It’s a little drafty in here

I’ve almost recovered from the worst bout of flu I’ve experienced in…ever. I say almost because I’m still miserable as hell, fall over with fatigue at about 4:30, someone is hiding their shiv in my throat, and I whimper with pain and fatigue and misery when I wake up in the morning. But other than that? I’m awesome, thanks for asking.

As I’ve been sucking down the alternative remedies I bought yesterday to feel better (note that they are actually working, and the Chloraseptic recommended by my doctor would have just nauseated me), I’ve been working on the blog behind the scenes. A little dusting, a few repairs, laughing at the number of unpublished words in the drafts folder. My brain is still mushy from the whole zombification of the last eight days, so I’m pulling out some of the drafts and sharing them here. They’re not really worthy of a full solo post, but I hesitate to let them go. Writing is like breast milk; after working so hard to get only that much? out, dumping it is painful. Doesn’t matter if the kid has teeth and is outside grilling up the steak from the bison he just snared, skinned, and gutted, it’s hard to dump.

This has been your inappropriate analogy of the day.

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A few years ago I wrote an amusing little post on the perils of getting a little “adult” time with small kids in the house. (Note: if you wish to believe that I placed two orders to the stork and nothing more, I recommend skipping that link. Extended family members, old flames, colleagues…this means you. Probably should skip this post as well.) That event should have prepared us, or at least hardened us (giggity), for the future. Sadly no. Our lives today…well… Our current home is less than half the size of our former house in Colorado. There is not a lot of distance from one room to another. Strike one. Our bedroom, like every other room in the house save one, does not have a lock on the door. In fact, because it connects to the upstairs bath, it has two doors sans lock. Strike two. And we have a night owl son who flirts with chronic insomnia. And thumps into the bathroom when we think he’s asleep. And then, more often than not, opens the door to our room to make some sort of comment. Strike three. All those strikes, it’s like a Cubs game around here, except no one is getting screwed. Ahem. As we slog through the Summer of PAINT ALL THE THINGS, we’re replacing the door handles with locking ones, so that’s a plus. Still have no solution for the close proximity or insomnia child though. Please note, this was written last summer and we have since put locking handles on the bathroom and our bedroom doors. Isn’t helping with room proximity or the insomniac child, but it’s a start. 

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I’m told on nearly a daily basis that I need to reduce my stress, and I agree. But when my stress is directly connected to my sons we have a problem. Let’s just file this one under SSDD.

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It’s fall cleanup time here at the House of Chaos. The time of year when we look out at the gorgeous 50 year old trees in our neighborhood and exclaim with tearful emotion, “Crap. It’s that time of year again, isn’t it?” For those beautiful trees are heading into their long slumber, stripping naked, and demanding our next several weekends in the process.
I am partial to sugar maples, those tarted up harlots. Every vibrant shade of orange and red and gold and green, all on the same tree, glowing in the sun. Their leaves make it difficult to drive, as I simply want to gawk at the color. But the time has come for those leaves to reach the peak of their color and head for the ground. But they don’t just stay where they fall, no no no! They like to travel up and down the block. It’s as though the leaves got tired of waving at each other all summer, donned their most colorful finery, and headed out to mingle. On my lawn, my neighbor’s lawn, the lawn down the block. Up and down and around and around, driven by the wind they hired for the season.
We have a lot of leaves to rake in the fall. When we did fall cleanup at our old house in Colorado, raking took maybe a couple of hours; the builders planted twigs in the front yard. But here, ohhh, is it different. Three large silver maples and a white birch on our property, with two enormous sugar maples directly next door. Raking here takes several hours, several weekends in a row. Bag upon bag upon bag of paper lawn bags. I’m also still trying to clean up the weeds and rotting mulch piled around the front of the house; the backyard has gotten nothing yet from me but a shuddering glance and mental tally of the number of hours that will be sacrificed at the alter of  that suburban forest.
Sonofabitch! The leaves I just piled for J to bag…which has not been done because he’s in here making a sandwich…just blew all over God’s creation in a great gust of wind. I am displeased. There’s a metaphor for life in there somewhere; raking leaves is a perfectionist’s nightmare.
This is a good reminder for me to just block off several weekends in the fall now. Last year we didn’t get all the leaves up and bagged before the village ended the landscape waste pickup for the season…on December 1. We had the pleasure of over-wintering 20 bags of leaves in our garage. I’m sure the garbage man was oh-so-thrilled to see those on the first day of pickup this spring. 

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Lame, sarcastic, and condescending in tone. These are exact words from an online review of my book. I was going to write a post on it, but it just would have come across as lame, sarcastic, and condescending in tone. 

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Flute teaching is different this time around. Yes indeedy-do it is. I have more patience, more experience, and I’m enjoying it more. That all pales in comparison to the fact that I now have students the same ages as my sons, and am actually older than a few of the parents. I’m not handling that second one too well. 

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Zombification reversal should be complete this weekend (I hope), and I look forward to real words and real posts and the joys of a non-mushy brain.