Ramones-Do You Wanna Dance-R'n'R High School movie

It's a Beautiful Morning

This morning I opened the curtains, looked out my bathroom window, and saw a sky full of pink streaks punctuated by low grey clouds. It was so beautiful I stood for a few minutes just taking it all in. The pink streaks, of course, were the sun reflecting on the many contrails in the sky. Who says global warming can't be beautiful? Much lovelier to look at than Al Gore's ever-expanding face.

That got me in a good mood. Then I started to think about my dreams, or a dream, to be specific. Some people have recurrent dreams. I have one too. I've had it five or six times since I was in my 20s. What it involves is a house I live in that has rooms I never knew existed till I open a door that leads to what must be an annex. In these dreams the house changes, the rooms change, but the wonder of discovery never does. I have discovered rooms decorated in retro-1950s style, in modernist style, bedrooms, ballrooms, attics, swimming pools, roof terraces with skylights and terra cotta pots everywhere. I don't know what the dream means -- self discovery maybe? I haven't had it in a few months or maybe even a year. It doesn't come that often, but when it does I welcome it. It is comforting in the way that your favourite blanket was when you were growing up. Do any of you have recurrent dreams like that?

My lovely day has continued. The weather helps. It is one of those crisp, sunny autumn days that we don't get that often here. When I lived in suburban New York, I remember all of October and November being like this. I would pass a maple tree on my way to work that glistened in the late afternoon sunlight (I worked nights at that time). It would cheer me, at least temporarily, before I went in to the drudgery of nights on the sports copy desk working with guys I did't like and who didn't like me.

Jake is enjoying the weather too. He's charging around like a mad thing, digging up ancient balls that must have belonged to some dog that lived here in the past. I went to the gym and worked out at least as hard as some of the women half my age (though my poor bladder didn't hold up too well; ah well, wait till they've had a couple of kids and an early menopause).

I'm not often this at peace with myself and my surroundings. And anything could happen in the next 10 minutes to change it. But for now I feel serene, a word that doesn't pop out of my vocabulary very often.

Sit! Stay! Heel!

OK, all you doggie owners: I have some questions.

Jake is now nearly 10 weeks old. He's nearly doubled in size and tripled in activity. He's a lovely little guy and a wonderful addition to our family. Laurie and some others suggested I get a puppy crate to help with the house training. I did, and it's worked miraculously. However, we still get about one to two accidents a day. I take him out first thing in the morning, while it's still dark and I haven't had coffee yet. He seems to squat, then I feed him his breakfast. Then he goes out again. This morning I left my daughter in charge while I got a shower. My son came in later to inform me Jake had pooed in the kitchen, but he'd cleaned it up (what a great son I have). Then I took him out again and he came in and peed. So the first question is, should I still expect to clean up a couple of accidents a day and at what point will the penny drop and he'll be able to control himself till he can go outside? I know -- that's two questions.

I'm trying Jake out on the lead (leash) for about five minutes a day in the back garden (yard). He thinks it's a game and chews on the lead as we walk around. When he gets really bad, I stop and say "Sit," which he does, and I then give him a treat. I've also taught him to chase a ball in the house and bring it back. He won't do it outside though. Is he still too young for this sort of training? I will take him to obedience classes once he's fully immunis(z)ed.

He has manic bursts of activity and gets overexcited by the children and bites their ankles, toes, and anything else. Saying no doesn't work. Giving him an alternative toy to chew on doesn't work. Putting him in the puppy crate does work, but I don't like doing that. Any other ideas?

The cats are still wary of him. Actually, they are scared shitless of him because every time he sees them he chases them. I can just imagine their conversations. Pearl: "I HATE him. He thinks he's SOOO cute." Minnie: "And he poos on the grass and doesn't even cover it up. He's disgusting!" Pearl: "What's wrong with us? Why couldn't they be happy with us?" Minnie: "I don't know. I'm going to go hide under the bed and maybe bring up a furball." How can I train Jake to leave the cats alone?

