YAWN

You know how you have one of those nights where it feels like you're sleeping, but maybe you're not? The kind of night where it might be more of a doze, but it just seems like you're aware of your surroundings the whole night through? Last night was one of those nights for me. Plus, I stayed up too late because...well, because that's what I do, I guess. I get up every morning with my husband at 4:30 (not because I love getting up with him but because if I don't get up, he doesn't get up...and if he doesn't get up, nobody's getting paid). I did the same this morning, and really bounced to it, considering. I did all the dishes that I neglected last night for a wild evening of generally doing nothing. I even cleaned the clutter in the living room. Then I just kind of sat there... on the couch...with a book. And honestly, I would still be there if my husband hadn't called and needed me to look up something online.

It is too hot to be really and truly awake anyway.

FlyBoy...Part Two

A few posts ago, I mentioned taking my son to an airshow. At that airshow he met a couple of the stunt pilots: Skip Stewart and Jim LeRoy. We had just finished watching their amazing show "Tinstix of Dynamite". At one point, during the show, a huge explosion went off and quite a few of us thought it was a plane that had crashed. Especially since a freaked out Freddy next to us said, "That had to have been a plane..." I found myself thinking, in that split second before we saw all three planes rise to the sky, "What are we doing here? With our son? Would we really want him to witness a plane crash?" ...and they do happen. A lot. Afterward, there was a meet and greet with those pilots. My husband told them how crazy they were. My son stared at them with the sparkly eyed wonder that only children are capable of achieving...before someone comes along and pulls the rug of imagination out from under them. Jim LeRoy got down on his level, shook his hand, gave him an autograph and told him about flying. Told him how it was no tougher than trying to drive while eating a Big Mac. Told him how happy he was to meet him. To come see him again. He stood, with a smile, and moved on to the next family. And we were impressed. By both him and Skip Stewart...and I felt okay again about airshows.

and then...

Jim LeRoy was killed in a plane crash this last weekend in Dayton, Ohio:

http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070730/NEWS01/707300367

And this is when it sucks to be a parent. Because I cannot wipe away the sadness in my little flyboy's eyes...because I am too sad myself. Because I cannot make it "okay". Because all I can think of is a little 4 year old boy who lost his daddy. Because, on Saturday, that rug under my son got tugged on a little too hard.

Thank you Jim LeRoy, for taking the time for my son. You were a consummate showman.

Confessions of a (somewhat) Distracted Mind

I confess. I am hopelessly addicted to watching "America's Next Top Model". I only just started this addiction, after spending two years laughing, pointing and poking fun of my daughter for watching...and then finding myself a lump on the couch-watching the Saturday (or Friday!) Marathons they run. Ooooh, Nik was totally robbed! ...and I totally have a hard time believing that Amanda was really "that" blind in cycle 3 (please forgive if I am totally wrong and you have since seen her not seeing anything somewhere). I think I need help because the tivo is completely weighed down with scheduled episodes to tape so I can "catch up" for next cycle and my husband is giving me odd looks.


(although I caught him checking it out the other morning at 2 am...he says it's because the girls are "hot" but we then had a lengthy discussion on Anchal's "issues")


Also, what about that show on the BBC... "How Clean is Your House"? My husband and I cannot help ourselves; we tivo and watch it like a train wreck in progress. Are people's homes seriously that disgustingly gross? I confess-three times I have literally gagged and ran for the bathroom. Especially when Aggie (who really appears to get into the scientific tests while Kim is the S&M style give it all you got, whip you into shape you Naughty, naughty dog type) does her "results". Please don't read further if you are easily grossed out, for I fear I shall yak just by typing this but, "fecal matter in the kitchen?" ack! "Dust mite poop being breathed in?? *gurgle* Okay, that's enough... Bleh. Again, no idea. But we are avid tuner inners. And, I always feel infinitely better about my own...er...cleaning skills after a half hour or so of watching. I mean, at least I have no silver fish scuttling through my kitchen, after all, and my oven is clean.

And, I still think Nik was a better high fashion model than Nicole... so there. Maybe I am partial to the name.

Didn't We Just Do This???

It came to me just now, as the grill heats up and the fries begin sizzling...that my son's birthday is in two weeks... Wha-? That can't be. Didn't we just do this 11 months and a dozen or so days ago?? Here I spent the day feeling on top of things. And now...the birthday planning thing pops up.

If I were the kind of person who was really good at organizing, I'd be delighted to plan this. If I wasn't the kind of person who waits until the *very last day* to run to Party City to pick up plates and napkins...right between the mad dash to Costco and the cake pick up from Baskin Robbins... all would be well. I am, as becomes glaringly apparent from reading this blogs who kind of waits for things to happen. I like it that way, but then hate it that way on the day before. I tell myself that "tomorrow I will get it together and start these things sooner"... after all, tomorrow is another day. But that's been used before, and look where it got poor Scarlett.

I see this penchant for procrastination showing up in my daughter. The book report she received the directions for two weeks ago? Ahhh... she's got all Sunday night before it's due to work on it. And she manages. And I try to talk to her about how this could be not a good thing. This, indeed, could be a very bad thing. She could end up like me. The one with the five weeks old reports stacked precariously like so many annoying little desk mess makers, waiting to be filed. The one who (too many times) sends out birthday gifts to her nieces together. Which would be okay, if one wasn't born in May and the other in September. Which reminds me that my nephew's birthday present (July 10th) needs to go out tomorrow.

Maybe that "tomorrow" thing worked out for Scarlett every once in awhile. I'll think more about this then. Tomorrow that is.

