The Divine Divorcee

Last mommyriffic post, or at least last pontificating mommyriffic post, for a bit. (I have the SC for the next 10 days straight so I am assuming that most of my posts will be SC centric, but not terribly deep).

Yesterday I got to experience what it would be like to have two children as a single parent. The SC and I had the pleasant company of a very cheerful River, for about 4 hours. I want to take pains to stress that she did not once fuss, she did not require a lot of carrying, she fed herself, had only one diaper change, and was a very happy and well-behaved tot.

I cannot imagine how anyone does it.

My mother was single for about 40 seconds post divorce (she was hot, yo!) although it took us 2 years to meet our eventual stepfather because she ascribes to the same philosophy as I do. In those ensuing two years she managed to raise two strongheaded small children -- well, my brother was small (he was still in diapers); I was 7-- without going batshit insane. My dad managed by landing my stepmom early on -- say about 6 months in -- and she helped. Tremendously.

But the real heros are the ones that I didn't experience personally, as my own family got along excessively well post-divorce. The ones where the moms and dads don't support eachother (we're talking emotionally and logistically, not fiscally) and the message is brought home that you (as the parent) are very much on your own. Q's mom was like this -- 4 kids, dad deserted them for all intents and purposes, and the youngest was 3. Full time mom, full time student, full time worker bee. I do not understand how she did it -- even if you're blessed with cherubic offspring it's a bit like herding cats.  You get one squared away foodwise then the other one decides they want that, too. You're wiping one's nose and the other one needs something else wiped. One is kinda tired and wants to chill, the other wants to race around; and this is just 2 kids-- how to deal with more kids than you have hands (like 3 or 4) stupefies me.

Which is not to say that motherhood is a chore and unenjoyable -- it is very worthwile, *if* you want it -- but it is a bit like that high-powered, high-stress, high-pay job: you pay to play. Most people intend to have small children with their significant other, never dreaming in a million years that person would leave you hanging -- or your resultant issue. I tell my friends who talk about wanting children to think long and hard about it: do you want it so badly you dream about it all the time? The good and the bad? Do you yearn to have sleepless nights, parent-teacher conferences that are not all positive, answer difficult questions? Do you understand that your childcare expenses can easily rival your mortgage payment? Do you understand that you can't plan on the fly anymore, because sitters -- good ones-- are hard to come by? Do you understand that privacy, sleeping in, and spending money on yourself can (and probably will) become a luxury? You do? Great. You're almost ready. 

Now do you understand that there is the very real possibility that you will be alone?  I have a small group of friend-friends that I see quite often and of those that are or have been married (I count 8 -- current couples count as one) I count 5 divorces. Mine's the only one with offspring. The divorce rate is 50%, folks. That means if you look around at your friends and their pseudoperfect relationships, 1 in 2 sets are due for the courthouse at some eventuality. Maybe not today, maybe not this year, but, statistically speaking, sometime. The child may be 2, or 3, or 11, or 13, or 18. Your partner may be just as involved as you are and may not be. Like Social Security and Unemployment Insurance, it's not bad to assume what's there is there but it's foolish to plan for it exclusively.

Which is all a very soapboxy, round about way to say that parenthood is hard enough as it is, but singleparenthood can be that much more difficult, and my hat's off to those who can do it with multiple children.  

Friday night I held a mix-up-my-friends party, in which I invited GH and some of his friends and myself (well, you can't have a party and not invite yourself) and some of my friends, added a bunch of red wine and sat back to see what happened. All in all, there wasn't any bloodshed or even angst. Chatting, eating, drinking, and (Eventual) Cranium-playing. I was trying to learn a game called Munchkin, which I just couldn't get the rules down at all. Not that I was anything spectacular at Cranium. Here I've grown again -- branching out from the ol' comfort zone and mixing friends. Granted, it wasn't all of my friends -- nor all of his -- but for a first experiment I think it went well. (I never met any of Q's friends and X and I went to high school together, so this business of meeting the other person's friends and having them being unknown to you is really new).

