Letting It Wash Over Me

My Friday (the one just a few days ago) was going pretty well. I had finished my Friday report, was getting started on another project when my boss called. I admit that I don't remember the exact words because as soon as the words "bad news" entered my ear, so did a rushing noise of doom as I was told that the CEO who started on Thursday had made some cost-cutting decisions and I was one of them. After four years at this company, I am unemployed.

My British friends call it being redundant. What a mild word for such a sad concept. I'm no longer valuable. This CEO looked at a spreadsheet, saw some numbers next to my name, couldn't decide what I added to the company, made a red mark. I'm sad, shocked, a little blue. I'm trying not to be frantic. In my attempt at calm, I've become something more like paralyzed. Inaction is my task for today. Again, it seems sad.

Yes, I called the headhunter I used four years ago. She actually remembered me. Does that say something about me (and I hope it's good) or something about how sharp she is? Also a good thing. I'm still putting off redoing my resume. I will, really, probably tomorrow or Thursday. I just fear it. It's such a concrete admission of what's going on. Also, I managed to not get to the Unemployment office in time today. Actually, I got there 25 minutes before they closed, but they waved me off with imperious government employee waves, finally saying, "come back tomorrow."

I'm afraid. I'm still stunned. I was told this wasn't because of how I did my job, but how can I not feel like a failure for being some lacking in value to be easily dismissed. I will tell myself that better things are ahead and meanwhile fear that being 46, fluffy and with skills for a job usually populated by people at the beginning of their work history will consign me to something I dislike, or something that doesn't give me a survivable wage.

For now, I let the fear wash over me, I let the panic slide down my back, I let the paralysis take its time with me and I try to find joy in sitcoms, oat bran in a real fabric bag and lotion that smells like pink grapefruit.

Thinking Through Cotton

I didn't realize that the lingering effect of flu would be a wooliness to my thoughts. Sure, I still have the gooiest cough that interrupts my sleep and continues to send me running for the bathroom as I try not to pee on myself, but it's the foggy brain that plagues me most. Plague - see what I did there?

Which is, frankly amazing, that I could make any sort of wordplay or joke as I feel like my personality has been folded into a tiny, sad square and packed away in a little, plain box. I feel dull, stupid and scatter-brained. I'm not known for having a great memory, but I can't walk three steps without forgetting why I started.

I can only hope that as the last of the insidious virus leaves my body, or the last of the white cells reorganize my internal system, that I will get back a bit of verve. Currently, I'm verve-less. Also, I'm lacking pep, vitality, energy and wit. Yes, totally witless.

So, while, inside my head I'm thinking complex thoughts about the misery of this House bill on healthcare that passed, but was neutered by the Stupak amendment, I can't seem to express any of the usual passion for or against the inspiring and irritating political types we've been seeing on our televisions. Bear with me, I'm sure my snarky, mean and hopefully, funny self will return.

Angry Ode to Swine Flu

I was coasting along thinking, "wow, my immunity is really holding up" when the cough started. I still insisted it was just allergies and no relation to the cough Fletcher had. Then Friday evening, I first started feeling the congestion, the runny nose, the general malaise. Saturday I was able to rally for the usual Saturday morning things, but was already feeling wan. I think the middle of Saturday was a big nap. I can hardly remember. Made it through Halloween night by the skin of my teeth. Sunday dawned with full realization, I was sick.

I started taking all the online flu assessments. All of them told me, based on my answers that I was VERY SICK. Chills started up, full body aches, headache, violent coughing, and fever. Thou foul flu filled with goo.

Thou demon of the chest and bronchial tubes. What evil biology forged your existence? What porcine curse has landed in my joints to produce aches and shivers?

Ah, angry misery has caused my whining that alienates my one true care-taker, the only one left not afflicted. Forever chilling my skin, bringing to mind a bath of ice. A burning forehead, a neck like a glowing coal, pushes thermometers to 101.6.

No ode can really get to the heart of what a craptastic beast this flu is. I also have to watch my poor child suffer along with me and fear that my husband will be next. Let the Tamiflu gods look kindly upon all three of us. O, fever hallucinations, I return.

How Not to Be a Halloween Douche

After tonight's festivities, I have some rules to keep me from hitting you in the head with a brick:

• Unless you are taking your OWN children trick-or-treating, no matter how good the costume, if you are 6'5", stay home.


• Treat bags are $1 at WalMart, splurge on one instead of using that creepy pillowcase. If you are using it because you are worried about bag breakage, you are too involved in the quest for candy.


• If you can grow facial hair, stay home.


• If your idea of cadging for candy is loading up the van with everyone, and going to a different neighborhood, stay home. Or go to the mall, they give out candy. I want to give it to my neighbors kids, not huge quantities of random children from another town.


• If I've dropped the piece of candy in your bag, no matter how small it is, DO NOT give me a look like you are expecting more. You get what you get, move on.


• Once you've received your treat, GET OUT OF THE WAY, you are blocking my porch for the rest of the rabble. I want to get this distribution over with as fast as possible.


• If you are under 25, and only have a child under 1, you don't need to trick-or-treat. No one cares about your costume, and your very uncomfortable-looking baby should only be shown to a handful of people who give a shit. Also, you don't need that candy.


• I happen to be sick almost every Halloween (last one, this one, horrible coughing) so if you ring the bell and I don't show up right away. Give up. Don't bang on my door or continue to ring. I'm in the bathroom retching from the coughing. And if I reappear while you're still there, I will be mean.


• No editorials on what I gave you, good or bad. I don't want to know, no one wants to know, it will either be perceived as pettiness or gloating.
• If we have turned out the lights, we are OUT OF CANDY. DO NOT ring the bell or knock. Why are you walking up to a dark house anyway? Glutton for serial killers?

