down with dst
I am not a morning person. I never have been. Getting up early every day is hard on me, and you would think it would be particularly difficult in the winter when anyone would rather snuggle back under the covers. Not necessarily. Not when you factor in DST.
My body clock always wants to be a night owl; to stay up until midnight or 1 am and sleep until 8 or 9. If I get the right 8 hours, I’m great all day, the wrong 8 hours (or more) and I can’t stand it. Of course, I’ve had to fight that all of my life, for school, for work, for my kid.
So yeah, all winter when my alarm goes off at 6:30, that’s hard. But not anywhere near as hard as mid-March every. single. year. when stupid, antiquated Daylight Savings Time goes into effect.
Yeah, I know everyone hates losing that hour of sleep when we spring forward. That’s not really what I mean. It takes me weeks to even semi-adjust to the new time. You can fool my computer, and my phone, and my clocks, but you can’t fool my brain into thinking that 6:30 wake-up call isn’t really 5:30. It knows, and it suffers.
I’m sleepy and lethargic all day, so tired that no amount of coffee will touch it. I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this. Isn’t spring supposed to be energizing? When the sunlight rejuvenates us? Don’t mistake me, this isn’t blues or sadness or depression. This is my internal clock saying “WTF? Go back to bed already crankypants.”
So I say, down with DST! There isn’t any good reason for it anymore. Can anyone tell me any benefit from it other than a few farmers who might still care? It creates more problems than it solves, costs companies money, and generally pisses people off. Why can’t we just stop? Just say this is the last year and be done with it. Agree or disagree?
the night I fell down the stairs
I have a funnyish story to tell, but I don’t know how to say it. You see, it’s so mixed up with the story of the last weekend that I spent with my father that I can’t tell it without writing that too. Pop always loved a funny story, so here goes…
***********************
I was at my parent’s house, wearing (as I now know) the slipperiest socks on the planet, and because I was hurrying, I slid on the top step fell as hard as I possibly could. Landing, of course, on my ass. (If you know me you know this is not a first.)
It wasn’t really funny for that split second it was happening, you know that moment when your life flashes before your eyes and you’re sure you’re going to die? In this case when it was the ceiling flashing before my eyes, and the certainty that I was going to break something. Or yes quite possibly die. Or both. Obviously I’m writing this so I wasn’t actually dead. Once the shock passed and I knew I was still alive, well, then it was funny.
One minute I was walking and the next I was sitting on a step with my butt on fire and the breath knocked out of me. I heard my mother freaking out. She was in the next room on the phone with one of my brothers, and probably freaked him out too. I think they both thought I was dead. You know, since lack of oxygen = no talking = must be dead. I couldn’t talk so I started laughing hysterically.
Unlike my mother, my dear husband and darling son, who know I am the klutziest person on the planet, didn’t show the slightest bit of surprise.
I reassured my mom I was fine and just needed to sit there for a moment. That moment came and went, and the fire in my butt became an inferno and I couldn’t sit any longer. I couldn’t stand so crawled up the freaking stairs, creeped like a snake into the living room, and lay down on the floor. Laughing. Hysterically. Because really sometimes you have to laugh at yourself. Or you’ll cry.
I begged my husband togo get me an ice pack, and stick it in the back pocket of my jeans. That right pocket was exactly where I had landed. Two inches more towards the butt crack and I would have been in the hospital with a broken tailbone that night, probably in the room next to my father.
Let me tell you right now, I have never had a bruise as big as that one was. Two inches tall and about 8 inches across. It was a perfect painting of the edge of edge of that step, in vivid purple and yellow. Oh, and the lump? Was like a double butt. One that I couldn’t sit on for almost a week.
This was on Saturday night, two days after Thanksgiving.
***********************
You may or may not have noticed that I didn’t write about Thanksgiving this year. I didn’t because, well, we didn’t really have one, and frankly, I wasn’t feeling particularly thankful. In fact, every time I saw a cheerful blog post, or holidayish tweet, or sappy Facebook message, or really anything remotely happy, I just wanted to smash something. I did all of my holiday shopping, what little there was, online so I wouldn’t have to talk to chipper freaking salespeople.
We found out in October that my father’s lymphoma had spread to his bone marrow and his lungs. He spent most of the Fall trying a different chemo in hopes that it would knock it back, again. It was a last resort and although we weren’t sure yet, it didn’t seem to be working. Talking about it, much less writing about it, or anything, was the last thing I wanted to do.
