This year I am enjoying the fabulous city that I live in much more than I did last year!
This year I am reading my To Be Read pile.
This year I am lighting a theatrical fire under as many kids as I can.
This year I am a good friend and wife.
This year I am prosperous, comfortable, healthy and at peace.
These are not goals or resolutions. These are things that I am. Somebody said to me "if you do it than that is what you are". Well okay then.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Thursday, December 3, 2009
I <3 Cyber Monday
I have to admit it. I hate shopping.
I hate crowds, I hate waiting in line and I especially hate having an image in my mind of what I want and not being able to find it.
I do love, however, shopping online. The ability to search for, see, and purchase exactly what I want is amazing!! I never have to leave my house!!
This year I was able to buy a book I had been coveting for my Dad. This particular book was long gone from the actual book store shelves, but I found it online and with my husbands super discount plus a Cyber Monday coupon I got the hardback edition for $13!!
Along the same lines... I love that I can have pictures printed from my home computer to the drugstore and then go pick them up in just a few hours. We picked the shots we wanted, sent them and got them back with almost no effort. Mom's gift: check.
Most of all I love that Internet shopping opens up the entire world of options to me. I can find something that is only sold at a gift shop in Northern California and have it shipped to me that day! This global shopping center is less than 15 years old, but I am embracing it thoroughly!!!
Now... let me see... what exotic culinary item can I find for sister that she won't expect but will love more than anything...
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Lily Liver'd
I lost my Cattledog Wrigley in a divorce 9 years ago.
I think I just got her back.
I keep calling Lily a Sheep and Cattledog... She's definitely Sheltie and definitely something Australian. She is her own self but time after time I want to call her Wrigley. The way she runs, the silly look on her face...
We swore we'd never have another dog. But Loreena wanted one (note the past tense) and she fell into our laps serendipitously like all of our animals do. It just made it seem more like she was meant to be ours.
So she's added to the chaos. Is trying my patience. Is inspiring me to make long awaited changes. Is totally NOT a cat.
My cats are very mad. This time though they've decided to take it out on Loreena! Apparently they know the source of the canine usurper. And I really don't mind washing a basket of peed on clothes because I know that they know that I love them and would have never done that to them if it hadn't been for Loreena.
I do love Lily. And something will give here eventually. We struggle for routine around here and insist that we are letting go of the drama. Stepping off the roller-coaster if you will. I have my own carnival rides to visit. Lily is along for the ride here and she'll do great. We all will.
This next year around the sun is all about creating reality. Letting go and moving forward. Being happy and trusting the Universe to provide what we need to prosperous and loved. Love multiplies love.
Welcome to the carnival Miss Lily. Keep your paws in and enjoy the ride.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Things to Remember
My Mom reminded me the other day that age 15 or 16 was the era of “would you please tell Dad that…” and “Tell your daughter this…”. And I have to keep reminding myself that if judges and courts and Universal law took every 15 year old girl who was mad at their Dad away from them, none of us would have any Dads. It’s not just me, lots of folks I know have girls who are tweens and teens. And those of you who don’t, well… I’ll just say hold onto your hats and leave it at that.
When I was 15 I had my first boyfriend with a car. I got threatened with expulsion for fighting in class (with a boy who still apparently can’t resist needling me to the point of extreme irritation). My friends decided to hate me randomly for no apparent reason. The first deep lessons of the “anyone can say anything they want” quandary started to cut into my soul. I was deeply into Ray Bradbury. My crushes at the time were Harrison Ford, John Lennon and the older boy across the street. No boys at school looked twice at me. We performed Oklahoma, which is significant because those songs are the ones that pop up on incessant replay in my mind to this day. My locker looked like I was hording paper for doomsday. Alienation from the mainstream was solidified. I just did not fit in. Thank god. Thank you thank you thank you because I would not be who I am today.
At 16 I went to High School. Fell in love twice. Met lifelong friends. I went to a dance with someone who had known me since birth. We hung out on the levee, in parks, and boarding houses. We listened to music that reverberates through my memory like a soundtrack. The feeling of being wild and free is palpable in those memories. My sister was 4 and she willingly tagged along in convertibles with the top down and the air blowing through our hair. I got a 45 record of sixteen candles as a birthday present and a t-shirt I have to this day. My brother began to exhibit the signs of severe OCD, addiction and violence enhanced by his lifelong defiance of all authority. My Dad took away the phone if I got in trouble, especially for bad grades. At school we were power reading, moonlight swimming, and spending study halls lying on the floor of rehearsal rooms talking about poetry and love. We couldn’t stand to be apart even for 45 minutes and wrote notes to one another in classes. I was the babysitter of all babysitters for a huge number of families. Some of those kids are still on my friends list today. One Saturday afternoon I had a fight with my Dad and broke the glass in the front door just as a mother came to pick me up to babysit. That was the only time I forgot a job. Sometimes we’d get up in the morning to find that my brother had eaten a gallon of ice cream during the night. My Dad put a lock on the freezer.
