Wrinkles of various types

First of all, running drop-tackle hugs to Maggie - FUCK the leaves, Maggie, FUCK them - and Jenny - make the boys iron, Jenny! Just kidding, that's a terrible idea if your boys are anything like mine - and everyone else who is making me feel like forcing out a blog post every day in this miserable month is a wholly worthwhile endeavour. Also, the Denver Hayes never iron shirt? Is a filthy lie perpetrated on the iron-hating public. ALSO also, Angus and the team wore shirts and ties over to St. Joseph's high school for an exhibition game, changed into their jerseys and promptly stuffed their neatly pressed shirts and pants into their drawstring bags - so yeah, still love the coach, but shaking my head a little.

Because tomorrow (today) is Thursday and I will be (am) driving to Barrie to spend the week-end with Zarah, I have decided to review tonight's (last night's) dinner for this post.

We had the last of the carrots from my dad's garden - those were fantastic, obviously. We had some berries from Farm Boy, which were pretty good, although obviously it's not the best season for them. I also cooked a box of President's Choice Coconut Chicken Lollipops and a box of President's Choice Moroccan Cigars, both of which I picked up on a whim at the grocery store yesterday because I thought a finger foods night before I leave might be fun.

Both were really good - good quality chicken and beef, the coconut coating was nice, and the Moroccan cigars had an authentically Moroccan flavour (based on my expert opinion, which I base on having spent two whole weeks in Morocco once). Both my husband and I were impressed.

Eve's review of her toasted kaiser bun with melted cheese on it and Angus's review of the box of timbits he filled up on after volleyball which meant that he wasn't hungry - also thumbs up.

My review of my kids? They SUCK.

(This is not a sponsored post, in case that wasn't clear. It probably was).

Skip this if you have anything important going on

I don't generally do the 'what do you think' post-ending thing. It's not because I'm against it. Often I appreciate it when other bloggers ask me what I think on the subject they're posting on (although when it has to do with books it's annoying because when somebody asks me "what's your favourite book?" or even "what are you reading?" my mind has this annoying habit of freezing in panic and refusing to cough up the title of a single book I've read, ever). I kind of assume that people will tell me what they think in the comments.

So, to be clear, this is a blatant and shameless post-generating gambit - it's Nablopomo, all's fair in love and daily blog-posting.

Angus is on the grade eight volleyball team at his school. He has the same coach he had last year for the grade seven team. I love this coach - he's enthusiastic, committed, puts in a ton of time, is demanding without being abusive, has given me zero cause for complaint.

This week-end the team is going to Toronto for a tournament. Driving down Friday morning, playing a game or two Friday evening, sleeping in a hotel, playing games all day Saturday, driving home Saturday night. Angus thinks it's the coolest thing ever.

The coach wants the boys to wear a shirt and tie on the drive down. This isn't totally new to me - we showed up at hockey tournaments with Angus in a shirt and tie, we go to baseball games in the summer with his jersey on a hanger, not to be put on until the game starts. I get that it's a thing. But for a four to five hour drive in the car? While sleeping and snacking might be taking place?

I sent a short email to the coach asking if maybe he'd rather they wear a t-shirt in the car and then put on the shirt and tie just before arriving. He sent one back saying in previous years they've always done it this way, the boys take pride in stopping for lunch dressed like this and other years he has never had any issues.

I had a brief moment of going hot-and-cold at the thought that I am now an "issue". Then I shook it off. I don't really have a horse in this race. I'm going to be in Barrie by the time they leave. Angus doesn't seem distressed at the thought. I have sensory issues, so the thought of wearing a shirt and tie or anything similarly confining on a long drive gives me the vapours, but he's not me. Angus tends to live in t-shirts and athletic pants, as I assume most of his friends do, and some practice at wearing grown-up clothes is likely not the worst idea ever

At the same time, I think it's a little silly. The boys "take pride" in going into McDonald's in shirts and ties (I don't know for a fact that it will be McDonald's, but it's ten 13 year old boys, so it's probably not going to be fine French cuisine). Look, it's your team, if this is what you want, just say it's what you want.

That's what I think, at first glance. If you feel like devoting a moment to this, whether you're a sports parent or not, what do you think?

One thing at a Time

I'm practicing that thing where you treat yourself like you're somebody else instead of yourself.

Wait, that's not exactly it.

Where you treat yourself like you would treat someone you actually like.

Not good either.

Where you tell yourself what you would tell one of your friends in the same situation - yeah, THAT'S it.

So I either get up very early or very late, in general. That's how it goes - either I get up with the kids, when Matt's away or I have stuff to do, or I let myself sleep until I feel rested, which is never, so I force myself to get up when I'm too embarrassed to actually stay in bed any more, and that's late. The CPAP machine hasn't been the miracle cure I hoped for, but I don't snore any more and theoretically at least I'm getting more deep sleep, so that's good.

