Monthly Archives: August 2011

We’re back from nine days of family time. We left San Francisco early this morning so that Jane could get to a party that started at 4.30. The girls are doing a Zumba class and then taking a limo to In and Out Burger, and then the limo will drop them back at the birthday girl’s house.

It sounds like punishment to me.

Coming home is always mixed for me. On the one hand I’m happy to be back in my own space, and on the other hand there’s a flood of things to do. I have boxes stacked to the ceiling for my 20k giveaway day and I haven’t even taken a good look at them. Twitter has started purging this week and I’ve lost about 200 followers so as soon as I get Jane and Alexander’s sports schedules I’m going to go ahead and pick a day where we can do the Almost 20K giveaways.

I got totally distracted by the Lamborghini computer that was waiting for me (I wish it wasn’t just a loan).

This is just a strange week. The kids aren’t in school yet so I’m still busy knocking around with them but there’s a lot I really should be doing. I think there’s a good chance that Google Plus is killing off my blog because my best interactions are there.

This is the seventh night in a hotel, which means that this is the seventh night of Jane and Alexander having no playmates but each other other and sharing a room most nights.

One of the things I’m quite certain I got wrong was not having the kids share a room. I know that at this age they’d have to be split up already. If I could go back in time there isn’t a ton of parenting I’d like to change but this is a big one. I’d have taken my boy and my girl and I’d have put them in the same room until they asked for their own. I wouldn’t care if I had three bedrooms of thirteen.

On this vacation (like so many others we’ve taken) we all take turns running around with Alexander. Jane and Mr. G play football with him in the park, then Jane sits and reads a book while Mr. G and Alexander throw a baseball for eightybazillion hours. I rest under a tree or check out San Francisco’s Dahlia Garden, and then we buy some street food and head over to Union Square.

Jane and Mr. G are exhausted so I drag Alexander around for three more hours and wait for him to fade. It doesn’t happen quickly, but he does get a little tired of motion.

As Jane approaches thirteen she has left Alexander a bit. It used to be two kids and two adults trying to find activities, and now it’s sometimes three of us wanting to do something and then Jane is sent like a scout to convince Alexander to go along with it. She’s neither fish nor foul, certainly not an adult, certainly not a child (in her own eyes at least).

Jane and Alexander don’t seem to fight and bicker on vacation. In fact they enjoy each other more than ever, for this and this alone I’d pack up everything and become a nomad. The two people I love most in the world loving each other makes my heart swell and my eyes water.

He asks a lot of questions and he remembers the answers. Alexander is a smart little boy, sponge-like in his need to gather information. Unlike a sponge he is never full, and everything seems to be retained. At night when we put the kids to bed and over the whispers and giggles the constant that we hear is Alexander querying Jane. Her name is always part of a question, Jane? Can you… Do you… Would you…? And she dispenses information that may or may not be correct, but delights her brother. From the foyer that connects the rooms Mr. G and I eavesdrop and delight in our children. Both of them, for very different reasons.

I wish I could go back in time and give him many more years of rickety data and a shared bedroom.

In 1996 standing on the Westminster Bridge with the city of London and Big Ben all decked out for Christmas, Mr. G asked me to be his wife. He had a small diamond ring that had been my Grandmothers. It was vaguely sentimental, but mostly pragmatic as we were both young and our savings were meager.

In 2007 Mr. G and I went to a favorite jewelry store and he bought me a diamond band to go with the ring. Like the engagement ring it was delicate. I loved it as a symbol of what we’d built in ten years together.

I lost my rings.

This isn’t a phrase that I’ve never uttered. I often take my rings off and leave them in my bedroom for days at a time. I’ll put a book over them and find them only when I clean up. I’ll go a week without wearing a ring, and as my wedding band suntan line begins to fade I’ll feel uncomfortable and put them back on.

This time though I think they’re really gone and I can’t sleep. It’s been a few weeks and I remember them being on the mantle downstairs. I then remember thinking that I should put them somewhere else and I distinctly remember NOT picking them up and moving them.

Now I think of the one stranger that was in my home and I think he stole my rings. But then I don’t actually think he did. I’m still working with the thought that I’ve put them somewhere. When I return to Los Angeles I’ll open all the drains in the house, sift through the vacuum cleaner bag and then call a hypnotist.

