Why you should never look up the lyrics to your favorite song.

Especially when you are having a bad week, take my advice – DO NOT look up the lyrics to your favorite song.

You will only be discouraged when you find out “Lisztomania” does not contain the lyric, “To the left, to the left, to the left, chocolate, to the left, to the left, to…” But instead says, “Do let, do let, do let, jugulate, do let, do let, do.”

It also does not actually contain my favorite line, “Like a rhine, like a rhino / Not easily offended.” Oh no. It’s really, “Like a riot, like a riot, oh!”

Really, what sense does that make?! Oh, Phoenix. What fun you missed out on.

Love knows when to shake it.

Ahhh, running.

One of the good things about feeling broken and angry at everyone and everything is that you know how to really put it all out there when you run. Monday – I ran two miles without breaking a sweat. Okay, I was sweating, but only in the literal sense. It was easy. I stopped only because I had reached my goal for this week and you are absolutely verboten from running any farther than your prescribed amount. (Or next week your leg will fall off. True story.)

Last night I ran two miles again. This time it was a little harder. When I started thinking about how much farther I had to go or the stitch in my side, I would start yelling in my head, “Angry! Be angry! Grrrr!” (think Animal from the Muppets) to get myself all worked up…and then fly merrily along, ho-hum.

Still, by the end I was a little out of sorts. I was in the final stretch and my iPod shuffled to the next song. The perfect song, I decided, for finishing runs when you’re tired and in pain and hurting: Black-Eyed Peas’ “Pump It.” So many fun lyrics to listen to. A fun beat to keep your feet moving. And when they sing, “When we play, you shake your ass / shake it, shake it, shake it girl,” you know what you gotta do? You gotta shake your thang. Yep, right there in the middle of the road. In the middle of the neighborhood. In the middle of your run.

Oh yes I did! I shook what my mama gave me right there in the face of this crappy, sucktastic week. You gotta love that kind of crazy. (It’s the kinda thing that makes you bounce when you hit bottom.)

Happy Love Thursday, everyone! Sometimes you have months weeks like this one and there might be only one thing that makes you smile – make it count.

She’s her auntie’s niece, alright.

I’ve always seen flashes of me or my sisters (and definitely goofy Uncle Joey) in my girls, but sometimes one or another of my siblings’ personalities will pop out so much I wonder if the girls are even mine.

For instance. The girls’ stepmom told me about how Bee was helping her assemble the basket of wedding favors a few weeks ago. Bee put in the bubbles, the bookmark, and the wedding mints, then squished them all to once side. “Look!” Bee exclaimed, “there’s room for a cheesestick right here!” Cheese would be an awesome wedding favor, if you ask me. And also if you ask Auntie Kim – it’s her favorite food group. She might even like cheese more than me! (Blasphemy!)

Bee’s similar fascination with cheese is why I didn’t think it odd when she kept asking for the Cheesestick Song when we were in the car. It wasn’t until the song, “Like a G6″ came on (and was quickly shut off when I heard the lyrics) that Bee thought the words were “…like a cheesestick, like a cheesestick.” Quite the improvement!

And then, my favorite Bee-is-really-Auntie-Kim’s-child story: We had quite the outburst of storms on Saturday afternoon, including three or four tornado warnings. During the first tornado warning, the television weather dude (technical term) said the tornado was forming right overhead our neighborhood, so I sent the girls to get their sneakers and head for my closet. I grabbed a few essentials (including our weather radio) and headed in there as well. The sirens went off, the weather radio went off a few times, and while in the closet we called Auntie Kim – a girl who appreciates a good tornado warning. It wasn’t until 15 minutes later when the danger had passed and we were evacuating the closet that Bee announced, “I brought extra socks!” My chin dropped – it was so classic Kim. “Did you not put socks on?” I asked her, thinking she had brought them but hadn’t used them. Nope – they were, in fact, extra socks. Go ahead and guess what one thing Auntie Kim might like more than cheese and second only to highly organized lists? Yep: socks. Clean, dry socks. She has a pair in her sock glove box in her car and an emergency pair in her purse. And we’ve never talked about it with Bee, so it was pure magic that she bought into the Sock Coda.

That kiddo cracks me up.

Getting back to healthy.

Edited to add: this was supposed to post last Friday. Just noticed it sitting in my drafts. Whoops.

The Ex was discharged from the hospital yesterday – after eight crazy days of “fun-filled” mysteries and somewhat questionable care. But! He has a shiny new diagnosis of lupus. That will have its own set of worries and treatment plans, but I’m thankful the congestive heart failure was only secondary and he won’t be hanging out on the heart transplant list.

