April 2007

I’ve started taking yoga classes. I had my first one today. I’m very sore. I’ve been wanting to do some sort of activity that involves getting away from home and work and I think this may hit the spot.

I took a few yoga classes in college and I’ve been wanting to take them again for awhile but unfortunately Bartlesville has yet to acquire any actual yoga studio, where they have classes throughout the week at different times of day. Apparently the YMCA has yoga classes but last I checked they called it “Stretching”. When I asked the receptionist about this she said in a hushed voice that the class never enticed people to take part when it was called yoga because of the whole “hindu thing” so they called it stretching and nobody knows the difference. Sometimes living in the bible belt makes me seriously moody.

DING-DONG!

Matt: Hi
Cindy: Hey

Me: Hi
Mike: Hey

Matt: Oh, wow! You’ve re-decorated!

Mike: Wha?

Carleen: Oh. No….that’s just the laundry.

There’s been some interesting development in the superhero front…kyptonite has been discovered and…check this out…some Italian scientist has developed a super duper super glue made from the feet of a gecko lizard that would allow for a real-life spider man suite.

Comic book nerds rejoice…

We were too busy whining and being sick that we forgot to post some new photos of Liam and Mikes family (parents, sister, aunt and cousin) who came down to visit for a weekend a few weeks ago. It’s always a treasure having them here although, it’s never long enough. It was the first time his sister and aunt got to see Liam.

And yes, I’ve changed our template once again and yes, I know it’s girly and has absolutely nothing to do with monkeys so let’s just try to have a sense of humor about it, shall we (Mike…)?

I’ve also changed Liam’s page a little…under recent video you can see him making cute faces and saying his first distinct sound (ba). He also recently started crawling (scootching more like, but he gets around).

I’ve been having horrible nightmares recently. We’ve been having some stress lately with our dog Chani. She’s depressed, not adapting well to the new situation with having an infant in the house and being force to spend her nights on the couch. She developed some kind of bladder inflamation a few weeks ago and had us up all hours of the night needing to pee. The vet has put her on some antibiotics and long term anti-depressents. Unfortunately, now there’s something making her sick at night. Twice this week I’ve had to get up so she could go outside and vomit.

The other night I had this horrible dream involving dogs and puppies. When I woke up it felt like I had spent the entire night with canines. Turbo and Chani were sitting in our sun room waiting for me to open the glass door, except as I stepped closer to the door I realized that there was a mirror image in front of me, two sliding doors side by side. Behind one were our two dogs. Behind the other were our two dogs again except they were beaten and limping, behind them was another large dog who sort of reminded me of those breeds of dogs the Egyptians used. He was also beaten and had two of its legs missing. Later on in the dream I was at some sort of shelter. There were dogs and cages everywhere, yelping and whining. I was frantically trying to tend to them all when I noticed my old art bin from college, the one I used to store all my art supplies in. I opened it and someone had stuffed a bunch of puppies inside there. They were still alive, but they were all smooshed.

Then yesterday I dreamt that Liam was growing metal in his mouth which provided for some really awful images, too disturbing to talk about here. He seems to be going through a teething episode right now so I imagine that’s why I dreamt that one. My mom has always told me about these horrible dreams she used to have, especially after she became a mother and it looks like I’ve inherited some of that. It leaves me feeling so traumatized in the morning.

Today is our last day of vacation. Mike goes back to work tonight. Unfortunately, I think we’re both going back to work about as tired and worn out as we were when we started this vacation. Mike is just now starting to come down with the cold that has plagued both Liam and I all week.

There was so much I planned to do this week. I was going to work on Liam’s scrapbook. Learn how to crochet granny squares and start a blanket. Organize my life online…which is becoming increasingly scattered, social networking profiles scattered everywhere, too many blogs, rss readers everywhere. Read big thick books. Blog a bunch of stuff on my mind. Email people I’m loosing touch with. Altered book crafts. Sew curtains. Reorganize closets. Clean skirting boards. Work in the garden. Walk the dogs. Play with the dogs. Of course, spend time with my family and relax. I have literally been waiting for this week since October, when I went back to work after maternity leave. As it is, pretty much nothing got done. I baked cookies. Chocolate Chip oatmeal cookies which turned out so hard that you have to microwave them or dip them in tea in order to bite into them.

Priority for this week became spending time with Mike and Liam and trying to relax as much as possible. I think we did get some of that in. I guess this is sort of a reality check for Mike and I who sort of assumed a vacation as parents was still a vacation whereas it’s more like a negotiated schedule of freetime.

….or so says Mike…and according to a study ordered by Congress it looks like he may be right.

Study: Abstinence classes don’t stop sex

I’ve recently discovered the Mango as a fruit I love. It seems to me to be a connoisseur’s fruit. Mostly due to the trouble you have to go through to actually enjoy the damn thing. First off, when is it ripe? You have to be perfect in your estimation of when it’s ripe - if you eat it a few days too soon or a few days too late, the taste is off. Now most fruit is far more forgiving than this. Banana’s I can eat at nearly anytime, thought I generally enjoy a touch on the green side, but they’re good before and after that. Apples are great just about any time in their life cycle, oranges, the same way. Mango’s though, have a window of maybe a few days.

