daily life

Updates and T-shirts are Friday’s Offerings


Sadly, my short story lost the Dazzle contest. I didn’t bother to go and check for the winner yesterday because I knew I was out of the running after TenMile entered and the gushing began so I lost interest. However he did not win either. A late entry took the prize.

I am used to losing contests, but I still find it a bit annoying. I am still polishing up my own story and hope to send it off to Apex although it needs to be a shade darker. The last story I read in Apex was about a refugee scrounger on a displaced persons ship in the overcrowded future where the hopeless sell themselves to the ultra wealthy who get their kicks stuffing them with chestnut dressing, cooking them alive and then eating them. When I said “dark” I meant “ever so”.

Grade one is going well.

Reno is proceeding. Rob’s new plan is to break down tasks into small components and do a bit of as many as he can between supper and dark (which is coming far too early now).

MidKid claims to be moving out this coming weekend. We’ll keep you posted.

And as for T-shirt Friday…..

Nurse Myra claims no ownership, so I think I will adopt it into my rotation stable along with the Monday Meme and the Thursday Song Lyric.

Remembering what Silverstar had to say on the subject, t-shirts must have histories. Not just stains either. Although stains can have histories.

Today’s t-shirt comes to us via the beginning of the LDR days that made up the bulk of my pre-marriage relationship with Rob. He developed a habit of bringing a t-shirt along with him to leave behind for me. He would wear it until it smelled just like him and after he left, I would wear it until it just stunk too much for me not to wash.

MidKid gave Rob the shirt. She worked in a liquor store and was always acquiring tee’s from different label promotions. Canadian is Molson’s flagship and most popular brand. It’s probably one of the better beers up here, but any Canadian will tell you that the worst Canadian beer is kilometers better than the best American one. Americans, in the opinion of most non-Americans, drink swill for beer.

Anyway, one day Rob inquired after the shirt and I told him I wore it to bed. Then I whipped open my little Macbook, took this photo and sent it to him. Since this is kind of like a love letter, I had Rob crop out the disheveled come hitherness.

So there is my t-shirt and its story. Feel free to join in. Link or track back if you do.

this is low res and tiny but it's the best I got

Freedom: To Snuggle, Write and Change my Hair Color


 

 

The second day of the new school year and I am enjoying a quiet breakfast while catching up on my blog reading and commenting. BabyD is at school. Rob is at work. And as soon as the harsh rays of morning light pass, MidKid will emerge and finish packing for her move back to the city.

BabyD did not get her preferred teacher for grade one but assures me that as long as Mr.S doesn’t raise his voice to her specifically, she is fine with the outcome. It’s funny but, in a way, she is living her own life now that she is in school all day. Hundreds of things will happen in her life now on a daily basis that I will never know anything about. Amazing how quickly we become individual entities.

After I dropped her at school yesterday, I did a quick workout and then raced back home to spend some snuggle time with Rob. He stayed home yesterday morning with a bad headache but was sufficiently well enough for snuggling. Later I told him he will have to take the first morning of school off every year. A nice rite of passage for us to look forward to as we commence countdown to the day BabyD heads off to university.

I didn’t get any writing done yesterday between first day of school duties, snuggling and a hair appointment in the afternoon. A much needed appointment. My previous hairdresser was not to my personal liking. There was just no rapport. But between traveling and camp and mothering and reno work, I haven’t had the time this summer to search out a new salon.

The young lady who did my hair yesterday convinced me to go with brown lowlights and I think the results turned out quite well.

 

 

Not the best photo but good enough for illustration purposes.

Not the best photo but good enough for illustration purposes.

 

Yes, the curl is natural. I am actually a red-head but went blond at 18 and stayed that way for the most part since.

However, I am too old to do the bleach-blonde look now. When you first get grays, going lighter is a good way to hide them. Eventually you just start to look haggard and Madonna cartoonish and something has to be  done.

On a writing note, I read my Kumari story at writing group last night and they loved it. I received the best compliment on my writing I have ever received too when someone (Nate I think) said,

“I never have to work at suspending my disbelief with your stories.”

That sentiment was echoed and I was giddy. I just love reading my work and hearing the reaction.

I was invited to tag along to a writers’ conference in Surrey at the end of October. Though it sounds like fun and could be a great opportunity for meet/greet with agents/publisher’s, I don’t have anything really ready for that yet and the drive is nightmarish. And would be with people I only know through the group. 16ish hours in a car with people I only see once or twice a month? Plus sharing a hotel room?

Yeah, I am a bit too faint of heart for that despite the people in question being very good and dedicated writers.

My plan is to do writing conferences in the coming year and spend the rest of this one finishing up projects and preparing a portfolio of work and querying a few agents via email or letter.

Today, I have lunch in town with Rob after stopping by school to pay fees and hitting the post office – need to get some subscriptions sent off for work related journals. Then a nice workout and home to finish Kumari. I think I might submit it to Apex, but I am not sure if it is dark enough for them. They like their sci-fi/fantasy dark. Says so in their guidelines. But maybe I will let them be the judge of that, eh?