Since they did spring him free and since he hasn’t seen the girls much in the past week, he was a little anxious to borrow them. And since the girls and I have been spending so much quality time together (and since I was a little desperate for a good, long, stress-busting run) and because I’m a good person, I let him take the girls for dinner last night. My run was amazing. I haven’t run in almost two weeks because of my rather persistent, two-rounds-of-antibiotic-worthy bronchitis and then watching the girls while the Ex was in the hospital. It’s been awhile. So, yeah, I did fall back a little in my endurance. I only got in about a mile and a half. But it felt so frickin’ good to be out there, flying along. I felt like I could set the world on fire again! So that was the second good thing about last night.

The very best part – better than running and feeling amazing, better than the Ex rejoining the land of the living – was a sort of revelation I had. I spent the past week with the girls without a break…and realized it was actually much easier than I ever would have thought. We all got along better, fought less, and really found our groove. Knowing that I could really do the single mom thing if anything happened to their dad or if we didn’t live near a support system? That’s pretty powerful knowledge. I’ve made it through weeks before, but usually while we were on vacation where rules are lax and plenty of other people are around. This week it was just us. It was homework and baths and dinners to make and lunches to pack. It was a normally scheduled week – and we rocked it. It just goes to show how much kids (and mommies!) love consistency. And maybe hanging out in our jammies all week didn’t hurt!

Not a bad way to end the week and start our weekend, I tell ya.

Packages of good cheer.

I came home to the happy sight of packages surrounding my front door. Christmas shopping from work: how it cheers a day up! There was a mystery package that contained something lovely for someone reading right now; a package from Amazon that had a giant 500-piece Lego Bank Raid set for $10. A Woot package with 3 separate 500-piece rescue worker sets for $17 – total. Another Amazon package with kid-tough Fisher Price binoculars ($5), a ginormous Lego plate ($4), and a jumbo 6-color stamp pad ($6).  A Fisher Price Summer Adventure Dollhouse set ($14), a book for Gracie (Smart Girl’s Guide to Understanding and Expressing Her Feelings – $9, but a bargain at any price), and one non-Christmas gift – a Halloween dvd to enjoy with the girls on Friday night. (The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, if you’re wondering).  Christmas shopping and packages make me happy!

I got a care package last Friday night, too. One from my sister Kim that she meant to have delivered in time for The Weekend when the Ex got re-married, but through unpreventable circumstances (like finding out where the post office was in her new town) was a little delayed in mailing. Even if I didn’t think fate (ka…and The Turtle)(don’t ask) intervened so I got the package when I really needed it most, I would have certainly forgiven her when I saw the bounty that was inside. It might just be my favorite package of all time, guys.

First, there were books. TO BORROW, Kim is yelling from Connecticut. Don’t worry, Kim – I know. If I don’t return these, I may not ever get any more. And you have lots of good books! So they will be returned. She sent the next two in the Olympians series and Toni Morrison’s Mercy. The last one is so I remember who I am. (Not merciful, a Toni fan. Duh.) Just so I would remember who these books (and more importantly, my books) belong to, she sent me pretty, pretty bookplates to put in the front of my favorite books. (I hope she kept a few to put in Under the Dome, Flying Troutmans, and The Song is You, because those are some of my favorite books.)

She sent some comfort food. There is a giant bag of ginger snaps, the good kind that you can soak in milk for three full Mississippis before you take them out and eat them. I’m glad it’s a big bag because Gracie has been eyeing them. She sent me my first. Godiva bar. ever. I’ve always wanted one, but refused to pay $5 for a small bar of chocolate when that same amount could get me a truckload of Hersheys. (It was delicious. Raspberry-filled. Mmmm….) She sent Halloween Peeps, too!  I am waiting for a moment miserable enough so I don’t feel bad eating them all at once. OOH! WAIT! I remember several of you telling me something about peeps and a microwave right after I finished my last Easter Peep. I’m going archive-diving tonight. Screw misery. Ahem.

There were nifty odds and ends like fall-themed scrapbooks supplies and the coolest. postcard. ever. that I am going to frame and put in my craft room. It’s a vintage b&w photo of a dapper looking gentleman next to an antique car that is plastered with “Just divorced” signs. It’s so Ya-Ya, I loved it!

