Some Randomness

I don't really have a story for you today, just a list of random thoughts and things. I should be getting ready for work but I'm not.

Or perhaps I am getting ready for work right now, in the best way possible. Sure, my hair is a greasy mess and I probably smell like BO, but I'll feel really good for today because if all else falls through, I at least conquered part of a blank page today.

You would be surprised (or maybe not) at how far that will get me.

• My daughter started calling me "Mother Thing". I don't know where or why she has come up with this, but my response now when she refers to me as such is to say, "Yes walking talking creature who came out of my vagina, what do you want." She has stopped. Also, it occurred to me last night, when G was having a bit of a freak out, if you have a death wish, try singing "Don't Cry Out Loud" by Melissa Manchester at the top of your lungs to a extremely distraught and hormonal pre-teen girl. No I didn't do it. I love life. No death wishes here.
• My children are the type to purposefully annoy me when we are stuck in traffic and are bored. They will start to make screeching noises and ask "Are we there yet?" repeatedly. I have started what I call the "Xanadu" treatment in which I put that song on top volume and dance to it while sitting in traffic. They stopped and got the point. 
• Audiobooks are the best thing for those times that you are stuck in traffic with them. Not so much if they have a friend in the car, but if it's just you and them, it's great. We just finished  "Anansi Boys" and have started on "Four Years, Five Seasons" by Peter S. Beagle. I have 'The Last Unicorn" and "Howl's Moving Castle" ready to go as well. My ridiculously expensive Audible subscription is finally paying off.
• Have you ever heard of Peter S. Beagle? He is amazing. He wrote the book "The Last Unicorn" (everyone has seen the movie I'm sure). He is one of the best writers out there and you should check him out if at all possible. The guy saved my ass last week. I was sitting in front of my computer, feeling horribly uninspired. I was wasting time on the internet and remembered once reading about how he had trouble writing his own stories. I decided to see if he had anything worth reading to get me started. (Yeah I know, more excuses). Lo and behold, I found a pod cast called Writing Excuses. Lo and behold, there was a podcast with Peter S Beagle speaking about how to get into the writer's mindset. It really helped. (Here is the secret-you just sit down and do it. Ha!). The link to the podcast and the site is here.
• The bees are fine. No honey for me from them this year. I got a tiny bit from Anne's hive. Anne is a lovely woman in Providence who hired me to take care of her beehive. So although I have no honey, through Anne's and my friends Scott and Emily's generosity of bee donations, I have 3 healthy hives with first year queens going into the winter. Keep you finger's crossed folks! I'm going to bust my ass this winter making sure the ladies make it through.
• Last of all, my faith in humanity, always shaky best, was restored the day before yesterday as I was stopped at a stop sign, about to go down a hill. Two men were pushing a broken down minivan up the hill. It was being steered by an older woman. As I watched, a car pulled over and a third man got out and helped push it up the hill and to the side of he road. It was great to see and in the rain too. I try to hold onto those moments when I get my car keyed, or someone gets stabbed right in front of my house. I say to myself, "It's not so bad, Mr Roger's said, "Look for the helpers".

Ok off to work.

Jesus Would Have Left Me To Die

I love the Autumn portion of daylight savings.

All summer long, I have struggled to wake up before 7am so I could have my time to fart around and possibly write, before everyone else wakes up.
For some reason, I could not get out of bed before 7am, even if I went to bed at 10.

But lo and behold, I hopped right out of bed by 6:30 this morning.

Of course, I squandered the time I had and it is already a quarter past 7 and I only have about 30-40 minutes before I have to start doing things, but at the moment I consider myself to be back in training to write again.

I have barely written a blog post or a story, including any additions to my really long stories that I can't seem to finish yet. Please don't get me started on the newsletter. Joanna and I have been crazy slacking on that.

Some wonderful, little things have happened and now here I am typing at 7am. I am also in the process of creating future plans/schedules so that I can get my time in every day. I'm thinking of it a "cross-fit" for my writing muscle, which has grown very flabby.

I had a spectacular fall, in both ways.

My Fall has been a mix of extreme stress and extreme fun. I don't talk about my work here, One,  because I never want to give Human Resources a reason and Two, the nature of my work makes me want to keep it very separate from what I do outside of work.

But I will say that work had some tough moments that made me realize things..and that is all about that.

Despite work stress, I managed to do all of my favorite Fall activities so far. I picked the apples, I made the apple butter. I went to Salem with my beloved Jessica and her daughter. I somehow managed to accumulate pumpkins and the items needed to make 4 Halloween costumes just in time for the big day, as well as come up with a decent short story (well, half of one) before midnight on that day for my writer's group.

Hooray for me.

I also had a big spectacular fall last Sunday.

I was tired, it was an off day. I spent the night before having dreams of being in bed with something scary looming in the room. I kept waking myself up in dream to end the dream and tell B I had a nightmare, only I was still in the dream. I also think I did actually wake up a few times interspersed throughout, so I had terrible sleep.

I dropped the kids off at CCD. Going into the gymnasium, I stumbled over the threshold but kept my balance.

Picking the kids up an hour later,  I thought of my previous stumble and congratulated myself on being more careful as I crossed the threshold.

I tripped again, stumbled forward several feet, my torso parallel to the ground before I fell outright on my side. I want to say that I slid forward a few feet too. Even if I didn't, let's just pretend I did because it makes a better mental picture.

I got up laughing and walked over to my daughter's best friend and her mother who were laughing at me. My daughter had run off in embarrassment because she actually thought I had fallen in a room full of people on purpose. Just to embarrass her. She even punched me in the arm when she stalked back.

You have no idea how awesome it feels to know that I have gotten into her head that much. It should make the teenage years easier.

Here is the big problem I had with the whole scenario despite my laughter and the hilarity of it.

Nobody in the room even asked if I was Ok.  Nobody.

Not even the nun!

The people in the room are a bunch of Catholics. Who are in the room to set a good example for a bunch of kids that they are attempting to teach to be good Catholics.

Nobody helped, nobody even asked it I was ok.

Except for V of course. I'm telling you, that kids lives rent free with me for as long as he wants, when he grows up..

So this is a room full of people who aspire to be like Jesus Christ.

What would Jesus do?

Judging by the reaction of the people in the room, Jesus would have pretended that he didn't see me fall and would have left me to die.

Thanks Catholic people. Thanks Jesus, your folk are doing a bang up job.

I know I'm being a bit harsh, but still. I could have been really hurt. C'mon. They are supposed to be better than that. I was a little shocked.

Later in the day, I went to Salem with Jessica as I mentioned.

Here is our annual Port A John shot.

A woman fell in front of us as we walked down the sidewalk. She was laughing by the time we got there and her husband was helping her to her feet. 

I asked her if she was ok and she said she was. I told her that I fallen earlier today and nobody had asked me if I was ok. She was clearly embarrassed and it may have been better pretend not see so as to spare her the embarrassment. 

But I think that the "helping muscle" is like the "writing muscle" it needs a work out. 

It needs practice or it gets flabby. Then you do things like walk past and pretend not to see when someone falls or needs help in some way. 

The time is now 8am and there are things to do, so I have to cut this short, but as a public service announcement, if you see somebody fall today or in the near future. Just take a second and ask if they are ok. It means a lot.