Restless Self Syndrome

I’m not sure where it came from.  Maybe it’s because things at work are quiet.  It’s mid-May, halfway from the last quarter close, halfway to the next quarter close.  June is when things heat up, but this is May.   Even the sales reps are thinking vacation. 

I came in yesterday and couldn’t sit still.  No idea why, but it was like I had ten things on my desk to do, they were all due yesterday, and I couldn’t find any of them.  In reality, I had nothing on my desk to do.  It got even better when the shared server went down, sucking out everything in my department folder until all that’s left is my name on a subfolder and an error message.  I’m told I may have to call the Help Desk to get the issue addressed, but that’s my last resort.  I’d much rather the problem either spontaneously resolves itself or my computer bursts into flame.   

Anyway, when I got home, even though I was tired (and took a 20 minute nap), I was still restless.  I felt like a soda bottle someone had shaken up but then didn’t take the cap off, only the bubbles just didn’t settle.  I made dinner, did the dishes, tried to sit and watch the ball game and crochet, but I couldn’t.  I spent almost an hour playing FreeCell because sitting at the kitchen table, my constant foot-rattling wouldn’t irritate John.  By 10 I wasn’t feeling so well so I curled up in bed and fell instantly asleep but I kept waking up, itching.   (Weird, I know.  I also had some very bizarre dreams but I can’t remember any of them.) 

This morning isn’t any different, but I started thinking, maybe it’s me.  (Duh; what else would it be?)  I haven’t written, other than here and my journal, in 2 days; maybe it’s creative writing withdrawal.  I thought a few days “off” would be good for me, let me catch up on family time and unfinished crochet projects, but right now I don’t think that’s the case.  It’s altogether possible I’m an addicted writer, and this restless feeling is what happens when I don’t move a story forward.  I hesitate to compare this to drug addiction, but I can’t think straight, I can’t focus for very long, and I’m jumpy.  By the end of the day I feel drained and antsy all at the same time.  I’ve opened my rewrite project every morning for the last two days, and every night I’ve closed it, untouched.  I think it’s time to get back to it. 

Years ago on the Carol Burnett Show, she had a skit with a writer on one side of the screen, reading aloud as she (he?) typed a story, and in the cloud bubble overhead, characters acted out what she/he wrote.  Oftentimes it was hysterical because the writer would make changes mid-stream and the characters would have to react and reverse course.  I wonder if that’s what’s happening with me, only Paul and Grace are getting tired of waiting for me to make them make their moves, and they’re spiritually pushing me back to their world.  If that’s true, then OKAY FOLKS, I GET THE POINT! 

Yarn Pig

That would be me.  (I set up a category for Crafts but haven’t used it yet.  No time like the present.)  I’d be tempted to say I own more yarn than AC Moore (or Hobby Lobby, for those south of PA) but they’ve got an incredible selection these days.  There’s SO much more to choose from than there was when I only got my yarn from K-Mart.  On the other hand, I still miss Dazzleaire.  <sniff>

I went to AC Moore yesterday to get a collector’s football case for an autographed football John owns.  It was my day off and I had nothing but time, so I browsed the yarn department too.  Mind you, unless I have a specific project in mind, I do my yarn browsing in the mill-ends section.  Prices go from $4.49 to $5.99 per 16 oz. bag.  At first I saw a nice soft cream-colored yarn, but it was $6 per bag.  Since I didn’t have a use for it in mind, I couldn’t justify buying it and I put it back.  Three steps away I found a beautiful variegated pastel yarn hiding under a pile of white.  I mean, literally hiding; one corner of the bag poked out from under a few dozen bags of white.  I pulled it out and it was a full 16 ounces of gorgeous.  Of course,  I had to have it, but when I pulled that bag out, I found another behind it, and after doing some digging, I found two more stashed away on other shelves.  It occured to me that someone must’ve hidden the yarn so they could come back and get it later…and she’s going to be REALLY mad when she comes back and discovers I took it all.  Life lesson, folks:  you snooze, you lose.

