Happy Birthday!

Today is my birthday. I am 33.

It's stunning to look at one whole year, especially this one. Sometimes things bump a long same as always. And sometimes you have a crazy year like this with major changes, major disappointments, and big time upheaval.

Last year at this time, I was looking a year ahead and thinking: Huck with have a great job. We'll be in a new house. In a new town. In a new income bracket. With new purchasing powers (these are apparently a form of super powers, elusive and exclusive).

I was hoping that the year ahead would be a year of (perchance, perhaps!) a return of stability and security, the fruition of all our long, hard work. But then I got a special E-Mail this morning from a horoscope thingy advertising the next five years for those born this day. And this is what it said: lost, aimless wandering, fruitless searches, loss of direction, high probability of alcoholism and drug addiction. And then it went on to say, NOT April Fools! But HAPPY BIRTHDAY! So, I will go find someone else's better horoscope and adopt that one.

My mom and I went for lunch in Leavenworth yesterday, followed by a little light shopping. It was very very fun. The waiter was extremely flirtatious, but you know, I'm used to that sort of thing so I just let him go on and on, while I played it cool, with cream sauce splattered all over my face, as I discovered in the ladies room afterwords. Of course my mom couldn't figure out why anyone would be flirting with me. She thought it was my new glasses. Mom, I wanted to yell, it's cuz I'm f-ing HOT! Obviously!! But, honestly, I think it's cuz he's waiting tables in Leavenworth, Bavarian hotbed of rocking nightlife. I was probably the only person under 50 he'd seen in years.

I bought a polkadot silk neck scarf and a card for myself that said, "I have no Idea what I want, but I won't be satisfied until I get it." Blue wants to know why the lady is smoking on the card. And so do I. Why is smoking a sensual thing? I don't find it any better than a rough cough and a hoarse throat. I decided it was a pen the girl is holding, and she's thinking about what to write next.

Huck bought me flowers and ice cream. And the kids are up to something with secrets tucked here and there around the house. I hope it's a good day. I do love good birthdays so very very much. But if I need to, I'll call for a do-over.

Will miracles never cease?! An addendum

I guess when it rains, it pours. And when you've got time and thoughts, you've got a bus load, so here's my 2nd entry today.

I know what you all are wondering right now: What is Sarajoy drinking? In the interest of celebrity wine endorsement/abasements, let me tell you. Tonight I am drinking a Handyman Red by Working Girl Winery, a Washington State Wine. This fine fine state has many fine fine wines, and fine WATER, apparently. Yes, Working Girl Winery has managed to turn wine into WATER. I took a sip at dinner and thought to myself, "I meant to grab my wine glass, but must have taken my water glass instead." But the evidence was still in hand. Their "robust red" had shriveled to tap water. Or maybe the "handyman" handle was meant to conjure images of the handyman you call, but never shoes up!

Additionally, I wanted to add something more about the challenges of Parenting. The other day the kids got talking about the latest lunch fad: dinosaur shaped tater tots or chicken nuggets or whatever. They begged me for them!
"NO WAY!" I said, cool and calm, as always ;)
"Why not?" And then Blue pulled out the most sophisticated reasoning ever, "All our friends moms are giving them!"
I couldn't help it. I actually laughed. Not cruelly, but with delight, because the argument had absolutely no sway on me and I was about to explain why.
Which went like this: "I have a very good brain on my own two shoulders and I am going to be listening to that. No one, not even my kids, are going to convince me that other people should be thinking for me. I see those dino-whatevers and I can tell by their yellow breading and oily smell that they are not healthy. No One, not even the governor, could convince me otherwise. They aren't healthy and I'm not putting them in your lunches. You can try one, of course, if they are offered, but my good money will only go to healthy items in your lunch. And don't think that I will ever let other kids mom's do my thinking for me. It's just not going to happen. Unless I know exactly who is giving the advise and what their family acts like, I'm not following anything but my own good intuition and brain."