She sent goodies for the girls, too, of course. A Fancy Nancy puzzle for us all to do. I lurve puzzles as much as Kim loathes them. Guess who used to make her do puzzles with her? >This girl!< So now she is encouraging corrupting the younger crowd. (Silly Kim – how is she going to tell the girls no when they beg her to work on puzzles with them when she visits?) And the girls each got a book. Gracie got a Fancy Nancy easy reader book in which the punchline is that the new boy from Paris is from Paris, Texas, not Paris, France. Very apropos. Bee got a book called Daft Bat, in which all of the animals make fun of the bat for seeing things differently. The illustrations of the elephant, rhino, and giraffe all hanging from the tree at the end were enough to make even me giggle.

But my favorite of all wasn’t the magically dissolving capsules that have kept the girls busy the entire time I’ve (pre)written this post or the very nice and sweet things she wrote in the card that made me cry (yes, it was); it was the wine-lovers note cards. Really, it’s a pad of paper that both makes fun of wine snobs and helps you rate the bottles of wine you try so you know what to buy again and have a good laugh. It’s funny to see what you’ve written when you go back (one bottle dominated, dominated, dominated the red wine selection…two points if you get the reference). Plus – it’s an excuse to buy more wine! That’s just what I did Saturday at Costco and I can’t wait to tell you about my first choice.

Seriously guys (not for fake), if you need to cheer up a friend, I highly recommend sending them a package full of love. It doesn’t have to be full of fancy items. Bake them some cookies and send them along. There are days like last Friday when it will be so much what they needed that they will be reduced to tears. Sisters rock. The end.

Quote of the Day (Oops, She Did It Again edition)

Tonight as I was giving the girls their bath, Gracie busted out with this little gem:

Gracie: Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States of America? Back in the ’80s. Right, Mom?
Me: Gracie. He was president in the 1860s. I was a little girl in the 80s. the 1860s were 150 years ago. I’m not that old.
Gracie: Oh. But that was a long time ago.

And feeling longer every day. Le sigh. Good thing I love that kiddo. Heh. And one day she will have a kid and realize how much. I am cheered up immensely by that thought!

A tale of two recoveries.

I thought I was only going to have one tale of recovery and one tale of “oh my god, are you kidding me, let them out of the hospital already!” But then the Ex and his mysterious, congestive heart actually tested positive for something fixable and so you get two stories. Aren’t you lucky!

First, let me tell you about Mom II, the miracle of the neurology floor. Remember when we first found out that Mom II had an aneurysm and then a signs of a stroke? Things didn’t look good. We knew she was a fighter, but the first hospital didn’t want to even perform the neurosurgery at first because she didn’t think she’d make it. But Mom II cleared that hurdle by making it through the night and then we got her transferred to the Stroke Center of a much better hospital. That was another hurdle cleared. The new hospital not only agreed to operate, but the head of the department himself performed the operation. Another hurdle cleared. And she made it through the operation, but there were signs of another bleed. And then Mom II didn’t wake up. And that’s pretty much where we waited for what felt like the longest time in the world. (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: mothers are not supposed to be mortal.) Mom II didn’t open her eyes, didn’t talk, and didn’t move her left side for almost two weeks. And then she not only cleared that hurdle, she obliterated it: last Thursday Mom II opened her eyes and started talking up a storm. She knew where she was, what happened, asked for all of her grandkids, and even knew what date it was. A said that the first thing she said when she saw was to apologize for missing the wedding. Isn’t that just like Mom! The Ex and A had canceled their honeymoon to be in town for Mom II’s second surgery, which the doctors are much more optimistic about. The icing on the cake is that Mom II can even move her left arm, so there doesn’t appear to be any permanent damage. What a miracle!

Now about the Ex. After six days of test after test in the cardiac Critical Care Unit, we might have answers. Let me tell you, at this point, I wish it was “just” double pneumonia. The good news is that it’s not primarily a heart issue like we thought. The bad news is that he tested positive for a connective tissue disorder that sparked the congestive heart failure. He and A are going to talk to the specialist this morning to get some more information and then they get to go home. After a week in the hospital, I bet they are more than ready! It hasn’t really been the best of situations, but if anything positive has come out of it, it’s that A and I have been in touch almost every day and have strengthened our relationship. Now I know that even if the Ex and I have some bumps in the road, I know I have a co-parenting ally in A. She’s been a help before, but now I would feel comfortable ditching the middleman when necessary and just going straight to her.

Thanksgiving is coming up in a few weeks; I don’t know about you, but when I give thanks for my family’s health this year, I am going to mean it more than ever!

