she's just saying...

East-coast trip

Henry and I are headed east on Saturday for a two-week adventure. We first land in Boston to visit my sister Jennifer. We've got tickets to the Red Sox-Diamondbacks game Monday night! (Look for us on ESPN - we're near third base, catching fouls.) We'll do the Freedom Trail and the Swan boats, of course, Faneuil Hall, Children's Museum. Walk around Harvard with my sister the professor, and get a little city action.

Then we take the train to New Haven, CT to visit my sister Susan. This will be Henry's first train ride! We'll hit the beach there, rain or shine.  We'll walk around Yale and buy a sweatshirt, eat New Haven's best pizza, and relax.

Next we fly to North Carolina for the annual family gathering for the 4th. Swimming in the pool and hanging with family is about all that's on the agenda there, plus any big summer blockbuster that's at the 16-plex. Flying back to Bend on July 5.

These are the times memories are built of. Not the wildly exciting trip to Disneyland (though that's on the summer agenda as well), but spending time with family, goofing around doing next to nothing. It's important to me that Henry makes and strengthens that bond with his extended family, especially as it's just the two of us way up here in Oregon.

camp

As a girl growing up in Western Pennsylvania, to me camp meant Camp Redwing, a Girl Scout week-long camp. Camp Redwing was built in 1923 and had big platform canvas tents with 4 cots and roll-up sides. There were caper charts, pit toilets, flag ceremonies, campfire events, song booklets, and something called "camp craft" which included how to chop with a hatchet.

It was pretty tightly regimented with a million rules that everyone bought into and that became part of the lore passed down to the littlest scouts. I still remember the three kinds of campfire: log cabin, teepee and lean-to; and the three classifications of wood: kindling, tinder and fuel. These days when we camp, I annoy my friends with camp craft lessons and campground rules. Once a girl scout, always a girl scout, I guess.

loose ends

Time to tie up a few:

1.Yes, Henry does not like the retainers. He says he'd rather have the braces again, and even offered to pay for them himself. We're trying them (actually, he's trying them) a few hours at a time. And they have been lost twice in the two days we've had them. Unfortunately, they're clear and small and easily overlooked.

2. I think I've solved the catnip situation. If you can't cage the cats, cage the catnip.  They hang around it alot but haven't tried to break in yet. I think the smell alone drives them crazy - they don't have to ingest it. Does anybody know?

The owner of Chow (the out-of-coffee cafe, in case you didn't guess) sent me a lovely email apologizing for our experience. He said they weren't out of coffee - it was a server misunderstanding. That's good to know - I'm definitely trying it again.

3. Our knitting group may have found a home - Makahna's Cafe on Galveston. Great spot! Meets all our criteria (natural light, not too noisy, comfortable space, parking, beer and wine). The owner, Steve, kept it open just for us, which was wonderful. He's working on staying open evenings more. Check it out!

4. I did buy an electric mower and love it.

5. The laser treatments I had to control my glaucoma were very successful. My interocular (great word) pressures are way down, and should stay that way for a few years, hopefully.

"Things I've done that you probably haven't" meme

Ten things I've done that you probably haven't (censored for public consumption):

1. Peeked into Faye Dunaway's underwear drawer.

2. Dove to 260 feet to get "narced" (nitrogen narcosis). Really dumb, but cool.

3. Pulled a just-born kitten out of a placenta (the mom was busy having another at the time).

4. Taught Mandy Patankin to scuba dive.

5. Toured a vineyard with Ernest Gallo.

6. Laid on the sidewalk in lower Manhattan at 3 am on my 30th birthday.

7. Boarded a train in southern Italy and ended up in Fairbanks, Alaska by the end of the day.

8. Sailed a boat single-handed through the LA shipping channel with no wind and no engine.

9. Scored a perfect 800 on the verbal GRE's for graduate school.

10. Gotten laid off via car phone.

So what's your list??

me me meme

Okay, I'm piggy-backing on the meme on Knit One Quilt Too. Hey, Kristen!

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Um, let's see. 1998. Dating Bruce. Driving to Portland every other weekend. Working at the agency-that- must-not-be-named. Training Flash. Thinking about adoption. Wait - it might have been Kev. Who can remember?

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
1. Work on that darn entrelac bag! Whose idea was it, anyway? Oh, right.
2. Write back to my friend Maurice in Hawaii - I miss him.
3. Hit Safeway for the third time this week.
4. Look for work.
5. Attend the Knit-Up at PJ's tonight - highlight of my week!

3. Snacks I enjoy.
Cereal, plain yogurt, fruit and maple syrup.
Cheese and crackers (my staple single-girl meal).
The little candy bars that are in accounting. Have to come up with reason to visit accounting.
Is wine a snack?

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire.
Get a housekeeper.
Give a million dollars to Heifer International. That's a lot of chickens! (and ducks, bees, geese, goats, rabbits and of course heifers).
Fix the potholes on 16th Street.

5. Places I have lived.
In reverse chronological order: Bend, Los Angeles, NYC, Boston, Fairbanks, Vermont, Florence, Paris, Vermont, Pittsburgh PA.