I’m not particularly sentimental. Or at least I thought I wasn’t, but those rings were mine to fidget with. They marked the years. I’m wearing the solid platinum band I was married in, but still my hands feel naked, and it has nothing to do with the diamonds.

I’m here on top of Mammoth Mountain. We’ve kayaked, we’ve ran through fields singing at dusk (keeps the bears away?), we’ve had wonderful food, played tennis, wandered aimlessly and now we’re off to try stand up paddle-boarding.

The hotel is good, their motto seems to be “it’s clean enough”. Everyone has their own space.

Here are ten things you should know about visiting Mammoth in the Summertime.

1. If you stay in the Village Lodge there is no central air conditioning. They have a plug in unit that is mostly useless. Bring your own.
2. If you are at the Village Lodge and you didn’t bring your own AC ask for a room that does not face the pool. Inward facing rooms have no breeze and the fountain is loud at night.
3. Caldera Kayaks was the easiest way to get on the lake at a fair price.
4. Bring your footballs, baseballs, soccer balls, everything really because the Park at Shady Rest will fill your day.
5. Drink water like crazy I know it’s not a fourteener but it’s high and dry here.
6. The Booky Joint in Mammoth is a bookstore you’re guaranteed to love.
7. Use the public transportation, it’s a really great way to meet folks and find out what’s fun
8. Do not let people give you directions, insist on an address and use your smartphone. Directions here are vague and for locals.
9. Try a pizza at Giovanni’s but understand that pizza for one will feed two. The portions are massive and you aren’t skiing so you’re not that hungry.
10. Take a shuttle into Yosemite and make it an all day trip. See the sights that inspired Ansel Adams.
11. (this is your bonus tip) Do not roll your son’s fudge into a poop shape and leave it in the swimming pool overnight. Your son might accuse you of “ruining everything”

I’m tired and lazy. August might be a little sporadic with the posting.

Jane is back from Outward Bound. It sounds like it was an incredible experience, and it’s one I’ll invite her to talk more about. There were some harrowing moments with a tipped over canoe but it sounds like she was with an exceptional group of girls and they came to be close as a group. She came home taller, stronger, and without a lick of table manners.

It was good.

Last night two friends slept over and the girls wanted to see the new Steve Carel movie. I was in a G+ hangout with Cecily and she said, “I’ve seen that and I wouldn’t reccomend it for a 12 year old.” Which is awesome because now my pink haired friend on the computer can raise my kids for me. Now Jane can be pissed at Cecily instead of me.

They agreed to see The Help and three girls came back from the movies with all their eyeliner cried right off. We had some interesting discussions about what it means to be a good or bad person, how following the crowd is no excuse and what it means to be a lady. We talked about how far women have come in the workplace and how no one would be permitted to talk to them that way and Jane couldn’t stop saying how she wanted to punch Hilly in the head.

The girls all liked me again because I let them go to the movies, but they turned on me when I said lights out at 11.

We’re riding this rollercoaster of love me hate me, and Jane loves me when I’m buying her things and hates me when I say no. Which of course makes me want to do less for her and Mr G sees none of this and explains to me what a good kid she is.

She’s a good kid because I’m keeping her from being a spoiled brat.

Alexander has started vision therapy and it will probably have a section of it’s own right here on the blog. I am once again eternally grateful to my readers who encouraged me to investigate before scheduling his third surgery. We’re trying it for three months and much like the patching he used to do, and the speech therapy Jane had I realize that it’s all on me.

We can show up for the weekly appointments but without daily practice it’s useless. It’s awfully tough and Alexander sometimes gets dizzy. On day two of our at home regimen he started getting nauseous and wanted to quit. I wouldn’t let him. He started to cry and I handed him some tissues. He told me that he was going to throw up and I assured him that we’d stop the vision therapy just as soon as there was vomit on the floor but not one minute before.

I love him that much.

So at night I cry because I don’t want to have to hurt my kids, but this is his Hail Mary before surgery and I’m sure as shit not going to let him see me cry.

This is the foulest fucking thing I’ve seen in a long time. Of course I found it from STFU Parents.