I got home about an hour before everyone was due to arrive. I had premade the lasagne, but the house was a mess and Kumster picked *that exact moment* to tear a nail. Consequently I swore a lot and made GH be the Evil Nasty Man who had to hold her down while I administered a messy, ersatz first aid. (The next morning found me at the Vet's office where they removed the offending nail, trimmed the rest, cleaned it all up, antibiotics, and pain meds for $180). And so here I've grown again -- don't put off nail trims and your puppies are your kids, too. 

Then I went to one of the cooler baby showers I've been to: yummy good-for-you food, a game that made me realize I need to talk to my friends more (I'm narcissitic and it shows, yeah), and herbs as prizes. I scored dill, so expect some dill butter. And so here I've grown again -- the oldest mommy in the group and I learned new things.

I got home with an hour to get dressed for Cirque flamboyance: a silk kimono shirt that shoves the rack high and in, a semi-Renn-faire hairdo, and two (not one!) shades of blue eyeshadow. Oh, and the Shoes of Pain. I got these shoes for Dallas, they are high-heel sandals and they can be work appropriate (even at 4") and they feel great-- for the first 3 hours. After that it feels like the soles of your feet are burning, almost like blisters. I think it came from the rubbing of walking, so I'm going to look into those pads you put on the soles of your feet so you don't get that. Because aside from that, those shoes rock. (I have yet to find shoes that make me actually as tall as GH -- I'd need 5.5" heels and somehow I don't think I could ever justify work heels that were 5.5").

Cirque (Corteo, at Marymoor Park) was very nice. We got Tapis Rouge tickets which meant we got to go to the froufrou tent: wine, champagne, Bombay (TM) Gin Officially sponsored drinks and stuff, and a rotating appetizer bar that allowed for easy spotting of the Very Drunk Guests.  Now, I've been to a couple of Cirque shows, but they were Vegas Cirque -- Ka (once) and Mystere (twice). (I would love to see Zumanity and O and I'm going to Vegas soon but there's always room for more Vegas trips in a year). The point being -- Vegas Cirque is like Vegas Anything: large, ornate, flashy, and sensory overload. Corteo was a little more low key, a little more artsy. I won't spoil it -- I strongly suggest seeing it-- but I will say that if ever a man upholds his entire weight by my ponytail in an effort to impress other people that man won't be a man much longer. And so here I've grown again: Non-Vegas Cirque.

This morning I breakfasted at Ruby's and X is going to pay me to revise his 2006 taxes because his brokerage messed up his statement. Why am I doing this? 1. I get paid to play with numbers all of the time, why not his, and 2. the fewer headaches in his fi$cal life, the fewer in mine by proxy of the SC. The SC now owns a watch (we went to Target) and is learning to tell time by incentive. E.g., when it reaches *this* time you can do X or Y or Z. He is also currently helping me watch River, who is giggling and happy as she feasts on mac and cheese and broccoli. And so here he's grown again: responsibility and reward.

Happy Mother's Day. :)

The SC is *almost* a kindergartener-- he graduates in 4 weeks from 'preschooler', ceremony and all. Today I went to his school to participate in his Mother's Day Tea, in which we were served apple juice and fruit and treated to 5 or 6 standards ("How Much is That Doggie in the Window?" for example) and I am now the proud wearer of a rolled paper bead necklace and a model of his hand, holding some flowers. Motherhood does reap rewards, although more often than not it's the intangibles that you hold dear.

This Sunday is Mother's day, and I am retrieving the SC earlier than normal so we can go do breakfast and fun things. But in the meantime, I have to get crackin' on my Mother's Day cards...

I saw Stranger than Fiction with P-Ade last winter and its hero, Harold Crick, starts out as a tax accountant who favors absolute structure in all parts of his life. He counts how many times he brushes each section of his teeth, he counts each step to the bus stop, he lives life by his clock. While by the end of the movie he lives life a little bit more rebelliously (and fuller, and freely) there is some comfort in knowing there is a numeric equivalent to life's little day to days.

