Tonight, I went over to the house to share Chris’s birthday cake with the gang. When I arrived, Greg and Tina were decorating one of their Christmas trees. Due to some communication issues, the accumulated family ornaments had not been divided up yet… but there were Greg and Tina, trimming the tree.

What the heck was I supposed to do? It’s not that any one ornament was so dreadfully important that I had to make a stand and claim it. But I had none. They had all of the ones from the marriage and family.

Amazing how fast the adrenaline leaps when it comes to things like dividing up Christmas ornaments. Should I make a scene? Remember, the ornaments at this point are mostly already on the tree! Bah. So I said, kind of quietly, “I guess you didn’t get my voicemail about the ornaments?”

I guess they hadn’t.

So we did some very polite wrangling, me and my ex-husband and his brand-new wife, although she occasionally went into the other room. I would have given a whole lot to be able to do the same. Greg got a carton and started putting ornaments in. I believe I said at one point, “I’m not going to take ornaments off the tree!” But I was willing to let him take some off. I now have at least an assortment of ornaments to decorate a small tree with, including one very tacky one that might have once been a Happy Meal toy. It is a puffy stocking thingy that has a character from Fievel Goes West. I’ve tried for years to get rid of it.

It may now be my favorite ornament ever.

Yes, we all survived Thanksgiving! Actually it was grand. I shall make a proper post, with pictures and everything.

Summary points:
The first aid kit was used, but not too much.
The yams were once mashed, twice burned, once scraped, and uncomplained.
The piano, flute, clarinets, and guitar were all used. Well. They were played.
The nearly complete OED was VERY useful.

This is the third (or fourth or tenth) November in a row that I have wandered through in a fog. I pooh-pooh things like “seasonal affective disorder” but… it is definitely true that fall can be a challenge for me. Less sunlight = bad. The older I get, the more the cold affects me.

Sometime around now (the week before Thanksgiving), I start to perk up. “What is that I smell?” Autumn leaves and pumpkin pie, that’s what. And I do so very much love Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is not about gifts or dressing up or impressing people. It is about sharing and loving. Oh, yeah, I’m definitely perking up. I’m getting downright sappy.

Of course, there IS an awful lot to do in the next week…

We’re renting a house/cottage/charming-sounding place in New York, approximately halfway between here and there, and our kids are ALL joining us. I think it will be great and noisy and chaotic and a little scary and great. I am starting the pies today.

Today I hung out with my nieces, Julianna and Sophia. I have evidence.

One large glass vase full of “perfect” autumn leaves and four pinecones with “lots of sap! They need lots of sap!” I have no idea what made her think sap was a plus. I will be looking for tips in about a week; how does one best get sap off of glass?

Nine apples, each with exactly one bite out of them. Nine. One bite each.

Two index cards covered with glitter crayon portraits.

Lower drawers of my office furniture… rearranged.

A Dora the Explorer book and three others that I’m not sure I recognize. Cute ponies. Pastels.

Sort of a small bruise-type thing under my left eye. That Sophie doesn’t know her own strength.

What a great day!

Cape Cod Scrabble Tournament, 2005.

Have I mentioned I love this game? I went 6-6 this tournament, and that says so very little about how the games actually went. Sometimes, just like in many other pursuits, I feel off or sluggish or just out of it. This weekend, I felt on. On on on. I felt fierce and smooth and sharp-edged. So take the six losses and feel that rush.

Things just keep falling into place. My ex-mother-in-law, a woman I have always admired and always will, asked me how I was doing yesterday, and I said immediately that I am coming to a place of equilibrium and peace. Pretty amazing to feel this way; to an outsider, it must look very different. I’m heading into my forties, newly divorced, rather job-free (ha ha), living too far away from John… but we have the beginnings of plans and a base so solid you wouldn’t believe it even if I rambled on for hours, so I won’t!

What is the next step? The question came from an unlikely source, but honestly, it is a great question and we are attacking it with vigor and eagerness. What is the next step?

Sometimes life is exhausting. Even when it is good, it is exhausting.

Some new additions: a super-duper mega-great zoom lens for my camera. I’m thinking of taking photography classes. You know, in my spare time.

Sagan.

So tomorrow is a special day. It is John’s birthday. It will be the first time I get to be with him on his birthday, the first of many.

It is probably no surprise that I think John is wonderful. He is very smart and funny and a tiny bit crazy -- crazy enough to think I’m great, for instance. He is a fellow magpie, pockets and shelves full of shiny finds. He plays with puns and poetry. He explains things better than anyone I have ever known.

He is fun to be with on a rainy day, on a hike up a mountain in too much sun, in a shopping mall, on a long car ride. He has great ideas.

Happy birthday, John. Thank you for sharing it with me.

Greg is getting married on Saturday.

We are all still learning our roles in this new family situation. After some trial and error, Tina and I have discovered that talking through the blended children issues is best done by the two of us. We are both able to be direct, to put our vulnerabilities on the table, and just talk. We can do that. Mother to mother to stepmother.

