce, assumption of premarital debt in the post-divorce monthly budget, allocation of funds for growing children with ever-increasing needs and wants, and the demands of hosting a ceremony that would host friends from near and far and pay the proper respect to us and our families.

Yeah, it's been rough.

But, just like with this blog, I'm not giving up. I keep thinking that when everything settles down, I'll be able to revisit the plans with a fresh perspective (and a healthy wallet.)

So here's to 2010. May we all gain a fresh perspective and healthier wallets.

The sins of the fathers

2009-08-04T11:13:00.004-04:00

My kid started playing football this season. He's 8.

He wanted to play last year, but I was concerned about him getting hurt, or getting yelled at by overzealous coaches. We have stuck with baseball for the past 3 years, so I was oblivious to the huge differences between little league baseball and pee wee football.

Namely, making weight.

Unfortunately, my kids were saddled with 2 fat parents. Now, there's lots of speculation in the medical community about whether obesity is genetic (i.e. thyroid problem) or environmental (i.e. one too many trips to Stevie B's with your fat parents). Most think it's a little from Column A, and a little from Column B (with three you get eggroll.)

All this to say . . . I had never encountered a weigh-in at the baseball field. Actually, his size was sort of celebrated, since he loves playing catcher and has NO fear of the baseball.

Come to think of it, his size has ALWAYS been celebrated. The day he was born, the nurses cooed and squealed over him at the hospital.

All 10 pounds of him.

From the moment he was big enough to sit upright in a shopping cart and peacefully eat Cheerios while I shopped, grown men have approached me in Target and Walmart on a nearly weekly basis to comment, "You're gonna let that boy play football, aren't you?" followed by a hair tussle and questions about his weight, his height, how tall he might end up ("how big's his daddy?"), whether or not I would consider aiming him toward the Univ. of GA (I've always had my heart set on Ga Tech) and admiring glances at the size of his feet and how much older he looks than he is.

When he was a toddler, we would frequent a chinese buffet (what a shock) where the waitresses would literally whisk him away from me and take him INTO the kitchen to "visit" the cooks and staff there, because they were so enamored of his size, and his blue eyes, and his fair skin and his white blonde hair. "He is VERY lucky! YOU are very lucky!" they would tell me in broken English. Apparently, large boys are just about the best thing you can ever have, where they come from.

No one ever said, "Wow. He's too big," or "Uh oh, that's going to be a problem." Until now.

It was quite the blow to have the football coach lead my littlest giant to a dusty equipment shed and have him step on a rusty old scale and announce, "He's 20 pounds over the weight limit for this team."

What?! What do you mean? Aren't football players SUPPOSED to be big?

There he stood, red and breathless from 2 hours of sweaty practice, being told that he's too big to play. And there I stood, feeling like I had led my kid to this moment, one bite at a time.

Yeah, that turned out to be a pretty rough night all the way around. When you see your frailties and weaknesses visited upon your children, it's impossible not to feel guilty. I played the blame game most of that evening and into the wee hours of the night.

I was fat when I had him. I've raised him to be fat like me. It's my fault.

His dad is fat and wasn't active enough with him. It's his fault.

Our parents allowed us to get fat when we were kids. This is THEIR fault.

Which means if parents are to blame, it's back to being MY fault again.

But in the midst of all the self-abuse, I had such an overwhelming sense of pride for him. He had slogged through the hottest, sweatiest, hardest 2 hours of his life for 3 days before we were told the news, and when we WERE told the news, he said "I want to play."

Just like that. He didn't give up. He wanted to play.

I was adamant that there was NO WAY that my kid was going to drop 20 lbs in time to play football this year, and I was ready to turn in his football equipment until I learned it was possible for him to "play up" to the 9 year old team. Their weight limits were slightly higher.

But he was still 10 lbs. over.

Last week, he slogged through furnace-like temperatures, and walked laps when the others ran, holding his side but never quitting. He dragged himself through the drills, carrying the equivalent of a 20 lb bowling ball while the others sprinted past him, with seeming effortlessness while he struggled.

It's the hardest thing I've ever endured in my life. It was like he was paying penance out on that field for all of my sins.

"The sins of the father will be visited upon the children . . ."

It was all I could do not to break down and cry right there, in front of the parents and the other kids and my fiance and my ex who were all encouraging him to hang in there as he doggedly struggled to do the coach's bidding, over and over and over.