It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, then, that I now have a spreadsheet for the Kilt (current ETA is May 27th based on latest calculations) and that I can tell you definitively that:

• one large tub of LUSH's Ocean Salt Scrub lasts me 3.3 months
• one tank of gas lasts me 5.5 days
• one bag of dog food lasts me just under 2 weeks
• my conditioner usage rate is approximately 25% more than my shampoo usage rate
• exactly 31 shredded mini wheat thingies of Kashi Shredded Mini Wheats make up a morning's serving of breakfast
• properly frothed milk in my milk frother needs to be at the halfway mark when cold
• the 32 gallon trash container I have is only 1/2 full any given pickup day (which is every week)
• the 96 gallon recycle container I have is only 1/2 full any given pickup day (which is every other week)
• 2 Trader Joe's bags can adequately hold a weeks worth of food, averaging $80
• laundry increases by 2 whenever the SC stays with me for the week
• 2.5 days of with-SC and 3.5 days of non-SC dishes make a load of dishes for the washer
• 1 pound of lean ground beef yields 7 meatballs
• Burt's Bees face moisturizer (in the little glass jar) lasts more than 3 months (and counting!)
• it takes 32-35 minutes to mow my lawn
• 33 minutes on the elliptical yields 400 calories burned, but 45 minutes yields 500

I spent the Entire Day in Training. That's how it felt. From 8:30 to about 4pm, I attended Princples of Leadership. I learned how to motivate. I learned how to include. I learned how to collaborate. I also had to ignore everything else I had to do.

Thanks to the modeling clay they provide as a stress reliever I learned how to sculpt calla lillies and roses. This is useful because I intend to make a Bridal Shower cake soon and wanted to get my technique down. I got many compliments on the output so yay for that.

Speaking of which: the Kilt is going well. It's just the part of it that doesn't engender itself to updates. "I did pleats 14-17 last night", for example, doesn't say much. There are 33 pleats. Expect them to be done in another week or so. It takes about 20 minutes, start to finish, to properly measure, pin, and sew one pleat, because of the tapering. So -- yeah, not exciting in terms of blogsphere, but eminently satisfying. You will be happy to learn that said pleats 14-17 were done to a mix of Disturbed (Land of Confusion), the Flobots (Handlebars, and Rise), New Order (Regret), and Soundgarden (Spoonman, The Day I Tried to Live). I also learned that beeswax is a tricky thing: excellent when used sparingly, annoying (and will knot your thread like dreadlocks in a summertime afro) when you use too much. Also, it takes 20 minutes per pleat when you, I don't know, completely unstitch one because it wasn't good enough (yes, I did. That would be the fourth. But you do this with other things-- quilts, etc. I remember one time I was making a blouse and pretty much tore it apart because I didn't think it was 'finished' enough...)

I am so proud of myself, though. I said no to spending money on something that I wanted, but didn't want enough to give up other things. There was a ticket available for Corteo, the new Seattle Cirque show, and it was the foo-foo VIP cool seats version, and it was, $200. Man, I thought a while about that. $200 is bank, to be sure, but it's Cirque and it would be with GH and one life to live and all that. But I said no, because that $200 is either destined for Vegas or Mexico. TravelGrrl needs her smack. What I really need is to just get off my now narrowing ass and win the lottery. But it doesn't seem to be happening. Ergo, the self-analysis and restraint.

That coughing sound you hear (to the restraint) is some of my dearest friends. Who know me better.

The irony that I cannot, in fact, drive a stick shift is not lost on me, with that title.

Sometimes -- often-- my work, mommy, and personal life collides in weird ways. Sometimes it's not subtle at all: usually that sort of lack of subtlety is announced via the SC's teacher calling (no, that didn't happen today). The more subtle is as today, where I had the SC's Spiderman Backpack on my desk -- as it was delivered by X as it had his swim mask. Imagine it: Spider Man backpack, postcard from the winery reminding me to pick up my shipment, scribbly notes on quadrille paper about the needs of the semi-odd new analyst, and one of my two screens opened to Alixito's blog. It was compounded when I sent out invites for a comingling dinner party -- GH's friends and my friends. Well, one in particular soon to by My Friend too, she's that cool.

Whrrr, crash. Sometimes when you're shifting gears between mommy-friend-singlegirl-workerbee you shift from 4th down to 1st (as Adams said) and the transmission leaps out of the hood in an ugly mess. Today wasn't messy.