My t-shirt Friday post is still generating a lot of traffic. Perhaps tee’s should be a Friday theme? I don’t want to steal Nurse Myra’s idea out from under though she only does it on the last Friday of the month. I will await reader feedback (and Myra’s thoughts) before deciding.

No hump day hmmm. Julie was busy at the convention in Denver. Perhaps next week.

Maybe I should Just Live Blog Topless?


So yesterday was a banner day for views. Between my YouTube version of a Hallmark greeting in honor of my handymanly husband and taking part in nursemyra’s T-Shirt Friday, I nearly topped out at 150. Woo-hoo, eh?

The week was packed with errands and reno and school preparations and family melodrama.

BabyD has been having tiny bouts of anxiety about her upcoming induction into grade one and all day school. To the point where she has been making Rob and I a bit peeved with “growing pain” episodes and tears at the drop of a hat about – nothing as far as we can ascertain.

We dropped by her school on Thursday as the teachers were finally back in the building and a visit to the grade one classrooms and a chat with her kindergarten teacher – in addition to picking up her supplies – has calmed her a bit. I will be taking her in on Tuesday but Wednesday we start with the bus back and forth. Fortunately, the little boy behind us (renters – it won’t last) is going to be riding the bus with her and with luck they will be in the same class.

Tee is a nice kid though Rob doesn’t think he is too bright (he thinks that about the boys ElderD and MidKid bring around too) and today BabyD and Tee played princess and My Little Ponies happily for over an hour. I have high hopes for this friendship*.

Most major activities for the fall are now booked. Ballet on Monday night for BabyD. Yoga twice a week from 10 AM to 11:30AM (me). I found a yoga strength training drop in class on Friday mornings too, and I am signed up now for the writing course at U of A. It’s being taught by a local journalist and writer and is designed for immigrants to tell the story of what brought them to the area. She is going to put together a book in which some of the stories might be included and there is a public reading after the class is over. Very cool opportunity.

Thursday being my dad’s birthday, I gave him a call around lunch because it is better to talk to him early in the day anymore. He is in bed most of the time and is not really eating again. Our talk was brief. He was not very responsive and sounded worn out and very old. Sometimes he is lively and witty but more often than not now he is sounding far away.

CB tried to call dad too a few hours later but got our mother instead and was told to call later as dad was asleep again. His call to dad was really about him – he needs help escaping his situation in San Francisco and wants to go home. To Iowa. That’s desperate folks.

Thwarted, he called me but got the answering machine. His tone told me I needed to call him right away and my instinct was right. He was zoned on his anti-anxiety meds and he talked – mostly at me – for an hour and a half. Basically he wanted me to convince the folks to bring him back to Dubuque.

And that’s what I have done.

But first I told him that it was time to really put the past in the past and take his relationship with our parents from now forward. No more looking back.

I told my mother the same thing when she tried to bring up CB’s long ago hell raising of his teens. I pointed out that he was a kid and they were the adults. They didn’t know he had mental health issues even as a small child but they had made mistakes and some of them were wrong no matter how the spin played.

I talked to my brother again on Friday. He sounded much better and I told him to call home and hash details out with the folks. Later DNOS called to wish Rob a happy birthday**, and when I told her about urging our parents to bring CB home for a bit, I got her pat reply,

“Oh really.”

Our mom uses the exact same expression and tone. DNOS sounds just like her sometimes – and would be horrified to know it.

Anyway, it means “WTF are you up to” or “Thanks so fucking much but I don’t think so”.

I noted but ignored. I am tired of some of the older family dynamics.

Dealing with CB is upsetting. It reminds me of Will in the earliest days of his illness – before we knew anything really – when he would get anxious or angry and plaintively tell me he had no idea why he felt as he did but that sometimes he felt like he was losing his mind. Sadly, he was and no one believed him or me.

CB’s quest to find mental help or help period has been fruitless with most doctors and other professionals telling him (or accusing him – take your pick) that he is actively choosing to live an effed up life. My folks and DNOS still believe this to some extent too. I don’t.

But I have no magic wand (or excess cash lying around) to help him, so I remind my parents that CB is their son and they have amends still to make. Unfair? Perhaps. But that is what big sisters are for.

Today Rob is off to the city to help ElderD move in with her friend who is a boy whom she loves and who loves her. Beyond that is anyone’s guess. Our massage therapist thinks BoySheLoves is gay***. We’ll see.

BabyD and I are off to shop for school clothes.

Next up is cleaning for a garage sale (good freaking god help me) and to put our new fall schedule to a serious road test.

Life in the Great White North.

* Like that the family doesn’t move soon. They are acreage crazy and it’s not looking good.

** My family worships my husband like aboriginals with a Coke bottle*.

*** Okay, we wondered about that too but ElderD says “no” because she wondered also and asked.

* nursemyra rightly reminds me that Australians might take offense at the coke bottle reference. I was thinking about that movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, when I made the comparison. My family acts as though Rob dropped from the sky like a god in Greek Mythology and it irritates me to no end as it seems to me they are happier with him than they ever were with my late husband. I meant no offense but realize now that some people were offended and I am sorry.