Revolutionary Road

With the Oscars coming up, I'm trying once again to see a few movies in the running. However that turns out, the movie I wanted to see most right now was Revolutionary Road. I had read about it a couple months ago, and it seemed intriguing, not to mention Kate Winslet leads, which will always catch my interest.

It did not disappoint. It was well-directed and well-acted, but more than that, it was one of the most meaningful movies I'd seen in a long time. It has a storyline that I think resonates with a small part of most of us. You can be happily married and love your job, but doesn't each of us have a tiny itch within our minds that asks if we could be a little more? Live a little fuller?

I liked that Kate and Leo didn't hold back the emotion. Too many movies hold back the reality and end up flat. I had read that Kate almost separated herself from her husband (Director Sam Mendes) while filming so that they could have a wholly professional relationship. Thanks for that, Kate.

Also very notable was the crazy son, played by Michael Shannon, who is also the only actor in this film to be nominated for an Academy Award. It was brilliant how they interjected him into the film to reveal certain truths about the characters. Like truth serum injected into a subconscious facade.

I'm not sure this film is for everyone. Might be boring for some. And maybe my interest in The Feminine Mystique makes it more interesting to me. Don't see it on a date, but I'd recommend it as a thought pill that you swallow from a distance.

My House Is Me And I Am It.

Today was rough. I cried a lot. I cried at home. I cried at work.

I thought I was done with holiday challenges until I found out this morning that our freshly topped off 300 gallon oil tank leaked into the ground of our front yard within two days. Much waiting and work to be done in the coming weeks to fix this. Right now the hard part, aside from the cost, is not knowing how serious the contamination is.

Then, at work, I learned that the young child of someone we know died after a year and a half of battling cancer. My heart ached and I sobbed in my cubicle. It is the saddest story I have ever known and I grieve for them.

In one of their blog posts, there is a quote from one of the child's favorite books:
"My house is me and I am it. My house is where I want to be and it looks like all my dreams." (If you know what book this is from, please let me know.)

Of all that happened today, this quote pulled at my heart more than anything. It condensed what is important to me and crystallized my understanding of what my children see in their limited world.

Robin and I are in love with our home. We love every imperfection. It is us. To me, it is a member of the family as a beloved pet would be. When we were stranded in Portland, I felt as if we left it behind to fend for itself in the cold. This attachment is partly why it's so upsetting that the ground, our ground, is now saturated with oil. I want it healthy again. "My house is me and I am it."

The house also anchors everything my children know. They know school, they know the park, they know the grocery store, but they will always come home. Home is where they will find comfort. Home is what they will remember. I want it healthy for them. "My house is where I want to be and it looks like all my dreams."

I'm low, but I really have no right to be. Our front yard may be ripped shreds, but it will heal eventually. I would do well to recognize our luck and the insignificance of the incident.

Highlights

The past month was another busy, overwhelming 30 days. This made the highlights that much brighter. Here they are.

Oh but first, today's News of The Bizarre.

I awoke just before 1am this morning in mild shock. I dreamt that my hand had flung up toward my nose. But instead of relaxing back to sleep knowing it was just a dream, I noticed my nose was leaking. I went to the bathroom to turn on the light and my nose was bleeding. I had somehow jabbed my nasal septum with my fingernail in my sleep. ??? The thought of this made me lightheaded and the blood drained from my face, which was good because I wanted my nose to stop bleeding. The queasiness gave me an upset stomach, which then made me poop. Hope I didn't lose any friends by telling this story.

On to the highlights, in no planned order.

1. Seeing our basement transformed from a dungeon (no walls, no ceiling, no light) to a cheerful, livable space. This morning our painter applied the color "Butter" to the new walls.

2. Thursdays. Thursdays are when I come up for air after three days in an abyss of relentless responsibility.

3. Eating two fish tacos from Taco Del Mar, alone in my kitchen nook.

4. Harrison having some "good" days at school. It seems at school he's been all boy, all the time, which can come as a shock to people with either A) girl children or B) mellow boys. Within two weeks in kindergarten he was a notorious troublemaker. Parents I'd never met before had heard about him from their children. Greeeaaat. The most frustrating part is he's perfect at home. Cooperative, empathetic, gentle, thoughtful, even calm. So I feel helpless and panicky when he comes home with another note from his teacher detailing the "incident." Usually it's related to horsing around or play-wrestling with another boy. Anyway, the few days with no incident have been the relief that made my day.

5. Picking Gigi up at the end of my workdays. What a sight for sore eyes. Sweet, smart, lovely.

6. Robin and I being cautiously grateful we have jobs. Then figuring out how we can work harder.

7. Having some time to myself to read this pleasurable article by Dominick Dunne. In it he describes some of his adventures while writing for Vanity Fair. What a life.