It did, remarkably, contain a disgusting number of transitional periods: worker bee to friend, travel coordinator to worker bee, mommy to exwife to mommy to worker bee, etc. It just kinda hit me when I saw the SpiderMan backpack.

I *am* looking for a new purse....

Or get arthritis. These are places I'll go to while I'm still working, while I still have to get dogsitting, and most likely before I go and get "the girls" worked on (I'm telling you, once they flunk the pencil test I'm off to see my plastic surgeon).

The list is by no means complete. Since I think I've already assuaged my other list, this list needs to get made and approached:

• The Ice Hotel (either the Canada one or the one in Europe).
• The underwater restaurant in the Maldives (heck the Maldives in general).
• DC-- I would like to see all of those places you see in the movies. Like my San Francisco trip of last year -- it will be the satisfaction of merger of reality vs. movie imaginings.
• The Yorkshire Dales -- same reason.
• Mendoza. My dad is 68 this year, he just went for the first time. He was *born in Buenos Aires*. He lived there until 24!
• Carmel/Monterey and the Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Mount Rushmore
• A dig in Dakota: just camping out and working on one for one or two days -- even as a dustmonkey -- would be cool
• New Orleans -- I kick myself as I hadn't been there before Katrina
• Savannah -- Read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and then see the movie. If you still have questions, get back to me

I'm thinking of something as ambitious as making this an enforced fun thing, once per year. Some are obviously easier (read: low budget, and/or shorter trip) than others (e.g., Mt. Rushmore, Carmel, Savannah vs Yorkshire, Maldives, and Lapland).

Next year, though. This year I have left Portland and California and Vegas and Mexico. And a deck.

That's my reply when I get the invariable "How's Life" from the 'rents. Life is interesting. I am certainly not bored.

I'm trying to beef up my team and the interviewees are just not what I need. I need someone with drive, I need someone with initiative, I need someone who can tell a left join from a right and who can figure out how to make 4 gallons from a 3 and 5 gallon set of jars. I need someone who can come in and ramp up. At this point I need someone(s) even more, because I've sent my 3 in-office ones off to 2 day training and so it's just me manning the fort, as it were. Fortunately for me I'm a badass and have the work done. But I've started drinking more when I get home, and I'm not too distracted to realize this is to take the edge off, and I shouldn't be doing that for that reason. At least I'm still working out regularly. So instead of gaining weight I'm just not losing it.

Looks like GH and I are headed to La Paz with my dive groupies this October or November, so happy birthday to us and I shall have a wicked tan for Thanksgiving. This means I will delay purchasing my project car shell, which was going to (roughly) cost about $2200-2500 (La Paz, once I include food and airfare and dives and all that jazz, will probably run me about the same). Ah well, we're in a recession, time to start acting like it (and gosh, the Prez finally owned up to it! Way to go!) Anyways: bridesmaids dress + trip to Mexico == DD needs to quit drinking wine during the week and lay off the sweets. Summer is coming, that helps.

The SC is back on track at school. We had a hairy two weeks of outlandish behavior, white sheets (those are the bad ones), and the principal wanting to "meet". Of the things I can literally make myself sick with worry over, Principal-Parent-Teacher meetings are high on the list. When you sign up for parenthood (I did, eyes wide open) you don't think about your kid being *that* kid, the one whose parents are on a first name basis with all of the teachers, substitutes, principals, and recess supervisors (and some other parents). Or if you do, you think of it in a positive, I'm In The PTA manner (yes, I intend to be on the PTA next year. If they don't like my docs they can eat me). No, you think your biggest stressors as a parent are going to be the college savings (I highly recommend a 529 account) and getting them into a good school (I highly recommend investigating licensing histories). Anyway... I'm crossing my fingers that we're rounding the bend and on the last lap before we can retire in this particular race.

Speaking of cars (again), the weather's getting warmer and it's time I started working on mine (again). My 120k service is due and I think I can do most of it myself -- I'll save it for next weekend, as this one is chock full of stuff: parental units, book club, invitations assembly, and at least one dog park trip. Much as the prospect of getting greasy excites me (34-almost-35 year old women are like 18 year old boys: *everything* excites them) I'll have to put it off for just a bit longer. I'm also itching to detail my own car, because it would give me an excuse to buy this, so I can shampoo my own seats :).

