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Tuesday, 18 August 2009

Back to School for Me

Well, I finally went and did it and put myself back in school. I didn't get the gardening classes I wanted, but got some other ones that were okay. I'm also taking Spanish, which was the first foreign language I ever studied about 23 years ago. Yup, I did the math several times, I'm really getting old. I find myself looking at the kids in the hallways at the college I'm at and wondering if I should have made more of an attempt to go to school 10 or 15 years ago and how would my life have been different.

Surprisingly, I find the answer is no, I'm happy with the choices I made then and now. In my 20's I worked for cash, played hard at night, and I did whatever the hell I felt like doing in other words, no rules for me! I always knew things would change, I would not always work in a bar and I would not always do hard drugs, being an addict was too much work for my lazy self and besides I've always loved living. I had a best friend who I watched slide into addiction and I wasn't afraid of going there, I just thought it looked like a lot of hard work. Addicts are obsessed with one thing and one thing only, whew, that's a lot of work for not a lot of payoff. Yeah, my addict friends are still skinny and I'm not...oh, wait, I don't have any addict friends anymore. Who knows if they are even still alive? When I burn my bridges with people, it's all ashes and that's it, which is why you'll never find me on Facebook. Yeah, I need to control my pasta love and exercise more, but I'll take it over what other people struggle with.

Going to go to my son's school back to school PTA mtg. Yup, that's me in the corner, tattoos, old piercing marks, and self dyed hair. Oh, and I'm mouthy, with a smile. Even for San Francisco, I stick out a little, but not much, which is why I love it here. I still feel in some weird way I'm creating my own rules and doing what I please.

Well, except for the part where my daughter refuses to poop in the toilet. Scuse me while I do my Mom duty I had hoped to be grown out of by now.

Friday, 24 July 2009

Ah, Friday...

I always put off for tomorrow what I should have done last week. Today is the last chance I get to drop off my application to City College for admissions. I'm excited because it means my life is moving on.

I have been a stay at home momma with no paying job for eight long years now. It started out sorta lonely, I was the only one of my circle of friends who was married with a kid and now I have no friends who are not parents themselves. However, they all have careers and I have dawdled, never finding anything I wanted to commit myself to that would enrich and enhance my family. My primary work before I was pregnant was bartending and office temp work, two jobs that were easy to come by in the frothy years of the Clinton era. I had flexibility, a little cash to travel sometimes and always enough money for a cocktail and a bit of pot, and it was a good life, apart from the drama of being in my 20's. Then I got pregnant a bit earlier than planned and all of a sudden I had no plan for the future, I just reacted to what was in front of me. My husband Jeremy works in the computing world, (arguably) at the top internet company in the world. I like to think I had a small something to do with his success in landing a job there, I provided the support he needed to just go out there and really push himself. His workplace is famous for all its perks, for having an enviroment where if you work for 15 hours, well, it's pretty comfortable at the Googleplex. He can work unexpectedly long hours there and not have to think about what is going on with our kids or if someone needs a dr appointment, because I take care of all that. The cleaning, the monthly bills, the cooking of healthy food, the involvement in our son's school, I take all this on gladly as my share of what this life means.

But oh! I am tired of telling other people I am a SAHM. Here in SF, no one is a stay at home mom, it's too damn expensive to live here. Everyone has some form of daycare and or nanny care and both parents are hustling non-stop at their jobs for the incredible rush of living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. As a kid in the Midwest, San Francisco seemed like a dream, hippy love and all that. As an adult visiting, it was amazing, a small city jam packed with interesting people and some cool houses. As a mom living here, I want my kids to be exposed to as much as possible. I feel like this is a special place to grow up and dream your goals as large as you want them to be and look around and realize you can work towards them and achieve them. The access to art, music, wine, film, authors, etc. is fantastic and inspiring. I love living here like I have never loved living anywhere else, I am prepared to do what it takes to keep living in my foggy rental with the bedrooms windows that look out on the ocean.

So, for me, taking classes in school again is good, I can now say I'm a student. I have decided I want to study plants, probably with an eye towards sustainable urban produce growing. Living in cities is all I know and I love the challenge of combining the beauty of farmlife with the beauty of cities. Also, in the long term plan for our family, we want to take a trip around the world in four years. Jer can still work for some of that time and if I could have some sort of project involving plants and travel to 15 different worldwide destinations, I would feel fullfilled.

Enough of my pie in the sky fantasies. Got to take the first step, then must clean the house from top to bottom, my in-laws will be here in a week and if my house isn't clean, my mom in law will do it for me, which is just embarassing as hell. It's bad enough she will come here and take over in the long battle to toilet train my daughter. My son was super easy, Jer showed him what to do, we shamelessly bribed him with cookies to keep going in the toilet and it was done. V, well she's another person with other ideas. She cares not for bribes. She doesn't care about having a wet diaper or one filled with poop. She is just fine with defecating on the floor, knowing full well the rest of us use the toilet. Gah, I 'm getting upset just thinking about it.

Thursday, 23 July 2009

RIP Sunny Bear

Okay, well I wanted to wait until I had something to talk about before I wrote anything. And sometimes it seems like nothing happens, my life is just all small moments of time of me taking care of two kids. And my husband. I live in San Francisco, in the foggiest neighborhood in the city. It's been gray and overcast for days and days. That really is how summer is here. Go across the bay to Oakland, it's summer like the rest of the US knows it. Hot, sunny, lovely. Here, it's like something out of another dimension. When I first moved here, I thought the fog was mysterious and lovely. Nearly three years on, I find myself thinking I need to go to a tanning bed, just so I can get really hot and sweaty if only for 10 min. The other thing about the perma-fog here is it's all too easy for me to just lose days, weeks, months. Did I have goals this summer? I keep forgetting about them. I just want to drift and doze and watch Hulu. Found a new (to me)show on there today called 'Spaced'. Best. Stoner. Show. Ever. It also goes with the whole fog thing I have going on in my head.

This is what's going to happen in a few hours. My husband will take our old, arthritic dog to the vet for the last time and he will get put to sleep.

We got the dog two years ago, from a couple who could no longer take care of him. He never took to us, he mostly ignored us and slept all the time. We live on the 2nd floor and he couldn't take the stairs, so he just slept downstairs. He has major thryoid issues and takes a bigger dosage of meds then my friend who had her thryoid removed. He has other medical issues, way too many to list here. He hated going to walks. He is a Newfoundland, their breed is famous for loving swimming and kids. He hates getting his feet wet and he never had any interest in my kids, which is a shame, because they love dogs and kittens and ladybugs. We had dreams of how sweet it would be to take someone's old dog and have them gently play with our kids and lay in the backyard while I worked in the garden. This never happened with this dog. He was all the responsibility and none of the joy of pet ownership. I could get really bitter and bitchy about this sometimes.

I feel no sorrow about the dog's coming demise and that's hard to admit. I'm 35 years old, I've put down my share of childhood dogs and adulthood cats. I sobbed over each one and felt raw for days afterwards. This one, I feel nothing but a sense of relief. No more wondering how much worse things will get with him. Things have been so bad for him for so long. Half his fur has fallen out and the rest he pulls out with his teeth, so he's bloody a good deal of the time. I never really loved him and he sure never loved me, but I learned to have compassion for his suffering.

My husband is heartbroken over the dog. He's sappy about big old smelly dogs, even if this one didn't really show any signs of love for him. I'm off to have afternoon sex with him to fortify him for his grim task.

Thanks for reading.