They were probably thinking, "Sheesh, mom, they're just dino-watevers." But I don't think they'll be using that line of "reasoning" on me, at least for a while yet. I had a lot of fun with my monologue. Although emphatic, I was chipper and delighted the entire time I spewed it. Seriously, this explaining the world part of parenting is one of my favorites. And I hope they not only got the idea that I won't be caving to that argument, but also how to think about themselves and their own, good and sturdy brains.

Okay, now I MUST go clean the apartment. One of these days I'm going to post a picture of how messy it gets, just in one day, just so the other moms reading this can feel good about themselves at my expense. I won't mind, I WANT you to feel good about yourself!

The Way Things Are

For those of you not in the know, life gets hectic. Add some kids and no matter how little you try to do, life remains a zooming blur and viola: you don't Blog often.

Yesterday we bought 1200 pounds of apples! ORGANIC! Honeycrisp and Jonnagolds. Huck's new friend Bruce has been an angel: he's letting us store and press at his orchard. And since he provides Stemilt with most of their organic cherries, he bought us these apples for $.225 per pound! We will repay him of course, and hook him up with the hard-cider gravy-train. We've got four carboys now and are working on some used white wine barrels. Friday, we're having a little pressing party with Bruce and his girlfriend. But Huck's so stoked about getting it all set up today that he can't wait and he's begging me to press tomorrow, just a little, just to get the feel. Huck even spent half the day plucking his SECRET INGREDIENT.




Last weekend we headed to Seattle for Huck's Baba's funeral. It was small. She died six months ago (rest assured: no open casket) after 15 years of Alzheimer's which is WAY longer than anyone should have to live with that. That last 5 years she was not present, and was unable to focus her eyes or speak. It was awesome to see Huck's only cousin (on that side) and her new baby, thereby providing the complete, majestic circle of life (in the alternative view, you could find a newborn at a funeral rather depressing: as in "this is what you're working towards, kid"). You may have heard this before, but Huck's cousin is head counsel for Google. Not only that, she and her husband are both very great people to goof around with and talk to. And their baby is pretty much as easy and wonderful as they come, not that any of them are easy. Molly Mehitabel is beautiful and calm, and tempting!

Recipe for impromptu strobe light: place newborn on 7 year-old's lap in room full of tipsy, older relatives with cameras. Flash! Flash! Flash!

We let Blue put blue gel in her hair today. It was her idea. I don't know where she got it but I assume it has to do with kids at school. I ascribe to the parenting ideal: pick your battles wisely. Not that this was shaping up into a battle, because I thought the idea was pretty cute too. Blue's also developed a vocabulary of teen-isms, only she says them all with a Mexican accent! Ohmygo-o-od!

King Louis visited the vet today, who just happened to have graduated from WSU four months ago and we knew lots of the same people. In fact he'd helped our neighbor/vet move! The response when King Louis leaped from his carrier was typical: "OH MY GOD! WHAT A HUGE CAT!" But since he spent 3 + 2 weeks missing, he'd lost 5 pounds. He's not blubbery, just really tall and poofy. It turns out King Louis has acne. ACNE! CAT ACNE! And the vet actually told me to get OXY PADS!! So I did. Who knew?

Coyote told us about his secret super powers tonight. He's got several but the house favorite is: "Crosswalk Powers!"

And also, after two weeks, a phone call and some prodding the Wenatchee World finally published my letter: http://wenatcheeworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081006/OP01/710069920/-1/OP. It's the bottom one which they titled "Gregoire's Management".

I crossed another of life's major milestones today: I've now cleared 32 51/52s in human years. I know. It was a big one. But I think I survived. The ego is in tact. Mostly.