I felt like such a failure, despite the fact that I've now lost over 100 pounds. It's been a source of great pride for me AND my kids. They have been there the whole time for me, waiting at the hospital through my surgery, and worrying about me during my recovery, and watching me through mostly good days and a few really bad days as I struggled to keep food down or regain my strength. Now, it just seems self-indulgent to even celebrate that now, now that I see my kid trying to tread water with the same anvil tied around his neck that I managed to free myself of.

I felt helpless. And guilty. Really guilty. I didn't know what I could do to help him, but I couldn't just sit there and watch him struggle, so I got up, and left the stands and went down to the track to show some solidarity. I vowed to walk the track while he practiced. The first night, I was barely able to make two laps. By the end of last week, I finished 4 laps, and he had finished 5 days of grueling, humiliating, sweaty practice in 90 degree weather.

Not surprisingly, by the end of last week, he was also ready to quit. He was sore, and tired, and his resolve was giving way to the unrelenting temptation to stop moving, that same inertia that held me captive when I was at my heaviest.

Through the weekend, I tried my very best to encourage him to hang in there.

We all did.

I told him how proud I was of him. I told him that I would be right there with him, walking that track and enduring the heat and cheering him on. He managed to suck up his courage and get back out there yesterday to endure another 2 hours of heat and humiliation and hard work.

He's still determined, despite the soreness. He's also lost 4 pounds, which makes me so proud of him and so sad that he has to deal with this at such a young age.

I thought about an episode of "Deadliest Catch" I saw recently, where a greenhorn that had been the sole survivor of a sinking fishing ship was describing what it was like to watch everyone around him freeze to death in the icy water. How seductive the urge to just stop moving was for him, how hard he had to fight to keep moving until he could be saved, and how easy it would have been to just . . . . stop, and allow death to take him, like it had the others.

Not to be overly dramatic, but obesity is like that, too. The heavier you get, the stronger the urge is to just stop moving, to just sit very still and allow yourself to be taken. I kept thinking about that guy when I looked at my son. It was like watching him drowning in the water below me while I was safely on deck.

I have to keep encouraging him to move, to keep trying, to hang in there. I can't let him stop. I have to keep him moving, despite the fact that the sea around him is riddled with the bloated corpses of those in our family that allowed themselves to be taken way too soon by the seduction of the inertia.

I'm not going to let that happen to him. I just won't. I'm still thankful every day that I managed to escape from that, but now it's time to save my kids.

Amazing

2009-07-08T14:46:00.004-04:00

He loves me.

I love him. Madly.

We laugh at the same jokes. Hell, we MAKE the same jokes.

We're from the same hometown.

We have the same lifelong friends.

We went to the same schools.

We're very nearly the same age, yet we've only just now connected in the beginning of the 5th decade of our lives. Better late than never.

It would have been tougher to have been any further from each other and still be in the same country. It was a huge step, but he believed in me and in us enough to change up everything and come back home to build a life with me and the kids.

And the dogs. He STILL maintains that chihuahuas aren't real dogs, though.

We're getting married. On November 14, 2009. In a church with a gown and flowers and weepy relatives and stunned onlookers that swore he never would and that I never would again.

I've been given another chance. With him.

I'm taking it.

The Final Curtain

2009-05-19T15:20:00.007-04:00

So, tomorrow is my court date.

Evidently, I have to show up, take the stand and state that yes, I want a divorce. I guess I have to confirm that I agree with all of the other stuff in all the stacks of papers that have been prepared for the court's consideration. According to the lawyer, all of this will take just a scant few minutes, then I will be dismissed, signed decree in hand. And then it will be over.

All of it.

Which is kind of stunning, really.

It's hard to believe that it can all be distilled down to a stack of paper, but it can. In the end, evidently it comes down to dollars and logistics, and who has the insurance, and which weekends the children will be here or there.

Very cut and dried.

Of course, I know it's more than that. What happens tomorrow morning is a formality. It's not the whole story, but it does mark a moment in time. To the rest of the world, the moment before I take the stand, I will be married, and the minute I leave the stand, I won't be. To the rest of the world, the divorce will be "officially" final tomorrow morning, even though in MY head, the marriage has been over for a much longer time. But, despite my feelings, I am bound by the tangible.

The papers.

The judge's signature.

The date.

Everyone around me is similarly tied to these things. They rely upon them to mark time and put things in order, and make sense of things. I find myself trying to remember that people around me are dealing with news that is seemingly brand new. To them, I will be divorced tomorrow.

They will expect me to mourn. To grieve. To wear sackcloth and ashes, maybe. It's a bit like attending a funeral for someone that has long since passed. While those around me are weeping, there I sit, seemingly unaffected.

Truth is, my mourning happened privately and it happened quite a long time ago.

This admission has brought about a range of reactions from friends and loved ones . . .