My respect for her grows. Our parenting styles are nearly opposite, but she is willing to listen, to remember that my role is vital, that I may be different, but different isn’t wrong. And I’m willing to do the same.

She loves my children. She doesn’t always understand them. Well, neither do I.

So the future is hard to make out, but it seems as though we are on the right path.

Congrats, Greg and Tina. I wish you much joy and fun and love in your life together.

Daniel is living alone for the first time in his life. So I’m compiling some advice to him.

Take care of yourself. This means more than just pampering yourself. Make sure you eat healthily. Buy fresh vegetables. Eat them.

Clean sometimes. This is not for your guests, although they will appreciate it. This is for you. You deserve a nice environment.

Cook a nice dinner for yourself once in a while. Eat it not in front of the computer. Pretend you are trying to impress someone. Make it tasty and beautiful.

Don’t forget multivitamins.

Enjoy time by yourself, but don’t forget other people -- for their sake and your own. Even hermits need human contact.

Fresh air. Fresh air. Fresh air.

Do something you love every day.

Keep up with world events. Read a newspaper or check cnn every day. Seriously. I’m not sure if the Daily Show counts, but I won’t quibble.


Hm. These are pretty good. I should make sure I’m following them all myself.

So I can finally talk about this without shuddering… much.

There I was, innocently minding my own business, reading “Freakonomics” in the bathroom, and out of the corner of my eye I saw something run by. Curie and Sagan were both napping, so I was immediately alarmed. I thought maybe it was a mouse. (This should give you an idea of the size of the thing.)

It was not a mouse. It was a centipede. It dashed into the laundry nook.

“Aahh!” I said and looked around for help. No help was in sight.

I believe in being prepared. I also believe in keeping an eye on my enemy. This presented a dilemma. I had to go find weapons without taking my eye off the creature. So I would run out of the bathroom, look around for something, anything -- where is a bazooka when I need one? -- and then race back in to see if he was still there. I did this several times.

Finally, armed with a long piece of, well, bamboo (to poke with, of course), a bottle of bathroom cleaner, and a big cup, I advanced on the laundry nook. First I took a little breather on the edge of the tub, just to get my strength up.

I poked and banged with the bamboo stick, the centipede peeked out, and I sprayed it vigorously. The first try wasn’t effective enough, and it scurried back out of reach. So I poked some more and said some baddish words and it again came out, and I was able to finish the job. I sprayed and sprayed and then swooped the cup over the carcass. I left the cup there for a while to make sure he wasn’t just faking. Then, with much shuddering, I disposed of the body.

Back in the old days, when Chris was learning to talk, I was still figuring out how to be a parent. I was really young, for one thing, and he was my third baby in 3 years. I suppose it is natural that at first I didn’t notice that he wasn’t talking much. Not much English, anyway.

When the next baby came along, Chris was two years old. He spoke two English words, Mama and hi. By this point, I was quite aware that something was … different. This was a kid who was obviously bright. He could make complicated lego structures, inventions of his own and duplicates of ones he saw. He could take anything apart.

But he didn’t speak our language. He did speak! It just wasn’t English or any other human language.

He started small. He named the guys (his brothers and dad) variations of the word Ganh. It was pronounced in the back of his throat and sounded kind of primitive. Aaron was Green Ganh. Daniel was Brown Ganh. (Now, he didn’t use the color words at all when asked “what color is this lego?”) But his brothers apparently had colors. He had several hundred of these weird constructions, which all of us understood perfectly.

Once we saw one of his “words” born. By this time, he was two years, nine months. Daniel had just started kindergarten, and I had yet to figure out a good morning routine with the kindergarten boy and his three baby siblings. So we were late getting out the door, and I was trying to hurry them to the bus stop. Up ahead I could see the bus nearly there, and we were not nearly there. So I said, “Run!”

Just as I said this, Daniel stepped hard on a manhole cover and it clanged loudly. We all laughed. (Okay, maybe it doesn’t sound funny to you, but it was early in the morning and none of us had had coffee yet.) Chris said, “Run Ganh!” and laughed, again. And runganh became … funny. Cartoons were runganh. Silly faces were runganh.

His language had a decent primitive grammar. He understood us but answered in his own language. I suppose some parents would have refused to answer unless he used the “correct” words. I’m not some parents. He was and is always his own person. I’ve since learned that his language was similar in some ways to twin languages.

Eventually, he started speaking English. He wouldn’t always have eager sibling interpreters at his side, and people out in the world didn’t understand how a thing could be “runganh”. So now he says “funny” or “humorous” or any of the synonyms he chooses.

A few weeks ago, Greg asked the kids three questions over dinner:

Do you believe in God?
Do you believe Jesus Christ was more than a man?
Have you had an experience at any time in your life that made you realize God was real?

