Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Parting shots (again), it must be the holidays

We're leaving for Grandma Diane's house for Thanksgiving today. I REALLY should be packing. I can't wait to see my mom and dad and sisters and especially sweet Sophie Gene. I don't think my bro is going to be there, but I'm not totally sure. It'd sure be great if we could all be together, it's been awhile since that happened, which feels a little weird, considering we used to all be together probably once a week for a long time.

Madeline brought home some interesting books from her first grade reading room last week, and I'm not too sure what to make of it. They were, "The Trojan Horse, How the Greeks won the War" and "Pompei, Buried Alive". OK, is it just me, or do those titles not seem quite appropriate for first grade reading. I know it's challenging to find things that are at her reading level, and not above her head, but 'Buried Alive'?? It just seems a little too intense. She and Clark read them, and talked about them, and about how those things happened a long time ago, and that she didn't need to worry about any volcanos in Albuquerque, but I'm bordering on resentful that I didn't get to chose when to have those kinds of conversations with her. I know I'm being overprotective, but still. Am I crazy here?

She also went to the dentist last week. The day after parent teacher conference. Two cavities. Shit. That'll put a damper on the good report festivities. I tried to play it off, because I know she was pretty disapointed, but hell, I was a little disapointed myself. Not particularly suprised, but it will be a pain in the ass (for her more than me) to get them drilled and all. We also found out that her two upper lateral adult teeth are not there. Yeah, not there. They are the two that are next to the two front teeth. The dentist recommended that we definitely keep her on our dental insurance, cause she will use it. I guess they used to use braces to try to move the back teeth forward in these kind of cases, but now they put her in a retainer with fake teeth on it to serve as spacers, and then put in implants at 18. A retainer. Until she's 18. That really does suck ass.

We had a really nice family weekend. Well, some of it was family, some of it was me hiding out from the family. I spent most of Saturday on my own, which was really nice. I had to go acquire a 'morning after pill' after an embarrasing snafu Friday night. (How could I FORGET that I was unable to refill my b.c. rx this month? Stupid me. TMI? sorry) Anyhoo, it is nice to know that one can get such a thing without a doctors prescription in New Mexico, if need be. After that, I took myself to Harry Potter. It ROCKED. I am a pretty huge fan, but fan blindness aside, I thought it was still awesome. And totally worth standing in line for over an hour. I'd like to see it again on the big screen without having to stand in the line, but I'm glad I got in on opening weekend. Everything was a suprise, and some of the imagery was even better than what I had imagined reading the book, and THAT is tough to pull off. Sunday, Clark made a lovely breakfast, and then we went to the zoo for the afternoon as a reward for Madeline's good report from her teacher. It was cool, and we made it a point to hunt down a few of the things we hadn't seen before, like the koala, and the seals, and the naked mole rats. Naked mole rats are cool. After the zoo, we went out to dinner at Frontier, and then home and early to bed. Nice.

OK, really, really must start packing now. Think I can do it all in 2 hours? Me neither.

Happy Thanksgiving! I may try to post on the road, hopefully with pics, but who knows. Safe travels to anyone who's travelling, and happy turkey making to anyone who's not.

Parting shots (again), it must be the holidays

We're leaving for Grandma Diane's house for Thanksgiving today. I REALLY should be packing. I can't wait to see my mom and dad and sisters and especially sweet Sophie Gene. I don't think my bro is going to be there, but I'm not totally sure. It'd sure be great if we could all be together, it's been awhile since that happened, which feels a little weird, considering we used to all be together probably once a week for a long time.

Madeline brought home some interesting books from her first grade reading room last week, and I'm not too sure what to make of it. They were, "The Trojan Horse, How the Greeks won the War" and "Pompei, Buried Alive". OK, is it just me, or do those titles not seem quite appropriate for first grade reading. I know it's challenging to find things that are at her reading level, and not above her head, but 'Buried Alive'?? It just seems a little too intense. She and Clark read them, and talked about them, and about how those things happened a long time ago, and that she didn't need to worry about any volcanos in Albuquerque, but I'm bordering on resentful that I didn't get to chose when to have those kinds of conversations with her. I know I'm being overprotective, but still. Am I crazy here?