"Why didn't you ever tell me?!"
"How could this be? I saw you, and I never noticed anything!? You looked happy . . . "

And they are right. I tried to look happy. It's what I do. I appeared to be happy when I wasn't, and I kept things hidden that they feel I should have shared.

But I didn't.

I had my reasons, of course. I didn't want to hash through what was going on with me with my family or my friends. They all had their OWN problems, and there always seemed to be much larger issues to address that eclipsed my marital problems. There wasn't any room to introduce more problems into the mix. What could they have done except worry?

Maybe if I had, they would understand this more now. Maybe if I had told my family and friends the truth, I would have found out that people would have supported me. Maybe, but maybe not. And when you divulge problems to people, you have to be prepared to DO something, and I wasn't ready to make the changes that I have now made. The heartbreak took time for me to work through, and it took time for me to finally realize that the marriage was over, and mourn that, and heal from it.

More than likely if I had told the truth, the people that loved us as a couple couldn't have continued to love us both. Sides would have been chosen, and that's the last thing I ever wanted.

What I wanted was to part amicably and retain my OWN dignity. And his. And my childrens'. And I wanted to do it in a way that caused the least trauma and heartache for them.

What I'm trying to say is that I think we all do things in our own time. And sometimes, to people on the outside, what you see, and when you see it, and what's tangible isn't the whole story.

I'll be divorced tomorrow.

On paper.

But for me, things didn't happen in a logical order. I didn't follow a linear path to get here. It didn't all happen this month, or even this year.

The tears dried a long time ago and the scar on my heart barely shows now. Today, I have a smile on my face and renewed hope and love with a man that shares my vision of a happy future.

Regrettably, that makes some folks very angry.

I guess that's the price you pay for keeping a secret.

Rita's Warm Barley and Tomato Salad

2009-05-04T07:53:00.009-04:00

Did you ever play this when you were little? Kind of like London Bridge, where you hold hands and one kid is chosen for the middle then a second partner is chosen and you all act out the words of the song?

Oats, peas, beans and barley grows,
Oats, peas, beans and barley grows,
You nor I nor anyone knows,
Where oats, peas, beans and barley grows.

Thus the farmer sows his seed.
Thus he stands and takes his ease.
He stomps his foot and claps his hand
And turns around to view the land.

I’m waiting for a partner.
I’m waiting for a partner.
So open the ring and choose one in
And kiss her as she enters in.

Now you’re married, you must be kind.
Now you’re married, you must be kind.
Now you’re married, you must be kind
So take your kiss and walk away.

- - - - - - - - - - -

I went to an afternoon party this past Saturday and on a lark, made a warm salad for the table. Wasn't sure if anyone would like it, but apparently they did.

I promised to post the recipe, so here 'tiz!

Enjoy . . .

Rita's Warm Barley and Tomato Salad

3 cups prepared barley
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
1/2 cup good extra virgin olive oil - dipping quality
1 tablespoon minced garlic (jarred is best)
Kosher salt (2 tsp, more or less)
1 cup green onions, white and green parts, chopped fine (1 bunch).
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves (use mint if you don't like cilantro)
2 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half. (Carrot or cucumber are good additions, too, but optional)
1 tall bottle of capers, drained (substitute a jar of black olives, drained, if you prefer)

In a large mixing bowl, combine the still-warm cooked barley, and add the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and salt. Mix well, but gently.

Fold in the green onion, capers, tomatoes and cilantro and serve warm. Really nice spooned into pita pockets, too!

Allow refrigerated leftovers to return to room temp for best flavor, and you might also have to drizzle some additional oil.

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-01T11:45:00.002-04:00

Editor's Note: When I originally posted this in May, 2004, I had no idea what my own mother would face in the 18 months to follow. In a span of about 12 months, she lost her home, her husband (my father) had a yearlong hospitalization and became wheelchair bound, and she was diagnosed with terminal metastatic breast cancer of the bone.

In July 2005, I left her hospital room and prepared myself to say goodbye to her within 3 months.

In December 2005, we all gathered around the Christmas tree to watch the kids open presents and to celebrate her remission.

Through it all, she has maintained her sweet disposition, and continues to be a source of strength for me.

As she has always told me, "Believe the diagnosis, ignore the prognosis."

Amen.

I only hope to be half the mom that she is.

I love you, Mama.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wonder
Natalie Merchant

They say I must be one of the wonders
Of god's own creation
And as far as they can see they can offer
No explanation . . .

- - - - -

May 2004

I have had the nicest Mother's Day, and it isn't even over yet.

