It's a milestone!!!

It’s over. Wow, I thought there would be gnashing and ripping of flesh, but it wasn’t so bad. I awoke yesterday to a foreboding, something in the air and when I emptied my dishwasher one was ruined, totally cut on the side, I wasn’t buying another. I mean, it’s not like before, when they were mine, always with me; no, these are independent of me, of anyone. So, back to the foreboding, the cut one, and then, I notice that the other one, the back-up, because I don’t have a lot, was nipped. That’s it, I say. No more. So I collect the unclean and one clean and through a ceremony, we put them in a bag and say by bye and now, Baby is no longer drinking from his bottle.
So much easier than when I weaned my Seven-Year-old grandson and definitely easier than when I weaned my two. My two were breasts fed and it’s not like you can put them in a bag and tell the babes to say bye bye and toss them, nope they are there, a constant tease for the baby to wonder why mommy isn’t feeding them. Maybe that’s why I breasts fed my babies until they were way too old. I don’t know. But Baby is no longer a bottle carrying tot. Do the happy dance. Oh yeah, the potty training thing. Well, I’m actually not actively doing it, but we have the chair and last night, he took his diaper off and for at least twenty minutes played getting on and off the potty chair. While there was no action, he did drop a few crayons in the bowl part and then he used a baby wipe, play pooh-pooh, either that or an artist making a statement, who knows.

Death Camp

It started when I watched Oprah. She had Elie Wiesel on and they were touring the death camp. The man was only 15 when he and his family were loaded on a cattle car and taken to the death camp. His mother, sisters, and grandmother were gassed. There were pictures, it was graphic and they showed all the shoes of all the children. There were pictures of these babies, my grandson’s age and older children my seven-year-old grandson’s age and little girls and boys and it just broke my heart, they were on their way to the gas chambers, some to the crematorium to be burned alive. How could they, how could we allowed it to go on for so long?
That’s what started it and then I began to think of the custody battle and what if I lose, and then about school and what if I can’t finish, and then my age, why am I doing all of this at 51? It snowballed and by yesterday, I couldn’t even think.

Last night, I translated Catullus, poem 3. Today, I’m still thinking about the death camps.

Crayons!

When I was a kid, we were dirt poor, that’s what Mama said, “Dirt Poor.” We didn’t have crayons in our house, or books, or music, except on Friday night when Lawrence Welk came on the television set that Mama bought with the settlement that came from the wreck that killed her oldest daughter and her first husband. It picked up two channels, and we spent most of the night going outside and turning the huge antennae to improve the reception.

Now, I buy lots of art supplies, notebooks, pencils, and pens. I never wanted my children or want my grandchildren to know what it was like to not have things. So, sometimes when I’m in the grocery store, I’ll put three or four boxes of crayons in the basket. My husband doesn’t understand this crayon obsession and it’s just too hard to explain. Today, the Baby is using his crayons to draw on the bathroom door. I don’t protest. Am I supposed to? I’d rather him do art work on the door than stick the crayons in his nose, which is what he sometimes does, so in the grand scheme of things, washable crayons on walls is okay.

Our court date has been postponed because she, my daughter, has an attorney and he wants the court moved into the county where she now lives. I don’t know how I feel about that, the judge who was going to hear our case was familiar with her, but my attorney said not to worry. For today, it’s crayons and my grandson, nothing could be better.

She is high and at it again.

My daughter called, it was Saturday. She was calling to tell me someone broke into our house again. We rushed down the mountain and through the valley; and when we got there her and two cops were busy in some kind of hassle. The cops said, he has watched our house and it was fine an hour prior to her calling me, but he drove by, they are checking it often now, and saw her on the porch, at the same time, she says she is calling to make a police report that someone had broken in. She isn’t supposed to be there, not ever, not for anything. The cop said she did it and filed a police report that she was coming out of the house ect. In the mean time, she is getting the Baby. She is crying and really making a huge drama. She is high. She has another woman with her, who has meth mouth really bad and sores on her face and is like a skeleton. My seven-year-old grandson is with her and he cries to come with us. The police order her to give the baby back, she tells the cop to fuck off, he threatens to arrest her, I tell The Good Son to take the Seven-year-old to the back of the house, Mr. Zelda gets the baby. She is ordered to leave and before she leaves, she gets the seven-year-old and she tells me that I am going to lose custody of the Baby, and she will never let me see him or the seven-year-old again. Never! I know she won’t win; she is too cranked up at this point and will probably show up in court like that. The police recorded every single thing she said, the entire fuck you’s with the kids there and the threats and the cussing the cops. It was a bad thing. She did break into the house, because pictures were gone, you know decorating type pictures, and she asked if she could have my water hose for the seven-year-old to play with and I said yes but she wouldn’t let the Good Son put it in the trunk of her car. On my way home, she called and cursed me more. I told her, when she finally took a breath, all I want is you to get off of dope, get a job, and be the good mother that I know you can be. She listened. I know she listened because there was silence and she cried and then she said, “I can’t believe my own mom is doing this to me.” I said, “Thank god, you have a mom that cares.” Then she hung up.

