Ice-Creamy Goodness!

Browsing the internet I came across a horoscope for ice cream lovers everywhere. Vegan,Vegetarian, lactose intolerant or not, it is something that the press just had to make sure we all knew. Great, another thing that tells the world what I am all about without meeting me. Next, you'll be able to tell what kind of person you are by the underwear you buy! Maybe I should write an article for the Seattle PI.

This is me. I like them both equally.

Mint chocolate chip: You tend to be ambitious and confident yet a little skeptical. You are a realist who prepares for the future. Your loyalty, honesty and dependability create lasting friendships and close family ties. You are most compatible with other mint chocolate chip lovers.

Coffee: You are lively, dramatic and flirtatious. You thrive on the passion of the moment. You are easily bored and start new projects without finishing old ones. You are most compatible with those who prefer strawberry.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/food

Take a look-see!!!

Did Someone Say..."6-Foot Plastic Birthday Cake?"

This past weekend was my daughter’s birthday. She is now 12 going on about 16. She looks like it too, all by her little self. Mother Nature has been in favor of my daughter from day one. I tend to worry…a lot.

My daughter has known that she would be receiving an ipod for several months now for her birthday. I made her wait the entire month before she could receive it. I just believe that birthday gifts should be opened on your birthday…give or take a few days, but not a whole month before! So Saturday I awoke, had to get to an eye exam and proceeded to go to the store and buy her favorite waffles, a Mylar happy face balloon with a tie-dyed background and a candy-sprinkled doughnut that I put a candle in and sang happy birthday to her as I served her breakfast. I made her wait a little longer before I handed her the cute little-red-very-expensive-we-are-very-poor-this-month-because-of-it-ipod. However, some of the proceeds go to Africa to help fight AIDS. Like buying an ipod will help. But that’s a different story; one very opinionated story.

Saturday ensued and while cleaning my very messy apartment, I had to interrupt my groove to fetch her best friend. We stopped for Slurpees and came home for the rest of the day. Time seemed to stop for these two as they played WOW, emailed friends and watched Anime in my daughter’s room.

Then what do my wondering ears should hear but a knock at the door! Who could be visiting today? It was my daughter’s best “boy-friend.” Not boyfriend, but a boy who is her friend. That is my story and I’m stickin’ to it - He rode his bike all the way from his house to our apartment to see my daughter on her birthday. Well, isn’t that special? I never received such a nice surprise from a boy, ever, but that again is a different story and another very opinionated one at that.

So, Mr.-Boy-who-is-my-daughter’s-friend ended up staying until 8 pm, and pizza was had and laughs all around. It is very interesting to watch three pre-teens interact with each other, especially two girls and a boy. Things are different that is for sure. One thing is for sure, my mother and father would have never and I do mean never let a boy come over at a mere age of 12 to my house. My father would have shown him the grave. Well, my father did that at age 15 anyway. But again, I digress.

Saturday came and went. I slept with earplugs in that night so that I could actually sleep among squealing and the TV going. It was morning before I knew it and off to my sister’s to celebrate her birthday officially.

My mother and her husband and my sister and her boyfriend all moved this weekend, so a party smack dab in the middle of it all was a bit stressful but all went on without a hitch, thank God!

My daughter’s menu of choice for her birthday was as follows:

• Vegan pizza (my sister’s influence)
• Vegan chocolate cake (again, my sister’s influence)
• Jello Poke Cake (my mother’s influence)
• Watermelon
• A bowl of Kissable candies

I don’t know, I don’t ask, I just provide and we did. I walked in to the empty apartment and found my mother blowing up a 6 foot tall plastic three-tiered birthday cake decoration. I grabbed my camera to forever memorialize this moment in time. It was a sight you had to be there to appreciate and then laugh your ass of at.

On the wall my sister put up a paper entitling it “50 Things We Love About Nadine.” My sister is like that; wanting to capture a moment in writing that can be enjoyed for the rest of your life. By the end of the evening we had 50 reasons why my daughter is wonderful. After all, she did come from my womb with 9 hours of grueling natural labor! (I never let her forget that)

The evening was closing in and I found myself laying on top of the 6-foot tall plastic cake. Yes, you read right, I was laying on it. My sister thought I could put it in the back of my Volvo wagon. Ha! I wouldn’t be caught dead with that blown up thing in the back of my trunk. I made my daughter and her friend lay on it and get all the air out until it was in a state to where it could fit in my car. However, the games had really only begun and wrestling, yelling, laughing and joking was had all on this plastic cake. An hour went by and still not flat enough. I did what any crazed, tired mom would do, and I sat on it and wouldn’t move. My sister got the whole thing on her lovely camera. Pictures to come…What I won't do for my daughter.