I have to remind myself just how wonderful and terrible it is to be a teenager. I have to remember that those memories linger and the people who you love do not fade.
I have to remember that now, to me, my Dad walks on water and that my Mom is the one I go to when I am crying.
When I was 15 I had my first boyfriend with a car. I got threatened with expulsion for fighting in class (with a boy who still apparently can’t resist needling me to the point of extreme irritation). My friends decided to hate me randomly for no apparent reason. The first deep lessons of the “anyone can say anything they want” quandary started to cut into my soul. I was deeply into Ray Bradbury. My crushes at the time were Harrison Ford, John Lennon and the older boy across the street. No boys at school looked twice at me. We performed Oklahoma, which is significant because those songs are the ones that pop up on incessant replay in my mind to this day. My locker looked like I was hording paper for doomsday. Alienation from the mainstream was solidified. I just did not fit in. Thank god. Thank you thank you thank you because I would not be who I am today.
At 16 I went to High School. Fell in love twice. Met lifelong friends. I went to a dance with someone who had known me since birth. We hung out on the levee, in parks, and boarding houses. We listened to music that reverberates through my memory like a soundtrack. The feeling of being wild and free is palpable in those memories. My sister was 4 and she willingly tagged along in convertibles with the top down and the air blowing through our hair. I got a 45 record of sixteen candles as a birthday present and a t-shirt I have to this day. My brother began to exhibit the signs of severe OCD, addiction and violence enhanced by his lifelong defiance of all authority. My Dad took away the phone if I got in trouble, especially for bad grades. At school we were power reading, moonlight swimming, and spending study halls lying on the floor of rehearsal rooms talking about poetry and love. We couldn’t stand to be apart even for 45 minutes and wrote notes to one another in classes. I was the babysitter of all babysitters for a huge number of families. Some of those kids are still on my friends list today. One Saturday afternoon I had a fight with my Dad and broke the glass in the front door just as a mother came to pick me up to babysit. That was the only time I forgot a job. Sometimes we’d get up in the morning to find that my brother had eaten a gallon of ice cream during the night. My Dad put a lock on the freezer.
I have to remind myself just how wonderful and terrible it is to be a teenager. I have to remember that those memories linger and the people who you love do not fade.
I have to remember that now, to me, my Dad walks on water and that my Mom is the one I go to when I am crying.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
My Side of the Story
When John started his John and Kate plus POTS blog I was worried that I would not have much to contribute that would stay positive. I have a lot of anger and sadness and frustration and hopelessness at times. But I have to say we have come so far. I would be doing a great disservice to our family if I didn’t acknowledge the hard work we have all done.
I came into Sarah and Loreena’s lives when their parents were separated. I had know their father years before and at the time I had no idea if I’d be a permanent part of their life or just a passing through kind of friend. It was a really hard time. Sarah was struggling with seizures and finding the right medication at age 7 and Loreena was 4 and had her own struggles with speech and conveying her already abstract and complicated world view.
We all hung together through thick and thin and both girls overcame a great deal of difficulties and problems and their father and I did too. Not all of our problems, but some really big ones. But the underlying theme always seemed to be that Sarah was sick with one weird thing after the other. I would call my family back home in Iowa from the ER and they’d say “again!?!” I have been in the ER more with these guys in the last 8 years then in the rest of my life combined. It became kind of a joke that if anyone was going to get something it would be Sarah; the rare sickness, the anomalous symptoms.
Through it all her resilience amazed me. She kept plugging away at school and physical activities and friendships and even boys (karma has not forgotten my own teenage woes). When her health started to decline 2 years ago we chalked it up to growing pains, teen angst, and lingering illness which was always a problem for her. She just never seemed to get well. And then we started the cycle of symptoms that would eventually lead us to POTS syndrome.
As a step mother is it torture for me to see them in pain, either physical or emotional and not be able to help either by determining a better course of action (that’s not my decision to make) or even just by comforting them (don’t want to step on anyone’s toes). It’s a struggle for a problem solver like me to find diplomatic ways of persuading the players to look at things from a different point of view and satisfy the nurterer in me as well.