Yesterday, I had a day out with my daughter Rachael. She is 8 this year.

She and I took her baby brother to his grandmother and left for a few hours of shopping. We had some time on the way to talk about Mother's Day. My daughter never tires of hearing about the day she was born, how I decided on her name, and other tidbits of her early days.

She could barely contain her excitement when we parked in front of the strip shopping center. My daughter is just beginning to discover her taste. She adores the occasional trip to the Limited Too , and it tickles me to see her carefully considering purchases and shopping the sales racks (good girl!) She decided to try on a little top and skirt, and carefully approached the dressing room with me in tow. I was fighting the images that were flashing in my mind . . .

As she stretched to hang her choices on the hook in the dressing room and steadied herself with one hand against the mirror, I thought about laying on the delivery table, draped, as a team of doctors and nurses attended her birth.

Doctors have come from distant cities
Just to see me
Stand over my bed
Disbelieving what they're seeing

As she slowly bent down to remove her shoes, slowly pulling her shoes off, I remembered the blinding lights of a little suitcase bed delivered to our house to fight her jaundice, and the little velcro strip she wore across her eyes to protect them from the harsh glare.

Watching her struggle to steady herself as she stepped into a little skirt, I remembered the years of therapy that she had endured to walk, to talk . . .

We were in the dressing room for better than 10 minutes, but it was a proud little girl that looked back at her from the mirror, dressed in a very pretty summer tanktop and matching skirt.

With purchases made, we decided that lunchtime was fast approaching. She opened her little purse to reveal that she had found a Sweet Tomatoes coupon (my favorite) and wanted to take me to lunch. She had a little stack of dollar bills that she had carefully counted earlier, and she was so pleased to be able to invite me.

There were a couple of people that impatiently waited behind us as she pushed her tray along the salad bar, carefully choosing and scooping "salad" (corn, chickpeas, pickles, raisins, sunflower seeds, and broccoli) onto her plate. It took her awhile to get to the end, retrieve silverware, and tell the cashier that she would like to pay for us both. The women behind us that had been silently urging us to hurry stopped in their tracks when they heard her speak . . . her halting speech and trembling hand put them in their place better than my angry, she-tiger look ever could.

People see me
I'm a challenge to your balance
I'm over your heads
How I confound you and astound you

I remembered the meeting with her neurologist years ago, gently breaking the news to me that she might never acquire the life skills she would need to live independently as she was counting the bills and change into the cashier's hand. Her face was beaming, angelic, when the cashier commented on how pretty she looked, and how nice it was that she was taking her mother out for lunch. One of the young men that worked there offered to carry her tray, and I was thankful that it seemed to be a service offered to all, and not something that only she required. She hates being singled out, and generally does everything in her power to complete things herself, but this day, she indulged.

Lunch was such fun . . . we shared muffins and tasted each other's soups ( she wasn't crazy about the vegetable, but particularly liked the chili).

We talked about the gifts she had selected for her grandmothers, those women that had been pillars of strength for me during the dark days when I wasn't sure how I would ever be able to handle all that I had been given with her birth.

Their hopes for her never wavered, even when I would gently report back discouragements from the multitudes of doctor visits and therapy sessions.

O, I believe
Fate smiled at destiny

Laughed as she came to my mother
Know this child will not suffer

Laughed as my body she lifted
Know this child will be gifted

She excused herself from the table to go to the ladies room . . . alone. While I waited for her to return, I decided that today was a day of celebration, that I could look back and remember the early days without feeling the pain and the fear anymore. That I could sit here with her now, her beautiful little face full of hope and promise, and I could share in that with her, without reservation. That I could now look forward to her life, its struggles, its victories. That I could resurrect my expectations of what she could become.

With love, with patience and with faith
She'll make her way . . .

For alot of people, just another day, but for me, the day surpassed my wildest dreams.

Happy Mother's Day.

The Victory Garden

2009-04-17T16:56:00.007-04:00

I righted a longstanding wrong today.

See, there was this eyesore that I tried my best to ignore for years. It was a patch of ground next to my basement patio that spanned the distance between the poured concrete and a retaining wall. It wasn't really wide enough to be considered "the yard" and it wasn't narrow enough to be considered a border.

It's been a challenge to try to come up with a plan for this area since we moved into this house. I had visions of putting sod over it, or maybe turning it into a rock garden, but I never got inspired enough to try either one.

Barren and forlorn, it became a catch-all for broken plastic toys, leaves that blew in and never blew out, and a few stray weeds. Anytime I ventured out onto the basement patio to check on the kids playing in the backyard, I simply chose to ignore it altogether.