So there they all were. Greg and Tina and the five ‘his and hers’ kids. Greg and Tina believe. At least one of Tina’s boys believes. My three are at various stages of figuring out what they believe -- but they know that Greg wants them to believe. They knew that after Greg gave his answers in the affirmative, after hearing Tina and Christopher give their answers in the affirmative, that Greg would be hoping that they would say yes, as well. They did not want to disappoint him.

After a few minutes of silence -- a rather awkward silence, I’ve been told -- they answered truthfully. No.

I’m proud of them -- not because of their answers, but because they told the truth even though they feared their dad’s reaction. And Greg was probably disappointed, but he didn’t react with anger or frustration. They went on to talk about being kind to each other, respecting one another’s property, stuff like that. They are finding out that blending two families of teenagers is not a sitcom.

Now Em tells me this week that she thinks about faith sometimes and wonders where our souls come from. I told her I have those questions, too.

They are not model children, cut from Christian or atheist or Brady Bunch dough. They seek truth, and knowledge, and wisdom.

I am proud of them.

What should I pack in my evacuation kit? Assuming a disaster would allow me to pack my car, I have room for the animals.

A duffle bag could hold:

First aid kit (I keep a pretty decent one in the car anyway)
Water
Cash (paper and coin)
Power bars and other concentrated food
Animal food (check on concentrated forms)
Cell phone and charger
Knife
Maps
Change of clothes

I’m trying to keep the above bag carryable. Not sure if that is feasible when dealing with animals. I will think about the animal plan. I generally keep a 24 pack of liters of water in the back of the car, which is not very carryable, either.

With a little more time and space:
Photo album
Laptop (with manuscripts)
(Actually this should just be a backup on CD, I guess)

I like to be prepared.

Last night was the first meeting of the writing group. It is a quirky group. The other Odyssey grad seems like a good contact to have. He told me about a group led by Ted White near here. I’m thinking about looking into that one, too. I suppose I can’t be gone every evening.

Anyway, this group (the one from last night) will force me to produce at least two pieces a month. That alone is worth the price of admission. Well, the price of gasoline, anyway.

This summer feels like a whirlwind even on days like today when I have not much more to do than recover from root canals and watch Scrabble nationals coverage online. (Yes, I said root canalS. I’m looking for sympathy! I am a major scaredy-cat when it comes to going to the dentist.)

I’m getting ready to work hard in September. I’ve joined a new writing group, with at least one other Odyssey graduate, which I will begin on September 6. I have a lot of optimism. (I know, I keep saying I’m optimistic. Well, I am.)

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Picked berries.

Went to a birthday party on a boat.

Attended a nature conservation dedication.

Tried to identify the birds of prey seen from the top of Mt. Lookout. (We think they were red-tailed hawks. Their scream was marvelous. I can still hear it.)

Played clarinet duets!

Picked berries.

Snuck into Canada a couple of times.
(This is a fairly verbatim transcript:
Border official/guard/booth person: Where are you from?
Us: Massachusetts, Virginia
Border official/guard/booth person: Do you have anything like guns?
Us: No.
Border official/guard/booth person: Have a nice visit!)

Ate. A. Ton.

Waded to a little higher than my knees in that icy lake. Next visit I’ll go deeper.

Came in second in the official sunset rock skipping competition.

Took goofy pictures from the moving car.

Picked berries.

I had a wonderful time.

Heading to Michigan!

Back on or around August 8.

Confessions of various inadequacies:

I’m afraid of bees. (Afraid enough that I always vaguely worried about driving the convertible; would I panic if one “attacked” me while I drove and swerve off the road?)

I’ve never parallel parked, not the correct, official way. The driving test did not require it.

Bookstores are sucking creatures that settle on my neck and shoulder and draw out my blood and money.

I like the Dairy Queen strawberry shortcake blizzard. Sorry.

My dog gets away with stuff she shouldn’t because I think she’s adorable. “Now, Curie, you shouldn’t eat someone’s shoe… but, awww, sweetie, come here. You want that shoe? They won’t mind giving it to such a cute little girl!” Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but not much of one.

I prefer the sheets untucked at the foot of the bed. If they’re tucked, I untuck them before getting in. Feet should be able to move in the night. You know, so you can run away from dream monsters.

I write down my middle-of-the-night musings and consider them somewhat profound.

Jeans and tee-shirts are my preferred life uniform.

Golly. Busy days.

Greg is engaged. He seems very happy. I am happy for him, for them. The kids are all learning how to interact with one another and with Greg and Tina. They’re doing great*.

As part of the divorce agreement, I gave up ownership of the house (in exchange for cash, of course.) This was relatively hard for me. That house was the first house I owned. I moved a lot as a kid, and I had a lot of emotional energy poured into that house. Home.

I am working pretty hard.

My Scrabble rating is now 1783.

Daniel moved in with me. His girlfriend Christina from Scotland also is staying with me. They are wonderful to have around. Christina is great (and her accent is, okay, just absolutely adorable.) Curie is thrilled to have them here, too. She yodels at them.