The Babysitter-A Short Story

Part I

She wore her heart on her sleeve: An exposed bloody mass of entangled emotions that clung to each fiber in order to save its life and Eve was aware of it. She felt like a circus side-show. “Come and see the girl whose heart decided to leave!” She tried desperately to fit in and could not understand why the universe didn’t allow one to choose their parents. She didn’t like hers at all. They yelled a lot. They fought a lot. They smoked too much and they never seemed to have enough money. Why didn’t they get a divorce already?

Some days it was easier to talk to her self in the bathroom and rehearse conversations with those she may come in contact with. While other days, she lost herself in her books and stories of fantastical fiction and imagined that she would be anywhere but where she was. She was an intelligent introverted girl with a keen sense of how people felt about her without even asking. She was often accused of worrying too much about what others thought; yet she was always right in the end. She would later figure out in her adult life that she had a mild talent of psychic ability and premonition.

Most of the time, she would sneak around corners and listen to the adulterated and sinful conversations of her so-called grown-up counterparts with vivacious envy in hopes that one day, she might be old enough to partake in such lifestyles; spinning her own web of desires. But for now Eve was content to let her mind wander and wonder if she would ever get out of the rut that was already well-paved for her existence.

At a mere 11 years of age, she didn’t have a lot of friends. She was well-liked and easy to get on with but preferred her space. Eve was like a cat in many ways. She could take care of herself and only wanted attention when it most suited her needs. She was her own familiar.

Eve had already been to seven different schools and was used to the fact that friends weren’t meant to stay around for long. She was a pawn in a pathetic little game; scratching the surface on life’s game board. Her parents set the rules and they always won.

Life was mundane for Eve. Everyday was the same. It was a rather surreal life she led. She felt tension everyday of her life. It veiled her thoughts, haunted her dreams and silenced her need for answers. There was no need to ask questions because there were no answers to give. She often sought solace in books and her art.

Her parents didn’t have many friends either. The friends they did have were only around out of sorry obligation. Then one day, Eve’s mom suggested she try babysitting. “Earn a little extra money.” She would say. They knew very few people and none of them had children. What were they going to do; continue their sick game and pawn her off to people in desperate need of a night out? Well, that’s exactly what happened on a very warm, sunny summer day. How she got there, she would never be able to recall, nor ever see them again. The emotions she was capable of feeling and played upon she would never forget.


Part II

Youth binds us to selective memory. We don’t recall so much a place as much as how we immerse ourselves in the external unseen. The smell of perfume, the texture of a sofa, the taste of a kiss or a song playing in the background; all play a part in our recollection of an event. Eve remembered these brief few hours of her life in this way and would later come to realize that what she experienced would shape her views on life and love, and what she would be capable of doing, even if it took the most benign of forms.

It was a hot Eastern summer: typical in many ways. However, the day had an unusual crispness to it. The colors of life were painfully vivid. She could almost taste the pungent wet dirt as summer lawns were watered. The lingering odor of propane made her head hurt as families lit up their grills to prepare for their evening dinner. The hum of cars along the main drag were louder and were grating on her every nerve. The air draped on her heavy figure, clinging to her moist sweet skin. She was on her way to babysit three small children under the age of six of whom she had never met.

Who sends their 11 year-old to babysit three kids at one time? Her parents were apparently not in a frame of mind to judge whether or not this should happen. As her mother pulled up along the curb in front of the house, Eve was tempted to cancel the evening and come up with false stomach ache or a bad mood. She had an uneasy feeling that would not subside. Again, her keen sense would prove right.

The house was average. Nothing special. It put on airs of misfortune and gratitude for habitation. Five people lived here. A father, a mother and their three small children. One young girl about nine months old and two young twin boys around the age of five. The baby had lovely angel-blonde hair with small curls just beginning to frame her round face. She was a healthy baby whose smile sent warm chills through Eve's soul. The twins were a rather typical pair of lads. Overactive, smelly and much too interested in their body parts. They appeared to have been without clothes most of the day, only wearing tighty-whitey's and shirts that were too small to fit over what seemed to be very distended bellies. The day's dirt caked to their faces and the morning's trip outdoors underneath their fingernails made Eve regard them as if they were a disease. She certainly didn't want to catch what they had. Eve found that an uncomfortable aspect, but would have to deal with it for a few hours. Obviously price should have been discussed and negotiated before any agreement had been met.