Somewhere along the way, the ex hatched an ill-conceived plan to create a "compost pile" there. His rationalization was that it would be educational for the kids, I guess, and it was easy to chuck peels, eggshells, Halloween pumpkins, etc. down into it from the deck above it. I do remember stating my objection to it being so close to the house, but I evidently didn't care enough to put my foot down, so one day, a mass of chicken wire was strung around a circle of landscaping block (left over from an ill-conceived attempt at a koi pond, but I'll have to tell THAT story another time), and the compost pile was established. Except, it never really was a compost pile, it was more like a black hole. Clippings and peelings went in, but nothing ever came out. It was never turned, or tended, and it finally withered away when I finally DID put my foot down and stopped any more "contributions" from being flung into it.

So, fast forward to this month.

Our agreement stipulated that I would remain here in the house with the children, and I have. Since the day I have been the sole adult in the house, I have felt this compulsion to scrub, straighten, revamp and polish every surface of this house. Call it cathartic, call it nervous energy, or renewed interest, but, whatever the case, the black hole began to weigh heavy on my mind a couple of weeks ago, and I found myself thinking about it in my spare moments.

At first, I simply wanted to disassemble the chicken wire and stakes. I didn't really have any grander plan than that. But, I sat on that idea for awhile, and slowly slowly, my mind began to imagine other possibilities.

I began to think that maybe I could rearrange those landscape blocks, or maybe I could scatter some kind of grass seed that would grow in a shady place. That seemed manageable, and I figured that I would be able to accomplish that fairly easily on my own.

And again, I sat on that idea for awhile.

Without really noticing it, I began to have grander ideas for that space. I began to daydream alot about walking out on that patio during my lunch break (I work from home, and my office is in the basement), enjoying some tea while I looked over that little spot of ground. I imagined some flowers there, in vibrant colors, and I saw a little swing on the patio. Every time I took a few minutes to consider that spot, I began to imagine a tranquil place.

It took quite awhile for me to actually get up the nerve to step out there and survey the area with a critical eye. Looking at it in the light of day, I was overwhelmed with the seeming enormity of the project, and I nearly gave up before I started. I saw all of the remnants of the compost project, and the fragments of plastic toys long broken and left there to rot, and the neglect that had turned this corner of my world into a wasteland. I finally faced the fact that before the spot had any hope of being beautiful, it would have to be excavated.

Having no idea what I would encounter, I gingerly stepped into the "pit of despair" and began to tug on the first mud-embedded landscape block. It released the wet, boggy earth underneath itself with a sick sucking sound, revealing a writhing mass of pink, juicy worms squirming through a network of tunnels. Revolted, I dropped the block back onto the offending pile and stepped out again, considering my options.

I could walk back in the house, and forget about every vision I had for the little piece of earth, or I could try to fix it.

Steeling myself, I stepped back into the bog and pried the block up again. I dragged it over to the edge of the patio and placed it along the edge, creating the first of a long border. One by one, I dragged muddy, sticky, slimy blocks to the edge, stacking them into a wall that would (hopefully) corral my beautiful flowerbed. I then dug up the chicken wire, and flung it out and I pulled weeds, and began to turn the compacted earth with a shovel.

Much to my surprise, the earth there was dark and loamy, and alive. The worms were doing their good work, digesting and aerating the ground, and the long-ago castoffs that had been flung in had decomposed back to the soil from which they came, leaving behind fertile ground.

I began to feel more hopeful.

Once the blocks were in place and the fertile ground was turned and prepared, I washed the dirt from my hands and made my way to Pikes. It was a wonderland of beautiful living things, and as I slowly pushed my cart down the rows of living beauty, my vision of my flowergarden began to crystallize. Having very little experience with flowergardens, I allowed my eye to guide me toward the things that appealed to me, and I attempted to pick plants that would enjoy my little sometimes shady, sometimes sunny, out-of-the-way, former pile of rot. I was full of giddy energy as I checked out with a cartful of happy color, and bags of potting soil and I packed it all in my car and hurried back home with my treasures.

Planting the spot was a pleasure . . . I dug hole after hole, carefully transplanting tiny azalea bushes, and hosta plants, and pretty purple groundcover into the little plot. I realized I had never spent that amount of time out there, just me and the little plot of land, and I began to recognize it's innate beauty, and the little lizards and catepillars and creatures that had called it home.

I watered the entire plot, mentally welcoming each little plant as I offered it a root-soaking drink. When the last plant was settled comfortably, I stepped back to admire my work. The arrangement of the plants suited me, and I noticed that they all looked very pretty there, if not slightly uncomfortable from being newly planted, like kids in their brand new clothes on the first day of school. I thought to myself that it wouldn't be long before they settled in and took root in their new home, and I felt sure the entire layout would appear more natural in a few days.

