call me ms. excitement

busy holiday weekend. we found the lost snake friday afternoon under a laundry pile in the basement. my dad, sister, and niece came down to visit for the weekend. jay had to go in on saturday. while he was at work we thought we would all go walk on-campus and feed the ducks at the red cedar and walk around the garden and frog pond by the library. long story short one of my twin boys walks straight into the frog pond and my dad tries to reach in to grab him but the pond is much deeper than anyone thought and he had to go in the pond himself and fetch him out. both came out soaking wet but all safe. very scary at the moment, funny after we all calmed down, and then very scary again upon reflection that those could have been one of those horrible accidents that doesn't end up with the happy ending we had.

on sunday we all drove to ann arbor and went to the children's hands-on museum. it had a nice toddler section with a water play room. it was nice and a good way to spend a couple of hours.

http://www.aahaom.org

we walked around ann arbor, had lunch at the brown jug, and walked around the quad. it was a beautiful day.

the older kids got back from their cottage where they had spent the weekend with some aunts, uncles, and tons of cousins. my son came back with two newts and we had to go out and buy a new small tank. we now have two snakes and two newts. i much prefer reptiles and amphibians to rodents. we currently have a no rodent rule in the house. later on monday night we went to my ex-husband's house and grilled steaks and brats.

i am trying to finish ann patchett's THE MAGICIAN'S ASSISTANT. i started reading it about a month ago and got about 3/4's into it and then put it down and have been trying to finish it since. it is good not great.

i went to drive my son to school today at about 8:15 and the police were across the street and told us to get back in the house. our whole street was blocked off the the SWAT team was here. we stayed in the house for about an hour and then i drove him to school. the rumour on the street is that the old guy in the corner house committed suicide but they thought maybe there was some shady business.

i told you it has been a busy last several days.

HST--no RIP-ing for him

From Yahoo News:
" ASPEN, Colo. - Organizers of a memorial for Hunter S. Thompson plan to erect a 150-foot structure — courtesy of actor Johnny Depp — to shoot the gonzo journalist's ashes onto his ranch near here.

Friends and acquaintances gathered Thursday to discuss the Aug. 20 invitation-only service, which will be six months after Thompson shot himself in his Woody Creek home.

Jon Equis, the event producer working with Thompson's family, said the tower will be 12 feet wide at the base and 8 feet wide at the top, where a cannon will be placed.

Depp, who portrayed the author in the movie version of Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" will pay for the tower, designed to resemble Thompson's "gonzo fist" emblem.

As Thompson requested, his ashes will be shot out of the cannon onto his property.

Equis said the tower will be constructed far from Woody Creek Road and covered with a black drape before the service to discourage tourists. A public event is expected to be planned later to commemorate the writer's life.

The August event will consist of "spoken word and live entertainment," Equis said. The cannon will be fired around sunset.

The event organizers must get the plans reviewed by the Pitkin County Community Development Department, but Thompson's widow, Anita Thompson, was supportive. She said the event will be a celebration."

What I wouldn't do to see that. I wonder if this will start a trend. It seems fitting for Thompson but you can see movie stars and business people trying to jump on this ship. I love that Johnny Depp is footing the bill....

little bear, snakes, and turkey sandwiches

finished THE POSITION and really liked it. i have started reading GIRL IN LANDSCAPE by lethem. yesterday jay got home early from work so we went to the book sale in the basement of the lansing library. we got some cool books--i got a couple john bellairs we don't have, some old MAD paperbacks for Harry, jay got an old anatomy textbook, i got the BARRYTOWN TRILOGY by roddy doyle for ellyn, KISS KISS BANG BANG by Pauline Kael, THE AGE OF GRIEF a short story collection by Jane smiley in which the novella that is the title of the collection is the basis for one of my favorite movies (the secret lives of dentists), and a couple other interesting looking books.