My writing fever is still not as consistent as I would like, but I have some plans.

*Great = griping and complaining. But in a cooperative way!

Things I think versus things I say:

I’m somewhat less confrontational than most people. (I can hear the guffaws from my family and friends from here. Less confrontational? She thinks she’s less confrontational? She’s a wuss. She rolls over and plays dead.) Okay, whatever.

It’s just a matter of translating.

Owner of UgliestPuppyEverBorn: Wow, look at that; all the hair on your dog’s back is standing up!

Me: (nervous chuckle) Yeah, look at that!

Translation: Yes, you cretin, that’s because your dog is being very aggressive and leaping on MY legs and barking profanities in my dog’s face. Why don’t you and your inebriated “date” take your dog to obedience classes?

Also: And don’t turn your back on me when I’m trying to fend off your dog. It is dangerous and rude.

Even later: And, by the way, your dog is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. What the HECK is that breed? How can it breathe with that squashed nose?

Even later: Hmph.

Tuesday afternoon at 2:30, I watched my son Aaron march out of high school and into the world. What will he do? Who will he be?

He is a man already. He drives. He works. He decides. There are few people as honest as he is, whether the question is “did you spill this soda on the carpet?” or “does this dress look good on me?” He says what he really thinks, even if it is not a popular opinion. He commits. He keeps his word. He looks out for his family and friends. Okay, so sometimes he doesn’t notice things. (We all still tease him about the fact that he didn’t notice that his aunt was going to have a baby even when she was 9 months along and wider than she was tall.) He focuses on other things.

When he was younger, cousins and family friends and even sometimes his siblings would bicker over who got to sit next to him. I can see why.

Stamford tomorrow. My rating going in is 1713, near the middle of my field. The last two tournaments in Stamford have not been my best efforts. I hope to play at least reasonably well. I want to make sure I sleep enough and eat healthy food. Modest goals, but those two factors are more than half the battle.

My study recently has been haphazard at best: flashcards in the bathroom, at red lights, in odd minutes waiting in lines. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever get back to a regular study schedule.

I like the way my life is going, though. So I’ll accept the random flashcard study for now.

At the end of Back to the Future, Marty wakes to find that life has changed. His dad isn’t bent over and scared of the world. His mom is, well, cute and happy. His brother is wearing a suit instead of a fast food uniform. His sister is less… slutty.

His dream car is in the garage. Good old Biff is outside waxing George’s car instead of thwapping George on the head.

In the theater, we are all thinking, “yeah!” Life has returned to the path it was originally on, before Marty’s parents were brought together by mistakes and guilt and cowardice. This is the way life was supposed to be.

But that, of course, assumes that there is a plan. That the universe wants us to have a better life, that our mistakes and evil deeds and, yes, teetering on a branch with binoculars outside the pretty girl’s house - that all these things interfere with what the universe intends for us. That there is a right path.

Apparently the universe also wants us to drive cool four-wheel-drive trucks.

I’ve felt at loose ends most of this weekend. Aaron had his wisdom teeth out on Saturday (all FIVE of them), and I neither drove him nor sat by his side nor did any of the things “Moms” do. (I did, however, drive his siblings pretty much crazy all day Saturday by asking them to look in on him about every 20-30 minutes. “Is he breathing?” “No, should he be?”)

Memorial Day weekends have been traditionally family weekends for the past 20 years. Wedding anniversary, Greg’s birthday, picnics with in-laws.

So it has been weird.

I struggle with perceptions. People think it’s unnatural for a woman to voluntarily live apart from her kids. There is an flash of “those poor abandoned kids” sometimes in people’s eyes. Or at least I imagine so.

My reasons are good and right and my children know them. Importantly, they don’t feel abandoned. They know that I want them to thrive, to feel strong in their home, in their schools, with their friends and, yes, with their dad. They are getting to build a relationship with him that is important and necessary, for them and for him. They know all that. I know all that. Outsiders don’t know all that. It shouldn’t be important to me what other people think, but who am I kidding? I’m a human. Humans do care what people think.

So I went to see the new Star Wars movie. It was an action-packed night.

First, I met everyone at the house. Daniel and Christopher both grabbed seats in my car, which left Emily and Chris trying to figure out who would ride with us and who had to ride alone with Dad and Tina. (Tina is Dad’s girlfriend. She’s a very nice person. Long ago, we used to go on vacations with her and her boys.) But none of the kids want to be alone with them, which is pretty funny. Neither did anyone want to sit in the middle of my backseat. Nor did they want to ride together in the other car, which seemed like a logical solution, at least to Daniel and me. So there was a standoff in the driveway.

(Aaron was smart and took off with his carload early.)

Eventually Chris got exasperated and slammed out of my car to ride with Greg and Tina. We all decided that he would get shotgun on the way back.

Then we headed to the theater. Lines were already forming, but we had time to eat. Some people wanted to eat at one restaurant, some at another, which again made things easy. I took the Pot Bellies crowd, and I must say we were definitely the fun group.