As I was picking up all the cast-off plastic pots and sweeping the patio, I thought about the process of creating the flowerbed, and how similar it was to my own transformation. Taking a look at my life in the light of day was the hardest thing I ever did, and acknowledging my own physical and emotional neglect was heartbreaking for me. But, I was just as amazed to see the life that was still possible within me, just like the vibrant soil that existed just below the tangle of wire and broken toys.

Seeing the evolution of my own thought processes has been amazingly cathartic, too. Initially, I was just content to tear away the offending parts of my physical self, but I have been pleasantly surprised that I ultimately dreamed of something better for myself emotionally. And just like my little flowerbed, I had to tear myself down and dig down through issues that I'd prefer to avoid before I could dream of achieving anything better.

I smile when I look at those pretty, nervous little flowers. They seem almost self-conscious in their new surroundings, just like I feel in this new body and this new phase of my own life. I think we both will settle in nicely, and until then, we are just going to enjoy each other, preferably in the quiet of the afternoon with some nice hot tea for me, and a cool drink for them.

Centennial Post (aka What I Can't Live Without)

2009-04-09T15:47:00.006-04:00

To commemorate my centennial achievement (100 lbs lost/6 months out - I am right on the cusp), I will list the things that I have relied upon the most during this journey.

Consider this my teary, dramatic Oscars "thank you" speech, except that I'm not wearing a designer dress.

In no particular order, here are The Things I Couldn't Live Without:

Wendy's Chili - Wendy's provides a mainstay for me. Their small chili (with cheese) is the perfect concoction of finely ground meat, kidney beans, vegetables, spice, and broth. There are alot of things that don't agree with tiny new tummies, but Wendy's chili has never failed me.

Taco Bell - Taco Bell was the location of my first post-surgical dining out experience. That first small order of pintos and cheese was like ambrosia after weeks of liquid nutrition. Still a favorite for me 6 months later.

G2 - Gatorade's older and slightly less-sweet sister. Perfect choice for hydration without risking a sugar buzz/swoon.

Tostitos Corn Chips - I keep these handy. I especially like the little Scoops!

Aldi Party (Chex) Mix - A little handful of this keeps me going. I tend to pick out the little bagel bits.

Aldi Diet Fudgesicles - Oh my God . . . these are like crack.

Lipton Tea - When the weather was colder, I couldn't STAND cold drinks, but I had to drink something all day (doctor's orders). Lipton hot tea was a lifesaver this past winter.

Centrum Silver Chewable vitamins - Much better than Flintstones, in my opinion, and higher vitamin levels, too.

EAS Protein Powder - mixes easily with just about anything, and gets you to that daily protein goal.

Freshens Smoothies - Their low carb mango strawberry (extra protein powder) makes my tummy sing!

Starbucks - This is my going out place, since I don't really go out to restaurants anymore. Their London Fog tea, and their Skinny Vanilla lattes are winners.

McDonalds - Actually, their skinny vanilla lattes rival Starbucks, and they are cheaper. I can't claim to have used these all throughout my post-op time, because they just came out. Plus, there's no way to sit and relax at a McDonalds, but if I'm in a hurry, hitting the drivethru for a coffee works great!

Goodwill/America's Thrift, etc.: These places have allowed me to work my way through 3 complete wardrobe/closet turnovers in the last 6 months. I would have needed a trust fund to buy that many clothes at the mall.

Coming Clean

2009-04-06T09:03:00.004-04:00

So, ok . . . enough of the smoke and mirrors. Enough of the avoidance.

This blog has always been a place where I could come and lay it all down, and I have never failed to receive support and encouragement. It's interesting that I abandoned it when I needed my friends the most.

That's me . . .

It's really difficult for me to say that I am getting divorced. I flinch every time I tell someone. It's hard to see the look of shock on their faces, and its harder to endure the questions. But, that's the nature of the situation, isn't it? People that have grown to care about me and my little family WILL be shocked, and they WILL be upset, and they will be concerned for the kids, and they will wonder why, and they will want some resolution.

That's the hardest part to give them. Resolution.

It's like exposing an open wound, really. Everything in my being wants to cover it up and hide it from the world. I want it to go away as quietly and quickly as possible. I want to spare my kids and my family and my friends all the hurt, and details, and worry.

I can't stand making people worry. I always feel compelled to fix it.

