Sweet Summer Funtimes — And the Living is Mumblety Mumbelty

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Wondering about the great life decisions I made to get to this point? Check out the last Sweet Summer Funtimes update here.

Day 25 – One son was up at 5:00 in the morning moaning and sniffling because his nose was stuffed up. Yet for some reason he refused to blow his nose, preferring to act as some sort of horrific alarm clock of misery for the rest of us. When I finally marched in there and forced him to blow his nose, he was fine. Not stuffy at all. For the rest of a day he enjoyed and I stumbled through, bleary-eyed.

It was Reptile Day at my daughter’s camp. Reptile. Day. Seeing this on the calendar sent her into fits of apoplexy. She envisioned slo-mo attacks from prehistoric critters like camp was suddenly going to be gladiator situation. She did not have fun that day. I’m sure some kids did. Kind of kids whose parents let them have reptiles in the house as or dinner.

Day 26– This morning the weather was a balmy 60 degrees and raining. The boys insisted on wearing shorts to camp. I think it’s some sort of warm light/macho/Braveheart thing. I’m just not sure how it’s those things. Meanwhile, I’m in a sweater.

They’ve taken it upon themselves to practice the piano for over five hours a day on and off. When they’re not playing “Clocks”,

they’re trying to figure out pieces with the hunt-and-peck method, which I do not recommend to anybody who has an eardrum. Occasionally they take a break from banging on two different pianos of the house so they can play Rock Band. My children have many gifts, but the gifts of Rock Band mastery and tone accuracy are not among them. (Un)fortunately, the ability not to get bored singing “R-O-C-K in the U.S.A” 100 times in a row is one of them. I know some of you are saying “Encourage them! It’s wonderful! I have to force my children to practice piano.” To which I say, after much twitching, there has to be a middle ground. I think we’re fighting on the same side this war. It’s a War on Sanity.

Day 27 – Camp drop-off can be a shit show. No matter how early we all get up, for some reason, it’s a race out the door. Once at the various camp drop-off points, it’s a demolition derby, aided and abetted by strollers 2 or 3 across (two separate moms), and dogs, and the crying kids, and the campers who all crowd the sidewalk, making my hasty escape rather difficult.

It’s ok, though. I’m perfectly delightful because of all that. Like, camp drop-off delightful.

Day 28 –  Took the youngest to gymnastics. We continued her classes to keep her skills up because God forbid she loses all momentum on her falling down every three seconds into a foam pit. I sit for an hour in a loud, smelly, hot gym and watch my daughter making sure I’m watching her every move. I made the mistake of looking down at some point because I thought perhaps I’d caught fire, and another kindly let me know that my daughter was trying to get my attention and didn’t she at least deserve that?

It’s like taking them to the pool without the trench foot.

Day 29 – No sleep because everyone in the house, including the dog, snores. I may have taken the kids swimming. I  don’t remember. Pretty sure they ate today because all over the house are wrappers from all the snacks I hid from them so I could eat them after bedtime.

Day 30 – no sleep again last night, mostly because I didn’t get any snacks yesterday. One child begged me to let him sleep in my bed insisting it would be “fun.” He sleeps like he lives – uneasily. Lots of tossing and turning. I honestly don’t know how dragging myself around but I’m feeling and looking and probably smell like a carcass at this point. Somehow my husband sleeps through it all. Fortunately, he took on the Costco responsibilities, because I’m pretty sure had I gone, the 20-pound container of peanut butter-filled pretzels would have seemed like a good idea.

Husband brought home a 5-pound bag of almonds wrapped in coconut, bathed in chocolate. He is a good and wise man.

Day 31 – Kids. They can’t just take the easily-accessed strawberries and wash them themselves. They prefer the strawberries to be decapitated and sliced and cored and butterflied or julienned or something that good parents probably do.

They’re not suffering, though. Today I went into the random kitchen appliance drawer, the one with all the measuring cups and potato peelers and the stuff I use once a year. I saw the ice cream scoop. Now, I don’t usually bother with the ice cream scoop, because (a) they don’t work that well and (b) I usually just eat it out a pint anyway. If I’m putting things in bowls because I’m feeding the children and I don’t want them to think that it’s appropriate to eat out of the pint. So, long story short, the ice cream scoop is more a placeholder, if you will. Something people have in their random appliance drawer and something non-heathens probably use. But there it lay, that scoop. And it was filthy. With ice cream. Melted chocolate to be exact. Probably Ben & Jerry’s. One of my kids tried to use the ice cream scoop to get him/herself ice cream, then in an effort to “clean up” and/or hide the evidence, put the scoop back in the drawer. The kicker is that the drawer is literally just a half spin away from the dishwasher, and I’m so tired these days if I’d noticed it at all, I just would have assumed I’d gone classy for awhile and didn’t remember. Anyway, cleaned out that whole drawer. All members of the house deny doing it.