Of course, I have no intended use for this yarn either, but it’s SO soft and the colors are just beautiful; not quite pale, but definitely not screaming primary colors either.  The fibers are smooth, like a high thread count brushed cotton.  I bet it’s going to be so much fun to work with!  I’m sitting on 64 ounces of pure crocheting/knitting bliss.  Fortunately, a month ago I invested in a fantastic book of baby outfits and afghans, and I’m pretty sure if I look through those, I’ll find a good use for it. 

Last night I started a new project:  an oversized afghan with the brilliant orange I picked up a few months ago.  It’s been sitting in the closet, taunting me to find just the right project.  Since I had a day off, I decided there was no better time than right then to start something.  Only problem was, I started something and didn’t like it, so I ripped it out and started something else I didn’t like too much either.  Three rip-outs later, I finally settled on a simple ripple pattern, only all that orange would’ve looked plain that way.  Then I spied my stuffed Otto, the Syracuse Orange mascot, and an idea was born.  Unfortunately I also noticed that if I did 6 rows of orange followed by one row of blue (and then 3 more rows of white), it almost resembles Mets colors.  We definitely can’t have that in OUR house.    I’m hoping the white offsets the Mets resemblance; otherwise we’ll be frogging it again.  (For the unitiated, “frogging” is a craft term.  If your project isn’t working out, you frog it, ie., rip it.  Ha ha ha.) 

This says nothing of the pounds and pounds of yarn in varying shapes, colors, sizes and styles cluttering up our house.  I have a screaming pink yarn that wanted to be an afghan but may just wind up being a ton of scarves instead, perhaps given as a breast cancer fundraiser.  (I swear, sometimes the yarn talks to me; it chooses what it wants and doesn’t want to be.)  There’s also a box of scraps in the living room that I was dipping into—in hopes of cleaning out my closet shelf—but stalled out on when I got bored with it.  I used the half-finished afghan to keep my legs warm last night while we watched TV.  My theory is that if I can’t die ’til I use up my yarn stash, even if I quit my job right now and started crocheting full time , I’d still live forever.  And now that I have that lovely 64 ounces of variegated pastels, I just bought myself a little more longevity. 

My New Pick-Me-Up

I promised my mother that I’d never blog about anything below the waist, but I have to break that promise today.  (Yeah, I know, Mom; how many HOURS ago did I say that?)

You wouldn’t think I’d be in a rotten mood after the really nice weekend I had.  It was Mother’s Day and I took the boys up to my Mom’s for the weekend.  Other than getting “the lecture” from my dad (about why we haven’t bought a house yet), it went really well.  He didn’t beef about my being on the South Beach diet causing any inconvenience (or being ridiculous), and I spent 36 minutes on the treadmill twice, not to mention, I didn’t snack at all.  Mom and I enjoyed our new tradition, the “all night gabfest”; we sit around talking for hours on end ’til one or both of us can’t keep our eyes open anymore.  On Sunday I went to see my sister and got a baby fix from holding River for nearly an hour.  (Got some great pics!  Go to Flickr.com and search under CFaker17).  I came home to find a dozen roses from John and a yellow lily from our neighbor.  Dinner was almost waiting for me, except I had to fix the Foreman grill first.  John also picked up some colossal shrimp and a bottle of my favorite wine.  (Which I needed after driving 60 miles on the Garden State Parkway.  If I can drive the Parkway on a Sunday and live, NASCAR is for sissies.)