She came in through the kitchen wearing frumpy clothes on her already care-worn frame. She reminded Eve of an apple. She was a heavy woman with a petite frame that could barely carry her weight. "Mommy!" the boys yelled. She was curling her permed hair with a small rod attaining what she thought was a great style. Finished it off with about a half-can of Auqa Net and applied large amounts of black liner to her entire eye lid. The smell of hairspray seeped into Eve's nose, the filaments unable to filter out harmful toxins. The cloud of spray in the kitchen rested on fruit and food that had been left out the previous night and came dangerously close to the lipstick-kissed cigarette she was smoking.

Eve went into the living room and awaited the evening's instructions with trepidation. "Mommy" looked Eve up and down, sizing her up, scrutinizing her youth that she once had. She didn't like Eve and Eve returned the favor ten-fold. The stare-off was interrupted when he walked through the wood-paneled hallway and into the dimly-lit smoke-filled living room. The TV blared cartoon banter as Eve froze in place. She felt immobilized as he escorted her to the couch and sat down in a chair directly across from her.

Author: Me
More to come...

“If you can love the wrong person that much, stop and think how much more you can love the right person.”

That was an email from my father today. That was all he said. It was his response to my latest poem entitled Sotto Voce. It had to be the most profound piece of wisdom he has ever said to me and a wake-up call that has stopped me dead in my tracks. It brings to mind how much energy we spend on people who seem to zap that energy we so desperately need to live and survive on a daily basis. My poem does reflect a personal experience and it pains me to read it again and again. It’s a feeling of dread; like I have been diagnosed with a disease that will not kill me, but linger on throughout my whole life, tormenting me. I had hoped that getting it out might eradicate it from my mind and help me to figure some things out. But instead it seems to play a permanent cryptic aspect in my life.

I’ve noticed among my friends and just listening to the lives of others how unhappy so many people are in their current status of love and loathing. How their circumstances have trapped them into a life they no longer want to lead or shouldn’t have started in the first place. We are creatures of habit and sometimes staying in situations that are painful is somehow less damaging than getting out and dealing with the inevitable. However, the opposite is true. Our choices have an often times unknown radius that affects the most innocent. I’ve been a victim of this: so many of my friends have been victims of this and most still remain in this tangled state. It’s a tragic life to lead when you want to be somewhere else and you actually begin to treat yourself as a prisoner of your choices; sometimes choices that you make in all the right frames of mine. The cosmos doesn’t appear to make sense. Yet, it all makes perfect, beautiful, glorious sense! The flow of love, friendship, desire and death; it’s all meant to be just as it is, right or wrong.

I’ve been recently aware of certain people that have come into my life for reasons that I will not understand until their gone. It’s also come to light that if there really is one person for everyone, or that “soul mate” that everyone talks about, it’s actually not the person you are really supposed to be with for the rest of your life because your soul mate makes you a better person through harsh realities, through forbidden pleasures. How could one stand to spend the rest of their lives with someone who constantly makes them feel like that? I have met my soul mate, I believe from a previous life, but nonetheless, he is and I would have to agree with the above that it would be too painful to be with him and so the time I had was just right. What took place with that individual was perfect and full of vast knowledge that I will probably never experience again.

I want to spend my energy in the positive; an over-abundance of living. I will no longer expend my energy looking for “the one” but more for the brief experiences that enrich my life, be it painful, joyful or both. Recognizing the immense amount of energy I have to give to another is mind-altering and staggers me like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I am my own Ashram, my own Healer, my own Love and my own Forgiver.

Sotto Voce

A formidable force ties us together.
Tugging and pulling at the core for the blood of love.

Familiar glances crash on the shores of my memory
Never telling, nor revealing its remnants to the blissfully ignorant.

A touch, a hug, a moment of release where white turns to gray
and distills into black
Time passes and is forgotten
His imprint of passion forever remains, not so unlike an unwanted scar from an old wound.

A forceful friendship emerges
Neither one willing to disappear
We hang on for dear life to rotting ropes that dangle over sharp cliffs
Never looking down at destiny.

