Mother's Day and rain

I can't believe how much rain we had this week! It's not actually raining right now, despite -- or because of -- the "100% chance of showers" forecast. You do get the sense that the weather reads its own forecast and intentionally does the opposite. But rain is coming, possibly every day this week. I don't mind it, even though my mood is so strongly affected by gray skies. I appreciate how green everything looks. Later in the summer it'll be hot and dry and we'll miss this.

I'm having a pleasant, low-key Mother's Day. Rocket Boy sent a box of chocolate and a card. I also bought myself a card (the one on the right) and told the kids to sign it. Is that too weird? Too pathetic? It may be. I worried about that while I was choosing it, at Target. Still, it was fun to pick exactly the right card for myself. I don't really have anyone to give a Mother's Day card to anymore -- no mother, no grandmothers, no one in my life who plays the role of a mother, no mother I know who doesn't have anyone to remember her.

I also bought myself a cake. I didn't want to go to a restaurant last night because both kids are still coughing (Teen B stayed home from school three days last week), so I said I'd get them McDonald's. (My dinner was leftovers that dated back to Monday, too old to serve to anyone else, but I enjoyed them.) On the way to McDonald's, in the pouring rain, I stopped at Safeway to look at cakes. I had told the kids I wanted a pink or white cake with flowers on it, but I ended up getting this big chocolate cake. We haven't had any yet. We've reached this state that I always enjoy: the house is so full of sweets that I don't feel like I have to eat any of them. But we will have a piece of cake soon.

I did not buy myself a bouquet of flowers -- instead, yesterday I went to the pop-up nursery in the back of the Table Mesa shopping center parking lot and bought flowers to plant! So fun, one of my favorite activities every year. As I told Teen B, who went with me, this is just my first trip. I will undoubtedly go back multiple times, because I have lots of places to plant things. But this is a good start.

There are little yellow marigolds (Rocket Boy's favorite flower, so I always plant some), blue lobelia, pink impatiens, purple petunias, yellow violas, and purple browallia. There is also a cherry tomato plant, and I got a cucumber and a melon, as an experiment. One year we had a volunteer squash plant in the "perennial" area of the yard, which is full of weeds and all the perennials we plant there die. I thought I'd spade up all the weeds and try growing the cucumber and the melon. Worth a shot. The volunteer squash never actually put on any fruit -- I think it was too late in the year when it got going -- but it made a lot of leaves and seemed happy in that location otherwise. 

I was going to plant them today, but I think I'll wait a day or two. Maybe I'll plant a few things each day this coming week. 

Oh, and I saw a hummingbird! I heard it, and then it came to the feeder! So exciting!

***

This was a productive week, despite having a kid home sick on three of the days. I couldn't do any writing, and I only worked on the files three of the days, but that's OK. I did yardwork all five days, and I am really pleased at how that's going. On Friday I put out eight leaf bags (I put out one more after taking this photo), plus the compost bin itself was full. I wasn't sure the compost collectors would want the sopping wet sacks, but I watched a guy pick up each one and throw it in the truck. 

Now I can start again on Monday. I'll aim for nine bags for the next collection (compost is picked up every two weeks), with the compost bin being #10. 

Even working on the files only three days, I got a lot done. I've changed the organization of the file cabinet again, based on what I've been finding. Previously, this had been the plan:

1. Medical, vision, dental records for all four of us
2. Pets' vet records, and files related to Rocket Boy's brother, his parents, and our old next-door neighbor
   
3. Vehicles and their paperwork; files on places we used to live or properties we used to own
4. A bunch of Rocket Boy's old files on pointless things that we don't need to keep.

Now, it is starting to look more like this:

1. Medical, vision, dental records for me and Rocket Boy only (there's a lot -- we're old)
   
2. Dependents: pets' vet records, files related to RB's brother, and files related to the twins, including their medical-dental-vision records, school stuff, etc.
   
3. Vehicle records and anything else that needs a home from other drawers. Memberships, subscriptions, travel, activities.
   
4. Records relating to dead people and properties we used to own or live in. Right now I have more than a file drawer full, but seriously, why do we need more than one file drawer on this stuff? Dead people, places we don't live anymore -- let it go!

I had hoped to spend next week working on the third file cabinet, but I think I just have to keep working on this file cabinet, at least on Monday and Tuesday, probably Wednesday too. I continue to find massive quantities of things that don't need to be saved. For instance -- a huge file of articles and brochures on breastfeeding! That ship has sailed, ya know? It all went in the recycling bin.

I spent a lot of time last week working with Teen B on his homework -- he had a lot of missing assignments that I helped him make up. We also finished reading Of Mice and Men together and worked on some related assignments for Language Arts. I hadn't read that book in many decades and I was surprised that it holds up so well. Steinbeck really was a talented writer. Every line, every phrase does a lot of work. I don't love everything he's written -- my book group read East of Eden many years ago and I thought it was stupid. But when he's good, he's very very good.

For his Language Arts class, Teen A had to read a memoir, his choice from a list that I did not see, and he chose Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, because he thought it would be short. 

