A Better Day

I made lemonade today. One lemon, juiced, water, ice, bunch of sugar, shaken not stirred = a very happy glass of lemonade.

Jenny suggested we take a walk when I got home. So we all went out to RSP and walked with Chauce. There are midges out now, tons of the little guys flying around, but they don't bite, they just.... fly. It was an OK day today. Thanks btw to those of you that commented on this blog and on my facebook about how and where to store pictures. I am researching and will probably ask more detailed, better questions in the future.
We are off to see the musical at the high school tomorrow. I must say, I missed not directing the play this year. A huge part of me really wants to do it again, but it was also nice not to feel all that pressure right in the beginning of the year.


I really like the picture today, Nora looks like she's about to fly.

db

Lemons

Wow... super high stress day today. But, MCAS is over... life can continue again. My laptop crashed in a huge flaming ball of awefullness a couple of days ago. So bad. I took it to the computer repair guys and they literally laughed at me. I asked them to try and recover the pictures of my family from the wreckage, and they weren't even able to do that. I backed them up like a year ago or some such thing. I am now going to subscribe to an online storage source for my picture backups. Any thoughts as to which I should go with?? (sad) (very... sad)

I bought lemons today, I am going to make lemon sherbet out of them soon. Lets let that be a hopeful metaphor to a seriously terrible day.


db

Weekend update

I love this warm weather. Its like late Spring without the flies! Nice for walks in the morning with a certain thick headed, big, brown dog. Not much to say tonight.

The tree swallows came out this week. They are like air-dolphins...

The Queen of Dairy

After years of careful research, I have finally determined the best Soft-serve Sunday on the planet. The honors of such a proud title belong only to........ the medium Cherry Sunday at Dairy Queen in Spencer Massachusetts!!!!!

Seriously... I'm not lying.

I am not a big ice cream fan. Actually, I'm not a big desert fan at all. I would generally go for a slice of pizza over any desert offered. However, the Cherry Sunday at Dairy Queen is completely exquisite. Tart, sweet, cold, with salty peanuts over the top. Yes my friends... yes.

db

Hope... or lack there of...

So here is my little bit of writing from yesterday. This came from this writing prompt, that I gave to my students. ( I actually like the way this starts... and may continue this one out to see what happens. My list of important things was: Food, Family, Shelter, Contact, and Hope. I chose to exclude "hope" from someone's life.)

There is nothing. No light, no dark, no life, no death, and no possibility of their return.....nothing. And its like this every night. Most people dream of nice things: flying, falling, or being chased by axe murderers,but I dream of nothing. And please don't confuse this with not dreaming, because that isn't even close. I dream literally of nothing, of vacuum, of void. It scares me so badly sometimes that when I wake, my face aches from having cried so hard in my sleep. At least that's how it used to be. Lately, for the past couple weeks, I have been carrying these dreams with me for a bit. I keep that ice, that steel feeling inside me... and that is even scarier. I usually break free from these feelings by breakfast. Something about a pleasant little bowl of Cheerios doesn't allow for such things, but that initial look in the mirror when I first wake up, my vacant eyes looking back at me, looking like concrete, or a graveyard, or just huge, dark, empty holes, is enough to make me question my sanity. Looking at myself in the mirror every morning this week has been like waking up to a serial killer in my room.

It's 7:30. Cheerios, milk, spoon, little red bowl, even sugar, all set neatly on the table in front of me. Small glass of orange juice... the table in front of me looks like some sort of health advocational commercial from Saturday morning television. I've opened up my windows and spring air is freely flowing through my kitchen. I have a bright yellow polo shirt and old jeans on.... nothing... zero... In my head there is only a subtle feeling that I should be feeling something. I take a spoonful of cereal and lift it drippingly to my mouth, so much cardboard and water, like sandpaper in my throat.

I remember my mother making breakfast when I was six, the last year I actually knew my mother, and where a deep seated sadness used to reside, now there was only space and memory. I saw her like a stranger, the one who had protected me and who had died. Again my soul pinged out, looking for reaction, for pain, sorrow, hatred, but nothing echoed back.

pirates and forts

I felt really good today for the first time in a while. Even my writing seemed to come back to me. It was so beautiful out. Henry threw off his backpack when he got off of the bus and immediately started playing outside. The picture is of them defending their fort, pirate style. Nora was way into telling Henry how much she loves him today. Henry, in true boyish fashion, returned her hugs and love with a timely "get off of me you....parasite."

Nice day. I learned somethings today.

1. It helps me to write.
My writing prompt for my students today was to quickly list, in general terms, the five most important things in your life. They had 30 seconds to do this. Then, with the remaining 9 minutes and 30 seconds, to begin a short fictional piece about someone that didn't have one of those things in their life. I wrote along with them. My protagonist was void of "hope." But, only at night when he slept, and the story continued as that emptiness started to creep into his "awake" life. I actually really like the way it started.... maybe I will post it here tomorrow...

2. It is pointless to tell Nora to be nice to Chaucer... I don't think she even knows that continually pulling his ears to the ground isn't an act of kindness.

3. Do not try to make homemade fish sticks with creme as the base for breadcrumbs... not ok. Although the kids ate them all. (yuck)

4. I really like nice weather.

goodnight

db

weekend update

So, just updating things for this past weekend. Saturday was busy, but nice. I went on a nice walk with chauc and found the sweetest little bird's nest. The best thing about bird's nests is the inside. Sometimes, depending on the bird of course, they layer these "soft" branches all along the inside. I love things that aren't conceived by human minds. They built that, the birds, because they thought it would be nice and comfy. Honestly, how sweet is that?

Sunday started great. Church was good... I played Eric Clapton and only screwed up the chords a bit. The weather was amazing. I went on a hike with Chauc, Jen, Henry and Nora. The ticks are out.... Nora got one on her head and I picked off a few from her clothes. The hike itself was really nice, but the freaking tick went and ruined everything. Once someone finds a tick on them, everything turns internal. Everyone's thoughts are focused on every minute sensation that they can account for. Everyone sends out their radar in search for the damn things and they become the central focus. So, Nora had one embedded in her head and I had to hold her while jen picked the stupid thing out of her head. Nora cried so hard.... it was awful. She says it didn't hurt now, but she wasn't saying that then. She cried so hard that she broke blood vessels under her eyes.... awful.

And that brings us to today. Today is soup group. I made Mulligatawny and it came out pretty good. A bit too spicy for some of the kids though... "My tongue is on fire with spice!" floated out of the kitchen. Tonight, I was tired because Chaucer went for his first galavanting night trip last night, and I barely got any sleep thinking about how I was going to break his absence to the kids. Then he came back at around 2:30am and I spent another hour trying to get back to sleep again.

So, sometimes when I get too tired, I get a bit chatty. Tonight was nice though, I really do love the friends I have at soup group. They are welcoming when I am awkward... that's important. btw, if any of you soup groupers are reading this, I told Jenny about all of the conversation we had about her. She laughed and didn't kill me. That is also important.
So here's to good friends, nice weather... and sleep... goodnight.

db