I have today off from work; I figured between all the driving I did yesterday and the company memo asking that all Finance Dept. employees consider taking some vacation time to relax and unwind, as well as remove some liability from the books (tell me that’s not a bad omen of things to come before Q2 is over), I figured what the heck; I’ll take today.  But I woke up feeling blue and out of sorts.  I had some things to do in the morning but for the afternoon I decided to go to the mall and run a final errand for the contest, and while I waited for that to be done, I browsed in Lane Bryant.  They had the cutest pair of red lace undies, and I happen to have a character in mind who’s chosen to adjust her lifestyle a few hundred degrees.  One of the things she does is replace her plain old WalMart tighty-whities with lace underwear.  Well, heck, standing there in Lane Bryant, I just happen to have a pair in my hand.  So I bought them.

They weren’t cheap, I’ll admit that, but they’re fun, and even the idea of owning such a thing made me smile all the rest of the day.  Most of the morning I tried to think of a way to make myself feel better, to give my ego a kick in the seat.  I’ve come to the conclusion that whenever I’m feeling down, I’m going to treat myself to a pair of lace undies.  It’s better than treating myself to something sweet; that will only make me feel guilty afterward.  It’s not expensive, and it’s practical too.  Plus, as I lose weight, I’ll be able to watch the progression as my lace panties get smaller and smaller…

Happy Mother’s Day

Sunday is Mother’s Day, as anyone with a television set knows.  I’ll be at my mom’s on Sunday (for a short time, before I hit the road to go home) so I don’t have to call and say Happy Mother’s Day. 

One of the jewelry companies has a new commercial for Mother’s Day, and I think it plays off the Bud Light “Dude” commercials (which I happen to love).  It shows scenes from average life with someone saying “Mom” in one way or another.  The best is the last scene, with the young man on a cell phone.  You can’t see where he is, but he’s got this stunned, amazed look on his face, and he very quietly says, “Mom?”  Then the camera pulls back and you see he’s sitting in a hospital room beside his wife, sitting up in bed with a newborn in her arms.  The wife looks at the baby with a gentle smile and says, “I’m Mommy.”  Geez, I’m sitting here typing about it and I’m crying.   

Maybe I tear up because it never happened to me like that.  I used to think all that sentimental stuff would be really nice to experience, but I never got it, so even when I see it happen to someone else, it doesn’t quite feel real.  (Or maybe it’s just jealousy filtering my vision of things.)  My ex faced parenthood like it was a dentist appointment that went on for 18 years.  He wasn’t all that interested in my OB appointments unless it gave him an excuse to take a day off from work, and while I was in delivery (both times), he had other things on his mind.  (I was in labor with Ryan for 20 hours.  He disappeared for 4 of them, saying he was going to grab something to eat at BK.  The nearest BK was 5 minutes from the hospital.  With Alex, I had to call him to tell him to come back to the hospital because my labor had gone active.)  He enjoyed the attention of bringing the boys home, but after that, the majority of the work was all mine.  I made a point of taking the boys for their baths at 7:00 every night so he could watch “This Old House” in silence.  God forbid we didn’t.  A friend called one Friday night to invite me out shopping, and I asked him if he could watch the boys so I could go.  (The first time I’d ever asked for such an opportunity.)  He treated it like he was doing me a favor–for which he expected favors in return–instead of spending time with his children.

I suppose in a way he tried to be the best father he knew how to be, considering his own father was a train wreck in sneakers.  When your father is an abusive alcoholic, being a neglectful, self-centered passive/aggressive is a step up, right?  For a long time I was mother and father to the boys.  Even now, when the boys go see their dad, I’ve noticed they’re not entirely happy about it, which is odd when you consider I’m tougher on rules than he is.  His battle cry is, “Go ahead, do what you want.”  I’m a little too soft on them sometimes, myself, and I realize that, but at least they know who they can talk to who will listen to them.  Dad is for getting out of Mom’s hair twice a month.  It’s more than a little gratifying when the ex’s car pulls up at our meeting spot and both the boys say, “Awww!”

So Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.  For all we do, one day a year doesn’t seem like enough, but we’re used to doing without.  To watch our kids sleeping at night, knowing they’re safe and content and they have what they need, it makes every day feel like Mother’s Day.

Is it still a gift if I have to cook it?