After that, we stood in line, all thirteen of us. Me, my kids, their dad, his girlfriend, her kids, his brother, several assorted school friends. Some of us were placeholders while others went and got snacks. The line was not really a line; it was a clump of jostling people. Light sabers and vader heads bobbed everywhere. I paid Daniel in candy to go get my soda and Reese’s Pieces.

The movie was pretty good.

Gloria and I played a million variations of the same game. “Let’s be Pixie and Dixie.”

Dixie was a marginally better name. It sounded cute, which was part of the point, but it didn’t sound too shallow. You got the sense that Dixie was a bit more competent than Pixie.

Sometimes Pixie and Dixie were superheroines, with terrific animal sidekicks. It was implied that they were very glamorous, with various skimpy (yet tasteful) outfits. They had a lot of magic. They could speak and understand Animal. They could heal. I don’t remember them ever flying.

They were twins, of course.

Well, except for the times they were triplets with the invisible but powerful Trixie. Trixie was cool even before we read the Trixie Belden series. Then she was cool and could solve mysteries.

Trixie could do a lot of things that I couldn’t do. She could talk to strangers without stammering. She could beat up bullies. She was very fashionable. She was funny. She got Pixie and Dixie out of many a jam.

You would have really liked Trixie, I think.

I miss singing.

When I was a kid, my parents always sang in the car with us. Church songs, songs from Fiddler on the Roof, folk songs. Christmas carols. When my dad had rheumatic fever, he taught himself to play the guitar and then we would have family singalongs.

I didn’t do that with my kids so much. For one thing, their dad is a bit tone-deaf and that discouraged me. But I should have anyway.

It’s not like I gave up a career in music or anything. My singing voice is, well, adequate. I can carry a tune. I can harmonize. I am not a soloist, unless one counts shower-bellowing.

Music writes itself into our brains. I can hear the first notes of an old hymn that I haven’t heard in decades, and my brain calls up all the verses. I find myself whistling commercial ditties and camp meeting choruses. Maybe those songs helped form a framework in my mind. Maybe it is a positive thing that I can’t get the Gilligan’s Island theme song out of my head. Or the kajillion verses of “The Cat Came Back.” Or even the hymn numbers to those old hymns. That hymnbook isn’t even published any more. But somehow I’m pleased and comforted that I still know that Amazing Grace was number 212 in the red hymnbook.

Anybody want to know what divorce mediation is all about? This is the language from the draft mediation agreement, but it sums up my motivations for going into the process pretty well:

“We agree to treat each other with respect, to speak respectfully to and of each other in the presence of our children as well as in their absence, and to require all others, including friends and family, to do the same. We agree not to do or say anything that would undermine our children’s affection and respect for the other parent. We agree that each of our children needs each of us as much as the other and that neither of us is more important than the other in the life of our children. It is with our children in mind, that we enter into this Agreement.”

So today I sign this agreement. I don’t feel sad or upset. It is a necessary thing. It is not on some master checklist on my calendar: get oil changed, sign mediation papers, pick up margarine. It is bigger than that. Of course.

I planned to write about the tournament as soon as I got home, but the kids stayed over Monday night, then I worked and had mediation meetings and more kid time and then worked some more… very good and busy week, really.

So here I am, finally. The tournament was great. My record (8-7) doesn’t sound great. I did make some boneheaded errors. In fact, it looks like -- as much as I can’t believe it and hate to confess it publicly -- I probably missed the word BASENJIS. For a kajillion points. I have gone back over my score sheet with disbelief and creative rack leave analysis, and I am pretty sure that’s the rack I had. So that was indeed a terrible miss. But in that same game, I also made one of the better strategic plays I’ve made in my scrabble “career” and was rewarded by being able to play out with ESTUARIaL from the ES and win the game. From low to high in one short game. I’ll resist making comments about metaphors for life.

I had a lot of good luck and a lot of bad luck. I so often draw well that in the past I’ve not dealt well emotionally with a run of bad luck, and I feel like, in this event at least, I kept my wits (and humor) about me. And the bad luck didn’t last long, just a few games. Honestly, I feel like my biggest triumph was emotional. I rode it out.

John and I gave some of the young punks of Scrabble a ride to the train station. Such wonderfully quirky, brilliant, nerdy young men. The high point MIGHT have been when one of the young men told us all that he thinks he has a parasite.

Meanwhile, back at the Big E expo center in Springfield, Massachusetts (one of the worst places to get lost in America, maybe in the world), Curie was not winning her shows. Apparently I’ve kept her a little on the thin side, which means the judges think she’s “long”. She was thrilled to hang out with her brother Pippin, however. Curie and Pippin think they are Meant To Be Together. They’d establish an Egyptian dynasty if we’d approve. Or if we’d look the other way.

