Miz S

In Which I Explain Several Times That This Is Not a Piece of Cake.

This picture of my friend Ellen and me has nothing to do with the post. It was taken today on the Billy Goat Trail in Great Falls, and I post it here to prove that I am getting out and doing things and not wallowing in self-pity. Also, it gives me the opportunity to publicly declare my love for Ellen.

Josh and I have been living with my 91 year old father-in-law, Aaron, for 4 months now.

Why?

Because my mother-in-law died, and we thought we could help fill the void or at least make sure that he's eating real food.

Aaron thinks we are living with him to save money. That was basically the only way we could convince him to let us move in.

When people ask how it's going, or say, "Wow, that must be really hard," we always say, "Nah, it's not that hard. We like it. Blah blah blah Positive Sunshine-y Phrases."

Because we don't want to be all, "Yeah, it was really hard to pack up our entire life and put it in storage and move in to someone else's house, which has hideous window treatments and furniture that makes me shudder,  yeah it kind of sucks sometimes and we really really really miss our old life. But we're so selfless and wonderful we did it anyway. Commence with the praise."

We don't want to be Negative Nellies. Plus, it was our choice.

But just between you and me?

It's not exactly a  piece of cake.

It's harder for Josh than for me, I think, maybe because Aaron feels free to be cranky with Josh but will maintain a certain level of decorum with me.

I don't know how to explain the difficult parts of living with a grieving 91-year-old man. I suppose you can figure it out. He's lonely, even when we're here. And he's set in his ways and can't figure out  why, for example, we would have the audacity to leave our mail on the desk in the living room for 2 days at a time. ("That mail could be important! You need to read it to see what it's about! Take it upstairs and do something with it!" Subtext = What the hell is wrong with you people??)

He is fond of saying to us, "I don't understand how you people operate!"  This is usually uttered after he asks Josh what we are having for dinner that night and Josh says, "I don't know. I guess one of us will pick up stuff for a stirfry on the way home."  Which was how we always did things before. Casually. We have learned that we need to post a menu for the week ahead to avoid the "I don't understand how you people operate."

He doesn't have a social life because his friends are all dead.

His world revolved around 1 person, and we are a poor substitute for her.

Josh has to cope with his dad by himself a lot, without my comforting presence, because I am over at my own parents' house checking in on them.

We retreat upstairs at night to watch TV in our own room, partly because we can't stand to watch the news for 2 hours straight (which is what Aaron does), and partly because we need to cocoon together a little bit and try to hold on to the way things were.

We're not sorry that we moved in. It was the right thing to do. And Aaron is sweet most of the time. I love him.

But it's not a piece of a cake. In case anyone thought it was.

Personal blogs are SO 2007.

A Valentine's Day card from a special friend of mine.

10:30am Saturday February 18

If I manage to sit here long enough to write an entry and hit "publish", this will be the 3rd entry for February, which is pathetic, OBV, but is triple my January output.

A few weeks ago on Facebook, a friend of mine posted something she had overheard: "Personal blogs are so 2007."  I hadn't really thought about that before, partly because I have no goddamned time for blogging or blog-reading these days, but there definitely are a plethora of niche-blogs out there.

(I said "plethora", but I really wanted to say, "a metric-fucking-ton". I am trying to swear less. Not sure why.)

For example, every first-grade teacher and her brother appear to have a classroom-related blog, where they cheerily discuss anchor charts and 100th Day of School lessons and ideas for how to communicate with parents. They use the word "cute" a lot. I peruse these blogs from time to time. I'm not gonna lie--sometimes I find it hard not to roll my eyes, what with the "cute" clip art themes, and the cheesy bulletin board ideas (First Grade is 'Beary' Exciting! AUGGHH KILL ME NOW).

Then again, I occasionally get good ideas from these blogs. In fact, just 5 minutes ago when I looked at a couple of them to see if I could find something to make fun of, I ended up downloading some pictures to put in my Ideas file. (Which I can almost guarantee I will never use, because once my ideas are in a file, whether it is a paper file or a computer file, they cease to exist because I can't see them. This is one of my organizational issues, which I wish somebody could solve for me. Pinterest, right?)

I guess where I was going with this whole thing about the niche blogs is that I think from time to time about writing a teacher blog, or even an elder-care blog, since that is what my life revolves around these days. The problem with that is:

a) The swearing and general inappropriateness that would no doubt permeate any teacher or eldercare blog I would write. ("OMG Why are my students' parents are so fucking stupid?"  or, "If my mother does [insert crazy thing] one more time imma have to get Mr. Suffocation Pillow out of the closet!") I'd end up getting fired from my job or reported to some state agency or both.

b) I'd have to  commit to writing more so that I could propel myself to Internet stardom and get one of those damn book deals. Sheeeeeit. Publishers were handing those things out like candy for awhile. Have I missed that window? I'm just not sure I can manage my time well enough to generate the number of posts I would need to pull in an audience.

Back to real life. As far as personal blog vs niche blog, I have to say I am a big fan of the personal blog, in general. I'm nosy. I'm interested. I like reading about people's lives and seeing how things change over time. I guess it's not a surprise that my favorite reading genre is the personal memoir.