Crossed wiring, drunk neighbors, and the whore

When I scratch my ear, my nose itches, is that normal? And, when I rub between my eyes, I feel the urge to sneeze. I wonder if my wiring is crossed.
I have two new neighbors, one, I think is a whore, the other, well there are two, are first time away from home kids and they are still drunk. I think, they got drunk the first night and have not let up. I wonder if I should go over and offer them fluids, or wait and see if they emerge. Last night, I heard loud music and when I opened my patio door, the air was thick with the smell of beer and pot.

Ahh, that wiff brought back memories of my first pad, all night pot smoking, sex in a bed and not the back seat of my boyfriend’s car, and, and, staying out as late as I wanted. That lasted all of one week, then I found out that nothing happens after midnight, sex in my bed, well it was more fun in the back seat of my boy friend’s car, and all night pot smoking, well that continued, or at least for a while. I expect the boys to tame down in a day or so, when they realize that all night drinking and staying up late and all of that will make them feel like crap and eventually someone has to pick up the beer cans before moms comes to visit.

The whore, she looks rough and never leaves her apartment, but guys come and go. She keeps a clean apartment, not cluttered like mine. I know because I saw through the windows. Whores are like that, clean; well the ones who aren’t on drugs. I wonder if she puts an add somewhere or is she spread by word of mouth. Hmm, if I ever get to know her, I will ask. It must be tough being a whore and being old. I would suppose that her income goes down as she gets older and she probably has to do more guys. That’s awful, doing more guys.

Baby update

I’m pleased to announce that Baby is getting tired of his diapers and when he poops, he wants the diaper changed immediately. Potty training is coming real soon. WE bought him a chair, a really nice potty chair, with a faux flusher. He is using the bowl for a hat and the other part that the bowl sits in for a frame for his face. The other part turns into a stool and he is using that to jump off of. The good news, he knows what it’s for, he just has an imagination.

He is forging for food less and less. The forging was a result of my Drug Addicted Daughter passing out, and he would have to find food however he could and it often involved opening up a box of macaroni and eating it raw. Now, he rarely looks for food and never stashes it, he is used to getting his meals regularly and snacks and can get milk or juice by asking. He just tells me he is hungry and I get it for him. I can only imagine what this baby has had to do without waiting on her to wake up. Thank god the judge gave him to me.

Sissies

Coffee is good, a breeze blows outside, and there is this loud bird making song behind my fence. The trees, yeah, the Katobe is blooming, big full white flowers hanging like baskets. I want to reach out and pick them but they are in the neighbor’s yard, so I just watch from over the fence. Speaking of fences, what the fuck is Bush doing with that fence thing? I mean, really, do we need to build a wall between us and Mexico? What next, a wall between us and Canada, or walls on each coast. Will it end or will we look more like the assholes that he has already made us out to be by invading and making war with Iraq? He reminds me of this spoiled kid that I went to elementary school. He never played fair, and when he brought his shiny new toys to school, he sat in the dirt and drew a circle and no one could come into the circle unless he invited them in. The rest of us, not so accustomed to new shiny toys, stayed away from the circle, not too far, and watched as he kicked kids out and let others in, hoping that we would be the ones that he allowed to come into his circle. Then, when I was in the third grade and he was still this obnoxious kid, he made the fatal mistake of laughing at my shoeless feet one too many times and I chased him and caught him and started hitting him and when my brother pulled me off of him, the big ole baby was standing there crying, like a sissy. He never laughed at my poverty again and I never sat by his circle again.

A death in the family: well, maybe not quite a death.

My computer died. Well, it can be brought back with a new power source, but we have to wait until the stores open and then only if they have the right size source. Now, we have three other pcs here in our house but my pc has my novel on it, the one that I am writing about the whore. I have seven chapters that I didn’t back up. I know, I know, I should always back up or in the least save it in this one little file that can be accessed from my husband’s pc but, well, I just didn’t expect to have a computer problem. So, I am all nervous and pissed and wanting to add to my novel but can’t because I like to see what I wrote last, you know build from the last point. Life sucks.
ON the bright side, I didn’t burn the eggs. Not that I burn them a lot, but sometimes, like today, when I’m stressed, I just don’t pay attention and things burn.
Enough said.

