Singing the Sky

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I’m so angry/sad right now. I found out last night that the wife of one of my colleagues died. She was one of those women who looked perfect at all times. I felt jealous of her and of her size 6 wardrobe. She had a great sense of humor. Her death was a surprise.

It was caused by complications of a prior gastric bypass surgery. I never knew she used to be fat. What a price she paid in her efforts to fit into this this town.

We have billboards everywhere advertising bariatric surgery, laser hair removal, facelifts, the works. This is a town of 30,000, so it seems a little much. But, appearances are everything here.

This woman leaves behind 9 year old twins with chronic health problems, her husband (who just transferred to another school district–what a time to start a new job), and a 16 year old son, whom I taught when he was in 7th grade. He’s a sweet kid–all the kids are–and my heart just breaks for this family.

I need to go to the viewing to show my support. I hate viewings. I don’t want to see someone dead. I feel so bad that this whole thing happened. It is so tragic in so many ways.

The thing is, people shouldn’t have to have surgery to fit in here. People shouldn’t have to feel the need to look perfect. I wish our town made people feel welcome and loved regardless of which hairdresser they use. Really.

I know several other people who have had gastric bypass surgery in my town. This is weird, since I didn’t even know one person who had had it in Austin, and I knew a lot more people there. Three of the people I know who have had it have been hospitalized in the past year for problems related to it. One of the people who I know who has had it is my new principal. She seems to be doing fine.

I’m just so upset about this whole thing. I also want to know who the woman’s doctor was. She was treated for an intestinal blockage when it was a kink in her intestines. The blood supply got cut off and it got all horrible–she died of septic shock.

Lawsuit?

I just don’t know what else to say about this.

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Obviously, I should not start a cooking blog. Even though they stuck to the baking sheet, breaking many, Sage and I had fun making them. They look a bit like red and blue starfish, don’t you think? I just need to stick some cute little eyes on…

No flags here. I have “issues” with both flags and the pledge. I mean, think about it. With who’s running our country, do you really want to pledge allegiance? I think our allegiance should be to a higher power, not to artificial boundaries, political ideas and war. Just sayin’.

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Photo: bradleygee

Yesterday, I heard a soft knock at the door. I opened it to see a large black guy standing there. I figured he must be one of my neighbors.

“Ma’am, I’ve ran out of gas just up the street here,” he said, motioning around the corner to Church Street where I couldn’t see. “Do you have some yardwork I could do so I can run up the store and get some gas?”

“I do need my lawn mowed,” I said, “but I don’t suppose you have a lawn mower with you right now.”

“Naw, but I’ll come back with it if you’ll just give me a few bucks so I can get the gas.”

Still wondering if he was a neighbor, I asked him where he lived.

“Oh, I live over by Lanana Creek, in the Black section.”

When he said that, I got the feeling that when I had stepped out the door I had entered some sort of time portal that had carried me back to the 1950’s. In this house, anything feels possible.

I went into the house, found five dollars, and handed it to him. He promised to come back and mow my yard. Of course he didn’t come back. I didn’t expect him to. The thing that is currently bugging me is that I am wondering if he thought I expected him to. I can just hear it now…”That white bitch thought I was going to mow her damn lawn for a lousy five dollars! Sheeet no…”

Or not.

I do know that there was never a car that was out of gas. I saw him walking down the street today, so there is no car at all, most likely.

I don’t regret giving him the money for two reasons. One, anyone who is desperate enough to come to your door and beg probably needs the money, even if it’s to get drunk. Two, if it ever happens again,with him or anyone else, I can say, “Nope, done been there. No money here for yardwork that doesn’t get done.”

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I’ve been having these little anxiety attacks for two days. They started yesterday, the official day that Sky turned 18. I know that it is most likely related in some way, although how, I’m not quite sure.

I operate using the philosophy of “if you love something let it go, and if it loves you (or is totally broke) then it will come back to you”. This has not worked out well with men in general, but it did with my son, and he didn’t even have to be broke to decide he wanted to live here again.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’ve already done the whole moving out thing–a year early–and he came back, and is still living here, so I don’t get what the big deal is. Maybe it’s the whole “OMG I’m the mom of a grown man” thing. I really don’t know.