He's absolutely zonked out right now after a frantic morning of weeing, pooing, chasing, chewing, nipping, and yapping. He's lying on his back in what I call his "I surrender" position. Oh so sweet. For now.

On the Awards and Hono(u)rs front, Lady Macleod, who is now off enjoying herself in Canada, bestowed on me the I Love Your Blog award. Thanks very much, Lady M. Now I'm going to do something I don't usually do. I'm going to pass it on to all of you because I do love all of your blogs. I know -- cop-out -- but while thinking about it I decided that everyone deserves this award and I couldn't possibly name just a few that I love more than any other. So, consider yourselves -- and your blogs -- loved.

And can anyone tell me how and why I gained a pound overnight. This after a day yesterday spent spinning for an hour at the gym, grocery shopping (which I consider exercise), and salsa dancing last night. And I was good about what I ate. Something very strange is going on here. I'm trying to lose 8 pounds (or even 3) before a party on the 27th and my body is not cooperating!

I'm a Barbie Girl

On the left is Jordan, aka Katie Price. For those of you not familiar with her, she is famous for, well, being famous. She started off as a Page Three girl in the Sun, meaning she took her clothes off and posed naked for the camera. She has ENORMOUS boobs thanks to the miracle of plastic surgery. She's not stupid, though she certainly looks it. She's built a mini Jordan/Katie Price empire. She went on one of those celebrity reality shows and met her husband, Peter Andre, a failed pop singer, there. They've since made a couple of reality programs in which they've shown themselves to be quite natural around the cameras and also just normal people. They have three children; her first child, by a footballer, is blind and autistic. She is very honest about what life with him is like. Peter Andre has become the boy's surrogate father. I want to dislike Jordan/Katie Price but I can't. For underneath the Barbie clothes and the pink carriage she rode in for her wedding, she's someone I think I could get along with.

We all know the girl on the right. I went through a Barbie phase when I was growing up. I still covet some of her clothes (the ones from the 60s) and those little shoes. And I envy her figure, though not her lack of sex organs. My Barbie dated Ken, but she really liked GI Joe because he had moveable hands. That meant he could cuddle her, unlike Ken, whose arms stuck straight out and were as immoveable as his inane smile.

My daughter went through a Barbie phase too. I got her all the stuff I never had (second-hand of course). Her Barbies (for she had many -- oh, the wonders of trade with China) had skis, furniture, a van, a big house or two, tiny knives and forks, a dishwasher for those knives and forks and plates and goblets. She had a candelabra, for heaven's sake. And she had Ken, with moveable arms AND legs. One night when my husband was tucking my daughter in, he noticed what looked like a party set up on the floor. Ken was on top of Barbie, cuddling her, with his surfboard nearby sticking straight up. Guess the poor guy had to get a stiffy any way he could. I'm sure it was all innocent fun on my daughter's behalf, but hubby and I sure had a good laugh.

My Barbie phase ended when I was about 9; my daughter's ended even earlier. I know Barbies aren't very feminist dolls, though goodness knows Mattel has tried to make her hip with the times. And I've seen some really very funny jokes with Barbie the butt of them (redneck Barbie, terrorist Barbie, etc). Truthfully, I miss Barbie.

But I can always watch Katie Price, the living, talking, filty-mouthed Barbie. And she is more fun.

Remember that party for my daughter? "How bad could it be?" I thought to myself. "They're only 12 and 13. There won't be any sex and alcohol."

And there wasn't. I'll tell you what there was: grapes ground into the carpet, carrots chewed and spat out onto the walls, cakes lobbed out the window onto the cars below. Our cars. Why did I think they needed healthy food? Or any food at all?

I'd had a nice, relaxing evening with my husband and the cats after slaving in the kitchen getting the food ready and then running up three flights of stairs with it. For I thought it would be best if they stayed in the playroom. We watched the rugby (England v. France, England won, for you non-rugby fans). I stroked Pearl for ages. She's taken against me since we got Jake, and I needed quality time with her.