harry is currently obsessed with getting toads, frogs, salamanders, and snakes. yesterday we took him for a walk at the local wilderness nature and within 5 minutes of being on the trails we got a garter snake. he had caught a ribbon snake about 2 weeks ago and has been keeping him as a pet. we took the garter home but didn't want to put the two snakes together because there was a size difference and we were afraid the bigger one might eat the smaller one. this morning i gave harry a big glad disposable plastic container and he put it in the living room when we left to go to school. i stopped at meijer and got a real plastic container and went to empty the snake in his new home and he was missing! i have a foot long garter snake loose in my living room or somewhere in my house!!!!!!! harry had a gecko that went missing for about 4 months once and appeared one day in the middle of the living room. i am already having vivid pictures in my mind of various places and times the snake could appear.

i got the adventures of pete and pete on dvd. it is the first season and i am watching them w/ harry. they are as good as i remember. i also rented chappelle show season 2. i got a couple new movies from Netflix to watch. must increase my movie watching so i can keep a steady flow of new movies coming in.

"Why his little red stapler should have found its way there, into the den, could not be answered. Things levitated and floated from room to room in this house: A stapler, which ordinarly was kept in a boy's desk, might inexplicably turn up open-jawed under the coffee table in the den; a box of Triscuits, empty or full, might make its temporary home on a bathroom counter. Objects moved and shifted and traded places, seemingly as restless as the people who owned them." Meg Wolitzer, The Position.

I am not a good housekeeper. my house tends to consist of piles of stuff that just gets moved around. i also have a tiny pat-rack compulsion. i never want to get rid of anything. i am constantly trying to find a thing that has gone missing and which can turn up anywhere. library books disappear, id/ credit/library cards go missing, and papers that the kids bring home from school just get sucked into the abyss. today i have turn in harry's school forms for next year and his order forms for school pictures. i am horrible with these things. when they come in i will think to myself--i need to put these some place special so i remember them and fill them out. then a week or two later when they HAVE to be filled out i have to scramble to remember where they are--ok, there were on type of the printer then ellyn moved that pile when she had to print something out then i stuck it on the bookshelves then where did i put it???? the only positive part of all this is that when i go on a drastic search for something (for instance right now i have been looking for my debit card for my UP account since last week because my dad put $$ in that account for mother's day/anniversary present ) i have to go through my various piles of shit and i find things i haven't seen in months.

my daughter has now taken to taking all the important papers that are some how related to her and putting them in her room. as soon as the paul westerberg tickets came in the mail i give them to her. i know with her they would be safe. (i just had a frightening thought of me as a crazy old lady and her having to come over and finding my social security stuff and tax info--and her thinking what a crazy old lady...when she dies i have to take care of all this shit)

(by the way frank, jay and sarah--i have now made it so you don't have to become a registered blogger to comment...hint..hint..HINT)

i am reading Meg Wolitzer's THE POSITION. it is about this couple who writes a joy-of-sex-type book in the 70's and the effects of it on their family and especially their children. it jumps back and forth from the 70's to the present day and the family still dealing with it.

one of this issues involved is kids coming to see their parents as sexual beings. their parents writing a book and also being the models for the pictures inside create a situation in which the children cannot live in denial--like so many kids are able to in real life. with my daughter getting older i am also starting to face the fact that my daughter is becoming a sexual creature. i don't know which is more difficult--facing your parents' sexuality or your children's. i think a lot of parents also try to live in denial about that as well. there is a lot of, if i don't think about it it doesn't exist. i want my daughter to have a healthy relationship to her sexuality. i have tried to be open about sex and answering her questions, even about my sexual experiences (which is oh so hard). for me to pretend like when, how and with who she will do it with is up to me seems crazy. as with drinking and drugs i have tried to stress safety. i have told her i would prefer she not do these things until she is ready and older but if she is going to do them only do it with people you feel safe and call me if things get out of hand. both her dad and step-dad would rather not know anything...i think that may be a man thing.

if anyone remembers their awakening as a sexual being and has advice--email me. when did you first have sex? why? did you parents talk with you about it? do you wish your parents were more or less involved? what would have made it better? did you feel you did it too young?

