Deconstruction

There is a house being built on the lot next to ours.

I am in hell.

It averages 150,000 degrees Fahrenheit here in dry, windy, Tulsa, Oklahoma and people who work outside tend to start things early before the temperatures get suffocating. There must be some sort of neighbourhood covenant about noise because the subcontractors seem to descend around 8:00 am with their heavy equipment, their endless cigarettes and their poor manners.
They park their vehicles in front of my house and walk across my lawn. I despise them.

Recently, something has happened to our water pressure. It used to be great. Now, it doesn't come out with enough force to create bubbles of the dish detergent. I blame the construction work next door.

We were all through with allergies, or so we thought. Now, all four of us are watery-eyed and sinus challenged. It's all the dust and matter in the air from the junk next door.

Remember the dog behind us who barked whenever someone walked by? Well, he barks ALL DAY LONG now that there are people working on the lot adjacent to his back fence. I love animals but that dog is on my very last nerve. I blame the construction.

We have somewhere in the neighbourhood of three months left at this address. While that fact used to cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand straight up with anxiety, I now embrace the coming change with joy. Until then, I will have to adapt and thus, I am scouring the internet researching noise canceling headphones.

A girl has to be able to hear herself think.

Mac Attack

Three days ago, I walked into an Apple store with the intention of getting my iPhone fixed. I tell myself lies like that all of the time knowing full well that crossing the threshold into all that silver and white minimalist, Genius bar, goodness would likely result in me walking out the door with something bearing the Apple logo.

My love affair with Steve Jobs and his black turtlenecks began with the iPod. I have spent numerous hours in the throes of Asian customs queues, white ear buds inserted, jamming away like the crass foreigner that I am.

Next, came the advent of iPod with VIDEO. I didn't think it could get any better.

And then, the iPhone was debuted. I bought my first one on eBay. I bid a ridiculous amount of money, never expecting to win, and before you could say, "car payment", I was an owner. Can I tell you how much I love my phone? I'm on my fourth version.

When I first heard about the iPad, I couldn't really see the point because wasn't it just a larger iPhone? Yes, some of those apps they advertised looked mighty interesting but how could I possibly justify the purchase? Then my friend came over, showed me hers and all the neat things it could do and I coveted. A few weeks later, I went to the Apple store to "browse". I came home with an iPad.

The Apple store in all of its chaos, does it for me. I love technology, especially the kind that is born in Cupertino, CA. It's intuitive, progressive and solves problems I didn't know I had. I'm pretty sure that there are one are two ideas brewing in R&D for products that will end up on that list of things I cannot imagine life without. See, that is why Stevie boy is so successful. He's managed to create need where none existed.

This past Tuesday, I walked into the Apple store to get my phone fixed and walked out 40 minutes later with a fully loaded MacBookPro but not before I grilled my sales guy about the rumours of a fall debut of the iPad3 (which he thinks are bunk).

Apple is electronic heroin and I am an hopeless junkie.

Waxed

Earlier this week, I ventured back to the land of professional waxing but this time, my expectations were that it would be easier considering my maiden voyage had already sailed.

No such luck. It hurt. It hurt in places it didn't the first time. And, I didn't even go all the way to Brazil. I probably bailed out somewhere around Nicaragua.

It wasn't a complete disaster, though, as there were some very important learnings.

1. Accidentally missing one or two days of the application of my bioidentical cream allows all hell to break loose.

Okay, warning: too much information is about to be shared (imagine that). Gentlemen, you may want to leave the room for a minute.

My body, without benefit of bioidentical cream, has a powerful need to menstruate every 23 days or so which means I've really only got one sane week in every three. In one of the other two, I'm a cramping, ugly, miserable mess and in the other one, I'm a raging loon. With the cream, I float along blissfully for about 27 days, like NORMAL women and I don't have to curb the impulse to ram into every driver on the road who thinks that he, and his half ton truck with the lift kit and the gun rack, in the fast lane, doing 60 mph, is going to teach everyone else how to drive safely.