T-Minus two hours

Today I am cleaning my new oven. Okay, I am not "really" cleaning my oven because apparently all I have to do is push a button (or two because I didn't choose three hours, I went with two because it's really not that messy and it smells horrible when it heats up and is still newish...) and pretty much sit here and blog, and read other people's blogs, and respond to blogs. It takes me forever to make what I consider a "commitment" to oven cleaning. Even though there is no physical exertion (unless you count crossing and uncrossing my legs, because sitting on this bar stool in the kitchen can really make a girl's legs fall asleep, physical exertion). One must have two hours(or three..if you're really going to have at it) in which they won't suddenly feel the need to run to the store, or the park, or take a nap in which to do it. Even though I spend an average of 23 1/2 hours at home most days...I still hesitate to make that commitment. Because there appears to be no way in heck to shut the darned thing off once it has begun so we are stuck here (thanks Frigidaire). I mean what if someone needs to go to the emergency room? What then? I guess that maybe there might be something written in the user manual about it. But who wants to sit and read a user manual when there is so much blog reading to be done???

On another note, while we were at the Air Show this weekend, I saw something that kind of gave me the heebies. Politics aside, isn't it kind of freaky for the Army to create a "Virtual Army Experience" where people (and children over 13, which I think might be the intended demographic) are encouraged to ride on a Humvee through a video game and shoot at things/people? And while they were waiting, there was a big screen (all sort of "Manchurian Candidate"-ish) showing this year's State of the Union address, which happened to be "addressing" the need to bring more young men and women into the Army? It was more than a little freaky...it was downright surreal to me. Again, this wasn't meant as a political conversation, I just think it was a touch inappropriate and feel that way no matter which way I am to vote.

Flyboy...

Today we went to an Air Show at Selfridge ANG Base. What a blast. My son LOVES airplanes, draws them constantly, talks about them more than constantly and generally needs to be restrained when he's around them. There were a ton of WWII era planes and some great stunt shows...One of them so great that they didn't warn us before and when they set off dynamite sticks on the ground when the plane grazed the runway, most of us thought it had crashed. It was a great day.

Here's a video I shot of an F/A-18 Hornet as it performed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQZSItB-PbY

Happy Anniversary

Today it is 11 years since we were married. Sometimes it seems like that is far too long for how quickly the time has passed. Other times it can feel like I have never know myself, my life, without you in it.

25 (would you believe I almost wrote 15?) years ago you sat behind me in Mr. Martini's 7th grade Social Studies. We were decidedly not social. You were the shy boy with a man's worth of problems. I was the girl trying to get a grip on yet another move. This time into a very strange world where girls wore makeup at 12 and dressed in Jordache. Something this backwoods girl could never compete with. My "Jordache" was the mint green corduroy pants that you thought, even on that first day, made my "butt look big". Ahhhh 12...

19 years ago... CJ Barrymore's... me at the height of fashion (if being bitchy equals being fashionable) a nightly fixture. I remember walking around the corner and seeing you on a bar stool, watching your friends play pool (funny how a pool room was the "thing" for teenagers to do on Saturday night). You had never looked better. I still miss you wearing that black motorcycle jacket which has since been recycled into a main piece of our daughters' wardrobe. A dinner (more like breakfast) at Ram's Horn later and we gave romance a try. Only you were too nice (in this twisted girl's opinion)... escorting me to restrooms, calling me "love" and *gasp* even being audacious enough to open doors for me and want to visit with my parents. Romance failed and we went back to our lives... but I never stopped thinking of you.

Let's move forward, about 3 years. Running into you at Lisa's party wasn't what I expected to happen, but I would never mistake the sound of those boots as I waited at her front door. I will never lose the memory of you sitting next to me that whole night, and all the nights after. I will always hold close the image of you- handsome, straight and oh so very much a man you, holding my (who would become ours) daughter in your arms and crooning Elvis Presley to her...until she fell asleep... fuzzy pink sleeper up against the black of your jacket. You were her first babysitter. You are her only father.

The four years of us together, before marriage, hold some of the sweetest memories for me. You gave me an opportunity to make up for all that I had done in the past that was cruel to you. I made you the promise to never hurt you on purpose again. I hope I have kept it.

It is funny, in writing this, that every one of those memories could have happened yesterday...they are that fresh to me.

I owe you so much...would love to thank you for so much that has happened in our married life:

For loving not just me, but Nicole as well. I still cannot believe how easily-naturally-you fit into her life...how easily you came to care for her as your own. And she is your own.

For holding onto me those nights that I lost babies-and dreams- for being strong, and even for saying the things I didn't want to hear.

For giving me the memory of you combing James' hair when he was just minutes old... for being the best labor coach ever when I thought (given your track history of walking out of birth classes at break time) you wouldn't have it in you.

For staying with me through the horrid times after we lost the last baby, and I lost myself for a while. How strong you are.

When they said "In sickness and in health" you HONORED that, Leonard... you saved my life. You didn't leave the hospital the night after that operation, when they told you to...

...when I felt like my lungs were balloons that had lost their air, stuck together and were useless..you called for the doctors who before had said I was fine. In my hazy recollection of that day/night, you were the only one who "had it together". You always have it together. You have us together. I never really think of how burdensome that can be for you... for you have had more than your share of pain. And I hope in some small way, through the years, I have made it less.

You have been, are and always will be my everything. You will be the person who bugs me, plays with me, yells with me, lazes with me and laughs with me. You keep me on point. I appreciate all you have done...all you ARE...for our little family.

And...

... I can't believe I forgot what day it was when I sent you out the door this morning.

I Love You