She also went to the dentist last week. The day after parent teacher conference. Two cavities. Shit. That'll put a damper on the good report festivities. I tried to play it off, because I know she was pretty disapointed, but hell, I was a little disapointed myself. Not particularly suprised, but it will be a pain in the ass (for her more than me) to get them drilled and all. We also found out that her two upper lateral adult teeth are not there. Yeah, not there. They are the two that are next to the two front teeth. The dentist recommended that we definitely keep her on our dental insurance, cause she will use it. I guess they used to use braces to try to move the back teeth forward in these kind of cases, but now they put her in a retainer with fake teeth on it to serve as spacers, and then put in implants at 18. A retainer. Until she's 18. That really does suck ass.

We had a really nice family weekend. Well, some of it was family, some of it was me hiding out from the family. I spent most of Saturday on my own, which was really nice. I had to go acquire a 'morning after pill' after an embarrasing snafu Friday night. (How could I FORGET that I was unable to refill my b.c. rx this month? Stupid me. TMI? sorry) Anyhoo, it is nice to know that one can get such a thing without a doctors prescription in New Mexico, if need be. After that, I took myself to Harry Potter. It ROCKED. I am a pretty huge fan, but fan blindness aside, I thought it was still awesome. And totally worth standing in line for over an hour. I'd like to see it again on the big screen without having to stand in the line, but I'm glad I got in on opening weekend. Everything was a suprise, and some of the imagery was even better than what I had imagined reading the book, and THAT is tough to pull off. Sunday, Clark made a lovely breakfast, and then we went to the zoo for the afternoon as a reward for Madeline's good report from her teacher. It was cool, and we made it a point to hunt down a few of the things we hadn't seen before, like the koala, and the seals, and the naked mole rats. Naked mole rats are cool. After the zoo, we went out to dinner at Frontier, and then home and early to bed. Nice.

OK, really, really must start packing now. Think I can do it all in 2 hours? Me neither.

Happy Thanksgiving! I may try to post on the road, hopefully with pics, but who knows. Safe travels to anyone who's travelling, and happy turkey making to anyone who's not.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Parent Teacher Joy

I went to a parent teacher conference with Madeline's teacher this morning. I am pleased to report that she is doing fantastic across the board. She's reading above grade level, she's quick and accurate with her math, and she's had straight 100's in spelling. Her teacher says she's sweet, fun, respectful, and a joy to have in class. How rocking is that?! I'm SO proud. She had a rough transition changing schools in the middle of the year last year, and spent a few months being angry and not interested in school (as some of you know), and it's such a huge weight lifted to see her thriving and happy. Now, every day when I pick her up from school she says she had a GREAT day. You just can't ask for more than that from your child's school experience. We just need to find a fantastic preschool for Little Z, and we'll be set.

Sorry about the vagueness of that last post. Sometimes it's hard to know where to draw the line between honesty and privacy (mine and others). I'm glad I wrote about it, for me as much as anything else, and hopefully lessons were learned all around. I know I learned some. That boundaries thing, it can be a bitch sometimes.

Friday, November 11, 2005

I'm baaack

Hey all,

I've been officially ordered to blog about my trip, so here goes. Just warning you, it's a little foggy in recollection, but I'll try to hit the main points. I'm also still processing some of what happened, and hope everyone concerned will have patience with my side of the story.

The flight out was a little stressful, but ended up being ok. When I got to the airport Friday afternoon, my flight out of Albuquerque had been delayed an hour. So, I was in jeopardy of missing my connection in San Francisco. Which wouldn't have been the end of the world since there was another flight into Seattle out of SF about an hour or so later, but I REALLY wanted to get there, and didn't want my friend Matt (who so graciously offered to pick me up from the airport) to sit around wondering where I was. (p.s. get a cell phone dude!) I barely made the connection after running my ass through the SF airport, and got there on time, as did my luggage, so all was well.

We cruised over to Stine's place, getting only marginally lost along the way, and proceeded to hang out and wait for her to get home from the show. Maybe now is a good time to mention about Matt. Matt is one of my oldest (other than my fam, known me the longest) friends. We met Freshman year in high school in Monterey. We've had a semi-rocky but seriously tight friendship ever since. He is currently living in So. Cali. but his little bro lives in Seattle and he was up visiting him the same weekend I was visiting Stine. I was excited to see him, but nervous about being in the same space as him (we've only experienced each other in proximity once since I left California, and it was a tad tense), and nervous about how to accomplish spending a little time with him and also getting to spend the time I wanted to with Stine. Long story short, feeling a little torn. To add to the conflict, his wife had just told him she was leaving the week before. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Friday night was nice. We all got to hang. My head almost exploded a couple times, just from having Matt and Stine in the same space at the same time. Stine knows me best of anybody, and she was certainly picking up on my nervousness, and just being in the same room with Matt makes my head want to explode sometimes. Stine and Ly went to bed, and Matt and I stayed up and chatted into the wee hours. I was hoping that spending some serious time discussing where he was at with the divorce and the job situation and all, and just allowing our energies to be in the same space and get used to each other at close range, would alleviate the nervousness, and help me to be more relaxed about the friend dynamics of the trip. It did, and it didn't, but you'll see.