Day 32 – July 4th, the original Brexit. If the amount of neck-dirt, chocolate on their faces (despite not eating any chocolate), and ability to narrate 32 minutes of fireworks nonstop is any measure, it was a success from which we may never quite recover.

 

Month in Review: June Bust(ed Out All Over)

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Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

People are forever incredulous that time passes.  First of the month, last of the year, that sort of thing. “I can’t believe it’s July 1!” Well, I can. The first half of the year stomped merrily on (my face) and hallo July!

Every year, my expectations for June are high; I have a compulsion to slow down, enjoy, and savor – June seems as good a time as any to start that. Instead, that month always seems to ooze and pelt rather than bust out.

I want life in June to revolve around the outdoors and fireflies and porch swings – all the sloppy yesteryear romance of a Country Time Lemonade commercial. Somehow that hasn’t quite happened. Not yet at least.

Yesterday I made a Nutella pie which I wanted stick my face in and eat in cartoon fashion, ending with my tongue coming out of my mouth and licking my entire head clean. Evolution needs catch up to cartoon sometime soon.

I just deleted 109 emails in my draft folder, some going back to 2015. That counts as exercise right? Or some sort of cleanse? A least some sort of tribute to my being able to hold my tongue.

The dog has his ups and downs, but is not in pain. He’s just tired a lot, with occasional spurts of energy. He likes to protect us from the Very Bad Squirrels in the backyard. Good boy.

Writing is a bit of a slog these days, mostly because I’ve got a lot of first drafts. The rewriting and editing process is where I get bogged down in the self-defeating talk. My goal is to stay the course with a number of pieces I’ve been working on. I’m also trying to find a home for some of my writing. Humor has fewer homes, but, boy, are they sweet.

I’m thinking a lot these days about social media/instant communication and how it affects personal relationships. One of the things I wonder about is the discrepancy between real-life interactions and online interactions – but not the way we normally discuss. Usually, the implication is that we behave badly online, in ways we would never think of acting in person. But what about the opposite? What if people are lovely and kind online, then not so much in person? There are some interesting facets to this that I want to hold up to the light for a while.

One of the highlights of my month was getting to see a rough cut of the short film I co-wrote and produced. Over the next few weeks, final edits will be made, music added, color adjusted, and the production company logo will be created and animated. It’s all quite (sur)real and wonderful. I’ll be sharing more about that in coming weeks. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed seeing the cast again. We only worked together for a few days, but there is something about creating together that makes for bonds that are quick and warm. I do hope to work with these people again. They are good in every way.

The knitting of The Blanket That Will Kill Me continues. I’m hoping to get this done before she goes to college in 13 years. On the positive side, it’s always nice to review how many swear words I know.

Here are some other highlights from June:

I really enjoyed reading Originals: How Nonconformists Move the World by Adam Grant. I don’t have a business background, so my guess is some of the material covered in the book is shared in many MBA programs. But it was an interesting look at creativity and risk-taking.

Do you read Glimmer Train? You should.

I love this video. It’s joyful, it’s fluid, and it’s remarkably calming.

Binge-watched Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Rarely have I ever seen a show with such beautiful art design. There’s a lot to unpack in the first eight episodes, but I’m glad I found it and thrilled I watched it. I will be back for Season Two, but until then, I will probably spoil myself (ha!) and read the book.

Ever on top of things, I finally got around to watching Inception. At least I think I watched it. Maybe somebody’s just convincing me I did.

I thought Captain Fantastic was going to be some type of superhero movie. And in a way it was. I love art that makes my heart hurt from its beauty and gives me the sense that the world is full of genius. That, for me, is hope – something we could all use a little more of these days.

I suppose I should and with some sort of fireworks analogy or maybe something about mosquito bites or whatever July is supposed to bring. I think the best hope is that July is more like the June of our desires.

 

For the Love of a Dog

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We take a break in the Sweet Summer Funtimes for the Love of George.

Warning – this post is about our beloved dog who probably doesn’t have too much time left with us. But boy, is he loved.

 

Last week was a frenzy. I was gearing up for the BlogHer Conference, a dream trip that I much needed, and the prep was near Doomsday level. That’s how it works when a mom leaves home for a few days. I needed to leave early-ish Thursday morning, so Wednesday was a blur of cooking, cleaning, and strategic packing. Wednesday night, I went into the city to see a rough cut of the short film I wrote (more on that in a future post).