Here we are Mayday, and the purported arrival of $548 thanks to Uncle Sugar should be in my BofA account.

How did my little stock experiment do? Well, one week shy of three months I have a gain of $29.95 and an overall growth of 5.94%. The big winners were Ebay and Home Depot, with Staples and Target pulling only $1.60 worth.

Will I invest in the same stocks? No I will not. Had I invested in Costco (with my same rationale that people will need cheap things in the future) my return would've been 12.94%.

The Dow has gone up 4.8% in the same period, the NASDAQ 4.26%: so I beat the market, at the very least.

I have lived in mommy mode since about a year before my actual becoming a mother. I have some friends who would attest I have been the 'mom' for much longer -- and they may be right, senilia is setting in so I can't reliably opine one way or the other -- but I know it kicked in with actual motherhood.

I'm the person who counts people on dives. Before the dive, during the dive, after the dive, before the boat leaves. I'm the person who wants to reassure herself that you're ok to drive. That you've ate enough. That you have the resources you need. That you have, for example, firewood or a vinegar mother or that you understand how to balance your 401k. I am *so not the person* to tell your problems to... unless your mom doesn't try to solve your problems; mine does, so if you tell me yours I will tell you how to fix them.

(This hasn't given me any ability to solve mine own, mind you: it's like psychic tendencies or being a muse; apparently it doesn't work locally, only externally).

"She will solve all your problems"-- someone said this about me (recently). I'm not sure (still) how I feel about it. In some ways it's true: I'll damn well try. If I like you. If I don't you can go solve your own problems, there's slighly over 6 billion people on this planet and I'm not mothering them all. But if I think you're worthy of the effort I'll extend the hand. The only difference, I suppose, is how much the hand is extended and how frankly the advice is, too. The original quote probably had its share of snark associated with it -- the fact of the matter is I am incapable of solving all problems, else I would be a Minor Diety or at least a Dictatrix-- but the original intent was, I believe, humor and support.

I think this comes (and this will be a real skull-sweating, mind-twisting event for some) from my concept of "love". Love can be defined via eros or agape, in this case I mean agape (or Love, 4a, as Merriam-Webster cites it): unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another. Heinlein put it better: "When someone else's happiness is mandatory to your own." I like it because it covers both familial love and fraternal love and amital love, as well as the more hallmark-defined, jeweler-sanctioned romantic love. (Dear Tom Shane: as a Mother, former Wife, current Girlfriend, and Independent Woman: Please Shut Up.) You will notice how this concept of love leaves plenty open the option to love many, love few, love one, love none: if you're extremely selfish then you have that option; although I can't name a single person who fits that definition that I spend any amount of time with.

I once heard someone try to define love as "I will let myself go so that you may live" vs. "bottle this feeling": that was unequivocably in address to romantic love, which I have a fundamental problem with. That is: why must it be any different? Isn't romantic love just the presence of "love" for someone, unrelated to you (unless you're, you know, in Arkansas or something), with that "eros" bit thrown in? "Eros" is relatively easy to come by; the "agape" in conjunction with it is much more rare. Is one facile for stating that the combination of "eros" and "agape" equals "love" in the spirit of the definition listed by that person? I think the combination of "eros" and "agape", plus a healthy self-interest and heady fascination, equals "bottle this feeling". "I will let myself go that you may live" is taking it to another level: would you, in fact, DIE (willingly, voluntarily, without regret or hesitance) for that person to which you will(have) cleave(d)?

Certainly any mother here would, for her child. Yes, motherhood is that strong. I don't recall however having gone through that thought process though with anyone: most of the time it's been the willingness to off someone else and/or dispose of their body (with the purported person of amorousness) that defined the gravity of the love (familial, amital, or romantic).What does it say about me, then, I wonder, that I first gravitate to discussion of the gravitas of love based on the offing of someone else, rather than myself?  

Well, I'm Italian. There is that.