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prev home archive next Public Service Announcement A new Storyteller contribution is up, and look for the new topic tomorrow! Momentary Thought I have no clean clothes to change into for our dinner tonight with Dawn. How's that for preparedness? High/Low High: Meeting Dawn for dinner tonight. Low: Put a run in my last pair of nylons. No clean jeans. I am in desperate need of clothes. Current Obsession Clothes shopping! Grin Source AcronymCo has turned off some lights in order to conserve energy. The first floor of the building has every other light turned off. The second floor is operating under normal luminescence. Therefore, we are referring to the first floor as "The Pit of Despair." Singing When are you gonna come down? When are you going to land? I should have stayed on the farm, should have listened to my old man. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John Storyteller Bio Dramatis Personnae Who I Read Recipes |
If you haven't signed up for my Notify List you've been missing out a bit here lately. I'm just sayin'... Calvin and I have been prepping for Dawn's arrival for the past couple of days. Really what we're doing is using her visit as an excuse to get our butts in gear on some things that have needed doing for a while now. Like replacing the light fixtures in both the kids' bathrooms. Trips to Home Depot and Lowes are no longer the dreaded experiences they once were. I also got the cat shaved, and she looks absolutely ridiculous. As soon as she'll sit still for it, I'll take a picture and post it. She got a lion cut, leaving her head and a bit of a "mane", her feet, and the tip of her tail in fur, and completely shaving the rest. So she's got this great big head and an itty bitty skinny body. When she walks toward you out of the shadows, she looks like a floating head. I kid you not. She's feeling better, though, I can tell. She's more in the mood to play. "Playing" consists of me making a claw hand in front of her face, and her staring at it for about ten seconds before launching herself, burying her head in my palm, and opening her mouth as wide as it will go to gnaw on the heel of my hand. She never bites hard. I don't even remember the origin of this particular game, but she loves it. I even got the oil changed in the Suburban (more than 1000 miles overdue, that's how bad I am), and had it washed. I think the old stale fastfood smell was better than the artificial "strawberry" spray they soaked everything with. It's 110 degrees today, yet I drove back to work with all the windows open, gagging and sweating. Great visual there, eh? The main concentration of effort, though, took place in the cleaning of Michael's bedroom and bathroom, where Dawn will be residing during her visit. Michael and his friend hole themselves up in his room all day, every day, playing video games. So it was stale. It was stuffy. It was dusty, and there were miscellaneous dirty sock beasts lurking in corners. In short, it was a teenage boy's room. Now, though, it is clean. Endusted, and Febreezed, and 409-ed, and Windexed, and vacuumed. After I got done replacing the bedding last night, I laid down on his bed and looked around. This room has seen a lot of changes. A. Lot. When X(m) and I first moved in, it became his computer room. Carcasses of useless CPU's and disk drives and hard drives where strewn everywhere, with a path barely wide enough to gain access to the computer desk in the corner. X(m) would sit in there for hours, programming and reading and tinkering. After X(m) and I divorced, I moved all of his clutter out and put in bookshelves. I spent a happy afternoon putting my book collection on those shelves. I envisioned a comfy chair or day bed, a small stereo, and an old wooden desk at which to write. I never got around to affording those things, though. Then Calvin and the kids moved in. This was pre-HIPFH(tm), so we only had two bedrooms and two bathrooms to accommodate the four of us. Marie and Michael had to share that room, so we purchased bunk beds and rearranged the desk and shelves (my books were packed back into the garage) to accommodate the acquisition of Calvin's big-screen TV and stereo system from X(f)'s house. Very, very cramped quarters indeed, and it was pretty much always a disaster area. Then we decided to build the addition. Marie took our old master bedroom, leaving their shared room to Michael. New carpet, fresh paint, new blinds, new ceiling fan. The only belongings he moved back into the room were the bed, the stereo and TV, his clothes, and his weight set. No more Victoria's Secret magazine cut-outs taped to the walls. The desk was removed, as were the shelves. He seemed to prefer the starkness, though I think part of the reason he didn't personalize the space was because he knew he wouldn't be dwelling in it for much longer. Michael's going into the Marines, and is leaving for Boot Camp on June 18th. The accumulation of three year's worth of drama, struggle, good times, bad times, adjustment, re-adjustment, fights with us, fights with his mom, fights with his sister, long meaningful talks, Christmas presents, traffic tickets, loud music, teasing, hugs, laughter, and tears will culminate into that one moment when he hugs us goodbye and walks onto that plane. And that will be it. I can feel myself getting choked up about it even as I type. I know Calvin, Marie, and I will be a big mass of crybabies there at the gate. X(f), too, probably. Michael agreed to spend his last night over at our house, but we're making tentative plans for all of us to go out to dinner - X(f) included - so he doesn't have to choose which parent to spend time with. He'll be in Boot Camp for 12 weeks, after which the family is flying out to San Diego to watch his commencement. We'll probably turn it into a mini vacation and stay at the same bed and breakfast Calvin and I reserved for his birthday a couple of years ago. It's been a long, hard road getting Michael to this point. We packed a lot of history into three short years. I love him to death and will miss him horribly, but I'm really excited for his future plans. I'm curious to see what kind of a man he'll be, when he comes into his maturity and develops a sense of responsibility. I hope he maintains his closeness with his father, I hope he calls us a lot, I hope he writes us a lot, and I hope he has a wonderful time. Most of all, I hope his life is happy and adventurous, and I hope he doesn't lose touch with us. He'll be looking forward, ahead to his goals and his future. We'll be looking behind, to the boy he used to be, and missing our role in his life. Ours will be a new role, now. Eye-to-eye, as adults. Less parenting, and more role modeling and friendship. Right now, it feels a little weird to contemplate. Every parent goes through this, as their kids grow up. I have a somewhat different perspective than Calvin, not being Michael's birth parent and "getting" him when he was fourteen. Calvin's more mourning the loss of the little boy, I'm more looking forward to the grown-up. Calvin's hugely averse to change, anyway. And this will be the second biggest adjustment he's ever had to make in his life - the first being his divorce. But his life became much more positive after his divorce, and I think the change in his relationship with Michael will be very positive, too. Michael is a good son to Calvin, and Calvin is a good dad to Michael. They'll be fine. Marie is another concern in all of this, because she's incredibly close to Michael. They're closer than any other siblings I've known. A lot of it had to do with their parent's divorce, and their protective drawing toward one another. Michael sometimes treats Marie like crap, but that's pretty normal. And no matter how cross he gets with her, she's almost painfully accommodating and practically doting. I have actually been guilty of telling her to stop being so nice to him, because he doesn't reciprocate very often. She's going to be pretty lonely, I think. As much as she says she can't wait until he leaves, I see her eyes when she says it. She's going to miss him, maybe more than any of us. This is going to be a huge change for all of us. |