Oh, and have a nice Halloween.

What Won't We Do for a Patch

Here's my Cub Scout. He enjoys being a Scout, though he is so far from religious he has to work on his facial expressions when God is brought up. We had a Den Meeting last night and we met at the city Police Station for a tour. I'm not sure my child has one thought or another about the police. He's not the sort to be in trouble and I'm afraid, overall, he views police with some suspicion.

The tour was uneventful except the Autistic scout who kept pestering Fletcher and finally spit in his face. I'm sure I should be more understanding, but our Den meetings would go so much better without Jacob-on-the-spectrum. He's really disruptive. I don't have the tools to deal with him, his mother is exhausted and sometimes fails to deal with him, and the other boys freak at the sight of him. My son keeps turning around and rolling his eyes at me about Jacob.

The police officer (Officer Foster, to you) who took us on the tour was a short man, who looked a bit like a proper police doll in his little uniform. He seemed nice enough, but fairly dull and I suspect, not that bright. Our police station is very modern and homogeneous. At 7 p.m., nothing much is happening there. It's not as if they let the boys tour the jail. We stared at the 911 operators, saw a training room that was indistinguishable from every seminar room I've ever been in (though Office Foster did show the boys some training batons and the training cuffs) and peeked in a small gym.

At least the boys got a patch. And I'm sure this completed some step in the Wolf Cub achievements. We still have to determine which church will be the least offensive to my little Atheist so he can complete the requirement of religious institution attendance.

Witch of the West

Every year since Fletcher turned 3 we have a birthday party for him. Every year it's on a Saturday at 2 p.m. and we host it in our backyard with open doors and guests wandering in and out to get food from the table. Every year, my mother drives 500 miles to show off her skills as amateur caterer. I do love my mother, in the way you love something that is both good and bad, supportive and judgmental, bittersweet. But, she couldn't be a better user of the back-handed compliment and the best practitioner of damning with faint praise.

I cleaned like a maniac (badly and with loads of sweat) in preparation for her arrival and the party. To be honest, more of it was focused on making her happy than worrying about parents of my son's friends noticing how piggishly I live. I could tell by the way she looked around that I didn't accomplish what I should have. She sneers at all my attempts to keep house and begins moving things around and constantly wiping everything with a damp paper towel.

She rolled in around 5:30 on Friday evening and immediately said several things. My husband needs to help me more, using the words "well you (meaning me) work full time." Implication being he doesn't. No, he doesn't, but he does make money for us. Also called my son, her only grandson, chunky. Yes, he's gained some weight. We are addressing it. She needs to back off about it. I'm chunky. My husband is chunky. We're all trying not to be chunky. Guess what, woman?! Insulting us never helps.

She took us out to eat at Red Robin as Fletcher (who had just turned 8) had restaurant choice. She always orders a petite burger and gives us all the evil eye if we order something larger. Claims that she really isn't glaring at us, but her vision is failing in her old age, but I remember her when she was my younger mother and she did it back then, too. I can't be fooled.

After dinner, Mom and I made a big trip to WalMart to get beverages and other sundries for the party. She was mostly tolerable on that trip but we had to spend too much time dithering over sun dried tomatoes in olive oil. And there was a long discussion about the olive oil I had in my cabinet, along with the admonition that I really should keep it in my refrigerator. Cause, you know, I love having to make it go from solid to liquid each time I use it.

Saturday morning was a fairly early start so I could send Fletcher and Joe off to Fletcher's soccer game and Mother and I could get the house ready fort he party. She cooked and fussed with things and I finished the cleaning the house so desperately needed. I got myself into a sweaty, cranky mess and already had a list of things I needed help with by the time Joe returned.

The day moved on with lots of sweaty running about for me, errands for Joe and nice cooking smells a product of what my mother was doing. I managed to be almost ready when the first child was dropped off early by his grandmother. Certainly by the time most of the guests showed, we were ready to entertain and feed them.

Two hours later after much decorating of superhero capes, greedy mad dashes for prizes and pinata droppings, it was over. Except for the brother and sister who were still there because Dad used that time to do some work. The sister had been invited, the impulse-control impaired older brother was like a prize we couldn't give back that came with. He managed, during the party, to hit my son twice in the head with a soccer ball, which prompted Fletcher to whack him in the head with a whiffle bat. Only fair. Much crying ensued on both sides at each injury. Ice packs were distributed.

The evening after the party included dinner made up of party food scraps and going to a showing of Where the Wild Things Are. Mom and I enjoyed the movie but I think Joe and Fletcher found it too melancholy. It might not really be a children's movie. But, visually, it was so stunning, I had to love it.

Mother left this morning with admonitions about picking up the living room each night and more worried comments about my son's health. I appreciated her help with the party but was not sad to see her close her Suburban door and drive away. I can only take so much Judy.

More Time to Create

I love making art. But sometimes the creative portion of my brain can't fight its way out from the part busy filling spreadsheets with numbers, or designing pegboard units for Sears or picking up a mind-numbing number of toy parts from the living room floor.

Even with a degree in art, I have no delusions about making much, if any, money from it. I will never be a good marketer of my art, not good at making multiples of one thing, just not that sort of artist. I make things for friends, family, myself. I make things because the thing is in my head and I want to make it real.

But lately (and that covers a lot of ground) I've been so busy with work projects, house cleaning, party preparation and just general laziness in the in between bits that I haven't been creating. Now we have reached that point in the yearly cycle where my creations need to be aimed toward gifts. I'm good with this. I have pictures of past gift creations that still make me happy that I made them. So, it's time to start thinking of what is in my head that wants to be made real AND will be a great present for family or friend. Start my engines...the creative ones I mean.