I eventually came to see that I have a place in this complex puzzle. I can’t say I have totally accepted it but I recognize my role. I was raised with parents and extended family that are highly skilled in the art of unconditional love. That is a quality that I know I can provide for these two beautiful girls and their Dad if only I can let go of the need to have a influence in the outcome. I need to accept that my influence is passive. Sarah needs support for strengths and comfort. She needs to understand that everyone is fighting for her best interests and that no one wants to fight against her. Loreena needs to know that we are all just as worried about her as we are about Sarah. POTS syndrome effects the entire family and how you interact and what you do together. It sucks the life out of the person who has it and everyone who loves them. John needs some clarity of thought and unconditional support when everything around him is falling apart.
That’s me. The Goddess of Unconditional Love. Those of you who know me can hear the sarcasm in my voice. How can I explain that while it comes naturally, it also goes against my perfectionism and critical tendencies? I am only human after all. I am really trying.
I came into Sarah and Loreena’s lives when their parents were separated. I had know their father years before and at the time I had no idea if I’d be a permanent part of their life or just a passing through kind of friend. It was a really hard time. Sarah was struggling with seizures and finding the right medication at age 7 and Loreena was 4 and had her own struggles with speech and conveying her already abstract and complicated world view.
We all hung together through thick and thin and both girls overcame a great deal of difficulties and problems and their father and I did too. Not all of our problems, but some really big ones. But the underlying theme always seemed to be that Sarah was sick with one weird thing after the other. I would call my family back home in Iowa from the ER and they’d say “again!?!” I have been in the ER more with these guys in the last 8 years then in the rest of my life combined. It became kind of a joke that if anyone was going to get something it would be Sarah; the rare sickness, the anomalous symptoms.
Through it all her resilience amazed me. She kept plugging away at school and physical activities and friendships and even boys (karma has not forgotten my own teenage woes). When her health started to decline 2 years ago we chalked it up to growing pains, teen angst, and lingering illness which was always a problem for her. She just never seemed to get well. And then we started the cycle of symptoms that would eventually lead us to POTS syndrome.
As a step mother is it torture for me to see them in pain, either physical or emotional and not be able to help either by determining a better course of action (that’s not my decision to make) or even just by comforting them (don’t want to step on anyone’s toes). It’s a struggle for a problem solver like me to find diplomatic ways of persuading the players to look at things from a different point of view and satisfy the nurterer in me as well.
I eventually came to see that I have a place in this complex puzzle. I can’t say I have totally accepted it but I recognize my role. I was raised with parents and extended family that are highly skilled in the art of unconditional love. That is a quality that I know I can provide for these two beautiful girls and their Dad if only I can let go of the need to have a influence in the outcome. I need to accept that my influence is passive. Sarah needs support for strengths and comfort. She needs to understand that everyone is fighting for her best interests and that no one wants to fight against her. Loreena needs to know that we are all just as worried about her as we are about Sarah. POTS syndrome effects the entire family and how you interact and what you do together. It sucks the life out of the person who has it and everyone who loves them. John needs some clarity of thought and unconditional support when everything around him is falling apart.
That’s me. The Goddess of Unconditional Love. Those of you who know me can hear the sarcasm in my voice. How can I explain that while it comes naturally, it also goes against my perfectionism and critical tendencies? I am only human after all. I am really trying.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Real John and Kate
A very sweet friend mentioned on Facebook the other day how no one would watch a reality show about us – the REAL John and Kate – because no one wants to watch two people who are really in love. It got me thinking…
A reality show about our life?? Oh you have no idea.
Here’s the pitch – a bohemian family struggling with chronic illness, high IQ’s, and cats who think they own the lot of them move into a 100 year old home with no closets. Hilarity ensues.
On any given day our house looks like a chaos bomb hit it. We recently tore up a front flowerbed and displaced about 1 million little black biting ants. My boy cat thinks he’s a soccer star and loves to kick things onto the floor (mostly my pint glasses full of iced tea and anything smaller than a dictionary). Daughter 1 is struggling with a recent diagnosis of a syndrome that keeps her on the couch 24/7. Daughter 2 just stepped on and broke Daughter 1’s laptop severely limiting any connection with the outside world.
John is at home writing for a living and frustrated that he’s fixing the writing of fools instead of writing his own stuff and I am gone half the time at an office job or directing other people’s children in community theatre productions.