I've faced some of the same discomfort with my gastric bypass surgery, actually. I didn't want to worry anyone, and it seemed that everyone around me ran around screaming when I announced that I was going to have it. I didn't have time to be scared; I was too busy calming everyone else.

When the surgery went well, and the weight started to come off, people around me breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Just in time for this.

It's natural for everyone to assume the surgery and the weight loss caused the divorce.

It didn't.

What it did was give me the strength I needed to face it.

To every person that asks, I can say these things with no reservations:

I tried to make my marriage work for a very, very long time.

I am grateful for the marriage, because I have 2 beautiful children that I treasure.

I am also grateful that I am healthier, and I am employed, and that I have the support of my family and my friends. Thank you all.

Most of all, I am hopeful for my future, and my children's future. At a time when the country and most of its people are facing terrible crises, I feel like I am just hitting my stride.

And I promise to stop hiding.

The Surest Things Can Change

2009-03-09T16:33:00.004-04:00

Appropriate, considering . . .

The Surest Things Can Change
(lyrics by Gino Vanelli)

I love you now and I never want to change my mind
But love is strange and the surest things can change
We carry love
More than we can stand to lose
But who can say . . .
The things we feel this day are the things we feel in time?

How can I be sure
The sun will rise in days to come
And now that I am yours, the world is still for you and I . . .

We carry dreams like children in the spring of life
But love is pain and the purest things can change

Oh how can I be sure the sun will rise in days to come?
And now that I am yours
The world is still in cloudless sky . . .
But sad as rain . . .

The surest things can change.

Fear and Loathing in the US

2009-03-04T10:50:00.006-05:00

Trust me. NO ONE enjoys a verbal scrap more than me. I absolutely delight in the written dodge-and-parry, and with each day that passes, FaceBook is proving to be a treasure trove of joust matches.

I'm not sure whether it's a function of the mix of folks that comprise my friends list, or a general trend, but I've noticed that the most hotly contested debates on FaceBook are political. For every Rush Limbaugh fan, there's a Bill O'Reilly hater throwing stones, and for every staunch conservative, there's a bleeding heart liberal ready and willing to go toe to toe on every issue.

Every issue. Every day.

Let me preface all of this by saying that I've never been one to debate politics. There are a few issues that are hot buttons for me, but much like organized religion, big time politics makes me uneasy, and I avoid wading into the cesspool at all costs. Some would argue that it's my civic duty to stay "engaged" in the process and the parties and the issues, but it all feels like watching football on TV to me. No matter how much you yell and cuss and throw popcorn at the screen, the outcome remains unchanged. Despite this, you still have your facepainters, and your tailgaters, and your fans that live and die by the success or failure of the team, oblivious to the fact that they are about as integral to the team's performance as the Astroturf.

So . . . . why do people invest so much energy? I was discussing this last night with a very smart new friend, and the discussion ran the gamut from Obama, to 9/11 conspiracy theorists, to Bush lovers to Bush haters to Clinton . . . . you get the idea.

I had a small epiphany while we were talking, and it's probably something that others recognized long ago, but for me, it's sort of a revelation:

Politics feeds off of and breeds fear.

People in the US are scared to death, and have been for years, and the entire country is reacting (and voting) from a place of fear. Political parties continue to pit us against one another, but the underlying "crisis of confidence", I think, stems from the entire country being scared shitless.

I'll try to explain where that came from.

Remember seeing the video clips of the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta? There was this explosion, and milliseconds after the shock, people took off in a dead run, like antelopes when the tigress hits the Sahara.

Understandable.

I remember people being so angry about that, and cries of "Where was the security?!?! Why couldn't they catch Rudolph? Where was the FBI?" echoed. People were in a dead panic for months.

I remember noticing a similar reaction to Katrina. Video of absolute devastation seemed to run 24/7 on every news outlet, and people were so pissed off, and scared, and upset. The outcry was the same: Where was the Core of Engineers? Where was the military? Where was FEMA?

And 9/11 was the worst of all. Images of planes hitting buildings were shown over and over and over until the entire nation saw the carnage in their sleep. Within hours of the shock, people were screaming for blood: How could this have happened? How could a handful of terrorists with a few hours of flight training take down the World Trade Center? Where's the CIA? Where's . . . somebody?

Oklahoma City, the abortion clinic bombings, levees giving way in the Midwest, forest fire destruction on the West coast . . . . all of these tragedies were visited upon us, in full color, with overzealous broadcasters willing to turn up the gore and the fear factor to up the ratings.