WILCO

my favorite band is probably wilco. i have seen them 4 times. i have seen them at the majestic, royal oak theatre, michigan theatre in ann arbor, and at uof m. each time has been a bigger place and more people. i think wilco are more than deserving of a large fan base but it sucks for me. each time my tickets have gotten sucker and sucker. when i saw them in the hill auditorium at u of m last fall i was in the balcony. when i first saw them at the majestic i was about 8 people back from the stage. i just got tickets for their june show at meadowbrook in rochester hills. yech. it is one of those places with a pavilion and lawn tickets. the tickets went on sale friday and i got mine today and i got row TT!!!! i tried to buy some tickets that went on sale early for fans right at the time they opened up but they were already gone.

good point--i am going to see WILCO.
bad point--sucky seats at a big venue.
hopefully one of my kids won't get sick so i don't have to miss this show like i missed westerberg (uggh i just felt sick to my stomach with the realization i missed the show)
(holy shit....there was just a kmart commercial on tv and the song was rock lobster by B52's)

good point--got to see John Stirratt perform at a small bookstore in East Lansing with only about 20 people in March.
bad point--still have sucky seats at a big venue.

http://www.wilcoworld.net

books on cd

i drive around a lot! i drive my kids into the richer school district everyday--drive ellyn in(7:10), come back, bring harry in(8:15), pick up harry (3:20), and pick up ellyn either after school (2:45) or after lacrosse practice (either 5 or 6). it is only about a 10 to 15 minute drive to east lansing.

since i don't get much time to read i have been trying to listen to books on cd. i started out w/ good intentions of listening to quality literature. i would listen to stuff i had never read but always meant to--moby dick, pride and prejudice, tale of two cities, etc. everyone time i try i cannot listen to more than 5 minutes before my mind just starts trying to entertain itself. i have found that the stuff i like to listen to is a little more light. i just got done listening to Lewis Black reading his autobiography NOTHING SACRED. it is his story of why he is such a pissy, authority hating, malcontent. i loved it. he even had a small section on the UP, subtitled "Where you go to become an alcoholic."

i also listened to susan orlean's collection of essays. she wrote THE ORCHID THIEF and writes stuff for the New Yorker. and i also listened to Jonathan Lethem reading his collection of essays. i am on a lethem kick and just went to the MSU library and checked out his newest fiction collection and 3 of his earlier books. will i read them? probably not.

Charles Kuralt

do you remember charles kuralt? he was the overweight, homey, and friendly host of CBS Sunday Morning and would also do other 'ordinary people' vignettes on other CBS news programs. he died several years ago and when it came time to start looking at his will and dividing up his assets his wife and children found out he had another family out west. he hadn't married this 'other woman' but he had a long-term relationship and was helping out with the raising of her children (who were young adults by the time of his death).

why do i bring this up? i guess i am criticizing my own assertions in my last post about pre and post nups. kudos to kuralt for leaving his other family money and not leaving them high and dry but on the other hand if you cannot trust charles kuralt who can you trust?

it seems like it is always men who are pushing pre and post nups. what about women who know if they are going to have kids and stay-at-home to raise them. even women who work for the most part make less than men. so even women who work and have kids need one. talk about someone who should demand one of this things. whose standard of living goes down without fail after the divorce? women. how many men get remarried and have a second family and decide they can't afford to 'help out with the kids'. hey, they already give them what the friend of the court said was reasonable support!

and what about this father custody movement i just read something about? i totally agree that the child needs to have a relationship with both the mother and father and shared custody is the best for everyone. is it the case that all this evil, bitchy women are keeping their children from their fathers? there are of course evil, nasty women who want to torture their ex-husbands but come one......some women do get vindictive when the man hasn't been giving any child support. how often do you hear single mothers say--he just wants to pick them up all the time and take them to their dentist and doctor appointments and i told him i would like to do it just once!

the 5 year plan

today is my 5 year wedding anniversary. my husband got home early from work and we exchanged gifts. i got an xm radio boombox. i can move it from room to room or outside (you can put batteries in it). very cool. i got my husband some cologne, candy, and a book about sexual positions--hubba hubba. we are going to go out for dinner later. we were going to relive our first date--meet at the coffee shop, go out to the middle eastern restaurant, and then go walk on campus in the flower gardens where there is a small frog pond. the recent cold front might put that plan to the back burner.