Next is getting to the fruit. The skin is thick and difficult to cut. And the shape of the pit is strange, like a flattened football. Not to mention the fact that the fruit is none too enthusiastic about seperating from the pit. And when ripe, mango’s are incredibly juicy and terribly messy. Plus the juice stains something awful - a super bright neon yellow. Oh, I almost forgot that since they are, like most fruit, pulled off the tree before they’re ripe, you have to wait until they’re ripe a process that I’ve seen take a good week and a half, and that’s sitting on the counter in a little basket - this is not a fruit to keep in the fridge.

But, despite all this, when you get one just perfect it’s almost heavenly to eat. Don’t interrupt me when I’m eating a good mango, cause let me tell you - whatever you got, it’s a far second to that mango at that moment. If there’s no blood, then it can wait.

I’ve been reading up on anger issues and, upon reflection, I’m starting to see a pattern to my anger. My anger stems generally from two seperate circumstances: a lack of assertiveness on my part to “fight” (for the lack of a better word) for my rights or needs; and feelings of helplessness when there is nothing I can do to fix a situation.

I tend towards being a person who bends over backwards for other people, I see it as being respectful of other peoples needs and trying to be cooperative. It leaves me open to being a Welcome Mat, on occasion. Which leads me to silent brooding or venting my anger on someone removed from the situation who can do nothing about it. Take an example today, for instance. My friend Brian is getting married in June and I’m his Best Man. I went to a local formal wear shop to get tux measurements. After waiting for several people in front of me to be taken care of, I explained to one of the men what I needed. His response boiled down to, “It’s prom season, we’re terribly busy and you’re just going to have to wait while I man the phones.” At the time I was told this, I was one of two people actually in the store at the time. I told him that we had other things to do and that I’d just come back tomorrow. While in the back of my mind complaining that, I’m in the store now, standard business practices (as I’m used to) are that people in the store get waited on BEFORE taking phone calls. When I left the store I complained to Carleen, who tells me she’d be right back and walks into the store (she’d been waiting in the car with Liam). Well, she gave me the signal and we went back into the store. Where we waited.

I was very proud of my wife at this point - she has always been incredibly assertive in a way that I envy. She’s never been “bitchy” assertive, simply “This is what is right, you aren’t doing it that way and I’m not happy.” We continued waiting until Telephone Guy comes back over asking what we needed. I explained again, and he told me the same thing. Carleen got in an arguement with him, his response was basically, we weren’t buying anything so we could be made to wait indefinitely. Carleen expresses her disproval and we leave the store - I hadn’t said a word. This really upset me, and made me feel ashamed - like I had to go out to the car and call in my wife (a.k.a. “the Big Guns) to get what I wanted.

My second form of anger comes when I’m in a situation that I have no control over. The two events that spawn this anger are working on my machine - I don’t know anything about machines and problems are a complete mystery to me; and Liam. Getting Liam to sleep properly, getting him to feed properly, figuring out what is bothering him. He can’t communicate what is wrong and it frustrates me. These are the types of problems that spawn my more outburst types of anger - generally against inanimate objects - tossing paper or tools, slamming doors, throwing bottles, etc.

Unfortunately I haven’t gotten any further than that in my books, so I don’t know what to do with that information, but it’s a step in the right direction, at least.

On a recent trip to Tulsa me and Carleen took, I picked up a copy of Paul Tukey’s The Organic Lawn Care Manual. This is a tremendous book for someone like me, who just recently spread synthetic fertilizer on the front lawn while the whole time having a, sort of, little tick in the back of my mind telling me how wrong it was, but I lacked the knowledge to do anything different than what my neighbors are doing. In the book Mr. Tukey talks a lot about using compost as fertilizer, aerating the lawn, mowing and watering properly - simple things that have a tremendous impact on the grass and soil without having to resort to chemicals. I’m still working through it, but I’ve learned a lot so far, and it’s got me excited to be working outside on the lawn again. I had pretty much given up hope on our lawn as a lost cause. With two dogs running around in the backyard, I couldn’t lay down synthetic fertilizer for fear of harming them, so I felt I had few or no options. I’ve since learned I was very wrong. The great part is I’ve finally gotten the chance to use all the compost I’ve been hoarding for years. I’m looking forward to kicking my composting into high gear in preperation for next year.

Viking orphan + Native American Upringing = Pathfinder

or

History + Fiction + Art = Another graphic novel movie

Karl Urban - clothing + sword fights = good entertainment

Mike and I are on vacation leave starting tomorrow, although it looks like it’s turning out to be more like sick leave. Liam has caught a nasty cold virus (I think he caught it from my dad who’s still suffering from the effects…over a week later). He’s had it since Wednesday. His cough has been so bad that he hasn’t been able to eat, in many cases throwing up what he does eat because the mucus in his throat is so bad. Then yesterday he broke out in a mysterious rash but that seems to be gone now. To make things worse, it looks like I’m coming down with it too. I have that head cold dizzy feeling plus scratchy throat. I’m consuming large quantities of orange juice and chicken soup hoping to kick it before it officially starts but it looks like it’s too late. I’m about twenty-four hours into the symptoms and they’re just getting worse. So start feeling sorry for me. It looks like I’m going to be spending this vacation on the couch cradling a box of tissues in one arm and my sick child in the other.

In other news, the bathroom sink decided to explode in Mike’s face this morning. Is it any wonder he has problems with anger when our house continuosly falls apart on him?

Literally a few mere hours after my parents flew back to New York, the little terd goes and sits up with no help at all.