Enter Sandman

I have weird dreams. Often they involve terrible, faceless things that I can never see and they chase me mercilessly through dark alleys and empty rooms. And it never stops, and I never see their faces. After a while, it is more like a never ending game of Duck, Duck, Goose; more aggravating than scary and this is where I usually wake up. Once while having a massage, I fell asleep and dreamt that someone was chasing me. Using my ninja skills, I screamed, “hii-ya” and delivered a hearty round house kick to the terrified masseuse’s midsection. Yes, I did have to tip extra. Most of my massage time these days is spent trying to keep myself awake and lucid so I don’t get a bad name in the spa community. Another time, while sharing a bed with a fellow bridesmaid the night before a wedding (we were all poor and economizing on motels) I woke to find her pushing me to my side of the bed while saying, “Can you please just sleep on your side?” We really didn’t know each other well and I couldn’t tip her so we just tried to avoid each other for the rest of the wedding. I suppose my dreams had led me to seek some cuddly solace and she wasn’t biting. I slept a lot this week and my dreams were exquisite, full of majestic leg kicks, random jerking, finger twitches, and waking with my heart pounding. The frustrating thing is that I can never exactly remember the dreams and I did spend quite a bit of time trying. What is scaring me? What am I running from? I still don’t know. My consolation is that by now, with all the kicking and exertion, I figure I am nearing a black belt level in dreamland, so pretty soon, I will be doing the chasing. Laters.

A Sad Story

 I have a hard time keeping my writing consistent and interesting. I tend to post from the heart-my posts being something that happened to me during day or a cherished memory that I am thinking of. Lately things have been off and I feel like I have been off, so my posts have decreased. I am trying to hold myself to posting at least once a week and this “interesting” story about my thoughts while I ate a smashed sandwich was all I could come up with. Pray that my muse finds her way back.

Being a good hausfrau and an economical saver and all that stuff I try to take my lunch to work, but the conundrum is always, “in what?” How do I transport it? It might seem like a question with an easy answer, but it is not. To take it in an actual lunch box would cost me and I put “lunch box” on the list of things that I never want to pay for, like nightgowns and checking accounts. Why buy a silk teddy when you can sleep in the t-shirt you got for free at summer camp when you were twelve? I personally don’t know why anyone would.

Most of the time, I stick with the grocery bag theme and they vary between Wal-Mart and Stew Leonard’s, the latter being the most sturdy, but then I am faced with the disgrace of a cheap lunch box and so I always just shove the bag down deep in my purse and end up with a very squished sandwich. Squished or pay? Pay or squished? Please, don’t worry; this post has no deeper meaning than my sandwich and me not wanting to pay for a lunch box. Laters.

Deep Thoughts 44 1/2

I remember the trip we took one summer to Colorado. At that time, it was just me and K and the boys; two little brown nuts in the backseat. Those were the days of sippy cups and binkys and I remember driving alongside a river with the windows down, Kev’s hand on my leg as the radio blared and the boys napped in their car seats in the dying summer sun, all of us sunburned, but blissfully happy. I thought to myself, “Life could never be better than this.”  And it was, better, I mean. But it was worse too, and sometimes the worse went on for miles and miles before the better ever came to town.  It was both, good and bad, happy and sad, the perpetual juxtaposition of the way things are.  I came to realize that life is the thing that puts the grey in your hair and the ache in your back, but it is also the thing that crinkles the corners of eyes into laugh lines, bringing depth and dimension to the once unmarked face.  I begin to see that life had happened to me, that things had changed me, that I am rearranged; I am different, things are different, things are new. And then I wasn’t nostalgic for the old times, I wanted these times, the present, the life that is here and now.

 K resigned from his position a few weeks ago, and just like that, I was footloose and fancy free. Church and the Sunday service have been the focus of my every weekend for as long as I can recall and I confess, I hardly know what to do with myself, but I am giving it an honest effort. Where was I this week while the holy hullabaloo I know as church was happening? Swim suited-lying on a lawn chair in my backyard, eating watermelon, making daisy chains with my daughter.  Who had a better day; those with the three songs and a sermon option or me? It’s hard to tell, but I was certainly enjoying myself.  God truly abides in those places where we least expect him.

Life seems determined to bring me the delights that I never anticipated. In fact, it is safe to say that so far on the journey, nothing has been what I expected. But as “they” say, (man, don’t you just wish you knew who “they” was? I’d sure like to smack them) life is a beautiful ride. And it has been and continues to be. Why, if my life weren’t so crazy, I would be bored and I would hate that. Laters.

No, That's Not What Happened At All

I worry a lot and I do it well. I have literally driven myself to tears, worrying about things that could happen, yet never did. A favorite quote of mine goes something like this, “I know that worry works, 90% of what I worry about never happens.” I like to think that all my worry has some sort of talisman effect on my life to prevent all the bad stuff from popping up.


In case you want to know some of the weird things that I worry about, I am including a few snippets here. (Please note that I have only included extreme examples and that I should not be considered crazy)

• When I wear a dress, I worry that my skirt will blow up just as board a train full of people, and everyone will laugh at my underpants, cellulite, or both. You know- the granny panties and all.

• I worry quite a lot about pepper, etc. being stuck in my teeth without anyone telling me.

• Ditto on my nose and boogers.

• I also have a paralyzing fear that when I die, that the morgue workers will use me for bizarre experiments. I can’t really explain it other than I always think of the Bugs Bunny cartoon where the guy makes the frog dance, by moving its legs. I know, I know, but I can just see it…. “Hello my darling, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal….” and me flopping all around, dead to the world. Literally.