A simple nod, a sideways glance
Oversimplifies a notion all too clear.

I can’t wait to see him again.

Author: Me

I must admit it sooner or later, and I guess sooner would be better than later. I am a knitter. Not just any knitter, but a "Be All You Can Knit" knitter. I've worked in a yarn shop before (4 yrs) and I teach and so on and so on. One doesn't see me outside of work without a knitting bag and needles. I'll even go as far as to knit at the movie theatre. Yeah, I'm that good. It's one of the few things I'm good at, so I'll gloat if I want to. However, this skirt that you see on the left: "The Skirt From Hell." A 100% linen skirt with well over 200 stitches on each round on a very small needle. You knitters out there can sympathize. You've been there haven't you?

I thank this woman I knit for. She has happily employed me for two years as I knit what seems to be her entire wardrobe and has provided me with the much-needed extra income. But this skirt: 40 hours of grueling knitting labor. I think I would have rather amputated my pinky finger than knit this skirt. You might be wondering if there is really someone out there who would really wear this skirt. I dare say, yes, she is out there and she will be delighted to finally see it tomorrow when I meet her and maybe choke at what it's actually going to cost her. New glasses in it for me! I had to take a picture of it to forever remind me to remain in my right mind when the next individual comes along and asks me to knit a skirt and I will robotically inform them that I cannot and move right along.

This skirt goes into the knitters "I-Can't-Believe-I-Actually-Knit-This (and survived) Hall of Fame."

When my hands are arthritic when I'm 50, I'll know who to blame.

Update on my horoscope July 19-July 25th

As Rob Brezsny so eloquently says it...

"I'm drinking a toast to my grade-school teachers, five of whom were stern spinsters in their 50's and 60's. I may not have esteemed them when we were together those seven hours a day, 180 days a year; I may have been alternately bored and alienated by their nagging me to learn. But from my current vantage point, I'm ripe with gratitude; pleased with my ability to wield the English language and do the arithmetic my business requires and hold in my imagination a clear vision of the planet's geography. Those maestros taught me well, and I'm in awe of their tireless efforts. Now I suggest you do something similar to what I just did, Taurus. Feel a flood of thanks for the helpers and teachers from your past (even the inadvertent ones) whom you have never appreciated sufficiently."

My response: To all those out there, and you know who you are....THANK YOU. I LOVE YOU.
OH, YEAH....I'M FEELING THE FLOOD. :) Minus the arithmetic...

My weekly horoscope....

According to The Stranger, Seattle, WA...You gotta love these things!

"Don't cross a bridge until you come to it," advises the old adage. But is that really a good idea? The fact is that the world belongs to people who have crossed bridges in their imaginations long beofe those bridges existed. Let that be your guiding thought in the coming weeks, Taurus. Start visualizing, contemplating, and building in your mind's eye a certain bridge you want to make abundant use of in 2008."

Isn't it the truth. Truer words could not be spoken of me right now. Someone must be spying on me.

My forest awakens the soul in slumber
Drifting a foreign balance under the skin
Settling on night’s need in dream

Clicking, clacking, purring en route
Through a journey of their own
An object of disapproval

Unwanted eyes on a vulnerable sleep
Circling pungent skin, leaving marks unnoticed
Awaiting something bigger to mind

As dawn approaches, the foreigner awakes
Looking in the eyes of judgment
Bewildered, hopeless surrender to the way

Her skin melts into the forest growth
Fingers into branches, limbs into trees
Singing a love song so sweet and true

Forest fright no longer holds dear
Yet embraces each night
Awakening the native within

She belongs.

A Day at the Beach

My stocky frame sinks in the sand as far as it will let me. It doesn’t depend on my weight like I depend on it. My eyes go blurry at the sight of the sand enveloping each toe as I concentrate on trying not to concentrate. I continue to walk along the crowded beach in attire unsuitable for the weather. In long pants I have rolled up all too hastily to avoid getting soaked. A t-shirt that is much too thick and long to let any sunlight hit my pale, sensitive figure. I forgot a hat, so my Sunday hair has to remain in a hair tie because I can’t tolerate hair blowing in my face. At least I applied sunscreen before I left because in the car a few minutes ago, a panic set in, like I wasn’t going to have time to enjoy what I came here to do alone. ‘Alone’ being the relative word here, since I have two pre-teen girls walking up ahead of me reminding me days long ago.