I came home inspired and happy, carrying an external drive with the culmination of a year’s worth of work on it, excited to share with my husband. I hadn’t even turned the car off before I realized something was terribly wrong.

My two boys stood on the front porch well past their bedtime, distraught. I opened the car door, and before I could say anything, my husband, visibly upset, pointed to the front steps which were slicked with water.

“George had an accident,” he said. I wasn’t sure why this merited a three-man report. Due to decreased mobility from a tumor on his leg, our dog has been having more accidents these days, mostly inside the house. I was happy he’d made it outside.

Middle Child unleashed a tearful explanation.

“Georgie couldn’t walk. He collapsed in the backyard. And he was running, and he was fine because we were all looking at the sunset and he came out with all of us and then he just stopped running and then he fell over and he’s been whimpering and crying. He can’t walk. He can’t move.”

It all came out in a jumble. He is the animal lover, the child closest to our dog. When we told the kids the other week that George’s tumor had grown back again, this time so entwined with the tissue and muscle that removal would be nearly impossible, that at best we could de-bulk the tumor and give him an extra three months, it was Middle Child who took it hardest.

This latest development was a little more real and happened sooner than we’d imagined. The dog’s tumor is complicated by the fact that he has arthritis. He’s been compensating for the tumor putting more and more weight on his front paws, but it seemed that he just could not handle both ailments anymore.

I went inside. They had moved the dog’s pillow from our bedroom out into the main room so that he didn’t have as far to go when he needed to go outside. George was panting hard and yet refusing the water we offered him. He was shaking. He tried to adjust his position when I came in, and he whimpered and yelped in pain.

That sorrowful noise told me everything, especially that there was little I could do make it better. It will forever be the sound of my heart breaking.

I sat down next to his dog bed, and he leaned up against me the way he does during a thunderstorm. Eventually, his breathing calmed, and we nuzzled one another. He rested with his head against my chest the way he did when I was pregnant and on bed rest. The boys sat on either side of us and gently stroked his back.

The kids began yawning, so we told them to go brush their teeth and hit the sack. Once they were out of earshot, I asked my husband if he wanted to take the dog to the emergency clinic right then. He shook his head, then asked me to take a taxi to the airport the next morning for my trip because he was going to take the dog as soon as we dropped the kids off at camp.

He looked at me steadily. “Just make sure you say goodbye to George before you go.”

Middle Son ran back in the room and asked if I still had all the pictures I’d taken of him and the dog (Of course.) He then asked if we would be burying George in the backyard. Then sweet Middle Child dissolved.

It was that moment I decided I would not be going on my trip. My husband started to argue, but Middle Child just said, quietly, “George is more important than a trip.”

I canceled my plans and informed those who needed to know.

We cried a lot.

My husband took the overnight shift with my dog, letting our crying, limping dog out at about 1AM. Then George came back to the bedroom. I think if he were able, he’d have been up on the bed with me. I just couldn’t lift him. My son asked if he could stay home from camp the next day, and I said yes.

It was tense as we waited. The dog jumped into the back of the car as soon as we said the magic words “Doggie Road Trip” and instantly knew he shouldn’t have done it. Both because it was a painful thing for him to do, and also because he remembered that most of our recent “doggie road trips” have been to the vet.

It was an excruciating wait for the update. Son and I sat and poorly distracted ourselves. I kept checking social media to see what was going on at the conference I was missing. My heart felt as though it had been shot with a thousand arrows and that all of them were being pulled simultaneously. Finally at 9:35 am: “All good. Rimadyl for arthritis and we’ll keep an eye on him.”

And that was that. Within half a day, George put weight back on his front leg. Within 24 hours, he was back to the dog he was 6 months ago. Middle Child spends lots of time checking in on George, who spends most of his day sleeping. They have long conversations, and it’s pretty hard to not peek in to see, but I want to respect the sanctity of that relationship. A boy and his dog. A dog and his boy.

We’re day-by-day now, keeping an eye on him. He’s certainly no puppy, but when he’s outside, he runs a bit, he’s happy, and during meals he begs for table scraps again (in a gentlemanly fashion, as is his way). When it’s time, it will be time. We love this dog too much to keep him in pain and misery just to make us feel better.

George will be 11 on July 4. It’s a holiday he detests due to all of the fireworks, but it is one we are glad he’ll be around for.

 

 

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A boy and his dog. A dog and his boy.