my husband is the nicest, most considerate person i know. he has always been very good w/ my two kids who were 8 and 3 when we started dating even though he didn't have much background with kids. we are very different people. i am very moody, spazzy, and get worked up easy. he, on the other hand, is even tempered, relaxed, and happy to just sit around. we are each other's yin and yang. sometimes this drives the both of us crazy but most of the time it is for the best. when i get worked up he is able to come me down.

that said i still think marriage is hard. marriage takes work. when you put it on auto-pilot it starts to nosedive. of course i am high maintainence so maybe this is just my marriage. i don't know why people write and read all those self-help books and watch dr. phil. i don't know if there is a secret to staying married. (hey i've beem divorced once so why listen to me....) sometimes it does suck and you both feel like running far away from each other but usually that feeling passes.

that said...has anyone read about the new thing? now in addition to pre-nups there are post-nups. say you or your husband are about to come into a lot of $$$, land, etc. you write up a post-nup detailing how much of whatever each of you should be entitled to. sounds rational and i guess 3 years down the road you don't want to spend days or weeks or months and lawyer's fees arguing over whatever it is but it seems to say to me, "i don't really trust you or have much faith in you as a person." if that is how you feel why are you married??? in the back of your mind you are thinking--if push comes to shove this person is willing and would fuck me over. what happened to romance i ask ya?

my husband's job--pt. II: CALL

i guess my last entry about my husband's job was more an explanation of what it was and some background explanation. my husband read it and said he was waiting for the bitching and whining part. i don't want the title of my blog to be misleading so on with the complaining.

i ended the last entry claiming that i HATE call. i do i hate it. it is responsible for lowering the quality of my life in ways that nothing in my life has yet done. as i explained when my husband is on-call he goes in as if it is a normal day of work (usually this is about 6am) but he has to stay in the hospital overnight. because he is a surgeon if someone comes into the ER with anything that could involve surgery of any kind he gets paged and has to come check on them. this seems pretty clear cut say if someone got stabbed, shot, etc. but if someone comes in complaining of a sharp pain in the abdomen ER people want him to come check if its the appendecisis. also he is the person who get paged if nurses have questions about any of the surgery's departments surgery. he is the one he gets the call if somebody who got surgery earlier in the day and later in the evening something is going on.

ok, what does this all mean. often it means he does not get any sleep the whole time he is in the hospital. if there are a lot of traumas (car accidents, stabbings, people falling from windows and trees, etc.) then he doesn't get a lot of down time. right now it is 5 in the afternoon and my husband is sleeping on our living room chair because he was on-call last night and he was able to sneak in a nap in the morning but in the nearly 36 hours he has got 3 hours of sleep.

the # of times he is on-call a month varies. at the lowest end he can work 4 and at the high end 8. usually he works about 6 calls a month. i find it very hard to deal with. i miss him terribly but also taking care of 4 kids all by myself without a break is trying. on this front i know a lot of women have it harder--women married to military men or men that have to travel for their jobs. sometimes his call will be all bunched up in the month and by the end of the stretch i am so angry, resentful, and sad. i feel abandoned. i feel like the hospital comes before the family ALL THE TIME. i feel resentful that his career choice has such negative impacts on our family and our marriage. i married my husband because he is my best friend and i love spending time with him but since he has started residency our marriage has changed. we also had twin boys 24 days into his residency which didn't help.

last june i had hit a point of it all getting a bit too much. i got shingles and i felt like i was going out of my fucking mind. i had to go running to some prozac. i got my daily 40 mg of prozac a day and i can deal with it but i don't like it.