It’s maddening to feel alone among hundreds of sun-baked individuals with their tiny bikinis and funny sun hats. I can literally see skin burning in the hot Seattle sun. One doesn’t hear that much around here, but today was different and according to the weather gal, it’s going to get worse.

All walks of life must have come here today to enjoy the same thing. Parents making sandcastles with their kids, not really knowing how, just mere servants of toddlers hauling sand back and forth, wondering how much laundry this day is going to cost them. All the little kids with dirt sticking to their faces like summer war-paint, and oh, don’t forget the woman-does-everything-father who appears by their child intermittently so as not to miss a smoke 25 feet away.

Young promising beauty queens with their perky tan breasts bubbling forth and their lean bodies bejeweled in naval piercings and anklets. Box-blonde hair swaying in the wind and eyes that flirt at any given moment to even those who are otherwise spoken for.

The elderly and the otherwise homeless variety shuffle on by eating ice-cream, dripping sugar-laden dairy product all over the hot cement. Dogs taking every chance they get for shade and a quick drink and maybe the clumsy kid who drops a treat.

Families and friends uniting for BBQ’s stuffing their faces with heavy caloric food and cheap beer and wine, excusing all inappropriate behavior, while young boys and men strut their stuff smoking, drinking and smelling of cheap cologne and cheaper thoughts as they parade around looking for loot to drag home. Their toothy grins and chagrined attitudes are enough to make anyone nauseated.

Then I arrive and find no place to call my own, but under a partially shaded spot just on the outskirts of the well-populated beach. I take out my book and the real fun begins: People Watching. I capitalize it because if someone was clever enough, you could make a living out of it. It could be an official title.

However, the tattooed woman talking about how alone she has been for 13 years as a single mother amongst her married friends with 3 healthy plump kids gets me thinking…will I be that tattooed mother in 13 years sitting among my married friends discovering how alone I am and is it all my fault?

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

How can one watch a Doris Day film and not smile? She had the greatest smile ever. It was innocent and refreshing. What happened to movies like that? Last night I coerced my 11-year-old daughter to watch the classic movie with me that I’d been harboring for weeks. I’ve been Netflixin’ it for months now and it’s been sitting on my table for 3 weeks waiting to be watched. All I needed was a few 100 cats, a floral muumuu and a bottle of Vodka; throw in a pint of Chocolate Chip Mint Skinny Cows for good measure and I would be the stereotypical single girl who can’t get a date; tough days. I think I’ve lived a previous life because most of the time I don’t feel like I belong in this one.

It’s been a crappy week and watching old movies does the trick, at least for a few hours. Thank God these are the days of advanced technology and battery operated “things.” Who needs a man when you have all of the above? No inflated grocery bill, no petty arguments, no farts, no burps (although I can hold my own, thank you) But, I digress.

The evening progressed and guilt overcame my lazy butt and I took my dog (Oliver) out at 9 pm for a short walk. Strange things happen after 9 pm around this city. People look a little different, because in the dark, who doesn’t? So I stuck to well-lit areas and appeased my pug for a while and actually stopped and talked to a neighbor because I have admired her yard for months now and always walk by and pretend that I could someday possess such a yard. Ha! No such luck. Only in my dreams; but I can admire others whose dreams have already come true, can’t I? I enjoy living vicariously through others. Some days, it’s the only thing that keeps me going. So I enjoyed a beautiful Seattle summer dusk and let the wind blow against my face without the slightest frown. It was lovely outside. As most things, it had to end and I came back and feebly tried to exercise more by jogging place. Ladies; this is very boring. I don’t recommend it. But I broke a sweat and as my dog looked at me like I was a crazy person, did some sit ups on my Pilates ball; all for the sake of health.

Well the night progressed and a few handfuls of chocolate chips later and my daughter overtaking my bed, I began watching “An Affair to Remember” Cary Grant. Wow. What a man! Sad, sad movie. I told my daughter that during this era of film, Cary Grant was a hot commodity and was a “true hunk” as my aunt would say. Her response to me was, “So, he was like the Johnny Depp of his time?” I had to laugh; I tried to imagine how her mind jumped to that conclusion and said “In an odd sort of way, I guess.” I guess I could see Mr. Grant saying, “Savy?”

We spent the rest of the evening singing “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.”