My blog will no doubt continue as it has for a long time: a mish-mosh of whatever is going on in my life, but hopefully more often than I have posted for the past year or so. I really want to reconnect with my Internet buddies. I miss all y'all muthafuckas.

I mean, I miss you guys.

Off for a walk now, then over to my parents' house to squire them to church UGH and make dinner for them.

A Tale of Two Daughters.

Emma and Sophie, back in the day.

First things first: I'm not going to call my daughters by their fake internet names anymore.  6 years ago, when I first started blogging, I decided to give them pseudonyms because, I don't know, I just did. I guess I thought some psycho might see a photo of them and develop an unhealthy fixation and stalk them? I mean, they ARE adorable.

But we can move on from that, I think.  Sasha is Sophie and Evangeline is Emmaline (Emma for short). To help you with the transition, I will refer to them by both names for this post. Sophie/Sasha and Emma/Evangeline.

Also, do you know this? Sophie/Sasha and Emma/Evangeline live together. With their boyfriends and 4 cats.

Wait. It's up to 5 cats because Sophie/Sasha took in a stray on a cold January night.

And they all get along together. The humans AND the cats. Weird, huh?

I already told you all that Emma/Evangeline got engaged, remember? Let me just fill you in on a few details that you might enjoy.

Just before Christmas, Emma/Evangeline took her boyfriend Nate out of town to a bed & breakfast on Maryland's Eastern Shore to celebrate the end of another semester of grad school. She brought along a hundred dollar bottle of scotch (for courage I must assume) and a Mad Lib which told the story of their relationship. Embedded in the Mad Lib was a marriage proposal.

HOW FUCKIN' MODERN AND ADORABLE IS THAT??

(Emma/Evangeline is all about being bold and manly, unless it involves asking a store employee where to find the light bulbs or something, in which case she would prefer to wander up and down the aisles humming to herself, and then come out to the car and say, "They don't have any light bulbs.")

After her successful marriage proposal, the little vixen took Nate out to help her pick out an engagement ring. And then, NO ONE TOLD US ANYTHING ABOUT IT. FOR WEEKS.

Those little bastards.

Fast forward to 2 weekends ago:

Paul (Sophie/Sasha's boyfriend) came over to see Josh about a computer problem. I wasn't home. Paul was here for a couple of hours, and right before he left...HE ASKED JOSH FOR PERMISSION TO PROPOSE TO SOPHIE/SASHA!!

HOW FUCKIN' OLD-FASHIONED AND ADORABLE IS THAT??

Josh got all teary and emotional. I wonder if that was awkward for Paul, ha ha.

Paul took Sophie/Sasha out to dinner that night and did the whole nine yards, down on bended knee, with a beautiful ring that belonged to his great-aunt.

We are deliriously happy around here. These are exceptional young men, both of them, and we love them so much.

No weddings until 2013. June for Emma/Evangeline and probably September for Sophie/Sasha.

This is kind of a rushed entry, there is a ton more stuff I would like to tell you. So much going on right now. Sad stuff, but lots and lots of happy stuff too.

Gotta do some work for a class I am taking. STUPID CLASSES FOR TEACHERS JUST MORE SHIT I GOTTA DO AAARRGH

xoxoxoxoxoxox

I finally left that diner.

We got back from Florida, what, 3 weeks ago? God, I am an undependable blogger. But I bet you guys have all been pinning shit on Pinterest and didn't even notice. (WTF, btw? ANOTHER internet trend that I have to keep up with? NOOOOOOOO!)

Here is my Florida report, with special love to my favorite Florida Cracker:

I don't like South Florida. First, the traffic is ridiculous. Second, if you travel 2 blocks inland from the cute beach area it's all just an unattractive sprawl. You could be in any overbuilt, underplanned metropolitan area. Still, we had fun visiting our friend Reggie and staying in his cool, mid-century condo, overlooking the beach.  Life is rough, right?

Sunset on the beach in Ft Lauderdale.

We spent a day at Shark Valley in Everglades National Park. We rented bikes and rode a 15 mile loop, which took forever because I kept gasping appreciatively and stopping to take pictures, most of which sucked, but that won't stop me from putting them up here.

Hanging out, catching some rays.

I am in love with the Everglades. I had no idea it would be so beautiful, so ethereal.  I pictured a dark swamp, not acres upon acres of graceful, swaying grass, with flocks of birds rising up and circling in a blue sky above us.  

But it made me sad to see the Everglades and fall in love with it and to read about the fragility of the environment and the devastating effect of development at its fringes (particularly the  demands for water from South Florida). Its future existence is by no means assured. What an incalculable loss that will be.

And then I got all indignant every time we passed houses with lawns or a golf course. XERISCAPE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE.

I am doing the Everglades and the native Floridians a favor and NOT retiring to Florida to play golf. You're welcome!

It's a little hard to see the baby alligators in the grass with their momma. She was HUGE, by the way. I was unable to get a better shot because I was very busy maintaining a respectful distance.

 

 

 

This was up on a lookout tower thing-y. It doesn't do the scenery justice. My hand is strategically placed on Josh's tshirt to hide the sweaty blotches.

There is other news to tell you about, wonderful news, but I will save that for tomorrow, or a month from now. Whichever.