So. All that news is really to say: I’m doing okay. I feel my nerve endings again. My paralysis is not entirely gone, but I am looking at things with something like my old chirpy Pollyanna ways. “A futon, an iron, and a welcome mat and this apartment is DONE!”

The Boston Area Tournament is coming up this weekend.

I feel very unprepared.

I guess that’s understandable. The other things going on in my life are pretty overwhelming. I’m trying to decide what to do when I grow up. I’m trying to find work to do while pursuing those life goals. I’m in the middle of divorce mediation. These things are pretty big. If I could look at my life from outside it, like a best friend or a sister, I would tell myself that I’m doing okay, that I should take more baths, that I should enjoy spring walks, that I should have a glass of wine or an ice cream cone. If I’m to be responsible for all the grownup things, I should also take care of myself.

Right?

So I’m armed with flashcards and optimism. It is a tough division. The games will be hard and require concentration and intelligence.

From the warnings in the back of the Life textbook:

If one sleeps over at one’s old house to take care of one’s own kids while their dad is on a business trip, and if one is pleased with how calmly and smoothly everything is going and has gone and seems to be likely to go in the future, one should not be surprised when one’s silly dog decides to have -- oh, what should we call it? diarrhea? -- in the master bedroom on the white carpet. One should be careful not to say anything too terribly vile to the dog while scrubbing away at germy spattery spots with old white gym towels. Note: one should be especially alert to the smirking meanness of the universe. The universe has been known to send along vicious wasps to sting one on the ring finger of the left hand, causing one to nearly faint from anxiety.

Do people really mean it when they say they just want what's best for everyone?

I feel a little disloyal to my genre roots, but I’m increasingly drawn to so-called literary fiction. Some of my stories for Odyssey barely qualified as science fiction and probably could pass for mainstream or literary. Whether or not they are GOOD is another matter. I guess I will keep doing what I have been doing: writing the stories that I must write. I can figure out how to categorize the stories later.

Pretty rocks for my Scrabble slingshot:
Umbellet, brunizem, whimbrel, bigeminy.

Cue soundtrack from Sound of Music…

These are a few of my favorite things this week:

Half-price Easter candy on Monday.

Sunshine-y walks with Curie around the “lake” (it’s a man-made pond/puddle, but it is big enough for geese and ducks, which are very entertaining for Curie.)

Finding my favorite pair of socks which I’d thought were lost. They were tucked into the last duffel bag from Odyssey. This was not the best find in the duffel bag, but it was a nice surprise.

Discovering the notes I’d taken during Odyssey are not as full of drivel as I’d feared.

Avocados.

Playing half-decently at club on Tuesday.

Finding a bunch of stories that Daniel wrote in first and second grade. (The first was called Apple Story, and it is riveting.)

Raindrops on roses…

This will be my first “major” holiday alone. Ever. I’m watching it approach like I’d watch a bouncing doorknob coming down the highway toward my windshield, with a mix of “hunh, would you look at that?” and “I wonder if that will cause a big dent?” Mostly I’m wondering if the northern Virginia Scrabble club meets on Easter.

Of course, I’m remembering past Easters. (That’s the whole point of holidays, neh?) I never have decorated eggs. Eggs weren’t a part of the tradition of my childhood. One year about ten years ago I bought one of those cheapo kits at Rite-Aid or someplace like that, but somehow I forgot to use it. I think the dyes ended up being used for one of Em’s great works of art. I like cooking the Easter dinner, although often we ended up going elsewhere for this holiday. I like the chocolate.

The music. That is my favorite part. For several years, the family took part in the huge musical celebrations that our (then) church put on. Even when I wasn’t a part, I really enjoyed that part of Easter. Flowers and dressing up and music to fill my ears and mind and soul. And chocolate.

At club on Thursday, I played two phoneys. This makes me very happy. I have felt for a while that I worry so much about playing phoneys that I forego perfectly good words. “Take more risks,” I have jotted on more than one scoresheet. Neither word was obviously bad. Neither was on the list of “phamous phoneys”. Neither word was challenged off. Take more risks, indeed.

Okay, so I’m never really going to be a hang glider. I hope that doesn’t disappoint anyone. (For one thing, it takes a lot of hand-holding to get me up in the air in the first place; it’s hard to hang glide with one hand.) I can fly kites, which is almost as nifty! But I digress.

These days I’m doing a lot of scary things, a lot of stepping out on faith. Maybe other people wouldn’t find them as scary as I do. But the important thing here is that I find them scary -- and that I’m doing them anyway. So what if it isn’t usually considered brave to argue with utility companies? It is brave of me.

I have to confess something. I enjoy reading Anne Lamott. Okay, okay, I know that makes me more touchy-feely than I usually admit. She is very lovey. She talks about mystical things. She freely admits to praying (although she uses the F-word frequently in her books about “faith”. I like this in a person.) She talks about breathing.

She is very real, and I admire this. She talks about her parents and her son with a mix of love and frustration and grumpiness. She admits, in public, in her writing, to sometimes being angry, sometimes disliking her loved ones, to having to work very hard to forgive them.