I just dropped him off at the bus station so that he could go to San Antonio to visit his ex-girlfriend that gave him a pregnancy scare a couple of years ago. He won’t tell his dad he is going because he knows his dad will call him a fool. Yes, it is a foolish thing for him to be doing, but calling him foolish is not going to stop him from doing it. We talked about it, and he knows he is doing something stupid, but feels compelled anyway. It’s difficult to watch kids go through these things. At least she’s shipping out with the Navy in a week.

I’m done thinking about this, at least for the moment. I took some photos this morning. Here is a cute kitty picture. Varmint spent half the day under the house yesterday, and came back so happy and content. All she needed to do was return to her trashy wild kitty roots instead of living in a sterile apartment to be happy…

Here’s one of Sky and Sage. They love each other so much it blows my mind. No competition or ugly stuff–just admiration and love.

And here’s a pot of flowers. I have one on each side of the front steps going up to the porch. I bought the pots and flowers before I even got paint to start fixing up rooms in the house. A girl’s got to have priorities, and they make me happy.

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Well, I thought I did a great job spray painting this chest of drawers until I saw this photo. Ack. Back to the front yard with another can.

Sage really likes the carpet in his new room. I still need to address the broken windows and replace a couple of outlets. One of those will require an electrician, while the windows will certainly require a professional. Bye bye money.

Sky’s 18th birthday is tomorrow, and we celebrated yesterday. Last week, we had went to the music store, where I traded in an electric guitar and amp, threw in fifty bucks and got him a conga set. It turns out he’s pretty good at drumming.

When my folks were over yesterday, my mom gave Sky a photo album she had put together for him. She teared up when she gave it to him. There were pictures of her as a young mother and photos of my grandmother as well as photos of me when I was young. These are photos that even I don’t have. There were also quite a few of him as a young kiddo, all smiling! My parents simply adore Sky, and it really showed with that gift. I hope he realizes how much that gift meant. I think he does.

Here is the cake I made. He said he wanted cheesecake, or even better, tiramisu. Since I live in a town where marscapone cheese is impossible to find, I invented a recipe.

This turned out to be the best cake I’ve ever made, even if it isn’t the prettiest one. If you want to make it, it is very simple, and you can do it in ten minutes. Here’s what you do:

Buy a bakery angel food cake, Kahlua, a dark chocolate bar, sliced almonds and a tub of ready to eat cheesecake.

You probably already have some coffee on hand. Brew up a cup of really strong coffee, sweeten to taste, and throw in about half a cup of the Kahlua.

Slice the cake into three layers. Poke the top of the bottom two layers with a fork. Pour half the coffee mixture on each layer (or until it is about 1/4 saturated), then spread the cheesecake filling on top of that, like frosting. Layer the cake as usual, and then “frost” with the remaining cheesecake filling. Grate the chocolate on top and decorate with almonds.

This would probably be good with amaretto instead of the Kahlua, although Sky noted that it tasted like a White Russian. Of course, you could always leave out the liqueur altogether, especially since that was the most expensive part of the cake!

One thing, I could never have that cheesecake filling around in the refrigerator. It’s dangerous.

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Less internet-savvy individuals will fall straight for it! This is really a cool idea.

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Photo: kuyman

So far, they’ve never been premonitions. And when you’re driving down the road and in your mind’s eye you see the motorcycle in front of you skid, tumble, its driver sliding beneath the wheels of an oncoming car–you are thankful for that.

It’s difficult to know what to make of it all sometimes. You read articles about people who felt a sudden foreboding about getting on a particular flight, and who subsequently saved themselves from a fiery death amid twisted metal falling from the sky. You imagine what would happen if you acted on all of your feelings of foreboding. Chances are, you’d never leave the house again.

You wonder what would happen if for once, you actually did have a premonition of a disaster of some sort. Would you recognize it? Or would you write it off as being just another one of your catastrophic visions?

You wish the visions in your head were good ones. Perhaps someday, in the subreality your mind drifts to, you will see the perfection of the incomprehensible order of life. The good things. The ones we take for granted.

