Winter Omen

Just like Red-Wing Blackbirds signal the beginning of spring, Slate Colored Juncos are my first bird of winter. These migratory birds mean that winter is right around the corner. They have also been called "snow-birds". They normally arrive right before the snow arrives and don't leave until April.  Today I saw my first junco at my feeder. It is a portent of things to come. I'm not happy. I'm not ready for winter.

All Work and No Play...

Makes Cat bitter.

This week is the week from hell. I've had a month's worth of work dumped on me in the last two weeks. I have three days to get most of it done. And I have something (meetings, social events) every night of the week. I'm stressed and frazzled and have been working almost non-stop since 7 a.m. this morning. That was fourteen hours ago.

So I'm stepping back. Taking a moment to breathe. And growl into the blog. I don't mean to growl at you but somedays you just have to stand on the rooftops and curse. I hope you don't mind too much. I'll return to my regular insanity on the weekend.

Until then, here is a very young male deer that walked in front of our house last week at 3 o'clock in the afternoon along with his sister. It's rare to see them out during the day but even rarer to see them walk down the street like that. I found the encounter magical, although now I just hope that they found their way back to the woods okay.

Then I'm Happy and Sad For You

It's been an odd weekend. A really odd weekend. It's been a weekend of both extreme happiness and extreme sadness. I've laughed heartily and I've cried miserably, within hours of each other. I've had warm bear hugs that warmed my heart and I've had consolation hugs that offered comfort.

My weekend started on Friday much like so many of them do. I had taken a half-day so we could drive up to Minneapolis for a friend's birthday party. The half-day was more fortunate that I realized. At 11:30 my department was called into a meeting to say that our boss had been let go. Now this was not just a boss the way I've had bosses before. This was a friend. We were all in shock. Some of the department was going out for lunch, just to get out of the office. I called Jeff to see if he could pick me up a bit early. I sent my now former boss an email to see if he needed anything. Jeff came right at the perfect moment, just in time for me to start crying. The office won't be the same without him around.

The drive up was okay but I was still pretty upset. Once we got up there though I was distracted. There was dinner at a sub place with a good friend of ours before heading over to the birthday party. We saw a ton of  people that we only see twice or three times a year. So it was an evening of hugs, good conversation, plenty of food and friends, with some Rock Band thrown in. Jeff and I stayed late into the morning, finally leaving the party around 3, which is only about six hours after my bedtime. It was a great time.

The next morning my body woke me up at 8 a.m.. Stupid internal alarm clock. We had plans to take the birthday boy out for lunch. Partly to celebrate his big round number birthday (which will remain unnamed) but partly because the party had also been a going away party. He's moving south. I figured that this would be the last time I'd see him for quite a while so I wanted to squeeze as much time as I could out of the weekend. Lunch was filled with great conversation. When we walked out to the parking lot I was sad again. I gave him a long hug and a Take Care but there was so much more I would have like to say. While I know we'll keep in touch via emails and phone calls, it will be a while before we get to spend time in person. And I'll miss him.

My sadness was short lived though as we headed up to watch the Huskers destroy Minnesota. I'm not really a Huskers fan but we were actually surrounded by them as we watched the game. It's odd to be in a house in Minnesota rooting for them to be crushed. But root we did. And crush they did. We had a wonderful dinner with friends, talked about sports and babies and knitting, then we headed back to our friends house to watch the Cardinals game and talk. We talked about some tough subjects but they were amazing. Jeff and I slept in the kids rooms that night, so I can now say I've slept on Dora the Explorer sheets.

They woke us for breakfast of homemade french toast and the chance to go see a trapeze school do some flying. On Friday at the party we had met one of their friends who trapezes as a hobby. He invited us out. Jeff and I had planned to leave on Saturday but watching trapeze outdoors was too much to pass up. We stayed. But our times were off. We arrived after they had taken down the net for the season. No trapeze for us. Instead we gave hugs and headed home. It took us two extra hours. The poor kitty had licked her food bowl clean by the time we had gotten home. We had only expected to be gone 24 hours. I hadn't been home in almost 72. And it was a weekend filled with highs and lows. It went from one extreme to the other. And sometimes that's okay. I know that this will work out. It's just odd right now.

Stranger Than Fiction

I watched Stranger Than Fiction again tonight. I'm not a huge Will Ferrell fan but I love him in this movie. I've seen it several dozen times now and every time I love it more. It's witty, funny, sweet, sad, and intelligent. It's the kind of movie I wish I had written. It not only breaks the fourth wall, it's all about the fourth wall.

What draws me to this movie is the characters and the characterizations. Jeff turned it on because he loves Maggie Gyllenhaal in this film. I can't blame him. She's beautiful in this movie. For me, I just want to be her character. I love the eclectic baker who fights the man and bakes goodies that make everyone drool. I love the kind-hearted character who gives away both her treats and her heart while still staying strong. I want to be her.

I also want to be Dustin Hoffman's character. I love the idea of the English professor who is enthralled with literature. His office is my dream office, filled with books, literature, discussion, and sunlight. I would love to have the time and intensity to read constantly and discuss books on a daily basis. I want to teach a class on "little did he know".

And I want to be Emma Thompson's character. I'm not sure I'd like the chain-smoking and ER stalking but I want that passion to write. To create. I have a card on my writing table that says "Passion is a form of madness." I've always craved that passion to write. Thompson plays the kind of eccentric writer I always wished I had become. Just more balanced.