We got our latest order of Omaha Steaks today.  We’re dedicated carnivores, and being on the South Beach Diet again only emphasizes that fact.  For the first two weeks we don’t get any fruit and can have vegetables sparingly (preferably fresh, not canned, or as I like to call them, “mother’s little helpers”).  We also eat cheese until neither of us needs to use the bathroom anymore. 

I unloaded the steaks and accessories and realized, this was a nice gift from John, likely intended to make my life easier by having dinner readily at hand.  The only down side is, I make dinner in our house.  Once in a while he cooks but only on the grill; if the weather isn’t perfect (or if he’s in a mood), say hello to Mr. Broiler.  In other words, honey, what’re YOU making for dinner?  Odd, but it always gets phrased as, “What’re WE having for dinner?”

Oh well.  I suppose to should be happy that we now have steak, pork chops, hot dogs and baked potatoes waiting for me to thaw and grill.  What on earth are we going to do with baked potatoes until we reach our goal weights?  <sigh> 

Drawing a blank

I wonder how many people blog without having anything they really want to write about.  I’m almost there; I desperately want to write (or rather, rewrite) but I can’t get my head around anything.  It’s my fault, too.  I haven’t exercised in two days, and I’m suffering from endorphin withdrawal.  I’m going out for a walk at lunch time, so hopefully that will get the Muse in gear.  She dozes off if I don’t exercise regularly.  My bad.

Deja Vu

The 134th Kentucky Derby was today, the longest running sporting event in American history.  The remarkable thing is that horses are the ultimate athlete.  They do what they do simply because someone says “Go run.”  So they run.  They train almost since birth, and they’re nothing short of amazing to watch.

Anyone who watched today’s race knows what happened.  Eight Belles placed second but broke both front ankles and was euthanized on the track.  God bless her sweet heart, she literally gave everything she had for that race.  It scared me to think how much commitment that takes.  Would that I could be that strong. 

It reminded me of when I was a kid, maybe 10, and “girls against boys” really meant something.  I had a nemesis, Timmy Reardon.  He had 3 younger sisters and he was constantly trying to prove himself, prove that girls were inferior.  Whenever we played wiffle ball, it was always girls against boys.  (He ganged up with my brother and our neighbor Andrew.)  Where Timmy and I were concerned, every game of anything was a grudge match. 

That summer, Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure raced at the Belmont for the ultimate contest of Girls Against Boys.  I couldn’t wait to make Timmy Reardon see once and for all that girls were better.  We set up on front of our TV sets and watched with baited breath, but I watched as Ruffian fell lame with a broken ankle.  She was later was put to sleep.  (According to Wikipedia, when she woke from anesthesia after the surgery that was meant to save her life, she fought like she was still running the race.  She refused to stop running, right to the end.)  I cried my eyes out much the way I cried my eyes out today when I heard that Eight Belles was gone. 

My husband’s still a little mad at me.  Okay, so I’d had a couple of drinks, but I wasn’t drunk, and I was even less drunk after I heard what happened to Eight Belles.  He doesn’t know about me and Timmy Reardon, and what losing Ruffian meant to me.  (I have a photo of her in my My Pictures folder.)  He doesn’t understand that these fillies gave their everything in a way that I’m afraid to.  It’s too terrifying to think of going that far.

But maybe that’s exactly what I need to do.  Not that I’m going to break my ankles on the way to publication, but I need to stop worrying about what might not happen and just RUN.  Give it everything I have and don’t think, don’t worry, don’t stop.  Just run.