Then the parents arrived. When I went upstairs to summon the children, I noticed a few carrots on the floor. When the room was clear, I saw the extent of the damage. The window was stuck open, and I panicked, knowing how costly it is to get these sash windows repaired. By the time that was fixed, I'd seen the carrots on the wall, the smushed grapes, the leaking drink containers.

And I hit the roof! I felt very let down by my daughter. "I didn't do it," she protested, as if that let her off the hook. Hubby took to muttering under his breath. "I didn't want her to have this party in the first place. I never get consulted about anything around here." Jake got so frightened he went in his puppy crate by himself. It took me awhile to calm down, but I did. I went in to see my daughter before I went to bed because I didn't want her birthday to end on a bad note. I had contemplated sleeping in the spare room because I was quite annoyed with hubby for not backing me up. But I didn't. I read for a while then reached over and set the alarm clock for 6:30 a.m. and turned off the light.

Half an hour later I was awake with severe stomach cramps. I went to the bathroom, went back to bed, got up 15 minutes later. After three trips to the toilet, my stomach was quite sore and empty thanks to sickness and diarrhea. In between all that my car alarm went off and I had to rush downstairs to find my keys. I decided I really should sleep in the spare room to be nearer the bathroom and to prevent giving any bug to hubby. I did leave my alarm clock, still set to go off at 6:30, in our room though. Hee Hee.

I spent Sunday in a bit of fog, though I managed to cook Sunday dinner and do the ironing. Jake seemed to sense I wasn't up to much so he was quite calm for a change.

And today is another day. Let's hope it's a better one.

Happy 13th Birthday

Today is my gorgeous daughter's 13th birthday. Thirteen on the 13th. My husband and I were reminiscing yesterday about where we were 13 years ago. I was in a hospital bed getting ready to have an epidural. I'd progressed over two days from a TENS machine to diamorphine (which made me sick) to epidural. I'd been placed on an oxytocin drip to speed up the contractions. Finally, on this day at 9:30 a.m. a team from the United Nations was in place. There was me, the American. My husband, the Briton. The midwife from Ireland married to a man from Burma. The OB/GYN was Australian, and the pediatrician hailed from Nigeria.

My daughter was positioned at an angle that was not conducive to a straightforward delivery. They put me in a larger delivery room because they anticipated a C-section. First, they wanted to try forceps. "I'm not having forceps" I told them. "I know someone who had a forceps delivery and her son was born with cerebral palsy."

"OK," they said, "we'll try the Ventouse, but if that doesn't work, it'll have to be a caesarean."

"I'm not having a caesarean," I said. "You may not have a choice," they replied.

The Ventouse worked, thankfully, and my beautiful daughter was born with her eyes wide open. She looked all around her as if to say "Hello, world, I'm here."

She's still like that. She has my mother's green eyes, nose and mouth. She is darker than me; her chestnut hair has auburn streaks that the sun picks out. She is nearly my height now. Years of dance have ensured that her body is muscular, though with a small layer of puppy fat still. A typical Libra, she gets upset by conflict, though she doesn't shy away from it. She is stronger emotionally than me, more confident than I was at that age. Not surprising. She shares her birthday with Margaret Thatcher.

We seem to have achieved a trusting relationship. Yesterday, as we drove home from the hairdresser's, she told me about girls in her class (12-year-olds) who have had sex. She told of another now in Year 10 who had an abortion over the summer when she was 14. I don't know whether to believe these stories. You know what girls and rumours are like. I asked her to promise me she wouldn't have sex before she's 18. She said she couldn't make that promise. I then said, "At least make sure he uses condoms because pregnancy isn't the only thing you have to worry about. And please be in a mutually loving relationship."

She asked if I was 18 when I first had sex. I lied and said yes. I'm not ready to tell her yet that I was only 15, that I regret to this day my early sexual activity. I will in time when she and I are ready. I never had conversations about sex with my mother. I felt very uncomfortable if she ever brought the subject up. My daughter is more innocent than I was at that age. I intend for her to stay that way for as long as possible.

