Mother's Day 2024

Mother's Day! The day I used to hate and now don't mind at all, even enjoy. Maybe not quite so much this year. But it's OK.

It didn't start out well. We went to Village Inn for dinner last night, way out in Thornton (Teen A drove), and I had something called a "California skillet" ("California" meaning "contains avocado"). Teen A pointed out to me that it was 1200 calories, one of the highest-calorie things on the menu, but that seemed impossible, must be a typo, so I ordered it anyway. And it was good, but too rich (not a typo). I avoided the bacon, but the potatoes and other veggies were soaked in Hollandaise sauce... and with it I had a heavily buttered English muffin... and then we got pie to go, and I stupidly decided to eat my piece of chocolate peanut butter pie when we got home, while watching "The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition" with Teen A, for his social studies project.

And a couple of hours later, yep, threw it all up again. So that was the start to my Mother's Day (it was after midnight). But when I finally got myself cleaned up and settled in bed again, and turned off the light, I heard a loud noise, like an explosion (far away, not in the backyard, thank goodness). Oh, I thought, someone ELSE's house exploded. Then I thought, no, that's not likely. Wait. Was that THUNDER? I opened my window a little, even though we still don't have heat, so I've been keeping all windows closed at night. Another crash, and then the sound of pouring rain. It IS thunder! We're having a glorious spring thunderstorm! 

And when I woke up this morning, it was still going on! It's quieted down now -- long enough for me to go to the store and get a newspaper and some blueberry muffins -- but maybe it's going to start up again later. I love thunderstorms! Baby Kitty doesn't -- just like Chester, he darts under the bed at the sound of the first clap. But I do. I can't think of a more lovely way to start Mother's Day.

When I was at the grocery store I was amused by all the people buying Mother's Day stuff. The card aisle is usually completely empty, a good aisle to go down if you're in a hurry, but not today. It was full of men looking at Mother's Day cards. Young men buying them for their moms, middle-aged men possibly buying them for their wives. I saw lots of people carrying bouquets of flowers. One young woman had a gigantic "Happy Mother's Day!" balloon tied to her cart.

I'm not well remembered this year. Those cards on the piano? They are birthday cards for the twins (whose birthday was in March), plus a couple of New Year's cards from friends that I left up because I liked the photos on them. No Mother's Day cards. On the phone last night Rocket Boy apologized: "There's a card in the mail." Nothing from the twins. No candy, no flowers, nothing. It's OK. I mean, it really is. It makes me a little sad that I didn't bring them up to observe Mother's Day properly, like this is yet another example of my failures as a mom. But, you know, I tried. When they were little, they always used to go with Rocket Boy to buy me a hanging basket for Mother's Day. In the old days they would make Mother's Day cards in school. I don't know what else I was supposed to do -- whine more?

Last year I bought myself a Mother's Day card and had them sign it. This year I didn't do that. Not in the mood. I could have bought myself a cake or some beautiful lemon cupcakes at King Soopers this morning, but the vomiting episode last night meant that I have no appetite. It's fine. It really is!

***

OK, now Teen B and I are back from Starbucks and I don't think we're going to have another thunderstorm. The sun is out, the sky is (partly) blue, and everything looks like it just had a nice bath. I got myself a piece of coffee cake at Starbucks (for a Mother's Day treat) and had that for breakfast. I didn't think it would bother my stomach. Otherwise I'm just having tea. Oh, and I had a blueberry muffin for lunch. My stomach really doesn't want much today.

I almost slipped and fell in the backyard when I walked around taking pictures a little while ago. So much mud, so many sticks and branches, so many dandelions. I swear, you cannot tell that I did any work in the front or back yard last summer. Everything is such a mess. And we can't mow the lawns because there are so many sticks (not to mention gigantic branches) on them. I need to get back to work. Maybe this week, although it's supposed to rain off and on all week. Hmm.

I do love the burgeoning of spring, though, even though it requires that we do so much work to tamp it down. The lilacs are glorious this year! As I drive around town I exclaim at each bush I pass: "Look at the lilacs!" If I have a twin in the car with me, their response is "No" or "Why should I care?" or something similar. They don't get lilacs. Their loss. Our lilac bush, of course, hasn't bloomed yet, but can you see the little flowerlets beginning to form? After everyone else's lilacs are done, ours will be bursting with blooms. I can look forward to that (though I wish I had an early lilac too). 

The iris haven't bloomed yet either, although there are clearly six with flowers coming. And the onions are just getting started. Spring comes late to our yard.

I usually go and buy flowers to plant this weekend, but I haven't gone. The planters are empty. Teen A actually asked me today, "When are we going to plant the tomato?" The tomato. We always have exactly one tomato plant in a big pot in the front yard. I said, "I haven't bought it yet!" Maybe I'll go to the pop-up nursery during the week. It's OK.