I love this town

I moved from Staten Island, NY to the Philadelphia suburbs on October 14, 2000, and since then, I can’t remember a single day when I didn’t stop to think, “I love this place.”  It hit me again last night.  We were relaxing, eating dinner, drinking wine and watching the Phillies.  I know practically every player by his number or his position, and the sound of Harry Kalas’ voice makes me smile (especially in the off-season, when I’m jonesing for baseball).  I’m on a first-name basis with all my sons’ teachers, and I even talked to Alex’s teacher on the phone last night.  (Happy Birthday, Deb!)  The supermarket is 5 minutes away, my job is 10 minutes away (for now; they’re relocating), and the city is 40 minutes away.  Last weekend I drove to Sesame Place and the Philadelphia Zoo without the GPS.  I can go out and take a walk around our complex and it’s relaxing.  If I get an itch to crochet or knit, I know where to find the best yarn at the best prices.  Everything I could want is within reach.  (Except my family, who all live at least 90 minutes away.) 

I came here to get away from the life I used to have with my ex-husband.  At the time I left NY, the city had made me claustrophobic; I felt like everything was closing in around me.  I’d drive the expressways, and it seemed like the buildings on either side of the road were coming closer and closer.  By the time I got to the tree-lined street where I used to live, I couldn’t breathe.  My 5-bedroom house was like a prison with a deck and a garden.  The day I packed the truck up and moved out, I felt like I was going home. 

My family used to live here, not far from where I live now.  My great-grandparents lived in Allentown, and I remember the peace of those simpler days.  Maybe that’s why I felt called to come here, to bring up my sons here.  I was thinking last night of people who say they’re born in one place but raised in another.  Ryan and Alex can say they were born in NY but raised in PA.  Me, I was born and raised in NY and there’ll always be a little New Yorker in me, but I love this town.  Philadelphia (and the suburbs) have become my home.  When we went on our cruise, we were asked where we were from.  Without a blink I answered, “Philadelphia.”  Maybe some day we’ll move somewhere else, but there’s just something about HERE that will always have my heart, no matter where we go. 

Okay, so I still love the Yankees too. 

Sunrise, Sunset

It’s happening.  I knew it was coming and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it, but now it’s really happening and I have to face the fact. 

My son has girls asking him out.

Ryan came home yesterday and told me, “I think a girl just asked me out.”  Let me back up a little.  He likes to wear what we call “smart alec” t-shirts; the kinds with snippy sayings on them like “How many losers does it take to stand there and read this t-shirt?  One:  YOU.”  Apparently this girl had read his t-shirt and they talked about it, and then she asked him what his favorite movie was so he answered, and THEN she said, “We should go see a movie some time.”  I don’t know what his answer was–until this minute, I didn’t think to ask–but he asked me, “Did she ask me out?” 

Of course, I had to tell him yes.  My first thought was, “Holy geez, times have changed.  When I was 13 I wouldn’t have DREAMED of asking a boy out.  Attagirl!”  I even told him so.  To put one’s hopes out there in public to be stomped on is a risky proposition, and the fact that she saw a goal and went for it, risking failure and possible heartbreak and humiliation, deserves applause in my book.

But this is my kid we’re talking about.

I wasn’t allowed to date ’til I was 14, but apparently no one was interested enough to ask me ’til I was 17.  (And we won’t go into that.)  Ryan seems to be suffering a similar self-esteem issue that I had, in that he can’t figure out WHY this girl would want to ask him out.  I told him, “You’re cute, you’re smart and you’re funny.  What’s not to like?”  I then reminded him about how he’s been a charmer since he drew his first breath.  The nurses in the nursery were all ga-ga about him.  “Ooh, look at those big blue eyes!”  I’m lucky they brought him back to my room; they were having too much fun watching him watching them.  (Of the 9 or so babies in the nursery, when it came time for visitation hour, he was the only one awake, and he just laid there, looking around, watching the world around him.)  He still can’t figure out why a girl would want to go out with him. 

God help me, I think we have to have the “birds and bees” talk soon.   I have friends (and my sister) with little ones.  They talk about Sesame Street and diapers and preschool.  I’m trying to screw up the nerve to figure out where to start this conversation. 

It’s just like in Fiddler on the Roof:  “I don’t remember getting older; when did they?”  <sniff, sniff>