People can only handle so much of that kind of thing before the stress starts to show, and it's only a matter of time before people become enraged and start screaming for answers. Someone has to pay, someone has to be responsible, and we all thought that The Government of the United States, the most successful, strongest country in the would, could protect us from all this. It was a mighty blow to discover that it couldn't.

And we had to accept that.

But, you know, it's one thing to shake your hand at the sky and denounce natural disasters, or call for the head of an insane terrorist, but our country also had plenty of OTHER crises that shook us to the core. There might have been sexual scandals that were worse than Jim Baker, or Bill Clinton, or Jimmy Swaggart, but again, they weren't served up on the 6:00 pm news along with the potroast and baked potatoes every damn night. Ditto for the S&L and banking scandals. There might have been bigger crooks than Lay and bigger implosions than WorldCom and ENRON, but none took place in our living rooms like these did.

It happened a little bit at a time, but slowly slowly, all of this eroded our belief in what we all thought were the most trustworthy parts of America: our appointed leaders, and our financial institutions, and those that spoke from the pulpit to the masses. They all started looking like "confidence men", and we became distrustful and bitter. And scared.

And our reactions were real. Fear is real. We might not have ALL lost our retirement savings in the ENRON debacle, but we experienced the anguish and pain firsthand by watching endless interviews and exposes on those that did. We might not have had to swim for safety in New Orleans, but there we sat, begging for someone to rescue the people we saw waving from their rooftops. We might not have been in NYC when it all went down, but we watched as desperate people jumped to their death, and heard the sirens and the screams.

I don't know about you, but once you've been burned by the stove a few times, you learn not to touch the stove, and once you've been battered by scenes via the national media enough times, you resort to placing your confidence elsewhere.

Enter . . . . the internet.

You know, if I were walking down the street in New York City and saw someone standing on the corner with a handmade sign and screaming about conspiracies, I wouldn't be all that impressed. Certainly not impressed enough to stop and listen and put any creedence in what he was screaming. BUT . . . . if you put that same screaming lunatic in front of a computer and gave him a free Blogger account, and he was lucid enough to type all the shit he was screaming, chances are, he would have a legion of followers, believers and those that would expend precious energy arguing over his every point.

Cause, see . . . . the internet is grassroots. We were taught in the 60s that grassroots is good, and grassroots means the truth, cause it's REAL people, not the talking heads from the Establishment.

And when you live in a mentality of fear, and you don't trust the authorities anymore, and you are looking for answers, and you start searching on the web, it feels like you've hit gold when you find a blog that explains it all, like . . . .

9/11 was an inside job.
The government knew Katrina was going to happen.
There ARE aliens, and the damn government just won't tell us.

And when you have ready access to the flood of information on the internet, it's easy to find an explanation that's palatable for you, which is MUCH easier than facing the fact that bad things happen, and they can't always be prevented, and no matter the size of the government, or the man in the office, people die that don't deserve to, and bad people do bad things to good people.

But it FEELS so real when you get a Twitter message from the Obama campaign, cause Twitter is grassroots, man!

And it feels like you are finally getting to the truth when you see the people you know, your friends, your family, when they all take a stab at the TRUTH about what's going on in politics on FaceBook, cause . . . . you can't trust the goddamn politicians, but you can trust your friends and family. And you feel a compulsion to save everyone you know with YOUR truth, the truth you uncovered by talking with the conspiracy theorists, and the rightwing militants and the leftwing liberals. You get to a point where you are saturated with it all, and you filter it all, and you come up with a patchwork of truth that makes perfect sense to you, and you want to make sure everyone you know knows what YOU know.

And you want to surround yourself with likeminded folks, and fight those that see it different with everything you have to throw at them.

But, they're being manipulated by the same thing that YOU are.

Fear.

And while we are ALL watching the Punch (dem) and Judy (repub) show, no one is looking behind the stage, and addressing the REAL issue.

We are all scared to death.

Happy 75th Anniversary!

2009-02-12T14:33:00.005-05:00

Whee! 75 pounds gone! I've been having a little celebration around here.

I bought myself a neat ring and a pair of Baby Phat jeans (size 16, natch). They were even brand new - not from a thrift store or anything!

I didn't feel the need to commemorate or celebrate the 25 lb loss, or even the 50 lb loss. I thought it was a fluke.

Hell, it's only been this past week that I was able to force myself to clean out my closet of all of my favorite clothes. I felt sure I'd need/wear them all again, even though they were in the largest sizes that I wore before the surgery.

I'm still getting used to all this. Standing in the closet looking at all the empty hangers was just about as wierd as getting catcalled at the gas station the other day by a truckload of migrant workers.

Don't get too excited, though. They always like the big ones.