But for the last two days I haven't had to get up for anything, and I've gotten up earlier than usual. Just been awake, and felt able to get out of bed without throwing up or feeling dizzy and heavy-limbed and weepy.

So maybe, after a year, the CPAP is actually doing its work, and maybe I will gradually improve until I am able to experience waking up at a normal time as a normal human activity, rather than a hellish, screaming ejection into agony and harm.

OR...

maybe I won't, maybe I'll stay the same. That's okay, because this week I had a couple of good days.

My husband's been away about three weeks out of the last eight. I found it more difficult than I have recently. I'm not sure why - Eve got sick both times, and it coincided with the craziness of school and fall activities starting up, and I just felt a little not-right mentally. For whichever reason, I felt like I was surviving, not thriving, and things in the house and in my course were a little bit neglected. A couple of days ago I picked up a book on hold from the library that I really wanted to read, and bought a couple of books because I was in Indigo to buy a birthday gift and, well, books. I gave myself a stern talking to, though, and said no reading the books until I got the basement storage room in order, even though the very thought of tackling that briar patch makes me go fetal.

OR...

I could realize that sometimes it's just hard being a solo parent for a week and a half, even when your kids are spectacular human beings, and that spending an afternoon or two with Fred Vargas BEFORE attacking a hideous chore might put me in a better frame of mind FOR that chore. Or even if it doesn't, maybe I could do it anyway, just to be kind to myself, because my course assignments have to get done (they have), but fixing the basement storage area doesn't, not right away. 

If I was a better blogger, I'd probably rack my brain now for a third thing to place in this pattern, because three things is a nice balance for anything like this, isn't it?

OR...

I could stop now and go read my book.

Be kind to yourselves, people. It can be done. 

Mondays in Malariaville

I'm living in a plague house. Variously pitched coughs echo off the walls. My husband and I have about three-quarters of a voice between us - apparently Angus was wholly unhelpful and disproportionately amused when Matt was trying to yell his order into the drive-through microphone at Tim Horton's on the way to baseball. Strepsils are at a higher premium than mini Caramilks.

So although I had big plans for a really good Mondays on the Margins post for the first Monday in NaBloPoMo, I think I'm going to have to postpone it. I just realized my next assignment in my Computers Course is due next Tuesday, and I'm leaving for Barrie Thursday morning to spend the week-end with Zarah, and then committed to helping with the Book Fair every day next week. The assignment should probably be done before I leave. Therefore, I will be spending my evening making various format changes to a Word document entitled "Oceana Grill Cheese Promotion". So don't worry - I'll definitely be missing you more than you are missing me.

But just to stick in a book reference - I've started watching the American version of Let Me In, which is a remake of Let the Right One In, which is in turn the movie version of an absolutely stunning vampire novel also called Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I would have watched the Swedish version, but Netflix only had the American version. Truthfully, I wasn't totally disappointed, because Chloe Grace Moretz is in the American version, and I sort of think of her as the new Natalie Portman, if not the new Audrey Hepburn, so I probably would have watched this version too, eventually. It's quite affecting so far, and also appears quite Swedish despite taking place in Los Alamos, New Mexico - everything looks very cold and stark. I haven't finished watching it because my treadmill workout ended.

Other than the fact that it was a really original and emotionally wrenching vampire story, one where you end up almost rooting for the 'monsters', the most striking thing about the novel is that every successive novel I've read by the author has been disappointing by comparison - and from the reviews I've read, I'm not in the minority on this. I always wonder how this must feel for the novelist; does he shake it off, in a "different strokes, different folks" kind of way, or does it eat at his soul? I've read three other books by him - one was still quite good, the other two started strongly but then amounted to very little. It's a curious phenomenon.

Shambling and mumbling - zombies and teenagers have a lot in common, actually

Angus is thirteen. He's not stuck to my side like he used to be, voicing every thought. He no longer wants to help me do everything from fastening my bra to unloading the dishwasher. When my parents are about to see him, they take bets on how many questions he can answer with the single-word statement "Good".

Two or three years ago we asked him if he would mind switching bedrooms with Eve, since his was twice the size of hers and she spent more time in her room than he did. He said sure, so we got a nice tv to go with the video game console that he'd bought with his birthday and Christmas money and a nice beanbag chair and put them all in the basement.

Now he spends a LOT of time in the basement. He does his homework down there. He has his chill time down there. On week-ends and holidays he often sleeps down there, in the bed in Matt's man-cave. I don't really mind this - he works hard on schoolwork and sports; some days he leaves the house at six-fifty a.m. for volleyball practice and doesn't get home until around four. He does any chores assigned to him without complaining (much). I just sort of miss him sometimes.