• I also worry that I have contracted rare diseases that I see on television. After watching, I am almost always convinced that I have the exact symptoms and that I should seek immediate medical attention. K tries to limit my medical television watching for that very reason.

• Sometimes I worry that if my part of the earth ends catastrophically, like say, Pompeii, that I will be frozen in volcanic ash doing something embarrassing like sitting on the toilet and future scientists will ponder and postulate about my last few minutes, wondering what the ancient connection was for Cosmo and bathrooms.

So, as you can clearly see, while worry has kept all these terrible things at bay, the 10% of trouble that has come to pass has been of the sort that I could deal with, though perhaps I didn’t think so at the time. As I grow older, I can more clearly see the wisdom of the old proverb, “One day at a time,” and I understand more and more the scriptural admonition, "So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today. (Matt 6:34)

I am here to live each day as it comes, to enjoy my blessings and to pass on my joy to others. Each day is its own testing ground, its own trial, and bringing the unnecessary and unneeded worry about “what if” only spoils the joy of living in the present. When I completely learn this lesson and stop worrying about a secret, midnight, zombie attack, I’ll let you know. Laters.

Closet Ninja

I have convinced my boys that I was a ninja assassin before I married their father. It is a good ploy and works well most of the time to help me keep their rowdiness in check. Yesterday, after a series of unfortunate events, the king of all unfortunate events happened; our car broke down on the Triboro Bridge in NYC. Harlem to be exact, in intense stop and go traffic, that we had already been stuck in for an hour and a half just trying to go five miles. As the car died, K and I just looked at each other in disbelief. After tossing a few ideas back and forth we realized that we were not far from the train station at Harlem and 125th and that luckily, a jogging/bicycle path runs alongside the FDR. We decided that I would walk to the train station with the kids and head home, and that he would stay with the car waiting for the tow truck. The jogging path is grandly titled an “esplanade” in the many posted placards and notices to not allow your dog to poop on the trail, as if walking on an esplanade is grander than walking on a regular old walking track.


The kids and I set off on the esplanade and began to make our way over through the streets of Harlem. That was an adventure in itself, but it was a nice neighborhood and we walked as fast as we could in order not to miss our train. I had to clarify directions a few times with some of the beat cops patrolling the neighborhood, but finally, from about 2 blocks away, we could see the train tracks.

It was at that corner, that we passed the first collection of  huddled of ne’er-do-wells. Ry turns to me deadpan and asks, “Mom, how many can you take?” I took a close look at the guys and said to him, “at least five or six.” He turns to Reag and says, “Mom has most of them, and I can get two. Can you get one?” Reag said that he could and so we progressed on toward the train with the boys secure in my abilities to kill with my secret ninja skills. Luckily, the dudes were cowed by our keen skills and continued smoking and talking without bugging us at all. Just a warning, you should be afraid, be very, very afraid of the secret mommy ninja. Laters.

Mother's Day

I got breakfast in bed yesterday, except it was really dinner, but that was all my fault. K asked me if I wanted it in the a.m. but I can’t stomach breakfast ever until around 10, so I just waited until dinner to have it. I was lounging in bed reading and Sher came to take my order, with a long pencil and a piece of pink paper folded into a small square. “Good evening, ma’am,” she began in a formal voice, “I’m here to take your order.” (in a whispery undertone, she said, “as long as it’s something that Dad can cook”) I thought about my options and there weren’t many. So I grandly declared, “Eggs and toast! I shall have eggs and toast with coffee.” She painstakingly wrote down my order, and departed for the kitchen. On her way, she yelled at her brothers, “Hey you guys, we’re making Mom dinner. Are you coming or not?” In a spate of motherly affection, the boys decided to “not” and they continued their zombie killing on the Xbox. And I, in motherly affection, forgave them for desiring to kill zombies on a video game instead of making me toast.


Eggs and toast were brought to me in short order, heralded by some da,ta,da,da trumpeting by Sher. (imagine the Wedding March played while you eat eggs and toast in bed and you will pretty much have the idea) The food was delicious and a tasty dessert of M&M’s finished off the meal quite nicely, but what I most enjoyed was the love that my meal contained. I hope your day was a nice as mine. Laters.

Coffee Connection

I have found a new man, Ranjeet the donut guy at the convenience store Dunkin. You remember my hookup at CVS with the photo department guy? Well, this might just be a better connection. Who loves coffee with a deep and abiding love? Me, check! Who loves blueberry muffins? Me, check! Who loves (in)sincere compliments? I guess that is me again. Check, check and double check.


It was a good one too, he pulled, “is that your son? I thought you were his older sister” out of thin air without missing a beat on my sprinkles/no sprinkles donut order and the coffee was just right. My son is tall, looming over me already and he tends to wander off. As I scurried around the chip aisle looking for him, I called out exasperated, “Bud, where are you?” And that small display of maternal affection started the ball rolling. “That is your son?” Incredulous, shocked. Me smiling proudly, “yes, he is.” He stated, “no way, you are too young.” I flippantly replied, “way, he’s mine.” We passed time with similar comments and replies until I got my receipt, grabbed my cup and thanked him kindly for the compliment. On the way out the door, Ry said, “what did that dude say? “Oh,” I replied causally, “he thought I was your sister.” Ry snorted inelegantly and said, “Weird.” Yeah, I know, right? Laters.