Another reason why Mother's Day kind of sucks this year is that the twins and I are spending the weekend working on their final papers and assignments. Teen B and I managed to finish his Language Arts paper yesterday, so that was a huge achievement. Two days before it was due! Unthinkable! But Teen A and I have a lot of work ahead of us. In addition to a complicated project for Language Arts (we're probably 80% done?), he has to write a paper for World History. I think this might be the first assignment he's had for that class. It's all been in-class work up to this point and now this nightmare. He has to have 6 sources, 3 of them primary sources, and he has to fill out a research sheet on each one, and then there's the paper itself and then a presentation. It's all due a week from tomorrow.

We're working along. I set the timer on my phone for 20 minutes and work with a twin until it rings. Teen A usually wants to finish whatever we're in the middle of at that point and Teen B usually wants to stop everything the moment the timer rings. Then I take a short break to recharge my own batteries and then start up again with the other twin, another 20 minutes. So far today I've done one session with each boy, and in a few minutes Teen A and I will go on to round 2.

The thing is, even though it's awful, I like my boys. I like spending time with them. (It's very different from when they were little and I thought of Mother's Day as a chance to get away from them.) And if we weren't doing this, let's face it, they'd be playing video games in the desk room and I'd be in my room, reading. If Rocket Boy were here, we might go for a hike or something, but he's not. So this is what I get. It's OK!

***

This was a so-so week. The furnace guys finally came, on Thursday, and I was so happy to see them. But they couldn't get the furnace going. They said it needs some new parts, which will probably be expensive. The head guy said they would try to come back on Friday, but they didn't, and I haven't heard from them since. Maybe tomorrow I'll call them. 

Teen A had his orientation at Boulder TEC that same day, in the late afternoon. We were a little late for it (traffic on Arapahoe is terrible that time of day, something to remember), but we heard most of it. I'm excited for next year, not sure if Teen A is equally excited. One thing I read on the information sheet they handed out is that he can't wear sweatpants to class. It doesn't actually say what he has to wear instead. Teen A does not own a pair of pants that aren't sweatpants. I'm not telling him about this yet. I might email the teacher and ask what pants I need to buy. Maybe jeans? Or some sort of work pants? A whole new world of different pants lies ahead of us.

I also spent a lot of time this week working on our trip to California. It's the most complicated trip you can imagine, with so many different places to go and people to see. I'm trying to break up the work, do one or two tasks per day, but a lot of things depend on other people, so that means contacting people and finding out what their schedules are like. I discovered that I was incapable of calling a cousin who we'd like to visit and might stay with, so I wrote her a letter. Now I have to wait for the letter to be delivered and for her to decide what to do about it. Maybe she'll write me a letter back. And I didn't actually say in the letter, can we come stay with you? I just said we'll be in the area and could we see you? I hate asking people for favors, just hate it. 

I probably should never go anywhere, should just sit in my cave of a house and stew. But I really like seeing people! When I think about this trip I feel a sense of dread at the complications and the hotels and the driving and the expense... but then when I think about the people we might see I get so happy! I don't know. We'll see how it goes.

***

This coming week my book group meets on Wednesday (but not at my house). This month we read The Promise by Damon Galgut, which is set in South Africa. I didn't like the book at all. I was interested to read it because of the books I've been reading by J. M. Coetzee, but this book just seemed unnecessarily gloomy. I believe it's supposed to be an allegory about South Africa. I don't think it's a good idea to have your characters be allegories. Characters should be people.

I also have to see the orthodontist this week. I spent a lot of time this past week being angry at my orthodontist. I'm so disappointed that I have to go on this trip with braces. Food stuck in my teeth at every meal, my smile looking awful... I practiced trying to tell the orthodontist that I need my braces off NOW. Finally I just gave up. I don't know why I still need them on, but after two plus years of braces, I probably should just see the thing out. If he thinks I need to wear them for a few more months, I probably need to wear them for a few more months. So I'm going to let that go. I don't think my relatives actually care about whether my mouth looks beautiful or not. Phew.

The tree guy finally got back to me, and he plans to come out starting on May 20th. So that will be an exciting week. I should do what I can to prepare for him this week, picking up branches, maybe even mowing. The thing is, I saw three bees on our dandelions in the front yard this afternoon, so I don't really want to mow the dandelions away. Maybe I'll wait until they go to seed.

Well, I should finish up this blog post and go work with Teen A again. We've finished the three secondary sources and now we'll see what we can get out of our three primary sources. Not looking forward to this, but we'll get through it. 