You want fights? We got fights! But does anyone want to see us argue about how you should wash a dish, or whose turn it is to make dinner? How about which daughter gets to use the one working laptop we have? Or even better – when the lawn is going to get mowed!!
Yesterday Daughter 2 and I had a conversation about the gallon of water she spilled on the stairs. We got 3 clean stairs out of the deal. I tried to get her to clean more of them. No luck. I explained I only care about spills when they are sticky, stain, or are stinky; water not so much. Words to live by.
SO if anyone wants to pay us a million dollars or buy us a giant house to sell out our story on tv; bring it on. You will also see us all sit down to dinner every night, watch movies together, get insanely fattening custard and carmel corn sundaes, spoil our cats to death in what we call “kitty city”, and have Indy car races with Sarah in the Walmart wheelchair.
Friday, June 12, 2009
An Actor's Life For Me
I’m having a hard time lately in my life so I'm trying to write about things that would make me happy. I am even having a hard time thinking about some of the fun times because of regrettable occurrences that happened after or with the people involved… This is kind of stupid. You are not supposed to be depressed at the beginning of summer vacation!
SO in honor of my summer theatre kids here is a list of some of my theatre memories growing up:
• My first stage feature was as a yellow crayon. I wore corduroy and a turtleneck. It was deep in the 70’s.
• My follow up performance was as a townsperson in Tom Sawyer. I got the role because my mother has a talent for historical costuming. (I already had a dress)
• Then I was typecast in the role of Lucy in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. It made me love Moonlight Sonata and gave me knock out audition song. I got my first community theatre role with that song in Music Man; another costume drama and my first “cast party”.
• 7th grade was Bye Bye Birdie and the director who quit every year the week before Dress Rehearsals. In 8th grade she quit Oklahoma too.
• I went on to play such show stopping roles as a Swedish Maid, a stripping Aunt, a tomboy, a catatonic nursing home patient, the Chiquita Banana Lady, Cassandra, and an angry Earth Goddess among others.
• I loved doing theatre. I loved hanging with the boys backstage and running across the street to get malts at Dairy Queen. I loved and still love the smell of dust in hot lights and how cool the floor is underneath the stage.
• In high school some genius gave me the opportunity to be a stage manager. Probably type casting again but I had never considered that being bossy could actually be a job!!
• Theatre teaches you how to see someone’s real personality. The one they only show when they are acting. If you don’t believe me you have never been in a show.
• Theatre teaches you how to find your own personality. The one you think you never show anyone.
• I still love theatre and I love children’s theatre because I see the looks on their faces and I know that they are starting to hear the voice of their true self in their minds. I hope they never lose the ability to hear it ever again.
I am doing more children’s theatre this summer even though it is a longer drive and a bigger commitment. I am doing it because theatre let's me hear that voice of mine and because when I see the fire catch in their eyes it makes my heart sing.
SO in honor of my summer theatre kids here is a list of some of my theatre memories growing up:
• My first stage feature was as a yellow crayon. I wore corduroy and a turtleneck. It was deep in the 70’s.
• My follow up performance was as a townsperson in Tom Sawyer. I got the role because my mother has a talent for historical costuming. (I already had a dress)
• Then I was typecast in the role of Lucy in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. It made me love Moonlight Sonata and gave me knock out audition song. I got my first community theatre role with that song in Music Man; another costume drama and my first “cast party”.
• 7th grade was Bye Bye Birdie and the director who quit every year the week before Dress Rehearsals. In 8th grade she quit Oklahoma too.
• I went on to play such show stopping roles as a Swedish Maid, a stripping Aunt, a tomboy, a catatonic nursing home patient, the Chiquita Banana Lady, Cassandra, and an angry Earth Goddess among others.
• I loved doing theatre. I loved hanging with the boys backstage and running across the street to get malts at Dairy Queen. I loved and still love the smell of dust in hot lights and how cool the floor is underneath the stage.
• In high school some genius gave me the opportunity to be a stage manager. Probably type casting again but I had never considered that being bossy could actually be a job!!
• Theatre teaches you how to see someone’s real personality. The one they only show when they are acting. If you don’t believe me you have never been in a show.
• Theatre teaches you how to find your own personality. The one you think you never show anyone.
• I still love theatre and I love children’s theatre because I see the looks on their faces and I know that they are starting to hear the voice of their true self in their minds. I hope they never lose the ability to hear it ever again.
I am doing more children’s theatre this summer even though it is a longer drive and a bigger commitment. I am doing it because theatre let's me hear that voice of mine and because when I see the fire catch in their eyes it makes my heart sing.
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