Saturday, Stine had a client at the chiropractor's office for massage, so both she and Ly (the workingest kid I know right now) were off to work fairly early. Even though I had been up late, I was up around the same time they were. I called Matt to see if he wanted to rendezvous for some breakfast, and right after I got off the phone with him, Stine called me. Seems her client went wacko on her, and stormed out, so, no massaging going on. She was headed back home. Conflict. What to do? Wanted to hang with Stine, but didn't want to be rude to Matt. I called him back, and explained what had happened, told him I'd call him later about the how and when of going to the show that night, and waited for Stine to get home. We walked up to Coastal Kitchen and had a marginal breakfast (their stuff is usually much better than what we had, weird), stopped by the vitamin store to stock up, dropped by the grocery store, and went home. We figured out our plan for the evening, called Matt again and left a message, and spent the rest of the afternoon chilling.

Saturday night. Hadn't heard from Mr. Matt (for some reason Stine's apartment is a black hole for my cell phone), so Stine arranged another ride to the theater. By the time I heard back from him, we were going to have to hurry to manage to eat something before the show, plus, we didn't know how to get there. Got marginally lost a couple times on the way over, grabbed a Subway sandwich, and got drenched in the rain before the show.

The Show. Wow. It was SOOOOOO GOOOOD!!! Stine just blew me away. The rest of the cast was fantastic. My second favorite performance would have to have been Phillip, who played Stine's husband. The dynamic between the two of them was perfect. I feel like I shouldn't be surprised by the depth of talent my best friend has, but every time it surfaces, I'm surprised again. She had me in tears at one point. I laughed, I cried, my ass fell asleep, good times. I wish I were one of those writers who could help you experience just how fantastic it was, but I'm not. Just trust me when I say it was a heartbreaking, mind blowing, super-fantastic performance.

After the show, we cruised back to Stine's place with a couple other people from the cast. Stine and Phillip and I rode in the backseat together, it was fun. I started getting into my theater fan, out of towner, hanging with the cool people mode. Something about getting so far out of my daily life is really good for me. I could never do theater, the lifestyle would likely kill me dead, but I'm a serious appreciator, and spending a little time with the people who make it happen is frosting on the cake. Looking back, I maybe should have asked Matt to drop us off, and sent him to go hang with his bro, but I didn't. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some beer, and maybe it should have been a red flag when he bought himself a bottle of wine, but it wasn't. Can you see where this is going? I'm not going to try to recap the entire evening, but it ended with Matt leaving much later than I had wanted him to, and then me sitting in the dark crying. So much for no breakdowns in Seattle.

Woke up Sunday morning and cried a little more. I was just really really angry. Matt is one of the few people in my life that can make me angry like that. We have a complicated relationship, he and I, and sometimes it spills over into my real life much more than I would like. We have talked through what happened, and I think we understand each other about the boundaries, and the misunderstandings, and the piss poor timing, and all that, but at the time, I was just furious that I had lost some of the precious little time I had to spend with my bestest friend in all the land. Thank god we had all day Sunday to hang out uninterrupted.

Sunday. Stine made me the best scrambled eggs ever, we watched some Buffy, listened to some music, played some cards, had some massage, it was super-nice. It just went way too fast. Before I knew it, the sun was going down. Ly came home, and we went out to dinner. I had planned on Kingfish, which ROCKS, but it was closed, so we walked back up to Coastal Kitchen. Better meal this time than breakfast Saturday, so that was good. Went back to their place and watched 'Millions'. Very cute film, highly recommended. We passed out early, which brings us to...

Monday. Stine was supposed to work, so I was going to grab brunch with Matt and then head to the airport. That had been my plan. I wasn't so much looking forward to dealing with Matt, though, and then Stine's work fell through again, so some rearranging was in order. Matt came to the house, I gave him a cd Stine and I had put together for him, and got back a tape I had left in his rental car. I think at this point it was obvious that Stine and I needed the few remaining hours I was going to be there to be together, and he picked up on the (none too subtle I'm sure) hint, and left to have lunch with his bro. A little more Buffy, a little more chill time, and then I was in a cab to the airport. The sun came out on my way, and it was really nice to just be able to sit in the back of the cab, close my eyes, and let the sun beat down on my face.