Step 10

I heard once that in order to find out what is really going on at school, you ask your daughter what she did at recess. I find that usually this works out well, but then I worry that by asking that question (instead of the old standby: "What did you learn at school today?") I'm inadvertently emphasizing who plays with whom, and, you know, sowing the seeds for that favorite middle school past-time: clicks. Using this excavation tool, however, I've discovered that Blue and her friends like to play school. I think it's probably some type of group therapy, like art for kids with PTSD.
After a few days of this, and given last year's history with the bully-girls of 1st grade, I initiated a little chat:
"You know, Blue, sometimes kids can use playing school as a way to boss people around."
"It's not like that."
"Are you sure?"
"We're playing and we all get to pick what we do."
"But you said the same girl is always the teacher."
"But that's because she Likes to be the teacher." They also have the school dog, apparently.
"So what are you?"
"I'm always a student. Actually, I'm always the new student, which I guess I am."
"Do you like being a student?"
"I love it."
"Why do you love it?"
"Because I get to get in trouble."
"That's not scary?"
"NO!! It's so much fun because you're not really in trouble! You just get to pretend you are. So the other day I got a Step 10!!! It was SO fun!" The system actually only goes up to Step 5: expulsion. I can't imagine what Step 10 is! The dungeon? The plank?

If you didn't already know, Blue is a HUGE Jane Goodall fan, has seen her speak and talks about her all the time. Although Blue clearly has a scientific mind, she so far doesn't show much propensity for sitting in one spot and quietly staring at animals. She loves to take notes on observations of squirrels and feral cats, however, these boisterous expeditions usually scare the animals off. Typically, her notes are about how the animal acts when a human is jumping up and down in front of it. For instance, "running" and "scared" are common activities of the aforementioned animals. Anyway, Blue wore her Jane Goodall shirt to school and this is what happened:
"The kids didn't like my shirt. They said I had a retarded monkey on it."
"Did that hurt your feelings?"
"No. I told them it was a chimp. I said, 'Haven't you ever seen a Chimpanzee?'"
"And what did they say?"
"They hadn't seen a chimp before. So then I said, 'Haven't you ever hear of Jane Goodall?' And they hadn't. Can you imagine never having heard about Jane Goodall?!!"
"Did you set them straight?"
"Yeah," She said. She stood there silently, zoning out, and then said, "Man, she ROCKS!" Emphasized by a head bang.

I'd like to say that these two stories illustrate why I admire that girl. She didn't even consider for a minute that the kids were right to tease about her shirt. As far as she was concerned they were simply uneducated. And she knows that getting into just a little bit of trouble is a lot of fun.


Coyote and I headed out to the skate park again today. He tried out some new tricks on the now emptied concrete waves. He noticed some litter and said, "I bet the other skaters left that. The mans." This summer they called him "little dude" and when he heard it he asked me, "What's 'little dude' in American?" So anyway, this brought up the issue of the type of people that skating sometimes attracts. We witnesses middle schoolers smoking at the park this summer and that concerns me. And since he's rather good at skating and there's a chance he might stick with it, I decided to have the peer pressure chat with him today.
"You know, sometimes when we have a hobby like skate boarding we end up being friends with other people that skate board. And sometimes those people have habits or do things that we don't do. But when we're hanging out with them, we might feel like we should do the same things they do. So some times we have to make a choice between doing the same things our friends do and doing what we think is right."
He got very serious, looked in my eyes and said, "Mama, I promise that even if my friends litter, I will never, never litter. I promise." I guess that's what I was technically talking about...
"You're a strong boy, Coyote."

I've discovered that Coyote on his bike with training wheels and a jogging Sarajoy both go about the same speed. This is VERY convenient. Again today, we went out together. And I discovered something new about myself. Check it out: I run better than I jog! I was still grinding through my 1/2 mile at a mediocre pace. After the 1/2 mile we walk back as a cool down. But Coyote wasn't quite done riding and this time he wanted to go really really fast. So I told him to go ahead and I'd see if I could keep up with him. And that is how I found myself running. It was a liberation: my chest opened up, my legs stretched out and my back even felt better. So I ran all the way back and it felt almost effortless. I'm so delighted that at the ripe old age of 32 23/24ths, I can still surprise myself.