We interrupt this week for a tricksy parenting decision.

You know how there are Those Moments that you know are going to come up at some point in your parenting career and you just Can’t Wait! for them? (Oh, where is that sarcasm font?) One of the minor moments snuck up on me this week, but with everything else going on, I kinda let it slide away from me. But now I really need to make a decision.

You see, last week Gracie brought home a birthday party invitation. The invite was for a friend I hadn’t heard mentioned in any of her school stories. That wouldn’t usually be a problem: I am all for celebrating the magic that is someone’s birthday, whether it’s a dear friend, new acquaintance, or anyone in between. The problem is that the party is a sleepover.

I’m sure there is a bit of a double standard involved. Why would I be uncomfortable letting my daughter spend the night at an unfamiliar home, but okay with her spending a few hours? Well, for one, the amount of trouble she could get into in a few hours is pretty limited if she’s there for just a few hours. What is she going to do? Hijack a car, load up on junk food, and maybe watch a few rated-R movies? That is so kindergarten. Maybe I’m over-reacting, but I’m a little bit leery of her spending the night at a friend’s house when I’m not familiar with the friend, her parents, which rules will be enforced, or what sorts of activities are planned. The girls (if it’s a girls only party – not guaranteed in this day and age, unfortunately) are 6 and 7 and I can’t really rely on Gracie to speak up yet if there’s something going on that she knows she shouldn’t be around. I suppose I could call up D’s mom and chat with her to try to find out some of these answers, but how exactly do I do that without sounding offensive?

And really, is it just me, or is it a little weird for a parent to allow their daughter to have a sleepover and invite a bunch of people who you’ve never met? My group of girlfriends had sleepover birthday parties all the time. But we were a tight-knit group, the eight of us went through elementary school together, from kindergarten through sixth grade. Our moms were all friends and carpooled us to all of the same after-school activities and watched us whenever someone’s parents went out of town for a night. They talked to each other and compared notes so often that we didn’t dare even lie because we would be caught. But Gracie’s school works a little differently. There are several classrooms for each grade. She doesn’t have a single child in her class this year who was in her class last year. It’s great that she has a whole group of new friends…but you would think that these new friends would have birthday parties during the afternoon if it was a “getting to know you” party. Or maybe I’m just prematurely old. A fudder-dudder before my time.

Oh god. I just said fudder-dudder.

That might be just the first of many embarrassments I might visit upon my daughter. I thought about the obvious compromise – let Gracie go to the part at 6 p.m. when it starts, and then keep Bee up until 9 p.m. to go get Gracie. That way Gracie could have fun with her friends, D has another friend at her party, and I can get to know D and her family without worrying about what sort of situation into which I’ve flung my daughter. The problem is that, well, one – it’s obvious. I would be the parent who was worried and didn’t trust D’s parents. Two – Gracie would be marked as that girl who couldn’t stay at parties, ostracized from social functions. Really, it might just be easier to make up a conflict. (Technically, there is a conflict. We had planned to attend Dark in the Park, an after-dark Halloween celebration in the park that weekend.)

In short, I have reached maximum capacity on things I can worry about this week, so this one I’m turning over to you. On one hand, Gracie wants to go and I know how tough it is having a crappy turnout at birthday parties. On the other hand, are those really good enough reasons to hand over my child and trust that everything’s okay? Just be sure to let me know in time for Gracie to RSVP one way or the other.

Creating playlists instead of posts.

There are so many posts in my head and yet when it comes time to sitting down and writing about them, I find myself finishing Halloween mix CDs instead of writing about the Tale of Two Cardiology Units (the update about Mom II and the Ex), the Two Jars That Are Ruling Everything (the marble-reward update), the Greatest Timing Of and Contents In A Care Package Ever (thanks Kim!), Pumpkin Picking and All-Around Fantabulous Saturday (finally!), or Finding Out That My Dad Has Bladder Cancer. Again. (Not that I’m finding out again, because he didn’t tell me the first time. Or apparently anyone else.)

