nina turns 40

in the most delightful way

Although I spent most of my weekend catching up with work at eVil corporation, I did manage to have some fun. For our date night the kidlet and I rented Mary Poppins. I was instantly a little girl myself again. I knew all the words to almost all the songs, which I didn't know I knew. I felt as if I'd seen the movie a million times, but of course, back in those days you couldn't rent movies, so perhaps I had a record (that's what music used to come on, little whippersnappers) of the soundtrack that I played over and over and sang to. How odd to watch a beloved childhood movie as an adult. I caught all the grown up jokes and references that I'd missed before. I never realized that the mom was a suffragette, for example, and I was pissed off watching it now at how silly and foolish her character was. I was also appalled at how young both Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews looked. This wasn't the first time that I realized this movie has had a big impact on my imagination. The first time, at 17, that I was in London, I wrote back to my folks exclaiming that it didn't seem quite real, that I was quite sure I'd just landed on the set of Mary Poppins.

someone looks just like his mommy

Since it seems to be all kindergarten, all the time around these parts, I thought I'd share the above foto that I stumbled upon most serendipitiously last night. Yep, that's my official kindergarten school portrait, taken in the fall of 1967. I'm astounded by how much the kidlet looks like me. As mentioned earlier, his daddy resembles Benicio del Toro, all dark and craggly and rough-faced. So now the kidlet has a mouthful of multisyllabic names (you can sing his name to the tune of "Fere Jacques"), and the most white bread of appearances.

"Mommy," he likes to tell me, "I'm Mexican-American, but you're not."

~~~~

Just in case you'd thought I'd forgotten to blog about sex, don't despair, as soon as I have a spare moment to do a little thinking (perhaps sometime in early 2005), I'll post the next entry in my ongoing "sex and the single mom" series. Oh, and you don't want to know some of the nasty-ass google searches that having "sex" and "mom" in the same post conjure up. Yer grossing me out, people!

first day

I spent a half an hour on the phone this evening telling my mother of all the things that have been going on with the kidlet's first day of school, and me taking time off from work, and all the repurcussions of that considering we are already short-staffed, and how the kidlet is adjusting, and all of the nine million things I'm dealing with right now, and that I was feeling rather proud of myself for not feeling too overwhelmed (right this minute anyway), and what does she say to me?

"You're not blogging."

~~~

We survived the first day of kindergarten. At least the kidlet did. I'm still not so sure about mom. I had to leave him crying in the classroom. He did not want me to go when it became clear that the teacher just wanted the parents out of there so she could start her class. Some kids sat there happily coloring away, some kids were a bit nervous, and the kidlet wasn't the only one fighting back tears. And that's what killed me. I could tell he wanted to really let loose and wail, but he was trying so hard to be brave, and do what he knew all of the grown-ups expected him to do. He clung to me pretty tightly as I hugged him good-bye, and then I just walked out into the hallway and left him to his new world.

There was a big first day coffee klatch and assembly, so I milled about in the gym with the other parents, and was overjoyed to find some friends from the kidlet's preschool. As we waited in line for coffee I noticed one woman who stood out from the crowd. She was dressed in an Ally McBeal short-short black skirt, with a tight fitted jacket, hot pink blouse, black hose and high black heels. Your basic "skanky ho goes to the office" attire. Whoa. Who is that, I wondered. As the time for the assembly drew near, I glanced up towards the podium, and much to my horror realized that the skanky ho wasn't just someone's mom on her way to an illicit office tryst, but none other than the principal of the kidlet's school. All I can say is thank god she didn't have to bend over during her talk. Lest you think I am a prude, let me assure you that I am all for women dressing as sexy as they wanna, especially women in their mid to late forties, like the principal. We all want to look good and feel sassy and alla that. But I don't feel the need to know what the upper thighs of the leader of my son's school look like. Looking sexy and being in your role as a professional educator should be mutually exclusive. Bare all the leg you want on your own time, but when interacting with me and all the kids, tone it down a bit, won't you?

The whole assembly just brought forth all my misgivings about traditional education--that the main goal is to just teach kids to toe the line and submit to authority, not to really think for themselves or learn anything. Oh, and to score well on standardized tests. Let's not forget that. Luckily, between his aftercare place, his daddy, and me, he'll have enough alternative points of view and ways of teaching that his brain won't be totally turned to mush.

Best part about it all? I found out that his teacher is fluent in Spanish!