I like to think I’m like her in a lot of ways, but I don’t share this ability. I can’t easily look at someone I love, look them in the eyes, and say “I’m really angry with you.” “I am mad.” “That was a bad thing you did. To me.” Instead, I’m the sort that says, “Oh, gosh, I’m sure you didn’t mean to run over my dog. It’s okay. I was meaning to get rid of that old thing soon anyway.”

I minimize. I deflect. I say, “I’m fine.” Fine is my F-word.

But I am lying. It is not Fine to run over my dog. I loved that dog. Sometimes I forget that it happened, but other times I remember the dog, I miss the dog, and I want to cry and rage and say “I hate you!” But I don’t do that. I am Fine.

And in doing so, I wrong not only myself (and believe me, I do wrong myself), but I wrong those that I love. They don’t understand why I pull back and stop engaging. They don’t know I’m angry. They don’t ask for forgiveness, because they don’t know there is anything to forgive.

I figured out something. When life is busy and interesting, there is no time to write about it!

Here are some of the things I’m doing these days:
I’m still unpacking. I’m not sure if I will ever finish.
Thank goodness, I have a lot of work. A lot. It is boring, but it pays the bills.
My writing is starting to jell again.
I’m working on long-range planning. It feels great.

I feel great.

So there are two drawers in the kitchen. One is for silverware and measuring spoons, very well organized. The other is a thing drawer. I’ve been here nine days and already have a thing drawer. It holds the rest of the stuff. The things. Batteries, measuring tape, undefinable implements. Is this just the way my brain works? Must I have a miscellaneous file?

Of course, at the moment I have a spare room, too. The rest of the apartment is spotless, well-organized, peaceful. But beware the spare room. Open it at your own risk.

Is the little place of disorganization necessary to the rest of my life going neatly and purposefully? I am fine with that.

I’m starting to get my act together here. The pile of boxes slowly retreats under my fierce gaze (although I’m still adding boxes to the pile, which doesn’t help. I think the poor pile is getting mixed messages. “Does she want us to shrink or NOT?”)

It is weird to live alone.

Five days into this, so far everyone is surviving. One missed bus. A few miscommunications. The calendar is nowhere near functional yet. But we are all okay. The kids think the apartment is cool.

I suspect that the novelty will wear off soon. Some snarling and grumpiness will happen.

Last night at Scrabble club, all my years of preparation finally paid off. People have scoffed at me. But no more!

When S. arrived at the club, I was odd man out, so I immediately offered/begged for a game. He had his arms full of stuff, bags and the like, and I began to set up my board, rummaging through my (disorganized) bag for racks and tiles. And gum. And a cough drop. And a pen.

Meanwhile, S. was rummaging less successfully in his bags. He’d located a salad but was muttering under his breath. I found the other wooden rack and slapped it on the table.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a FORK in there, would you?” he asked sarcastically.

He obviously doesn’t know me very well. “Why -- yes I do!” I opened the outside pocket of the bag, pulled out a stainless steel fork, and handed it to him.

He took it without further comment and ate his salad.

Two address changes to note:

After sifting through all the wise advice people gave me regarding the livejournal quandary and so forth (and ponies and kittens), I have decided to just mirror this blog at livejournal. When I feel the need to delve into more scrabble details, I will do this only at the livejournal blog. This will be the only difference between the two.

The community features at livejournal make this worthwhile, in my opinion. (Community features include friends lists, groups, communities.) I’ll back-post starting January 1, probably.

The other address change is less trivial. I am doing something today which I’ve never done before: writing a rent check. Yep, I’m moving down the road about a mile. The cats are staying at the house; the dog is moving to the apartment with me. The kids will continue to base their operations at the house but will be free to come and go at either place. All are doing well.

It’s January 31. I’m sure you all know what that means! Yes, it’s time to give Marsh some advice.

Here’s my little dilemma. I like the way this blog is going. (I know, some of you think it needs a bit more spice, excitement. To quote one reader: “what you need is more scrabble porn.”) But I also want to take advantage of some of the features of livejournal, particularly the community features. So I was thinking about (and actually made) a more scrabble-oriented version at livejournal. Maybe I will take some of my general scrabble posts here and expand upon them over there. I don’t know. I don’t really want to just have two identical blogs. Honestly, though, I don’t want to only post about scrabble over there, either.

So. Advise me!

This was in the mail:

Life’s Too Short To Clean Your Own House.

A lovely brochure, featuring a lovely couple, with two lovely blond children, sitting in a lovely family room. The dad is reading a book with one of the daughters. The mom is laughing over a laptop with the other daughter. A pretty picture.

Short answer portion of the quiz:
1. Why did the advertising folks choose to put two girls in the picture instead of a girl and a boy?
2. Why did they choose to have the mom pose with the laptop?
3. Who cleans the housecleaners’ houses?

Bonus question: are the perky college students pictured on the inside of the brochure real housecleaners or just models?