Tonight she is having a party with a few school friends and some boys. She says the boys are mates. She is taller than all of them. Thank God. Twelve- and 13-year-old boys don't like taller girls, as I recall. But then I moved on to older boys. I've warned my daughter against that. "Older boys will expect you to do things older girls do. Don't ever do anything you're not comfortable doing."

That she did promise me.

The Family Tree Part II

Oh the joys of puppyhood. Minnie, one of our cats, got locked in the computer room last night. I thought I saw her on the patio when I was locking up, but it must have been Pearl. Anyway, she left a steaming present for me this morning (and Jake didn't, for once). But Jake thought he'd have a snack before breakfast. He is NOT licking me today.

But I digress. I was going to write about my dad's side of the family.

I don't know much about my great-grandparents on my dad's side other than these stories. My great-grandfather was a German immigrant farmer who moved to Colorado. When his first wife died, he remarried a woman who already had a daughter of her own. She was unkind to her stepchildren. My grandfather lost his left leg when a wagon ran over it when he was 12. Rather than buy a new pair of shoes when the right shoe wore out, his stepmother insisted he wear the left shoe on his right foot. She would give treats to her daughter, who would eat them in front of my grandfather and his siblings.

When my grandfather grew up he got a wooden leg and, ironically, became a shoemaker. His first wife died soon after giving birth. My grandfather, with the help of his in-laws, tried to raise the mother-less boy. When he met my grandmother and proposed, she said she would marry him only if he gave the boy to his in-laws to raise. This he did, and never saw his first son again.

My great-grandmother (my grandmother's mother) was a tough farmwoman, also of Germanic stock. She had five children with her first husband, my grandmother being the oldest. When her husband died, she moved her children from Nebraska to Colorado, but left my grandmother behind with relatives. Why? My mother said one of the sisters told her it was because no one could get along with my grandmother. Eventually, my great-grandmother remarried and had another son who was the apple of her eye. My grandmother rejoined her family only to be sent to a preacher's family to be educated. The preacher's family apparently viewed her as a servant and treated her terribly. Meeting my grandfather must have been her salvation. She was very young when they wed, only 19. Taking on another woman's son must have been too onerous for her.

My father's parents must have looked odd. My grandmother was very tall, about 6 feet, with red hair. My grandfather was only about 5'6. By the age of 21 my grandmother had two sons (born 16 months apart) and had lost all her hair. It started to fall out after my father's birth and never grew back. She wore a wig and pencilled in eyebrows every day till the day she died at the age of 94. She must have blamed my father's birth for the hair loss for he always speaks of it with guilt. She had another son three years after my father's birth, her golden boy.

My grandfather lost his shoe shop during the Depression. He and his family had very lean years till the New Deal came in. My dad was a bit of a hellion, but in a mischievous way. He quit school at the age of 15 and joined the Navy when he was 16 to serve as a bombadier in the Pacific. He came home when he was 21, got his GED, and enrolled at Denver University using his GI Bill. My mother also was a student at DU. They met through my dad's best friend, who married my aunt. Those two are still married, which my aunt lords over my mother every chance she gets.

After my parents married, they moved in with my dad's parents. My mother describes that time with mixed emotions. On the one hand she says she was treated like the daughter they never had. On the other, my grandmother didn't always treat her right. My mother quit college and got a job at the telephone company to support my dad. My dad was never an academic, but through sheer hard work and some help from my mother, he got a PhD in clinical psychology. My mother had my sister after three years of trying to get pregnant. She was doted on by her grandparents and uncles. Then my parents moved to South Dakota, where my dad had a fellowship. I think that is when things started to go pear-shaped in their marriage. My mother thought my dad had an affair. She was jealous of the time he spent away from her. She left him and went home to her parents, taking my sister. Her mother told her, "You're not woman enough to keep a man." Those words would echo strongly many years later when my dad finally did leave her.

