Ian left this morning at stupid 6 am to catch a train. He’ll be in Fresno for two days and a night. It’s been … 16 months since we slept apart. I’m a little sad. Lucas woke up crying for daddy this morning. “I want my daddy. I want my daddy to be home with me.”
My parents are out of the country for three weeks. Ian’s parents are out of the state for three weeks. Needless to say, we have raided the freezers and pantries of both houses. That’s what they get for leaving us wayward kids to fend for ourselves while they go galavanting around the world.
This past weekend was quite wonderful.
And on Sunday I got to see bunches of friends at FCL and Grl_Fury’s house. It was so totally awesome. I hadn’t seen anyone in sooooooo long.
Ian completed a course for National University this weekend and has enjoyed about two days of no studying (or maybe he studied at work but not at home in the evening). That’s two down now and probably 10 or 11 courses to go. Plus all the work he’s doing through University of North Texas for his BCBA certification. Poor guy is stretched really thin these days. In the last two days, I’ve seen him smiling more than I have in the last two weeks. Stress sucks.
Lucas’s antics are still very exciting. He ran right out into the street the other day without looking to see if any cars were coming. At the party on Sunday evening, he chose to go into the pool alone, even though we told him no more swimming. He just ignored us, walked off the step, and promptly sank. We had loooonnng talks about both of these incidents. What’s funny/weird is that if I give Lucas a warning that explains why something is dangerous (for example, “…because you could get hit by a car and be badly hurt and that would be terrible”), he interprets this explanation as a sort of curse and cries and yells at me for saying mean things to him—as though by saying it, I am trying to hurt him in that way.
Lucas is enjoying going to school at the B’s, and despite the fact that it’s pretty crazy for a kid to have two preschools, he seems pretty excited about going to both Hidden Treasure and Ring-A-Rosies this summer because he’ll get to see almost all of his friends every week. And I’ll get enough childcare to earn a living … hopefully.
And that’s the news from Wilsonia.
I have a lot of daylilies in my garden. They show up in bursts of big, gorgeous blooms on tall stalks from May through August. I have peach, red, yellow, and an orange-red color; they are a riot. Each flower only lasts about a day before it withers up. That’s never a problem because each plant pumps out dozens of blooms all the time. Until last week, I had never actually cut one and put it in a vase. I had assumed that they would be terrible cut flowers (unlike asiatic lilies, which are great cut flowers). I discovered that the daylilies last 1-2 days in water before drying up. And much to my amazement, the unopened buds on the cut stem actually open up into beautiful big flowers too!
This discovery is almost as wonderful as the fact that tulips move and grow toward the light after they’ve been cut and placed in a vase.
Today I worked on part of a client’s dissertation (final) paper. I also worked on the first of Ian’s master’s degree papers. Kinda funny.
I also contacted a book packager that sent me an editing exam more than a year ago. I never finished the exam because I was too damned busy. I got in touch with them to find out if I would be permitted to complete it. They said sure, so, maybe eventually that will turn into a new client—if I can bother to take the f—ing test — without wasting too many billable hours.
Kinda sounds like I’m back in school, doesn’t it?
It sure would be nice if some of those checks I’m waiting for would arrive.
My parents left yesterday afternoon to drive to SF and then fly to New Zealand. After a couple of weeks there, they’ll jump over to Sydney, Australia for a week. They’re coming back on July 14th.
My parents can complain about the most amazing things. For the last two weeks, I’ve listened to my mother simultaneously bitch about the fact that it’s going to be winter down under, and that it’s hot in Sacramento. (My mother can complain about any type of weather at all, and does just about every single day.) She complained about how much of a pain it is to pack for a 3-week trip, and about how being away will set her back with regard to preparing for fall’s semester classes. Honestly!
My father splurged on himself for this trip. (You see, my parents go somewhere every summer for 3-4 weeks and they take turns choosing the destination. This time, Dad got to pick.) Dad decided that while in New Zealand, he would go hunting for “red stag.” Dad’s been deer hunting many times in his life, and as far as I know, he’s never bagged one. I grew up knowing that “deer hunting” was a euphemism for going to the woods with the guys and getting drunk for four days. Anyway, he’s suddenly got grand visions of shooting this regal animal and shipping a rack of antlers home to hang on a wall somewhere. I know for a fact that my mother will not allow him to hang antlers on the walls of her home.