Read more about vision at Sunday Scribblings.

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I stopped thinking about politics.

I started thinking about ways to earn money instead. I found myself abandoning sites like TruthOut and reading Dosh Dosh as an unlikely alternative.

This all sounds very selfish and all, but it has worked out for me rather well. I’ve made several thousand more dollars than I would have otherwise and I’m not nearly as miserable as I used to be when I followed every evil act that Bush, Monsanto, Insert Random Big Corporation Here committed. I even quit thinking about how awful the local police are. That was hard to do, given that Sky and my school have both contrived to give me the inside view that I never wanted to see.

I hadn’t really been aware that I’d backed off from politics until I looked in an unlikely mirror. G, who was always the more apathetic of the two of us, now constantly rants about legal injustices, police brutality, corporate crimes and hypocrites in general.

I find it annoying. I try to change the subject, but he doesn’t get my hints. I can’t be judgmental here, because I was doing the exact same thing just a year ago. I will eventually work up the nerve to ask him to stop, once I can think of a nice way to put it. It brings me down.

I figure there is absolutely no purpose in ranting about politics unless one is going to do something to change them. Even then, it’s probably better to just go on and do whatever it is without talking about it endlessly. For example, going to the local farmer’s market feels good. I think it probably feels better going without carrying along the baggage of self-righteousness that I’m not shopping at Wal-Mart instead, you know?

There’s not much I can do to change things, when you get right down to it. At least nothing that I am willing to do at this point in time. So, if I’m not willing or able to stop corporate welfare (to give just one example), then why not go and read some poetry instead?

Everyone needs a hobby.

On second thought, maybe the Zoloft is just working really, really well and I’m part of the mind-controlled masses. You never know.

Tags: thinking

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Such serious things my kiddos contemplate.

Sage got home from day camp and watched a Scooby Doo movie. After the movie, he turns to me and says, “Life is going by really fast. Soon I’ll be grown up. Then I’ll be a grandpa and then I’ll die. And I know what it feels like when you die. You feel nothing.”

He looked and sounded very serious. We talked about it for a while. The idea of “nothing” is not something that he has been raised to believe, so I am intrigued. Strange, the things he is imagining.

About ten minutes later, he asked me why people eat meat. He wanted to know if people needed to eat it to survive. He ended up crying because he felt bad about poisoning the ants in the front yard. (This was me, thirty years ago.)

We’ve had the meat conversation before. He’ll go a few days without eating meat and then cave and eat a pepperoni pizza. I don’t ever give him a hard time about it. We don’t eat a lot of meat in our house anyway, although, since this topic keeps coming up, I’m considering just going vegetarian so he won’t feel so conflicted. It’s not like I really like our factory farming system anyway…

It has felt serious around here lately.

Maybe this kid is going to be an activist.

Tags: activism, kids, thinking

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Really, if I had wanted stunning before and after pictures, I should have taken pictures of the apartment before and after cleaning it. I thought about it, but decided not to, because after all, you all don’t really have to know what a disgusting piglet I can be when it comes to housecleaning, right?

I did get a lot done, though, and there’s plenty more to do. I’ve got to finish painting Sage’s room before the people come to install the carpet. We talked about getting stencils and painting some things on the wall, but we both think these are way cooler.

it’s at Etsy

dvider

I’m partial to the jellyfish one, personally. Sage hasn’t decided yet. There are others I’d like for the living room. The thing is, these pieces of vinyl are flippin’ expensive! For example, the fish are $60.

I asked Sky what he wanted for his eighteenth birthday and he said books. I asked him to email me a list, and he did. It had about ten books on it, every single one of which had to do with LSD shit in some shape or fashion. Apparently, I have not gotten my point across about not liking that shit. Anyway, no books for Sky. I’m getting him something else that I think he’ll like better anyway.

On another note, after cleaning that dirty disgustingly filthy apartment, I’m determined to turn over a new leaf. This may involve hiring someone to come in every other week and clean, at least after school starts. We’ll see.

Tags: design, kids, Sage

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