P.S. I should add a note about how Mother's Day ended. The aurora was highly visible in this area on Friday, and we missed it, because I was too tired that evening to go drive anywhere. So, when they said we might be able to see it on Sunday, I thought, oh, maybe we could just take a quick drive up to NCAR and see if we can see anything from there. It's probably too bright, but you do get a good view of a big sky. The kids were game, so we drove up there, parked in the parking lot along with quite a few other cars (at about 9:30 pm), and waited. Nothing. So we drove down the hill again, went to King Soopers and bought a few things, and then I was going to head home, but Teen A said, "Why don't we go back to NCAR and try again?" So we did, it's now maybe 10:15? and there are still lots of other cars, with people coming and going -- all of them obviously doing the same thing we were, since nobody was getting out of their cars, just sitting and looking. But there was nothing to see, so eventually we went home. 

I don't think the aurora came down this far on Sunday. So that was too bad, but I told the twins they'll have lots of other chances to see it in their lives. I have seen the aurora once, in Michigan -- faint green lines, weird looking. It's worth seeing, and I hope they do see it some day.

We had a lot of fun together, even though we didn't see it, and it was a nice end to a nice day.

And now May

We're pretty far into May already, actually -- it's May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, and my grand-niece Mari's birthday. Tomorrow is May 6th, my mother's birthday. I like May, usually. I don't like it very much today, but I'm sure things will get better. We've got about six iris showing flower spikes, so that'll be nice, soon. Lilacs are blooming all over town, though of course ours isn't yet (it's a very late lilac). Next Sunday is Mother's Day and I always like to get a bunch of annuals to plant that day. We'll see.

Rocket Boy went back to St. Louis yesterday, after a week of just working himself to death. He did so much and looked so tired. I was reminded, distressingly, of my father cleaning out the gutters the day before he went to the hospital to die. 

I was very sad yesterday. I'm still sad today, but I'm trying to cope.

Here are some things that Rocket Boy worked on while he was here.

• The furnace. He called our furnace guy, Lucky, who was amazingly still alive, barely, and got some advice from him over the phone. They called each other back and forth, while RB went up and down the stairs to the basement, trying different configurations and thumping on the ceiling to get me to turn the heat on or off. Finally he admitted defeat and we called an HVAC company that had been recommended by a neighbor. They're coming out Thursday to look at both our furnace and the rental's. So that's all good, even though we still don't have heat.
• The bathroom door. He agreed with Teen A that the closet door doesn't make a great bathroom door for the long haul, because it has a big gap at the bottom. So he examined the door I'd gotten from a neighbor (not good), we went to Resource to look at their doors (nothing there), and finally he ordered a new door from a door company in Lafayette. He spoke with them on the phone about a dozen times and eventually we took the old door out to Lafayette so they could measure it exactly (and then they recycled it). The new door will be ready in a couple of weeks and Teen A and I will have to go get it and hang it up.
• 
  The gigantic branches. Together we managed to dislodge the biggest branch from the fence and RB sawed it up into several pieces. We filled a few leaf bags with small branches, plus the compost bin, and RB tied several bundles of small logs for compost pickup. I dragged numerous branches around to the front yard and we worked on them there. Both front and back yards are still full of branches -- it doesn't really look like we did anything -- but we DID, we made a good start, and I will continue to work on it throughout the summer. The tree guy gave us a reasonable quote and I told him to go ahead and schedule us, so we're waiting for that.
• 
  The hole in the patio roof. RB went up on the roof and inspected it. He used a broom, rake, and snow shovel to clean the roof, scraping the mess into a leaf bag. Then he placed a tarp over the hole and weighted it down with bricks and logs. (I stood below, holding the ladder and handing up the tools, leaf bag, tarp, bricks, and logs.) But now we need someone to fix the hole. We both, independently, thought of his old weird friend Ray, who did a lot of work on the porch roof about 20 years ago, but neither of us could remember his last name. How sad is that? RB used to call him "Ray save-a-buck Something-or-other" because he was so cheap, but he was a hard, though very slow worker. However, the last we saw of him he was heading back to Iowa, where he owned a falling-down house with no utilities, and I would think he's almost certainly dead by now. So Rocket Boy started calling handymen. One came to look at it and started lecturing us about how the entire patio should be redone, not just the roof. The second said he'd gotten a regular job and was no longer a handyman. The third asked for photos and after looking at the photos said no, not our kind of work. The fourth finally called back today and said he thought he could do it. We'll see. It would be in a few weeks.
  