Ran into Matt briefly in the airport, as he was also flying out that afternoon, and we had some words. The flight back was uneventful, everything according to plan. It just felt really nice to be by myself for a few hours. Read some silly magazines and finished off my book. (Salman Rushdie, 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet' I found it incredibly interesting after I got through the first 100 pages, and now I want everyone to read it and tell me what they think. One of those.) It was really nice to be going back to Albuquerque and realize that it was going home, and that it felt good.

All in all, I think I cleared out some things that needed clearing, and refueled enough to feel like the trip was worthwhile. It didn't play out like I wanted it to or expected it to, but as Stine said, it probably worked out like it should. I am so grateful that I got a chance to see my girl on stage, that was definitely one of the highlights. I came home relaxed and refreshed, which isn't how I always come home from Seattle, so that was really good too. In the past, Clark has asked why I even bother going if I'm going to come home so twisted up, this time, he said, wow, I think we need to send you to Seattle more often, so I'm not going to argue with that.

Sorry for the delay on posting all this. As I said, it took awhile to process, and things have just been busy. Tuesday I was beat, and spent the day doing mostly nothing. Wednesday was Clark's birthday, so I spent most of the day in the kitchen. I made some luscious baby back ribs, his mom's homemade macaroni-n-cheese recipe (which came out so much better than the time I made it for you, Stine), a yummy salad with cabbage, carrots, red pepper, apple and raisins, and chocolate cake with fudge frosting from scratch. Thursday I finally got my ass out of the house and ran some errands that had been piling up. So, aside from fighting the headache from hell, it's been a good week.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Parting Shots

I'm off to Seattle tomorrow!!! Yay Yay Yay!!

We've been getting through, here at the Krause House the last week or so. As some of you know, the work situation has been stressing things around here, but I'm happy to say, I think we're through the worst of it. (Knocking on wood!, cause every time I say that, I get fucked, I should learn) Clark was in Washington DC on Halloween. Suck ass. I was pissed. Not at him, just at the situation in general, but I didn't let it get me too down. We made costumes, and decorated the front windows and just got on with it without him.

Madeline was a garden fairy. She wore white sweats and turtleneck with a yellow t-shirt over it and a yellow flower petal fairy skirt (which I made, thank you very much). She had an ivy crown with daisys and butterflies, and fairy wings, and a butterfly wand, and she was GORGEOUS. If I do say so. I got some pics, and blah blah blah, they might get posted some day.

Zach was a pirate. He'd been practicing with his "Aargh, me hearties!" and was getting really good, but I couldn't get him to say it while he was trick or treating. He had black pants, a red and white striped long sleeve, a red and black scarf tied around his waist to hold his sword, a pirate hat (FINALLY found one, the day before halloween, for $10, whatever), and we painted a patch on him in black eyeliner. He was awesome.

I think Madeline enjoyed passing out candy as much as anything. She'd hurry past me to grab the candy bowl and then she'd stand there with it and say, "Please take one of your choosing." Queen of the candy bowl, reigning benevolently over the trick or treaters.

We trick or treated a little in our neighborhood. There were two houses the kids wanted to hit for sure, with fabulous decorations, so we hit those, and the ones in between. After trick or treating, we came home, put in "The Nightmare Before Christmas", and had popcorn and some treats. It was actually really fun, but definitely would have been better with Clark there.

I'm SO EXCITED for Seattle I can hardly sit still. I CAN'T WAIT to see the show, and my Stine and everyone!! We're going to paartay! Oh, and probably also get a massage :), and do some yoga, and chill, and play cards, and eat eat eat. I only wish I could stay a little longer, or get there a little sooner. I just feel like my energy is in a really good place to be going there right now. In the past, I have brought my breakdowns to Seattle. You know, those little issues that you keep a lid on, and then when you have enough physical distance from the problem, it hits you in the ass. Yeah, a couple of those. This time, I don't feel any of those lurking. I feel very free and available to just go and have a good time with the people I care most about outside my family. It's really good to have people like that. People who you can step outside your roles as mother, wife, daughter, etc. and just be yourself.

I'll be back late Monday, for those of you I won't be seeing, and for those of you I WILL be seeing, SEE YOU SOON!!! WOO HOO!