6. Jobs I've had.
Are you kidding? OK, titles only: marketing manager, marketing director, consultant, account director, management supervisor, account supervisor, account exec.(right on up the ad agency ladder), scuba instructor/divemaster, temp secretary, traffic manager (newspaper, not cars), bookstore manager, pipeline inspector, restaurant manager, pizza cook, waitress, figure drawing model, girl scout camp counselor.

OK, who's next?

Over time

This is one measure of how well I'm doing: the amount of time that passes after waking before I think about him. A few months ago, it was one and a half seconds. As soon as I opened my eyes in the morning, that crushing weight came down on me and stabbed me in the chest. To mix my painful metaphors.

Now, I go about 45 minutes. I get up, feed the dog and cats, let them out, make coffee, check email, go get the paper... oh. There's his house. Wonder what he's doing.

Yes, living three doors away would not be my recommended strategy for getting over someone. But no one is moving, so you deal with it. I always knew this part would be hard. When I lie on my son's bed at night singing a lullabye, I can see his doorbell light through the darkness. Out my window when I shower, when I'm in the garden. Seeing the blue light from the TV.  It's hard to avoid his house and therefore his presence, which stirs up my my memories and regrets.

I'm feeling happy and positive these days. Enjoying the simplicity of my life and the peace I've found. And I sing along with that Lucinda Williams song playing in my head:

"I guess one afternoon
You won't cross my mind
And I'll get over you
Over time."

a toast...

to my friends.
They support me, listen to my stories, share their lives, go for walks, care for my child, play with my dog, hug me when I'm down, split a bottle of wine, and just get me. In no particular order, I toast:

Mark, my old roomie, who has helped me raise Henry, organized my house and garden, and knows me like no one else;
Elicia, who drinks with me, makes me think and makes me laugh;
Angelina, who has helped raise my son, gives wonderful massages and keeps me smelling good;
Sondra, who is always there to listen and offer constructive ideas;
Mary, who has the bracing wit and clarity of a gin and tonic;
Annie, my cheerleader and companion at work;
Karen, my neighbor in so many ways;
and Jeremy, who has taken Henry into his life and family.

I could not survive a day without you all.

the square peg

Raising a child who has a different way of perceiving and interacting with the world is clearly tough. Doing it alone can be agonizing. H is extremely energetic and talkative and often has a hard time focusing (yes, we know the diagnosis). He's incredibly smart and funny and imaginative, but his active mind doesn't mesh well with linear tasks.

It's so clear to me and others who know him that he's going to accomplish something great in life. But he has to get through third grade, and right now, his personality is too big for a class of 25 kids. Last night we had another heart-to-heart, with tears on both sides. I tried to explain the square peg in the round hole. The square peg is perfect in its squareness but needs to try to squeeze into that hole sometimes as best it can. It's not that it's better for him, really, it's for the convenience of the rest of society. I never understood that until I had a square peg of my own.

His way is the right way for him. It's where creativity and genius live. But he has to be able to sit quietly in his seat to "succeed." So to accomplish that, it's recommended that we medicate his exuberance. Which breaks my heart.

I'm in love...

with my knitting group. A stimulating mix of women from early 20's to late 60's (guessing here!) who have instantly bonded over sticks and string. They're funny, smart, positive, open-minded, nonconformist, creative - all the things I look for in my companions. New faces keep arriving and the group welcomes them in. Not to mention the good wine and food.

I can't say I get a lot of knitting done at our gatherings, but I wouldn't miss it for the world. If you're interested, click on the Bend Knit-Up link to the right. (Or left. Things keep moving around here.)

tunnel vision

Hello. My name is Melissa, and I have glaucoma.

I always thought really old people got glaucoma, but there you have it. I was diagnosed several years ago, with no symptoms and normal eye pressures at the time. Two different doctors detected some optic nerve damage during my routine eye exams (2nd opinions: good). No one else in my family history has had it, and there's no identifiable cause, but it's been progressing steadily over the last several years.

Thankfully, I have no loss of vision or other symptoms yet. But I've been on a number of different eye drops that have not been able to control my increasing eye pressure, and today I had the first of several laser procedures in an attempt to slow the progress. Basically, they burned little holes in my right eye to reduce the pressure. In a few weeks I go back for treatment of the other eye.

I find it hard to admit publicly -- it just sounds so weird and how do you put it again old. But if I can get it, so can you, so go get your eyes checked. It's a 2-minute, painless test that could keep you from going blind. Is that motivation enough?

End of public service announcement. I'm going to go knit.

Labels: glaucoma, pov

Breakups...

suck.

Just when you think you're ok, you get blindsided out of nowhere by the realization that it's over. Of course, you somehow only remember the sweet moments and completely forget the misery of the bad.

Which would you rather have, the pain in the relationship or the pain of it being gone?

Moot point, as it is over, and is not coming back.

Which you know rationally is a good thing, but which means nothing when your heart is broken.

Labels: pov