I love this movie. I laugh, I cry, I dream. And in the end I finish the movie wanting to read and write and bake. But more than anything I want to live more fully. And that makes this movie special.

Momentary Maternal Mood

This is my nephew Callen. I just spent the weekend in St. Louis with him, his parents, and my in-laws. We had a fantastic weekend filled with visiting, playing, and watching the Cardinals win (Go Cards!). But most of the weekend was spent holding, playing, adoring, and helping out as best I could with my 5 month old nephew. 

Now nothing against my other nieces, nephews, and friends children, but this little guy has to be one of the most well behaved, quiet, and smiley children I've ever met. This is a little guy who laughed when he got his first shots. He smiles at everything. He almost never cries. He was sleeping four or five hours at a a stretch within days of birth. In other words, he's the kind of child every parent wished they had. 

And I was suckered in. He was so smiley, so happy, so easy to snuggle with and help with. I actually found myself thinking about motherhood. I thought to myself that if I could guarantee that this is what my child would be like I would sign up without a thought. I guess Jeff echoed the same feelings when asked by Callen's mother Jen. I watched her feed him, I read to him and snuggled with him, I watched his first bath in the big tub (he'll be very angry with me one day for posting this picture). I was fascinated. And for a moment I thought about being a mother. 

Then we decided to spell Jen and take care of the little one for an hour or two while she did some grocery shopping alone. He slept for a little while and woke up a bit fussy. This was odd. We had heard him fuss once the entire time we had been there. And it hadn't even been real fussing. Just a single whine or two. But now he was a tad fussy. So we changed him and I walked him around and he settled down. He relaxed enough to go back to sleep. 

And when he woke up, he was a totally different baby. He was hungry. And we were unprepared. He cried. He screamed. We hadn't heard more than a little whimper all weekend and here he was crying so hard he was coughing. I held him while Jeff started getting food ready. I tried to soothe him. I walked around, I sang, I rocked. But nothing helped. I came very close to handing him to Jeff and hiding in the bathroom. Here was the perfect child, screaming because of something I'd done, or failed to do. He cried while we fed him. It was only when we skipped the cereal and gave him his bottle that he settled. Then the smiles were back. But by then I had been reminded. I'm not cut out for parenthood. I'm just not. I sighed a sweet smile when mom came home and I could unload groceries instead. I love my new nephew, just like I love all my nieces and nephews and godchildren and friend's children. I love taking care of them for a while and then handing them back. No offense Jen. He is an amazing child. 

More Wise Words

In the same quote document I pulled the quote in the previous post, I found this gem from Salman Rushdie. I need to memorize this quote. And practice it.

I’ll tell you a secret about fear: it’s an absolutist. With fear, it’s all or nothing. Either, like any bullying tyrant, it rules your life with a stupid blinding omnipotence, or else you overthrow it, and its power vanishes in a puff of smoke. And another secret: the revolution against fear, the engendering of that tawdry despot’s fall, has more or less nothing to do with ‘courage.’ It is driven by something much more straightforward: the simple need to get on with your life. I stopped being afraid because, if my time on earth was limited, I didn’t have seconds to spare for funk—Salman Rushdie (The Moor’s Last Sigh)

Blocked

I've been dealing with some writers block recently and it has started affecting the blog. Normally I can still blog while I struggle to put things on paper in all the other areas of my life. These last couple weeks it's been different. I've even struggled to read. I pick up books and put them down minutes later. I don't remember the last time I had this much trouble doing the things I love.

I've also been thinking too much about all the things I've had to do. Work has been crazy and stressful and I feel like I need to be constantly productive in order to keep up. I was telling a friend just tonight about how when I feel overwhelmed I tend to become paralyzed. I think that's what's been happening. I think about the four billion things that I feel I should be doing, including blogging, and I can't seem to start anything. Once I do start something, I get through it and can move on. But I need those wake up calls to remind me of how to be productive.

This past weekend was one of those wake-up calls. We had a good friend come into town who I've known for almost 15 years now. We packed the weekend full but still had a lot of time to talk. It was amazing to just relax. I've forgotten how much I need it. Last night I sat down and finished the book I had been struggling on for weeks. I'll talk about it soon but I was just happy to dedicate a couple hours to reading. And I was happy to want to read. Now I'm happily moving on to a new book...or two...or three.

Tonight I'm writing a post. This isn't much of a post but it is at least something. My spell is hopefully broken. And I'll get back to regular blogging. But this is just my way of breaking that block. Get something out. I have a quote at work from a writer who talks about how she writes. She talks about those days where the writing flows and she feels good. When asked about the days when it doesn't flow, she responded that she scribbles nonsense until things start to make sense. That's what I feel like this post is, the nonsense I need to get through, for the rest of the words to flow. Here's hoping it works.

Here's the actual quote from the interview rather than my poor paraphrase:
From Marsha Diane Arnold:
Do you have any rituals in your work habits? If so describe them.

I prepare a cup of hot tea or herbs. I sit in my chair. I turn on my computer. I light a candle. I call to my muse. I stare at the screen or the last words I wrote. I sit. I sit some more. If I’m lucky, wondrous words come. If wondrous words don’t come, I scribble nonsense until they do.