I’d been trying for weeks to get to Maine to see him, but my kid and I had both been sick since before Halloween with one cold after another. Visiting someone with a compromised immune system when you have a sniffle, cough, or anything other sign of illness is out of the question. We made do with lots of phone calls, until finally we were well and able to go on the day after Thanksgiving to spend the weekend.
We drove up on that snowy Friday morning, to find that Pop was at the hospital for the day having yet more blood transfusions and platelets. Since my mother was heading back after lunch there I grabbed my crocheting and went with her. I sat and chatted with him for hours, hours I’d hoped to have with him at home, but that was not to be.
Later that afternoon he had a bad reaction to the transfusions, just minutes after we had gotten him back to the house. We didn’t know it, but his lungs were filling with fluid.
***********************
I spent most of the next day at the hospital again. In the morning I sat in his room, chatting with my mother, and with Pop when he was awake. He dozed some but was talking more than I expected, and we even had a few chuckles over some joke about ice cream. I can’t even remember what it was, I was just happy to have a laugh with him. All too soon he needed a real rest so while he slept I quietly wandered the deserted halls of the hospital. If you’ve ever been in a hospital on a holiday weekend you know that few but the sickest are there.
In the early afternoon, one of my sisters arrived and we stayed in the waiting room together, both of our crochet hooks flashing. When it was clear he would sleep the rest of the day, I went back to my parent’s house. I was tired, the kind of tired that gets into your brain and shuts you down. Mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted; and yet not as exhausted as he was, not even close.
That was the last day I had a conversation with my father. It was the last time I heard him laugh, and the last time he looked at me. But I didn’t know it then. How do you know something is the last until it’s already over?
That was the night I fell down the stairs.
Taps
This morning I listened to the most beautiful rendition of Taps I have ever heard.
I was at my father’s funeral.
*****************
I wish I could put into words how I feel right now. I have such mixed emotions I wouldn’t even know where to start. All of the events of the last week have left me utterly exhausted, weary down to my bones.
I’ve cried, I’ve accepted, I’ve made my peace, I’ve gotten angry, but I did have my moment to say goodbye, and I’m grateful for that. Listening to that short sweet bit of music today summed up everything for me, it was an amazing moment and I will never forget how that felt.
On a side note, I have to thank my family and friends for their love and support. Those who came to see me, called me, send me texts, emails, and facebook messages, they got me through this weekend. Then there were those who came to the wake yesterday and the funeral today, and those who sent flowers when they couldn’t, well, I just wouldn’t have made it through the day without them. I am truly blessed to have so many dear people in my life, really, I have the best friends in the world.
xoxo Annette
the sweater
The color made you think of walnuts, not too dark, not too light. It had big round buttons, like milk chocolates in a sea of cocoa powder. The neck was high and the pockets were deep. There were patches of fuzzy suede, and the yarn was just ever so slightly scratchy.
When I was a teenager I had a habit of swiping my father’s clothes. It was the 80s and both baggy clothes and menswear were in. Pop’s sweater smelled of Old Spice, was roomy and comfortable, and it matched my camouflage pants perfectly. (Hey, like I said, it was the 80s!) Of course I wore it to school so often there’s even a photo of me in it in my senior yearbook.
I was fourteen, fifteen, an age where you don’t hug your parents as much as you used to, when you’re trying to gain a little independence and become your own person. But that sweater, it was like wearing a hug. So was his gray plaid bathrobe I stole before I went off to college and wore until all the seams ripped out.
When I was eighteen and went out on my own I left some old tee shirts behind, the ones that I thought I was too old to wear. I came home on break once to find Pop wearing one – with a silly Garfield cartoon on it! We laughed so much that for years he wore it every time they were expecting me. When I think about that now I wonder if maybe to him that tee shirt was like a hug from me?
It didn’t take me too long into my 20s to realize that hugging your parents isn’t just for little kids and I started up again. Since then I’ve hugged and kissed them everytime I’ve seen them, which isn’t often enough. I sure wish I still had Pop’s sweater. I could really use a hug right now. I love you Pop. xoxo
Author’s note: My father passed away on December 4th, 2010, ten days after I wrote this. He never had a chance to read it. My mother, however, read it on December 5th and promptly found the Garfield shirt in my father’s closet and gave it back to me. My sister believes she swiped the sweater from me when we lived together in college and she wore it into rags.
questions
If you have a good answer to any or all of these, please tell me in as much detail as possible! 