Happy Mother's Day

Yesterday we had a family reunion with all my aunts, uncles and cousins. I hate them, not my aunts and cousins, family reunions. My mother, who is dead, has two living sisters and two living brothers and one of the sisters and one of the brothers has Alzheimer’s and it is so sad to see them sitting next to each other and not knowing who the hell the other is. In addition, the Aunt with Alzheimer’s looks just like my mother always has looked like her. It’s real hard for me to see her and not get a lump in my throat, pain in my heart, and want my mom to be there instead of the imposter mom.

Now today is mother’s day, a day I have hated since my mom died so long ago. I was a child, well, not a child, I was 11, pretty much a child. She wasn’t the best mom in the world and certainly she didn’t do all she could to protect me, but she had really good characteristics. I can not smell Jergen’s lotion without remembering her, that’s a fact. At night, when she worked and came home with sore feet, I got her a pan of hot water, and while her feet soaked, I rubbed her legs and ankles, and when the water cooled, I dried her feet and rubbed Jergen’s lotion on them and massaged her feet and legs. That was an every night affair. She never asked me, I just did it. It’s funny, I knew how hard she worked, how sore her feet were, and no one had to tell me. She was a waitress in a truck stop, that’s where she met my father. In addition to smelling like Jergen’s, she smelled like the truck stop, greasy burgers, and old smoke.

Yeasts. When I make home made yeasts rolls, I think of her. My mama made homemade bread every single day of my life. Her hands were so strong from kneading dough, and recently, I was making bread and when I began kneading the dough I looked at my hands and there they were, her hands, just like her hands. She made enough bread for our family and made spare enough to give to her friends and to the furniture mad, who I think mom and him were more than friends, I can’t prove that other than what I remember, but he came often to get rolls and they flirted and smiled a lot at each other. She also made bread for our preacher and his wife.

I find myself saying the same things she said, like, “Your’re gonna poke your eye out.” Or, “Don’t do that, your face will freeze.” There are so many that I got from her, I can’t remember them all until I hear myself saying them and I have to stop and say, I can’t believe I am saying that. My mom used to yell for us to come and eat. She should have had a bell to ring, or a triangle to hit, but no, she stood on the porch and one by one she called our names followed with supper. Now, if I didn’t hear her, one of the kids from our family or from the neighborhood would yell up the street and say, your mom’s calling and I knew it was time to eat and I grabbed my tag-a-long sister’s hand and we ran like wild cats home to eat.

I also laugh like her, not sounding like her, but laugh like her, all the time laughing and making people laugh. She never met a stranger and neither do I. Dogs and kids loved her and they love me too. IN fact, I have never met a child that I didn’t want to hold, nor a dog that I didn’t want to pet, she was like that too. No matter how much or how little, it was mostly little, food that we had, Mom always had an open invitation to the neighbor’s kids. She never turned them away. It might mean we got more bean soup on our cornbread than beans, but there was enough to go around.

Well, yesterday, when I looked at her four remaining siblings, and saw how they look at their ages and how they get around, and how my mom could be like them, like the aunt who doesn’t have Alzheimer’s and still moves around like a woman half her age, or like her brother, the one who still sails a boat in the Pacific. I mean, she would be old, but she could still be functional. I felt a tinge of anger that it was her and not someone else’s mom who died of cancer. I miss her, I miss her so much and wish, oh how I wish she had not died, that I could have had a few more years with her, that she could have met my children, my grandsons. I wish she was still here. Happy Mother’s day, that’s a phrase I wish I could say to the real deal and not to the sister who raised me, but to her, to my mom.

Farts, Asses, and Smoke?

So, I have memorized every single word, every single song, every single character in both Shrek and Shrek II. Now, that’s not a bad thing to do, except that my grandson is not quite 2 and he loves scatological humor. When Shrek farts in the mud, my grandson laughs with delight. When the dragon kisses the ass of Shrek instead of the donkey, well, he goes nuts. Then there’s the scene where the little puppets come out and remind the visitors to wipe their face and wipe their…and they turn around and bend over and you see their butts but they say shoes. While I feel like such a loser of a Nana for letting him watch this stuff, I also enjoy the moments of totally quiet time, minus the laughter. I tried nice little DVDs like the vegeetales and those awful Barney ones, but no, he likes scat. What’s next, Up In Smoke? Who knows. And if you don’t know what Up In Smoke is, well you are too young to understand.

Over for a bit

So, turned in last paper. Milton, the paper was on Milton. So, I turned it in and thought that I would feel liberated that, well, you know, the semester has ended, but instead, I keep thinking, wow, I could have done a better job. Am I the only one who does this?