It's not short. I've been reading it to him every day for the last two weeks -- we finally finished today -- and it's been a slog. But so heartbreaking. At the end you want to reach in and change history. How is it possible that they all died, except Otto Frank, all those extremely human, flawed, imperfect people? I am not sure I'd ever read the Diary before, not all the way through. Or if I did, I read a shorter version. This was the 75th anniversary edition, "the definitive edition." The library's copy was checked out, and I couldn't find it at the Bookworm, so I gave Barnes & Noble $15 or whatever for it. I think it was money well spent. I keep tearing up, thinking about it.

***

The parent support group that I've been attending for the last, hmm, four years? ended this week, because the leader is retiring and her replacement won't be running the group. We went out to lunch on Tuesday, about a dozen of us. It was nice. I'll miss the group. I stopped going to my other support group, because I felt I didn't need it anymore, but now I won't have anything like this to do anymore -- just my book group. I'll have to think about whether I need a replacement and what that might be.

The group was all female -- a few men have attended through the years, but no one regularly -- and it was a mix of ages, from probably 30s to 60s. At one point we got to talking about menopause. One woman said that she'd asked lots of menopausal women what it's like and they all said the same thing: you don't give a damn about what people think anymore. Another woman said perimenopause is awful but once you're truly in menopause, life is great. And they talked about how you become invisible and how great that is.

I tried to interrupt and give my perspective, but I couldn't break through. I've heard this stuff before and I simply don't agree with it. I give just as much of a damn about what people think of me as I did before menopause. Maybe more, because since I feel less pretty, I feel somewhat unworthy of taking up space. In addition, there are many things about menopause that I dislike, such as what it's done to my hair! I used to have long, thick hair -- now it only grows to a certain length and then stops, and it's thin and not beautiful (though it's an interesting color right now, a mixture of silver and gold). Also, after menopause it's much harder to lose weight, and belly fat becomes a real problem for many women. 

And then there's the stuff that's harder to talk about -- and I probably wouldn't have mentioned it at the lunch -- but it's real. I remember when my hormone levels dropped, it was as though I'd become a different person. I no longer responded to everything in a sexual way. I remembered what sex was, but I didn't experience it the same way anymore. I remember particularly that certain books that had always made me feel a certain way didn't do it anymore. I could read a description of a sex scene and not respond at all. Some of that's come back, but it's like losing a portion of your brain, or one of your senses, and having to reconstruct it using other parts of your brain. 

And I know it's not just me! I remember when it was happening I talked to my acupuncturist about it (I had an acupuncturist back then -- the good old days) and she said EVERY woman she'd treated who was "of a certain age" complained about this. So there. 

But I probably wouldn't have felt comfortable bringing it up at the lunch. Still, I would have liked to have mentioned the hair problem, because I wasn't expecting that and it would have been nice to be warned. But I don't think anyone wanted to hear anything negative. It's strange.

***

So, here comes Week 3 of May. All I've got on the schedule is the orthodontist, for me and Teen B, and my book group on Tuesday night, oh, and my follow-up appointment with the Colorado Sleep Institute, where they'll probably tell me I need a CPAP. Sigh. 

Hopefully both kids will attend school every day -- they're both still coughing, but I think we're done with staying home. I'll work in the yard and work on the files and clean and, I hope, work on my novel. 

I'm thinking about the next book. It would be nice to work on both books at once -- editing the first one and drafting the second. But I don't know. Maybe I need to focus on just one. I'll see. For Mother's Day I treated myself to a new Barbie (actually a Skipper), because I had a feeling she had a role to play in the next book. She's the one in the middle in this (somewhat blurry) photo, with the flowered dress and strawberry blonde hair. I've been trying to obtain her for a few years, but she's always been too expensive. Then I saw her on eBay for $14 -- used, no accessories, no box, but in good condition. I clicked "buy now" and just a few days later she arrived. But before she got here, I accidentally bought another Barbie, the one in psychedelic pants. I saw her in Target on Thursday. I'd been meaning to buy her at some point, but not that day -- but she just jumped into my cart. It's OK. She has an important role to play in the new novel too. She's going to be the librarian (the book takes place partly at the library).

I tell this stuff to the kids and they just roll their eyes. "I don't want to hear about your dumb Barbies" is Teen B's usual response. Teen A can be more cutting: "And what makes you think I care?"

Fortunately, this blog doesn't talk back.

I didn't do too well with cooking this week -- one night we had leftovers, one night I just said "feed yourselves" -- but I made curry on Monday and goulash on Tuesday, and then finally on Friday I made the empanadas that had been bothering me for the previous two days. Then today (I know, Mother's Day), I decided to make runzas with the leftover empanada filling. So they're doing their second rise right now, and in a few minutes I'll bake them. I have not made runzas in eons, the recipe seemed completely unfamiliar, and I'm having a bit of a crisis over the baking temperature -- my grandmother's recipe says "350 or 375." Which is it??? I googled runza recipes and found 350, 375, and 400. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Assuming they're edible, we can have leftovers tomorrow night, and then I'll have to plan the rest of the week. I still have masses of leftover Mexican cheese (from Teen A missing his Cinco de Mayo party last week, on account of being sick), so I'll probably need to make another Mexican dish. It's fine. We have to eat, so I have to cook. Happy Mother's Day!