When Dad first booked this hunting adventure, he called me; he was really excited and blurted out how much it cost. I nearly threw up when I heard the figure. He was giddy as hell and sort of tickled that he was spending that much dough on a hunting trip for himself. All I could think of was how we were down to the last green thing in the pantry—canned green beans—and how Ian’s payday was a week away. I told him, “Dad, I don’t want to know how much your vacation is going to cost.” I felt a little better when he said, “What if I never have this chance again?”
So for a while, Dad was excited. But as the day of departure got nearer, he started to get stressed out, starting working crazy hours to meet deadlines and satisfy clients, started worrying about how his lazy staff would merely phone it in the entire time he would be gone. Dad told me two days ago that he wasn’t really looking forward to going to New Zealand and Australia. Jeezus!
Like I said, they can complain about anything. And yet, they joyfully packed up their shit and left town. They technically arrive, with time changes, on June 23, even though they left California on June 21.
I’m going to miss them. Lemme know if you want to go swimming. 😉
We’re having a small kid-oriented celebration here tonight. I’m excited!
The Summer Sun
by Robert Louis Stevenson
GREAT is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven without repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The Gardener of the World, he goes.
We went to the Folsom Zoo last Saturday for X’s 3rd birthday party, which was fun. (Thank you Bs, for providing the opportunity.)
I have ambivalent feelings about the Folsom City Zoo/Sanctuary: It contains only rescued animals, which is something I deeply respect. Most of them are native CA animals who have had one too many run-ins with humans. The zoo’s most exotic newcomers are two Siberian tigers who were rescued from a warehouse of death and cruelty in Southern California two years ago.
On the other hand, as a zoo dedicated to educating humans about the importance of humane and compassionate interaction between humans and animals, it leaves a lot to be desired—It’s really tough to see many of the animals, and seeing, I think, is the key to appreciating and honoring them. And that’s not just because they are shy or sleeping or hiding.
The way the enclosures are built at Folsom Zoo, there are multiple fences in between the zoo goers and the zoo residents. The fences are typically small-guage wire fences with rectangular holes to peek through, but sometimes there are cyclone fences behind the rectangular-hole fences. If you can imagine diamond-shaped holes layered under rectangular holes you will probably see what I’m talking about. It’s next to impossible to see many of the animals.
The zoo is modernizing, however. They have a spectacular bear enclosure with plexiglass, so you can really see the bears well. They’re working on a wolf enclosure now. The mountain lions have it pretty good too.
Lucas learned to skip with both legs today at my parents’ house while my mother was babysitting. For about 6 months prior, he could only skip on one side, which was sort of a skip-clomp-clomp pattern. He is thrilled with his new locomotion skillz.
Lucas alternates between being totally out of bounds and sweet as can be. The mood/behavior swings are wild and rather exhausting. The book says we should either ignore the obnoxious stuff (boasting, name calling, spastic body motions and wild words) or go with the creative flow as far as possible—perhaps farther than we would naturally be inclined to go. This can sometimes mean countering each exaggeration with an equally far-out exaggeration. In some ways, doing so feels manic and inconsistent, especially when all I really want him to do is to shut up. But the truth is matching wacky with wacky is sometimes doing the trick and allowing Lucas to complete a whole bizarre cycle: Then he can sort of back himself down off the ledge before he gets into major trouble. It’s hard to explain. It’s definitely a case of choosing our battles around here these days.
I haven’t managed to bill any hours yet today. I just spent a number of hours updating my CV. Talk about boring! I did it so I could send it on to my uncle and hopefully get some more work from his press. But, I’m jazzed that it’s done now, and should capitalize on the fact that it’s finally current by shooting it off to a bunch of publishers—Which means cold calling. Which I hate. I am pleased to note that after nearly three years of freelancing, I have a sizable number of projects under several impressive categories to boast about. That first year on my own, my CV didn’t look that hot. Now it sort of does.
I also learned that because I’m on the development team for one book, the client will most likely keep me on the team for every book in the three-book series. That means (almost) gauranteed work until into 2008! Music to my financially insecure ears. Here’s to never working corporate again!