- How many times can you get your family to eat the same leftovers? Or do they never eat them?
- Do you get enough vegetables into your husband kids and if yes how? If not do you feel guilty about it?
- If you work at home how do you keep motivated midday when no one would ever know if you took a nap on the couch/watched tv/ate bon bons?
- How do you keep your kid’s toys from burying you alive?
- Ditto the mail and the laundry?
- Do you let your children watch tv in the morning before school?
- Do you do anything special with your kids during your spouse’s business trips? Special meals, change up the schedule, anything? Go into survival mode and hope for the best?
- Do you pack a lunch for your kids everyday or do they eat school lunch?
- How do you retrain a cat to indoor only after being outdoors in the daytime for years?
- How do you retrain one to poo in his litter box instead of on the floor next to the box, even when the box is brand new? (The cat, not the kid…)
- Does your cat/dog/hamster sleep in your child’s bed?
- Are you slowly or quickly going insane?
Bonus points if you can guess MY answers to those questions.
vacation all I ever wanted
It killed me for most of the summer to not talk about our vacation here! Now that it’s over I finally can! I didn’t ever mention it because I felt weird about too many people knowing I was leaving the house for 10 days. We’ve had a lot of break-ins in our town and I didn’t want us being away to be too obvious.
Sooooo, we went to Florida, on the hottest week of the year. Yep.
I really don’t like heat, but I got over myself and had 10 days of fabulous! We tried to do fun things every morning and spend the afternoons in the pool, (at least, Josh and I did, while Damon worked.) Only one day out of the whole trip was too thunderstormy to swim. As long as I can get in the water I’m happy. 
We went because Damon has a new job, where he will mostly be working from home, but one week a month he will be in the office in, you guessed it, Florida. Josh and I got a chance to tag along to St. Petersburg this time since we had a free place to stay and school hasn’t started here yet.
Okay, I’ve bored you enough with the words, here is our trip in pictures! (For all three of you that actually want to see them!)
Man, those pelicans stunk!
The beach!!
St. Pete Beach was absolutely gorgeous. Next time we go, we’re spending more time there.
We don’t have trees like this in New Hampshire!
An armadillo made out of junk car parts? This is one of Josh’s favorite pics!
We should have seen an alligator right here, but it was even too hot for them. Ugh, the sweat.
After Damon’s work week was over we left St. Pete and spent a few days in Orlando.
The Lego store…need I say more?
Damon had some issues taking pics with his iphone. And he used to be a photographer??! Hee. Okay, it was just a liiiittle bit sunny out, and he couldn’t see what he was shooting. Also, the only day I didn’t wear black. Ahem. Did I mention the sweat?
The best part of the day at Magic Kingdom. Seriously. Minnie air kissed me on the cheek. So ridiculously cute.
Kennedy Space Center was my favorite day. There was lots of air conditioning…
We can’t pass up an opportunity for a Vulcan hand sign. Ever.
And really, what is a vacation without one of these?
ps. I have to give a shout out to my MIL and her husband for staying in the house part of the time and doing tons of chores for us! And another to my friend’s daughter “C” for checking in on my cat the rest of the time! Thank you!
Filed Under life, photos, the boy Tagged Florida, life, photos, vacation
downsizing
Did anyone else read this article in the NY Times last week about getting rid of all of your stuff and living with very few belongings? I’m just so intrigued by this. I’ve been feeling the weight of my “things” for a long time now. I’ve started to take steps to declutter, but I think there’s a whole mindset to living simply that I would like to explore.
Recently, in preparation for that horrible yard sale, I went through 10 big plastic bins that have been stored in our basement for all of the time we’ve lived here. We literally moved them from one storage area in our last house to another storage area in this one. (And really, they were in the one before that too, they were just in cardboard then.) It was such a waste of space! (And money to move it!) It was almost all junk.
Only about one bin worth went to the yard sale, one bin was worth keeping, and the rest went into the trash. That’s so depressing, and yet it was an incredible feeling to free myself of those things. Seriously.
I’ve decided I’m taking the next year purge to myself of some more of the stuff I don’t really need. I also have too many things I’ve kept for sentimental reasons, but don’t have any use for. At what point do you rid yourself of those things? Life isn’t about what you own, is it? I don’t think I would ever go as far as the woman in the article did, but I know I need to downsize my belongings, and my life.
parched
Every day I pull up the weather and scan the radar for a hint of green. A sign, any sign of some rain in the forecast. Nope, not today. Even the rare thunderstorms in the area have bypassed our patch of dust. So every day I go out and and fill up my watering can and try to keep my few potted veggies alive. I’ve given up on most everything else.