8. Exploring Seattle parks we'd never been to. This sunny time away from the house fills our hearts, preparing us for the imminent week.

9. Seeing someone I love dearly, clean and healthy.

10. The changing landscape of Seattle in October. Magnificent.

I hope to add to this list over the weekend. In the meantime, I'll try not to poke out my eye in my sleep.

Just an update

I've wanted to blog so many times over the last month, but each time I thought about it, I'd trip over an unopened moving box and spend until bedtime putting it (and three more) away.

This may be the first evening I've had an hour to spend on my laptop. Not that I really have an hour. As I write this Robin is downstairs pulling out cabinets with a crowbar. I could be helping. I could be watching the Olympics (are they still on?) I could be doing laundry, which has piled up over the week. But I could also use a break.

Our new house is two floors - main and basement. The main floor is fully unpacked save a few boxes buried in the garage under who knows what. So there is normalcy and calm as we walk around up here and go about our daily routines.

Entering the basement is another story. It's mostly unfinished and looks about what it did in 1953, when it was built. There's still an old school pencil sharpener screwed into a cabinet. I can see the previous owner (there was only one before us) use it to sharpen his pencil before working in his garage woodshop.

It's a lot of space to go unused, so we're finishing it. We're taking out cabinets, replacing plumbing and fixing wiring. We'll put up walls and install lighting. The first step is moving the washer and dryer, which involves concrete work and more plumbing. Today we gave the green light on the plumbing jobs. Only 5 times what we'd budgeted. Who needs curtains anyway? Or lighting? Or food?

The good news is we LOVE the house. The garden is a little slice of heaven. I've already spent about 12 hours a week out there cleaning and raking and pruning and watering. Thus the no blogging. But once the clean-up is complete, it's next to no maintenance. The roses, flowers, bushes and trees are already in place. The woman who lived here obviously loved gardening, but she was old the last few years and likely couldn't do much upkeep.

---- 10 minute lapse ----

Poor Robin. While he was pulling out cabinets, a piece of wood came down on the bridge of his nose and cut into it. It will bruise and not be pretty. I gave him the Cinderella ice pack that Gigi picked out today at Target. He has a 5K in the morning that he really wants to do. But the cut is right where sunglasses rest, so that'll be irritating.

So many other things I want to say. Like complain about the enormous quantity of candy and sugary snack foods that are available and marketed with abandon. Holy childhood obesity, Batman! And speaking of Batman, I wish I had time to see the movie so I could blog about it. I miss blogging about movies, but I miss seeing them more. Hopefully by the time cooler, darker weather is here, we'll have completed most of our projects and I can catch up.

In other news, I love working. I love leaving the house early in the morning, treating myself to a latte. I love walking into a climate-controlled office and sitting at my cozy cubicle. I love (like-ish) sorting through emails while I nibble on my poor-man's scone - two slices of whole grain bread with jam and thick pats of cold, unsalted butter in between. I love starting my to-do list and feeling productive when I turn things in. I smile when people say good morning and I reapply lipstick when my coffee cup has stolen the previous coat. I love eating lunch sitting down, even when I'm working at the same time. When I pick the kids up after work, I'm calm. They're happy to see me. The evening goes fast. I'm tired at the end of those days, but I'm happy.

Now I'm off to bed. Not so much time will pass until my next blog. They may be shorter and not proofed, but I'll try. Night.

Big Girl School

One morning last week daddy woke G up since she had slept-in unusually late within the cozy folds of our bed.

He said, "Wake-up princess." She kept her eyes closed.

Then he said, "Are you ready for your first day of school?" She popped open her eyes and broke into a wide grin.

Before she started preschool, every time I'd mention school to her, she became giddy. She'd been taking H to school for two years, but always had to leave with Mommy. At times I had to bribe her, then pull her away from the playroom there. I could have waited to put her in preschool, but I wanted her to be able to go with H for a few months before he starts kindergarten.

When we got to school that morning, she raced to put her new princess lunchbox in the fridge, then methodically went to the nap room to put her blankie in the cubby she shares with H. The school director took her hand, introduced her to another new girl, then showed them the ropes in the bathroom, which G was already an expert in, having gone there most mornings when dropping H off.

With all the chaos of our house buying, selling and moving, I don't want to overlook this wonderful event. I have been a less than perfect stay-at-home mom. It's no secret that I've struggled with it. I've been clueless about planning enriching activities for the kids, and my frustration has surfaced far too often than was good for anyone. She, as H, deserves to learn and thrive in an environment that lives up to her potential.

I cried on her first day of school not because she is no longer home with me, but because I was sad about how inadequate I've been with her, and with H on his days home with us. In moving forward, I can only promise to be a better mother during those now-precious hours I'm with them.