"when the world is running down you make the best of what's still around"
the police

my husband's job--Pt. I

of my favorite topics to whine and bitch about is my husband's job. my husband is a surgery resident. i think a lot of people don't understand the whole residency/doctor thing--they leave this all sort of sketchy on shows like E/R. In the last year of medical school (4 years long) you have to decide what kind of doctor you would like to be and you apply to residency programs for the speciality you have chosen. some specialities are much more competitive than others and the length of training is different for each. for example family practice is not very competitive and the residency is three years long. Orthopediatic surgery is VERY competitive and is 5 to 6 years. mixed in to all this is how much you make at the end. orthos make anywhere from 2 to 3 (or more) times more than family docs. ALL (at least 90%) of doctors bitch about how much money they make.

my husband chose surgery. surgery has typically been competitive but was fluctuating recently because a lot of people were turned off by lifestyle (when you hear doctors talk about lifestyle it means how many hours they will end up working and how much call they would have to take) and how reimbursements for general surgeons has been going down. we knew we didn't want to move and if we had to move we didn't want to go far so he applied to places in the midwest. at the end of interviewing you make a list ranking what programs you would like go to and the schools make a list of who of the people in they interviewed they want--both interviewee and schools rank their choices. On about March 19th there is a day called Match Day in which all medical students in the country are given an envelope letting them know where they are going. they really do not know it all depends on how they ranked various places and how and if those places ranked them. if they isn't a match (and sometimes this happens) then the student has to 'scramble'-which is exactly like it sounds. people from his medical school will call around to various programs and ask if they have room for one more and beg them to let the scrambling student have it. (sounds a bit like duck duck goose to me)

luckily my husband got in the program where we already lived so we didn't have to move. his program is 5 years long. most surgery programs are this long but some are 6 or 7 years. they are longer if you have to work in a lab for a year. the year my husband started the new rules for residency work hours came into effect. before there was no rules about how many hours programs could make their residents work. now programs are supposed to not have their residents work more than an average of 80 hours a week. before residents would work Q2 call or they were on call every other night. i think a lot of people also don't know what 'being on-call' means. when i resident is on-call they go into work and stay all day and all night and into the next day. before the rules residents would go in at 5 or 6am in the morning and not be let go until 5 or 6pm the following day. they would work 36 hours and come home and do it again. now they have 'post-call privileges'. this means that if you have been on call they are supposed to let you at noon instead of keeping you all the next day. generous, no?

I HATE call.

if you're happy and you know it

my friend f. said he was watching the movie GUMMO by harmony korine. he said that he was enjoying it but he could only watch it for about 20 minutes at a sitting. i saw KIDS when it came out but i had to struggle to get through it. just as i have finally acknowledged i will never like led zeppelin and i guess i just don't get it i have gotten old enough not to sit through movies that will make me feel uncomfortable and icky.

this does not mean i care if other people see them. this does not mean that i think movies that do this are not good movies or that they lack artistic worth. i just cannot sit through them. who makes my short list of people whose movies i will generally try to avoid--harmony korine and todd solondz ( i saw WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE and i will leave it at that. Even though I love Philip Seymour Hoffman I cannot do HAPPINESS.) I also cannot watch movies in which historical or present-day tragedies are presented. My daughter, who is 15, went and saw HOTEL RWANDA and came back home and was crying for the next two hours. She told me I have to see it and that it is one of the best movies that she ever saw. I have read articles about Rwanda. I don't need to see a movie about genocide to know genocide is bad and the US never does a goddamn thing about it unless there is something in it for them (OIL).


One could argue that i missing one of the key roles of art--to bring truth to light. and sometimes truth is going to make you feel like you have been kicked in the guts and you are overtaken by waves of nausea. i don't disagree with this point. in fact I would totally agree. my loss i guess.

i did just watch the new pedro almodovar movie that got released on DVD, BAD EDUCATION. i do love pedro almodovar movies. I especially loved ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER. his movies main characters are usually transvestites, writers, actors, and outsiders of all kinds. One could see his movie are dark and are about dark subjects but i never find that they make me feel icky. maybe this is because his movies are never hopeless. BAD EDUCATION stars Gael Garcia Bernal who is one of my favorite actors. He was Che Guerva in MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, one of the main characters in Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, and also in AMORES PERROS. he is brilliant (and beautiful). if you haven't seen any almodovar movies I recommend starting w/ BAD EDUCATION or ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER. two of his other earlier movies are also wonderful, TIE ME UP TIE ME DOWN (w/ a young Antonio Banderas) and WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.