A few years ago, my husband brought home a PVR. I thought it was stupid, that we were doing perfectly well with VHS tapes and it was a huge waste of money. Now I LOVE the PVR with a slavish, passionate devotion.  I love that whenever Matt and I have a Friday evening free we can watch two Doctor Whos and a How I Met Your Mother, or three Modern Familys and a Big Bang Theory, all without having to track down the right tape from the right day and hope that stuff hasn't gotten accidentally erased or recorded over. But partly because of that, and partly because of crazy sports schedules, we don't tend to be a family who watches tv together. When the kids were younger we had Sunday dinner on tv tables and watched the Wonderful World of Disney like I did when I was young, and when Matt's away sometimes the kids and I watch the Simpsons, but we don't really have a standing date.

Angus used to get scared of things on TV or in the movies a lot. We had to leave Finding Nemo because when the swimmer in the big diving mask popped up and captured Nemo in the net Angus freaking freaked. We had to screen all movies very carefully for many years. Eve was fine in Ice Age 2 - Angus was a basket case and spent most of the movie with his head in my armpit. He's gotten better, but he's still cautious; before we went to see Captain Phillips, which he had selected, he asked me some very specific questions about what kinds of injuries might occur in the movie.

So imagine my surprise when I came home from a week-end away last year and he announced that he had watched Seasons one and two of The Walking Dead on Netflix. EXCUSE ME? Some kind of developmental leap dovetailed nicely with some kind of lapse of parental judgment or attention on the part of my husband, I guess.

When the new season started being advertised, Angus asked if he could watch it with me. I hesitated. Was it inappropriate? Did I want to include someone else in something that was kind of a private pleasure? Would he ask a bunch of questions and be annoying? Then I thought, if my son wants to watch a zombie show with me, what the heck am I waiting for? And if my friend Collette can watch Game of Thrones with her 14-year-old son without prescreening, what the hell am I whining about?

So now Angus and I watch The Walking Dead together every Sunday night. There is no talk of PVR-ing it to watch later - it must be watched at the very moment it is available to be watched. For the season premiere, Matt and Eve were away for Thanksgiving and we were alone. Angus started out cocky, intoning "in a world without haircuts..." over the opening scenes, but by the end of the episode he was on the couch with his head in my lap. Then he announced that he was sleeping with me. He followed me up to my room and asked if I was going to take a shower before bed. "Yes," I said. "Do you want to come with me?" "No!" he said "uh, just maybe leave the door open a crack."

We watch the show. We talk about the characters. We wonder certain people do what they do - sometimes we argue about someone's motivations. We find different things different levels of disturbing. And we talk about all of it. Then we PVR Talking Dead (the after-show) to watch the day after.

Sometimes you just have to watch so carefully, or your bonding opportunities will sail right by.

Halloween this year

Last year (when she was the biker) and this year, Eve decided fairly early exactly what her costume would be and pulled together all the elements herself - well, I did order her biker boots online, but come on, how could I not bring the awesomeness of Eve together with the awesomeness of biker boots, given half the chance?

It was a leather vest in her closet that inspired the biker costume. I'm not entirely sure what set her off this year, and truthfully I found the whole thing a little bizarre, but she was enthusiastic enough beforehand and convinced enough that it was 'epic' when it was all finished that I decided not to intervene. I've always said that costumes pulled together from stuff you already have are better than costumes you buy. Right?

For your viewing pleasure, my daughter.......

The Vampire Rapper.

...named J.Z. Dawgy Dawg. (I suggested J.Z. Bitey Bite as an alternative. She was unimpressed.)

For the Halloween party at our friends' place, I was going to just wear pajamas. Eve vetoed that handily. So I found some zombie stuff in our costume box. But the day of the party I just couldn't face the thought of plastering myself in zombie make-up. So I found a blue dress and put on some blue lipstick and made this sign.

Get it? 

Yes, I did give some thought to whether proclaiming myself FREE for use of the PUBLIC for the evening, and inviting all and sundry to PULL to OPEN (have you SEEN the crowd I hang around with?). As it turns out, there was one ten-year-old boy dressed as The Doctor who kept trying to get inside me all evening. It was slightly inappropriate and yet adorable and hilarious. 

Angus was a bag of Eminems. Matt was in France. 

I know. I'm surprised Eve consented to be photographed with us. 

NaBOOPoMo

Halloween was a bit of a bust this year. Matt's been travelling an insane amount, and was away until the day before. I pulled out the Halloween stuff but couldn't motivate myself to do anything with it. Eve did some decorating, and of course there were her fabulous mini-pumpkins. We managed to get the pumpkins carved Wednesday night after African drumming. Both kids went trick-or-treating with friends that are nearby but not next door, so we weren't really involved in that, which was fine, good even, because I was sick and Matt was jet-lagged, but it felt kind of sad. We had some really cute kids at the door, and the bigger kids were all polite and grateful. So I guess all the bases were covered, if barely, but I feel like I faked most of it.

To console myself (or possibly make myself weep for the next twelve-to-eighteen hours), I'm revisiting Halloweens past.

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