Somehow they patched it up and moved to Florida a year later. My dad started in a new firm and worked hard to build up his career. He was told by his boss, though, that my mother would always hold him back. Was it where she came from (Tampa was an incredibly snobbish smallish place back then) or was it her sometimes odd behaviour? My mother had my brother a couple of years later. The birth was problematic. He was given too much oxygen. He was a difficult baby -- a fussy eater, crying a lot. He was even worse as a toddler. My mother, who has never handled frustration well, would spank him and slap him in an attempt to subdue him. And the boy was not turning into the kind of son my dad wanted. He was clumsy (he turned out to have terrible eyesight) and uncoordinated.

Three years later my mother wasn't feeling too well. "Oooh, I think I'm pregnant," she would tell my sister every night as she struggled to curl my sister's fine, limp hair. My dad accused my mother of sneakily getting pregnant. In my mother's defense, I don't think she thought she could get pregnant, having suffered from endometriosis for many years. I was born in January 1960. My dad was disappointed because he'd hoped I'd be born before the first of the year so he could get a tax break. My sister was disappointed because she didn't want a baby sister, and certainly not in her birth month, and it meant she couldn't have riding lessons. My mother and brother, however, were quite happy, or at least OK about it.

My dad's career was starting to go well, and he would spend more and more time away from home. When I was 7, my mother decided to go back to college to finish her degree. At first she took one or two classes a week, and only in the day while we were at school. As I got older, she took on more classes, some at night. My dad was away at night too doing group therapy. My brother and I (my sister had gone to Florida State University by then) were left to our own devices a lot. I started drinking at the age of 9 when my brother's friend came over and we would play drinking games. Then my sister, who had always been the favoured child, left FSU and moved in with her boyfriend without telling my parents. My dad found out when he decided to drop in on her while driving through Tallahassee. Her roommate told him where to find her. She lived in a crummy part of town in a crummy house. My dad cried all the way home.

My sister married this guy in spite of my parents' protestations. He was a con artist, they were convinced. He had delusions of grandeur. The more they complained about him, the more she stuck up for him. She had a son the year after they married. Money was tight. The husband would go for runs to get rid of his stress. He did run, straight to his mistress's house. My sister stuck with him through three more children. He finally left her.

Meanwhile, back at home, my mother finally had a hysterectomy after years of suffering from endometriosis. Then her mother died. Then my dad met my stepmother and decided to leave my mother. It was messy and ugly. I've posted about this before so won't repeat it. My parents' divorce came through in November 1975. My dad and stepmother married that Christmas while skiing in Colorado. But no one is supposed to know that. They had another ceremony in Florida the following April. My mother sold her house and moved to California that summer. My brother and I stayed with her for the summer, and I moved in with my dad and stepmother and stepsister when I came back.

At first we all worked hard to get along. My stepmother gave me a watch pendant as a token of affection, but soon she showed her true colours. All my stepsister had to do was whine, and I would be blamed for the least little thing. The three of them went to Washington, D.C., and left me alone on my 17th birthday. So I had a party. My brother helped me clean the house before they got back. I missed a handprint on the wall, which my eagle-eyed stepmother spotted the second she came through the door. Things deteriorated after that. Remember that watch pendant? One weekend when I came home for a visit from college, my stepmother and stepsister sandwiched me on the couch, and my stepmother asked for it back because her daughter wanted it. I never saw my stepsister wear it and I doubt if she has it now.

My dad made it clear from the start that he would always take his wife's side and so he has for the past 32 years. He is living out a pattern started generations before him. I struggle to maintain a relationship with him and my stepmother. They have mellowed but I have so much hurt inside me that I've never been able to express or acknowledge. I took a motto of theirs from the 80s and made it my own: Living well is the best revenge. I have a loving husband, two wonderful children, two cats, a puppy, and a nice home. My stepsister is a drug addict and alcoholic whose two children are being raised by her brother. She has been in and out of rehab many times. I am trying hard to see the familial patterns and not pass them onto my children.

And what of my sister and brother? That will have to be in another post because this one has exhausted me.