"he himself wasted energy in hectic busyness and in astonishment at dullness." Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith.

I have been reading Arrowsmith for the last couple of months. I will read about 40 pages and then not pick it up for another 3 weeks and i will then read another 40 pages. needless to say it takes me quite awhile to finish a book. none of the blame should be placed on sinclair lewis or the book itself. i don't get to read much. twin toddlers leave little time for self-discovery, self-actualization, or intellectual growth (or bathing for that matter). the older two, although not so demanding on a minute by minute basis, also suck up the rest of energy and time. i would have it no other way. i am thinking of having a couple more. my quality of life would be much better if my husband didn't work all the time and if we could afford a couple half days of daycare.

i guess this is turning into a rant on motherhood. although it is overwhelming at times and sometimes leaves me physically and emotionally spent (forget the sometimes--most of the time) i dig it. as far as careers go i am pretty good at it. i think to be pretty good at it the bar is set fairly low. keep them out of jail, keep them in school, keep them somewhat healthy. as chris rock said about fathering girls--your job is to keep them off the pole. right now i can consider myself somewhat of a success because none are in jail, drug addicts, school dropouts----------YET. i don't think this is a proof of my good parenting skills but rather of luck. only good parents raise good kids? only good people are successful? bad things only happen to bad people? after all my years of studying philosophy this is my personal philosophy of life. life is a whole bunch of luck. does this hold me totally unaccountable. no. i have to go through being the best person i can be hoping that speeding car doesn't jump through the median and take me out. bad things happen to wonderful people.

things they tell you that are true but you don't believe them.
1. Your kids dissappointments are way more disappointing than your own.
2. Your kids' successes make you way more happy than your own.
one could of course take an ayn randian spin on these statements and be all cynical and say that's because they ARE your dissappointments and successes. I don't think the above 2 statements mean you live vicariously through your children. for example if your daughter is having a slump in lacrosse you would give anything to be tabitha off bewitched and wiggle your nose and make her lacrosse stick a magic stick. when you son starts getting all stoked up about pirates and ships you get all sorts of books out and learn stuff about pirates to keep the spark of intellectual curiosity going.


(it still freaks me completely out that i am a mother of 4...i feel like diane wiest in parenthood. "I went to Woodstock. I peed in a field for christ's sakes....."
I went to the first lollapollaza. i have a tattoo.

why i was singing the praises of xm

does the world need a bossa nova version of the dead kennedy's Too Drunk To Fuck??
yes it does.
NOUVELLE VAGUE
they have a record (self-titled) of 80's songs done in the bossa nova style. ok, it might grate a bit but overall a good musical experience.
also if you are in the mood for something new check out healthy white baby. if you go to their website you can download a couple of their songs. dan black was the in the Blacks, an alt country band and Laurie Stirratt was in an alt country band and also has a record out w/ her twin brother John (the bassist of Wilco and also of his own other band Autumn Defense) . I recommend the song SOUL.
(Their name comes from Raising Arizona. Makes me happy.)

i sing the praises of xm radio

if you don't have xm radio (or sirius) you need to have it. we got it for a christmas present in 2003 and have only grown to love it more with each passing month. i mostly listen to 44 (classic alternative), 8 (eighties), 54 (newer classic alternative), 47 (alternative), 75 (the starbucks station---don't judge), and 70 (real jazz). Their classic country (hank's place) and alt country stations are good too. I was listening to it today and heard some songs by this band nouvelle vague. they have done covers of 80's songs in bossa nova style. the songs you have always loved but may have gotten a bit sick of now done in new and interesting ways. i used to have xm in the car and it was a godsend for long drives. (Like when I drove up to the UP. The comedy station and the XMPR made the trip much more bearable.) My husband yanked the cord though and it no longer works in the car. Now whenever i have to listen to regular radio in the car I am sickened by how horrible it is.

you have my promise if you get xm you will never regret it and your quality of life will be increased. (i usually would not argue that a consumer good will make you happier but i vouch for xm on this count.)