I don’t need another puppy. I don’t need another puppy.

Guess what this is.



Here’s a hint.

Eighth grade mall dilemma.

Say Ashley and Nicole have been best friends since kindergarten, but now, because of a suspicious incident at last week’s dance, Ashley has decided that Nicole is out to Steal Her Boyfriend. So she doesn’t want to hang out with Nicole, of course. Nicole is furious that Ashley has accused her of such a thing. Ashley’s boyfriend isn’t even that cute!

So, Nicole doesn’t want to hang out anywhere – I mean ANYWHERE – that Ashley might be. Unfortunately, the mall is still the best place to hang out, and she is not going to stop hanging out there, for god’s sake, not because of that horrible Ashley certainly. But clearly it wouldn’t hurt to try to show up there when she knows Ashley won’t be there, like during Ashley’s bassoon lesson on Thursday night or Sunday morning when Ashley’s family is at church. But there is a problem. If she only goes to the mall at those times, then Ashley will hear about it and know that Nicole is only going during times when she knows Ashley won’t be there. So obviously she has to take some riskier actions. An even bigger problem is that she doesn’t know if Ashley is also trying to avoid her. Maybe Ashley wants to “accidentally” run into her at the mall so that they can make up. If that is so, maybe Nicole would consider doing so as well. So should Nicole cleverly try to accidentally run into Ashley? And how can she figure out what Ashley wants?

This is a very hard problem for Nicole to figure out.

Obviously this is somewhat similar to the prisoner’s dilemma, but there are intriguing differences.

“Like generations
before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom ...”

Maybe George Bush was talking about God here, although I kind of thought the God crowd thought about God as a bit closer than, say, Andromeda. But I’m very happy to think of Bush sitting out on a rock by a lake, squinting and grimacing, trying to pick up what his imaginary friends from other galaxies are telling him. Maybe my imaginary alien friends and his imaginary alien friends party together once in a while. I mean, if you’re going to imagine stuff, you might as well aim high.

Let the weeping and wailing begin.

It’s SOWPODS time.

(For those who don’t know what the heck SOWPODS is: SOWPODS is the dictionary the rest of the world uses. The U.S. uses its own dictionary, and that’s what is used at most of the tournaments I attend. But for now it’s SOWPODS time.)

I like seeing how people live. What books do they keep next to their toilets? (And they better read in the bathroom!) Do they alphabetize their spices? Do they have phones in every room? What about lights? Do you see their house glowing from miles away? Is there a fire extinguisher in the kitchen? Flashlights? Magic marker happy faces on the wall, five-year old shoulder height?

It’s like archaeology. Our houses and schedules say so much about us, if we care to look.

Bonus question: is 8-foot chain link fence sufficient to contain a Basenji? What if it is a genius Basenji, like my little Curie? What if there is snow on the ground? Show all your work.

I thought I was just being dumb. The trivial pursuit questions weren’t making any sense. “Huh??” I asked after every question. I couldn’t even figure out which nouns the questions were looking for. Perhaps it was the wine.

“What prolific novelist’s book jacket photo did the Devil Rays pepper with pushpins, after his visit preceded an 11-game losing streak, in 2002?” Read aloud.

You be the judge. Wine? Or incredibly poorly written questions?

Ideals are tested in the rain.

You know, like: park far away from the store. I say this all the time. It’s good for the heart. Let the little old ladies park close in. The pregnant women with little kids.

But, ugh, it’s really really cold and rainy and windy tonight. Besides being uncomfortable, that’s bad for my hair. I just have to hope I don’t see anyone I know.

My scrabble rating as of today is 1695. It has been a little higher than that, but I’m marking an official line here: January 1, 2005, I’m at 1695. What will it be on January 1, 2006?

This week’s scrabble news/progress. Let’s see, I went 3-1, won 20 bucks.

The club situation was awkward, though. Right after I arrived, Bob arrived, and we paired up. He won the first game. Then the entire operation had to move to a member’s house, because the community center was closing early for holidays. When we got there, the other director said, a little hesitantly, “Bob, you want to play Marsh? You two are the two highest rated here.” Bob said yes. (He doesn’t enjoy playing lower rated players, I don’t think.) I said, kind of jovially, “good, I can win my money back!” But I had the sense that the other players thought that I didn’t want to play with them. Okay, it IS good for my game to play against players like Bob. Especially for money. But I don’t want to irritate other players, either.

(The club member who hosted the gathering spent the first 20 minutes or so in the family room haranguing her elderly mother. At one point, I swear, she said, “Do you hear me? I’m sick of this. I’m going to put you in a home.” We all kept our heads bowed over our boards. Next time I’m going to go in and sit with the old lady and let Bob play the crabby woman.)

The next few months will be a little busy here, but I have started reading through the old Medleys I got for Christmas and I’m continuing my study. My version of study is a little eccentric, but it works for me. So now I just have to coordinate time and money and decide upon the next tournament…