Family Circus

My wonderful husband and I have been keeping an eye on BamBam lately - he's got that droopy, bleary, glassy-eyed look we've come to associate with a bout of something unpleasant and possibly messy.  We've even cut his some slack in the Manners and Patience department.

But that's over now.

I caught him playing with his iPod at 3 effing 30 this morning.  Of course, I asked him a round of questions like What the hell? and How often do you do this?  and then I took the iPod away.

So, anyone want to buy a well-used  iPod?  (Just kidding, I wouldn't do that.)

How about a dumb-ass 8 year old boy?

Come here, and let me rock you

At my uncle's wake, Mrs. Potter reached out to touch a photograph of my grandmother. I saw her do it, waiting as I was among the dim light and flower arrangements for my turn to see the collection. My mother saw it too, and we looked away from one another, swallowing against the tightening of our throats.  The affection in that gesture was so plain to see, and so much like our own.  That's just the kind of woman Nanny was.

We really miss her.

She forever had her hand up the back of our shirts, rubbing our backs.  At the mall, she spoke to anyone nearby, and if they were cold to her she would wink at me.  She liked the challenge, she said, and usually she could bring people out.  She never let you leave her house without giving you some small treat, I never heard her criticize anyone, and she sang songs from the 1920s.  Come here and let me rock you, she said, and we would clamber into her chair with her and lay our heads.

Won't come over to my house?

Won't you come over and play?

I've lots of nice playthings, a dolly or two,

I live in a house 'cross the lane.

I'll give you candy and nice things,
I'll put your hair in a curl,

Just say you'll come over to my house,

And be my sweet little girl.

I visited her in her apartment when she was dying.  We both knew it, but we never said.  I remember I'd been to the dentist and had half my face frozen.  I felt awful, and she must have too.  She fed me tinned chicken soup, and we took a nap - me stretched out on her sofa, she in her chair.  When we woke up and it was time for me to be going, she said Come here, and let me rock you.

And I did.  I was twenty-one years old.  I didn't fit in that chair at all any more, so I perched my butt on the edge and I laid my head on her familiar shoulder.  Looking back now, I see myself as I was then - finishing a rough time in my life, just beginning to heal, just beginning to grow up, and I am grateful for the gift of her and her unwavering, unconditional love.  I'm so grateful for that last rock in her chair.

I thought of Nanny this morning as I was getting my daughter ready for preschool.  Pebbles wanted to wear a dress, and she complained about the tights quite a bit but she decided to wear them anyway.  She let me comb her hair and even put an elastic in it!  I sat on a rubbermaid stool, thinking little thoughts, just enjoying the sight of her.  How tall she's getting, even if she hasn't gained a single pound in eight or nine months.  I watched her wash her own face, and I felt so blessed.  I said, Come here and let me rock you.

* * *

At preschool I saw a plaque that said:

“A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was,

the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...but the world may be different

because I was important in the life of a child.” - Forest E. Witcraft

Yes, I thought to myself, that's exactly what I've been thinking.

I'm doing it!

Got up a little earlier again today, and got something like 550 words before my littlest woke up and it was time to make muffins, get Sr. Stinkyfeet off the Wii, fed and ready for school.  I want to say to you other writers, as the wise and wonderful Vicki Pettersson once said to me: it gets easier.  You get used to it.  I wish I'd listened to her then, but I think I felt very overwhelmed at that point, and it wasn't my time. 

Now, though, I feel like it IS my time.  The kids are bigger, I can read a book after supper if I want - crazy, innit?  I can sit on the couch with a book in my hand and the children don't clamour into my lap and strangle me with their needs.  They go off together to play, learn and curse each other's eyes.  I feel a little lost, actually.  My shares have fallen in that house, and I don't quite know how to feel about that.  Sad?  Free? 

Both.  The sad is not so much use to me, but the free I'm liking.  Much better for the word count!

Anyhew.  Today is quiet, sort of, and I'm toying with the idea of trying to slip into POV and getting a new scene on to the back burner.  I really OUGHT to change the website around, though.  It's hopelessly outdated, and I've very tired of explaining that to people.  I SHOULD to reconcile my Visa.  The inner battle of good versus...better.  I let you know how it comes out...

Too true...

A customer just said this fabulous thing to me:

"I've got Windows problems, which is a lot like having Women's problems.  It covers just about everything, and nobody wants to talk to me about it!"

Books, Snow, and a Good Life

On Saturday after work, the Beloved and I went to Chapters to use the gift certificates we've been saving up from Christmas and birthdays.  What fun!  I picked up Vicki Pettersson's 4th, City of Souls, Rachel Vincent's 4th in the Shifter series, Prey (which is not in yet, actually) and a hardcover by Sarah Waters called The Little Stranger.  The kids got some books too of course, including Phoebe Gilman's Something From Nothing, which I adore.

Sunday was then spent in our warm yellow living room amongst tilty stacks of fresh books, playing and reading while tufts of fluffy snow drifted past the windows.  We ate bacon, drank hot chocolate, and it was a Good Day.

I wrote a little - have been writing a little - every day on an as-can basis.  A few hundred words here and there.  My focus right now is...to not focus so much.  To just let the story fall out through my fingertips onto the screen, gently, quietly, and without waking the internal editor.  (She's such a bitch, I don't know why we can't fire her.  But management says we'll need her during rewrites. *sigh*)

Just...Tuesday.

Today I got up early again to write, and managed 700 words or so in that one precious hour before the rat race begins.  I'm still marveling at how that small effort to fit myself into my own life changes the way I feel.

I'm thoughtful today.  The music is off and the customers are (so far) leaving me alone.  I'm enjoying the feeling, because it's rarely this peaceful here and I have many things I can get done today.  And I might even bail out early, go home and make supper for the Beloved.

I have a favour to ask, though, before I get to work.  I'm brainstorming ghostly manifestations, and I want these scenes to be really chilling and spooky.  Does anyone have a ghost story to share?  You can email me if it's private.