Long Story Short

Long story short, we bought a house contingent on the sale of our house, prepped our house (which we've lived in for sixteen years) to sell, then sold it, all within a matter of weeks.

I wrote and re-wrote a long post chronicling these events, but decided I would jinx something if I published the details. We're still waiting to close on our current house, so until that happens (end of July), I'm crossing my fingers instead of writing with them.

In other news, G started preschool (which she loves) and I'm going back to work part-time. I plan on writing about both these significant milestones, but I need some time for things to settle.

Guess that about wraps it up. (Ha.) Sorry for the skeletal post. It's a good thing that I have so little time to think about blogging. It means I'm busy, which means I'm happy.

Tetanus Nanny

It should be a rule that if you give a stay-at-home-mother of small children a tetanus booster, you should throw in two days of nanny care. Otherwise the risk is too great that daddy will walk in on a ransacked house, children hypnotized by Strawberry Shortcake, and a comatose mommy. Who writes the rules and how can I get an appointment with him?

Other Places

This past weekend R and I went to a show run by a small theater company in West Seattle. I'm lucky to know one of the organizers (who also acts in the plays), otherwise I would've never heard of it.

The show is called Other Places. It's a collection of three short plays by Harold Pinter: Family Voices, Victoria Station, and A Kind of Alaska.

In Family Voices the two main characters, a mother and her 20-year-old son, are writing letters to each other, reciting them aloud. The son has been away from home for a few months, making the mother anxious and then angry that her son hasn't been in contact. The son writes of the inhabitants of his new household, occasionally breaking into the characters of the house to convincing effect. The mother writes of her increasing frustration. The letters never get to their recipients. I took this story as conveying the tension and emotional loss that result with miscommunication and words left unsaid.

Victoria Station was the shortest of the three. The act is simply a conversation between a taxi dispatcher and one of his drivers. The driver is clearly off his rocker in some way, which irritates the dispatcher. At the end of the conversation the two seem to form an unlikely connection in their loneliness.

A Kind of Alaska is based on the memoir Awakenings, which was also made into the movie with Robert DeNiro. It opens with a woman coming out of Encephalitis lethargica with her doctor looking on. Struggling with confusion, she tries to make sense of the present while opening up to us the lively personality of her past. She behaves as an ebullient 16-year-old, though she's speaking through the body of a much older woman.

I was so riveted watching this last play that I don't think I moved one time. The woman playing the patient was incredible. Surely one of the best actresses I've seen in a play. She moved me to gratitude for having memory of my last twenty years.

If you have a free Thursday, Friday or Saturday this week at 8pm, and West Seattle's not too inconvenient a drive, I'd recommend seeing these plays. It's very inexpensive and always a great cause to support community theater.

Smell Me Later

I find it exceedingly difficult to choose a fragrance. There are an unbelievable number of options, with every fashion house and fashion icon marketing their own.

The last fragrance I bought was Eau de Cartier about six months ago. On that expedition I gave up searching after five minutes and went with the least offensive scent, the simplest packaging, and brand. It does smell fresh and has served me well. I may return to it.

Last week I ran out of my Cartier and since I don't own more than one fragrance at a time (I don't need another daily decision), and I get bored with what I've had, it was time to replenish with something new.

With an hour to myself this morning, I braved Sephora (a place I generally avoid because of the overwhelming number of useless choices it represents). Ignoring my instant Sephora headache, I began the task of sampling syrupy promises of energy, femininity and lust.

Among the brands I remember were Chanel (a past favorite), Bvlgari, Dolce & Gabbana, Pucci, Clinque, Marc Jacobs and Kenzo. Over twelve dizzying sprays later, I ended up with L'Eau D'Issey by Issey Miyake.

I'd never heard of the brand before, so it was the scent alone that drew me. My first thought was it smelled familiar and made me feel slightly uncomfortable. But I was totally drawn to it. Almost like I couldn't let it go. My second thought was that it smelled like I think I should smell when I'm fifty. I guess I'm just testing it out then. I hope I smell younger.

What fragrance do you wear? What do you like to smell on others (men or women)?

Where's The Bun?

Last Saturday evening R and I put the kids to bed before eating our own dinner. We thought it'd be nice to eat an entire meal sitting down. I was craving blue cheese burgers, so R played the hunter while I gathered the children.

He came home with a neatly folded package from the deli of Metropolitan Market. In it were three large patties of leanish ground beef mixed with blue cheese. We snacked on chips and drinks while waiting for the burgers to cook.

Here's mine.

My usual complaint about burgers is that there's too much bun. No complaints here. Just mayo, lettuce, tomato, onions and a dime-squirt of ketchup.

We ate so fast I don't think we said a word from start to finish. So much for relaxing, but we did sit the whole time.