The grass is so crunchy you can’t walk on it barefoot for fear of puncturing your skin. The daylilies barely bloomed and I don’t think the hydrangea will at all. The black-eyed-susans actually look depressed! Despite being desert plants the hens-and-chicks are limp and the stonecrop are shriveling. Even the tall maples that get their water from deep underground are wilted and the leaves are already yellowing. We won’t have much pretty fall foliage here this year.
I planted an expensive Japanese Maple right before the drought started. Ugh. It’s still alive but hasn’t grown at all. I can only hope I’ve watered it enough to establish good roots before winter. The jury is definitely still out on my poor brown Magnolia too. I had transplanted forsythia, from the backyard to the front, but they are now dessicated twigs. I’ll probably have to plant new ones all over again next spring, darn it!
In all of June we had only two inches of rain, and in July, barely one. At least four each would have been normal.
We’ll see what August brings, more of the same 90+ degree days or a just little bit of relief? Sheesh. This is New Hampshire, if I wanted it this hot and dry I would live in Nevada or Arizona!
ps. And just because I’m one of those people that always has to look on the darn bright side of everything, here are two silver linings: there are almost no mosquitoes when normally we are inundated, and I don’t have to mow the freaking lawn.
never again!
So. The yard sale sucked in oh so many ways. Someone please kick me if I ever say I’m having a yard sale again!
It was so humid in the morning that I had to take my glasses off while we were pulling all the junk out of the garage because they kept fogging up. And then there was the sweat. I don’t like to sweat!!
I had hopes of decent traffic when people started showing up at 7:30 to shop. Except the early birds only wanted old albums. ~grumble grumble~ I don’t have any records and I wouldn’t sell them to you if I did. Harrumph.
Do you know how boring a yard sale is when no one shows up? Okay, not no one, but almost. Ugh.
Damon had nothing to do so he played with the panorama feature on his iphone. It’s weirdly accurate and yet not at all. Um, our driveway is supposed to be a straight line?
Then he cleaned the garage. Now that’s bored!
Josh was trooper. He manned his toy table until 1pm when he finally gave up and went inside to watch tv. I couldn’t blame him, I desperately wanted to go inside too, sit in front of the air conditioner, and freeze my face off!
In the end, I made $38, Josh made $21, and we still have massive piles of stuff in the garage. I refuse to bring any of it back in the house lest it never leave again. I took some things to the transfer station to the area people can pick over for free, a bag of clothes went into a Salvation Army bin, a box of books are ready for the used bookstore, and the rest of it will be donated to my favorite charity yard sale in September.
I’m close to selling a dining room table on craigslist today, which is what we should have done with everything in the first place. ~sigh~
Yard sales are so not worth the effort. Lesson learned.
most days
My days are virtually the same, hour-by-hour, sitting at my desk, searching for photos, making lunches, begging telling Josh to play outside, cleaning up cat puke, and avoiding anything resembling housework. Thankfully, most days are punctuated with little bits of humor, like watching Wipeout. I know, I know, it’s all kinds of wrong, but I can’t help it. And, yes, I let Josh watch it too…
Anyway, I wanted to show you a few things I typically see around here on any given day.
Look closely at the top of the photo. Yes, there is an extra cat in the picture. George is often found sleeping with toys piled on top of him.
I know I’m not the only mother in the world whose kid has extra sensory perception regarding the phone. Right? As soon as it rings, or even if I silently start to dial – he’s in the room. Talking to me. Or giving me hand gestures. Anything to get my attention. Or to listen in. Every single time! This photo? If I had saved them all I would have hundreds just like it:
Have you ever been to Passive Aggressive Notes? Well, I could have had a whole website of “I’m On The Phone Notes” if I had just planned ahead.
Lately we’ve been on a kill the clutter kick and we’ve decided to have a yard sale. A whole lot of crap is now piled in the garage:
And that’s not even all of it. Every day I put a little more in the pile, now named the Monster that Ate the Garage. We need to have that yard sale soon!
And last, but not least, is an older photo I found, taken by my husband that perfectly illustrates most of my days:
A cat that thinks he’s a person sitting on a Garfield book with Legos and crap all over the place. If a corner of a computer and a coffee cup were in the photo it would be perfect.