• The clothesline. The old retractable clothesline was destroyed by the branch that fell on it, so we bought a new one from McGuckin's and Rocket Boy installed it. Unfortunately that one didn't work, so he went back to McGuckin's and got another one, and installed that one, and it works. I used it yesterday. We agreed that we will not leave the lines up -- after using it, I will retract it each time, so it can't be smashed again and will stay cleaner.
• The storm doors. Rocket Boy fixed the latch on the front storm door, replaced the handle on the back storm door, and switched out the glass on both doors for the screens, for summer.
• Driving. Rocket Boy also drove with both twins. Teen A now has 40 hours & 42 minutes (out of the 50 he needs), including over 10 hours of night driving (all he needs). Teen B only has 24 hours & 24 minutes, with only 1 hour & 15 minutes of night driving, so I'll need to work with him more. But we're coming along. 
• Spaetzle. On Friday, Rocket Boy asked me what we should have for dinner. I didn't really want to cook, but we'd been eating out a lot, so I looked at my recipes, chose a main dish and a side dish, and said I'd pick up the ingredients on my way home from getting my hair cut. I had to go to two different grocery stores, and when I finally got home, RB had made spaetzle and gravy! Not to mention, the kitchen was a disaster. We had a big fight about the whole thing, but we worked it out (when you live in different time zones, you can't let fights fester). In the end, we had mahi mahi burgers from Trader Joe's for dinner, with the spaetzle as a side dish. And I've still got the ingredients I bought and I can use them to make dinner tomorrow. So it's all good.
  

Just writing all that down makes me tired. Thinking about all that Rocket Boy did makes me tired and thinking about all that's left to do makes me tired. I'm now going to be waiting for the furnace guys, the tree guy, the handyman, and the door company. Hopefully they won't all show up at once.

One step at a time.

It's May, so I should review April and my resolutions and think about what I did and didn't do. I know I didn't do some major things that I had planned.

1. Read at least 52 books, i.e., 1 per week. I read 8 books in March. That's 45 books so far this year.

2. Read biographies of at least 3 presidents. I left Warren G. Harding for May (already started a bio of him).

3. See at least 24 movies, i.e., 2 per month. Rocket Boy brought some movies with him, so we watched "Nowhere in Africa," a German movie that we both enjoyed very much.

4. Go to at least 12 special things, i.e., 1 per month. Rocket Boy and I went to see Teen B's band concert on the 30th.

5. Continue blogging/write another novel. I hardly wrote anything this month, just the blog. It's OK. April was a stressful month.

6. Take a walk every day and do a stretch video every morning. I took just a couple of walks in April, including one with Rocket Boy the day after he arrived. It was such a horrible month that I mostly didn't want to go outside, too depressed. I did do stretch videos on 20 days, so that was something.

7. Take a hike every month. I thought Rocket Boy and I would do a hike together this past week, but of course I forgot about his leg. I just don't want him to be less than 100%, and so apparently I pretend he's fine when he isn't. We took one 18-minute walk together. No hikes.

8. Take a load of stuff to either Goodwill or Charm every month. Didn't do this either. We went to Resource to look for doors and the Center for HArd to Recycle Materials is right there next to it, but I'd forgotten to bring anything, even my bag of old batteries. Oh well.

9. Do something to improve my wardrobe every month. In April I had planned to work on shoes, but it never happened. Too depressed. So that'll be my goal in May. We'll see how it goes.

10. Work on the files. I resolved to focus on the files in April, but I barely touched them. I'll try again in May, but I also need to work on the yard. We'll see.

I think mainly I'm just glad April's over and we're still here. Still in our snug little house -- with no furnace, but the weather's getting warmer. Actually, we're supposed to have some bad weather the next couple of days: a little rain, possibly a little snow, and very high winds. May in Colorado. Today is a nice day, though it started out overcast and gloomy. Maybe I'll go for a walk.

Now that Rocket Boy's visit is over, I've started planning our trip to California. We'll go at the end of the month, after school gets out. I'm a little bit excited about that, but I also feel a sense of dread that I'm trying to tamp down. Will I be up to it, will I be up to the driving, that kind of thing. Of course I know I will be up to it, and I'll have the boys to help with the driving if I get tired. It's just so overwhelming. All these people coming to work on the house, all these people to make arrangements with in California. It's going to be a complicated trip no matter what. I have all these people I want to see, or at least try to see, and they live in all these different places. And they're all so old. If I don't see them on this visit, that might be it.

May is a long month, a 31-day month, but looking at the calendar I feel as though it's going to fly by. Trip planning, dealing with workers, and getting the kids through the end of school. They have two more weeks of school, then finals week, and then it's over. There's a lot to get done these next few weeks, and they're both sick. Hopefully just colds, but the district sent out a rather disturbing notice a few days ago saying that they may have been exposed to whooping cough! I thought, OK, we've all been vaccinated against it, no big deal, but according to the letter, immunity wanes over time. Apparently you can still get it, even if you're vaccinated, though it may be a milder case. So, if the kids start coughing violently next week, we'll probably have to get antibiotics. As long as we can deal with this before the California trip, I'm OK with it.

Speaking of illness, I have a bit of a headache. Maybe I'll go back to bed and read.