Nope, instead I finished the playlist in iTunes that Gracie and I started tonight because I know if we climb in the car tomorrow and there isn’t a cd, she’ll be sad. Tonight while A. took Bee to see her dad in the hospital (Gracie was running a fever), Gracie and I covered her in tattoos, played Wii, rocked out to Wii American Idol, drank two cans of soda (such rebels) and started this playlist. She knows we didn’t finish it, but I’d really like to whip out a finished cd in the car tomorrow. So, Imma go finish that, and you can read what we’ll be jamming to:

• Addams Family Theme Song
• Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Dead Man Walking – Stiff Little Fingers
• Don’t Fear the Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult
• Ghostbusters – Ray Parker Jr.
• Heffalumps and Woozles – Disney
• I’m Your Boogie Man – White Zombie
• I Walked With a Zombie (live) – Roky Erickson and The Explosives
• Monster Mash – Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt-kickers
• A Nightmare On My Street – DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
• The Purple People Eater – Sheb Wooley
• Rhiannon – Fleetwood Mac
• Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell
• Sweet Dreams – Marilyn Manson
• This House is Haunted – Alice Cooper
• Thriller – Michael Jackson
• Werewolves in London – Warren Zevon

It sounds fun now, but if I start complaining that my kids aren’t sleeping at night (or I can’t sleep at night), maybe somebody hit me upside the head, mkay?

Stop me before I hurt myself.

Owwwwwwww. My belly hurts.

Quite possibly my belly hurts because I just ate four snowflake rolls. After I ate a full dinner.

It’s not my fault! I quite simply couldn’t help myself. Snowflake rolls are delicious. They are light and fluffy and dusted with magic fairy dust flour. They taste delicious stuffed with egg salad or tuna salad, spackled with butter, or smothered with cream cheese. And before 3:46 this afternoon, they are only found back home.

Now do you understand why my belly hurts? I have been stuffing it with things from home to make myself feel better.

And by golly, it’s working. Because back home snowflake rolls were special occasion foods. Not because they were expensive or fussy or anything like that. I mean, my dad did have to drive across the city to Helen’s Bakery if we wanted the good ones (although one of the grocery stores – Big Y perhaps? – carried an acceptable version). But for whatever reason, we usually only had them on hand for family cookouts, birthday parties, First Communions, showers, and, later, whenever Kim or I came home from college.

My dad’s only job (like for most things) was buying them. Then my mom started barking orders. Someone would be assigned to slicing them down the middle (like you would a hot dog roll). Someone else I would be assigned to fill some of the rolls with egg salad, because Kim does not touch egg salad. In fact, it’s all she can do to be in the same room as it. Then someone else I would be assigned to fill some of the snowflake rolls with tuna salad because, Kim also does not do tuna salad. It ranks below everything else, except maybe fried bologna. Then someone else – even maybe Kim – would be assigned to fill the rest with an assortment of turkey or ham. These were our finger sandwiches and no other sandwiches have ever tasted so good. Yum.

A good number of “extra” snowflake rolls were always put away for us to enjoy. I remember my mom would keep the large plastic bakery bag of rolls insider her round cake saver turned upside down, so it looked like the world’s biggest tupperware. We’d sneak one (or two) out during the day and snack on them. As we woke up in the mornings, one by one, we’d all make our way over to the cake saver and pull out a couple to eat with butter or to use for an egg sandwich. No matter when or how they were eaten, they were always gone far too quickly. You could barter for a lot of favors if you got your hands on the last one.

Snowflake rolls (and their larger, crusty cousins: Bulkie rolls) can’t be found outside of New England. Or, at least, we’ve never found them away from home. Until today. Today as I was walking the aisles of Costco, moving out of the wine section and into baked goods, thinking perhaps that I would treat us to some muffins or some very large bagels, I saw a large plastic bakery bag full of…something familiar. Noooo… It couldn’t be. I abandoned the cart and walked across the aisle to examine them. Sure, the label said only “Rolls.” But really what was inside was home. They looked like snowflake rolls. They were dusted in flour like snowflake rolls. But probably they were just the same dense, ordinary dinner rolls that are so common to Texas. So I did what any desperate normal person would do: I squished one. (Hey, if anyone said anything to me I was going to explain the amount of self-restraint it took not to open a bag and taste one.) The roll even squished snowflakily. I checked the price tag only to see how much I was going to pay; it wasn’t like I was going to put the bag back even if they wanted $20 for 36 rolls. That’s when I knew the Turtle Karma Jim Henson everything good and holy in this world opened some kind of wormhole and transported those snowflake rolls straight to me because they were only $3.99. I was tempted to buy a few bags of them, but even with just the one bag, I have 36 29 rolls left to eat before they go bad. Hmmm…that should probably seem like more of a challenge.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, the night is young and I hear comfort calling me from the kitchen. Or maybe that’s just the Chilean red and my cake saver full of rolls. Funny how the time it takes to write a post is just as long as you need to make room for one more roll!