2. So when reading the warning in BIG LETTERS about waxing within a few days of onset of menses, I should probably give myself a cushion of at least 10 days because here I am, three days later and DING, DING, DING, it's here. Early. This explains the pain, the raw red skin and the fact that I bled. My esthetician told me to look at the positive side of things in that each of the places where there was bleeding, the hair follicle has been killed dead. I don't know if she's full of crap or not as I haven't had the time to research that little piece of waxing lore however, in this moment, I will choose to believe her because it makes me happy to think that I might be winning the war of the curlies.

3. Since I appear to have an embarrassingly low tolerance for pain, my girl suggested that I medicate with ibuprofen BEFORE my next appointment and use this:

Oh, yes please.


Sold! Could I get a case?

Painfully Self Aware

There was a small incident today which served to show me that the abused can become the abuser.

My father and I are estranged and have been for fifteen years or so. It's a long, mostly boring, story so to be quick and spare you the gory details, let's just say that he was a man who was a slave to his personal demons. His perceived inadequacies led him to make dreadful decisions which he justified through emotional manipulation, battering and fabrication. There was a time when I was very angry with him. Now that I am a parent myself, when he does enter my thoughts, I feel mostly pity.

This morning, Olivia had a swim lesson and immediately afterward, Dylan needed to be rushed to his volunteer job at the aquarium. There wasn't time to go back home after the lessons and collect him so Dylan had to get up earlier than usual and come with us.

About midway through Liv's forty minute lesson, Dylan had had enough of the viewing room at the pool and asked if he could wait outside in the car. I tossed him the keys.

Tulsa is hot in the summer. It is scorch the lungs, sweat out of the shower, unrelenting, Las Vegas, hot. Dylan turned on the car fan in an effort to stay cool and in doing so, he drained the car battery. Dead.

After her lesson, Olivia and I came flying out of the building and rushed to get into our seats so we could beat the mad scramble of cars in and out of the swim school. I turned the key in the ignition and of course, the car engine wouldn't turn over. I lost my mind and berated Dylan until he was in tears. Then, disgusted with him (because of the tears), I turned away, called Dallas and asked him to help me. Without hesitation, my husband dropped whatever he was doing in his workday and came to our rescue. This was not the first time.

It wasn't the fact that he came to help. What jarred me back to my senses was that while my fourteen year old son quietly sniffed beside me from my assault, my husband got our car running again in two minutes, without complaint, with grace, with kindness, devoid of stress. He didn't emotionally punish me because I'd inconvenienced him. You see, he loves me more than that.

Dallas's picture was in stark contrast to the one I had drawn with my son, moments before. Raising a teenager is hard, for sure, but my intolerance, my lack of empathy, my impatience and my rage are not Dylan's problems until I force them onto his fragile psyche. He can sometimes be quite unkind, didactic and sarcastic with his sister and I've always thought my ex's behaviour was to blame until this morning when I realized that Dylan's single largest influence is me.

Today, I stared into the rearview mirror and saw my father staring back.

I didn't feel pity. I felt ill.

Grandma June

Life is so rich in that there are people that you meet along the journey who touch your world in ways you could never anticipate.

Dallas' Grammy June is one of those people.

Grammy June grew up in a world that saw a Hitler and a Mussolini. She lived through the Great Depression; was witness to World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Chinese Cultural revolution, the Falklands and the independence of Western Samoa. She grew up on a farm and knew the ardours of physical labour. Grammy June is a very practical woman with a wicked, dry, sense of humour. She does not suffer fools lightly.

Even before I officially married into this family, my children and I were immediately accepted with open arms and incorporated into the extended family structure. There was no pussy footing around. Dylan and Liv had a new set of grandparents, cousins, an aunt, uncle and two lively great-grandmas. From their New Zealand relatives, they received emails and cards celebrating their birthdays. They participated in Skype conversations and their welfare was inquired after during any discussion.