OK, mom, can I go to bed now? [I love you! Thanks for all you do to help keep me sane]

B4B

It's that time of the month again, folks. No, not that time, Blogging for Books time. In case you haven't been paying attention, Blogging for Books is a back stabbing, cutthroat wonderful contest in which bloggers blog--as they are wont to do--according to a given theme, and then Jay and Kim narrow the field, and finally a generous soul of an author, one who publishes the old fashioned way, on paper, in a book, chooses the most exalted entry, and the blogger of that entry wins a signed copy of said author's book. This month, the guest author is Mark Falanga, there will be prizes for the top three, and a kind person has agreed to host your post if you don't have a blog of your own (I'm talking to you, mom). All told the contest is bigger and better than ever, and you'd be a fool, not to mention seriously uncool, if you don't go and enter right away. You have until, oh damn, just click the link to Jay and he'll tell you all the rules.

And yes, even though my entries veer towards the short and poetic, and the winners always lean hard by prose and verbosity, I'm putting forth this recent post as my submission this time around.

I've said this before, and I'm gonna say it again: Sequim is getting rather hip. The kidlet and I headed out on Highway 101 to Olympic Cellars for their "No Labor" Day party in celebration of the first anniversary of Working Girl Wines. I figured that since the kidlet had already spent part of his time here helping Grampa brew beer, we may as well complete his alcoholic corruption by getting him started on the intracacies of enology too. Mommy Mom had a glass of Go Girl Red, and we shared a plate of stale Ritz crackers and pepper jack cheese sitting on the patio listening to the torch and twang of these folks. The sun finally came out from behind the drifing clouds, the Olympics stood over us in their purple mountain majesty, the surrounding countryside shone green and golden in the afternoon light, and just when I thought the day couldn't be any more perfect, the kidlet announced that he was bored.

"Well," I said, having determined there was no way we were gonna leave just yet, "that must mean that it's time to dance." He looked at me, tilted his head a little bit considering his options, looked over at the musicians, and finally said, "OK!" So, dance we did. We boogied, we shuffled, we swirled, we faked a two-step, we mixed salsa steps with country steps, and most fun of all, I picked the kidlet up in my arms and glided all over that dance floor while the stand-up bass thumped and the accordian bounced, and I realzied that I'd finally found that elusive perfect dance partner.

Afterwards, we bought some wine to take home and watched the band pack up their instruments and equipment and load it into their cars. Then we loaded ourselves into ours and drove back to Gramma and Grampa's, smiling and a bit sleepy.

la familia

You know this vagabond chick's been homebound too long when she gets all excited about going up to Sequim to visit the compound. Yes, my family has a compound. No, it's not heavily armed, and there are no iconoclastic leaders there, but yes, my sister and I get kind of freaked out by all the closeness that the rest of the family seems to enjoy. My parents built a house there shortly after the kidlet was born. The house features, along with a special place in the garage for my dad to brew beer, an MIL apartment where my grandmother lives. My aunt and uncle bought the land next door to my parents' house and have their home there. My mother is essentially living within the same family structure that she grew up in--her mom and her sister--with some extra guys thrown in for fun, or to do the heavy lifting, depending on who you ask. A great aunt of mine also lives in Sequim, though she resides in an assisted living facility (isn't that a nice euphemism for "nursing home"?). Oh, and the latest addition? A high school friend of my aunt's just built her house right across the street.

The kidlet is up there already, and except for an interlude to go to his elementary school open house (the big K is gonna rock--we're very excited), has been there since Tuesday evening. I miss him, I miss them all. After a horribly stressful week at work, and the emotional intensity and complex schedule juggling of dealing with the kidlet's school transition, going to hang out with my crazy family at their crazy compound sounds like just the ticket for a perfect long weekend.

The fact that Schwarzenegger can't come up with anything better than his old "don't be a girly man" schtick only serves to further justify my utter lack of respect for him as a politician.

Addendum: Let me add that I admire his shrewdness in using his celebrity to gain political power; in that regard he's the perfect politician. So it would be more accurate to say that my lack of respect is for his ideas, and his overly macho persona.

wherever you go, there you are

As someone whose mother has accused her of seeking "geographic solutions" to her problems, the above buddhist sentiment was difficult for me to accept, and therefore a very useful lesson once I did figure it out. Let me pose the romantic corollary: no matter which cool new person is on your arm, no matter who loves you, you're still yourself. Have you figured that one out yet? Well, have you?