This past Christmas, my children had a ridiculous quantity of gifts waiting for them under a Cromwell Christmas tree and it is one of those that I'd like to share with you today.

Grammy June hasn't been feeling all that well for the better part of a year. She suffers from near debilitating diverticulitis and the indignities that come with the disease are hard to accept. Christmastime, she made the decision to get on the plane with us in Auckland and fly down to the South Island for five of the best days I have ever personally spent in my life.

One day, either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, she pulled me aside and asked to speak with me privately. We went back to her room and it was there that she sat me down on the bed opposite her own and handed me a package.


She explained that inside was Liv's "real" gift for this Christmas but she felt it best that I hold onto it until the timing was more appropriate. Puzzled, I asked what was inside.


She opened it to reveal this:

This outfit is for Olivia's firstborn child, which Grandma June figures she's not likely to meet but on that special day, whenever it comes, she wanted Olivia to know just how happy she is for her. It is hand-knit, with the most delicate details like wee little rosebuds and dainty pearlescent buttons.

I wept.

While it can be considered a thoughtful gift befitting of a practical woman like Grandma June, it meant a whole lot more to me than that. Sitting on our twin beds sharing a conversation and receiving the present on Olivia's behalf, is a poignant memory I'll treasure forever.

Little Gems

This past weekend, I was cleaning my nine year old daughter's room and came across this wee nugget on her desk.


I found it hilarious.

I'm not sure if it is because she is already making notes to self or because of the inclusion of the notation, spelled correctly, to "SUCCEED".

Regardless, one thing is for damn sure. I've done my job as a parent. My children will most definitely require therapy as adults.

Thoughts for a Friday

1. John Edwards redefines "smarmy". He's been indicted. How nice for his family. He can just queue up behind other cheater men in politics like Bill, Newt, Mark, Eliot, Arnold, Rudy and Jim, to name only a very few. Great legacy, fellas.

2. I read today that Dr. Michael Kamrava, the one who was responsible for implanting twelve embryos (eight of which survived) into Nadya Suleman of "Octomom" fame, will be stripped of his California medical license as of July 1. My only comment...why the hell are they waiting until July 1?

3. I am so grateful for my husband. He's the best thing that has ever happened to my children and me.

4. How about those Vancouver Canucks, eh? Wednesday night, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I had the Stanley Cup finals on my TV, during PRIME TIME! It made me unreasonably happy. I sang, "O Canada" at the start of the game along with the 20,000 fans in Rogers Arena. My children were fascinated . I was homesick.

5. New Zealand calls to my soul every, single, day. I can picture my children there. I can see my brother and sister-in-law tipping back a glass of Kiwi wine and enjoying the view from a Cromwell vineyard. I look forward to the day when I hang my freshly washed clothes out on the line for the first time. I know that sounds weird but there is something enormously satisfying about it that I can't explain.

6. It blows my ever loving mind that the press is following Sarah Palin around the country on her Mama Grizzly Family Vacation. I keep waiting for Alan Funt to jump out and tell the nation that we're all on Candid Camera because Palin's potential candidacy can't be anything else but a bad joke.

7. The truth is far more easily recalled than a lie.

8. I had the privilege of being the commencement speaker a few weeks back for a high school graduation. While terrifying, the occasion served to remind me how fleeting youth is and how important it is, as a homeschool parent, to nuture the sense of curiosity that my children still have about the world around them.

9. I can live without bread, pasta, corn products, flour, processed food and sugar but holy cow, do I ever miss beer. I have yet to sample a gluten-free beer that tastes as good as the worst ale (Molson Golden when it was still an ale) or lager (Red Stripe) on the market. So sad.

10. The definition of stupidity is purchasing one's adolescent son an amp for his electic guitar. Period.

Happy Friday, kids.