i have dogs, my lord

January 29, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment

just as we did when henry was a baby, when he slept all day and was easy to calm, easy to pacify, we boasted of his mild disposition, his coolness, his lack of unabating noise making capability. realizing that henry was lightning, photoelectric, a million tiny sparks of ultraviolet light, came later, a year, two. two days after ernie called and asked with a saxophone voice if we were up for another animal in the house, the family, the groove, this mild and quiet puppy (”i’ve never heard him bark!” lied wes; “he’s so cool,” ernie, hinting, comments as i am taken in by espresso eyes and flop of ears and fluff of soft fur) has come alive. he chases his shadow from room to room, has a sorrowful whine that i know i should ignore, has found his voice and protests at too much dinking and too rough play. he runs through the house and i, having just watched the dog whisperer, having just flipped through cesar’s way (thank you, camille!), having imagined myself to be both calm and assertive, know that i should be doing something but am not sure just what that is. ernie is out, so some sort of outdoor exercise is impossible as the boys are sleeping off the day. i am tired, having taken him for a walk in freezing weather with stupid gloves at the equally stupid time during the morning six o’clock hour.

titus. titus andronicus, named for the deranged hero of the horrible play, who, in order to save his sons from death, had his own hand chopped off and sent to saturninus. hopefully, this dog will prove to be so loyal. he also has one paw that is white, which is a feature that does not go unnoticed when first meeting him, and reminds me of a hand, a lone hand. we could also say that he will be a big dog and should have a strong name. silly. i never thought that much about naming my children, strange as it is. their names fit them and were chosen after they were born, not even on a list of possibilities. not so with this dog.

wish us luck, or the equivalent. i have a soft spot and an “it will be fine” personality flaw that i’m already realizing may make it hard for me to have one of those cool dogs who does what they’re told when they’re told to do it.

no gloves, no gauntlets

January 22, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | 9 Comments

i can barely even look at this picture, it horrifies me too much. i’m not sure what it is that is so loathsome about these things, but camel crickets are seriously scary! at first i saw one in the bathroom, sitting in the corner, too big to ignore. i smashed it with my shoe and screamed a little bit while i did it. jude saw another one trying to masquerade as a squash and corn patterned square of linoleum on the kitchen floor. the woman who used to cook in this kitchen said that she loved the floor, “you can’t see A THING on it!” she boasted. when it comes to these sprickets (and, truly, to pretty much anything else), though, i want to see what is camouflaged by the floor!

ernie tells a story that someone told him at work, about crawling in a crawlspace and clicking on a flashlight and realizing that the moving floor was made of camel crickets! horrible. i would have died there and been eaten by the things.

the bucket to my whisper mill was stupidly placed (by me, of course) on the basement floor when i was upacking the kitchen two months ago. i tossed in some cool old silverware that i’ve been saving for some kind of creative project, maybe a tidy and shiny little spoon fence for something small in the garden. something. camel crickets moved into the bucket, dropping legs or antennae that they didn’t need (?) into the bucket, perching on the silver, having hushed conversations about whatever it is that camel crickets converse about. appalled, i tried to dump the bucket on the floor myself, planning to run up the stairs, slam the door, throw it in the dishwasher, slam that door, too, and sterilize the antennae and legs away. i couldn’t do it, though. hovering over the mess while henry watched at my side was all that i could do. i should have had henry do it, he’s brave and would have enjoyed it. but i didn’t want the crickets to jump on him, on me, to follow us up the stairs with a vengeance because we botched the plan entirely.

ernie dumped it out before leaving for work and left it in the sink for me. it sits, soaking and waiting for the dishwasher to be full enough to run.

they’re way worse than bats, than any pesty creature i’ve encountered yet. in my nightmares the bathroom floor hums with them as i search for my toothbrush, which is buried in camel crickets in the medicine cabinet.

to my knowledge, there have only been a few people in my life who have truly hated me, mostly scorned boyfriends (and a boy who wanted to be a boyfriend in order to earn future scorning), maybe a friend or two. all of them surely wished for a way to break the wall inpenetrable that i build around myself. camel crickets may be the way to do this, although, as with other super heroes, sometimes the things we fear most make us stronger.

when i, sitting, heard the astronomer where he lectured

January 16, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment

henry found a couch for us, a place for books and quiet and jumping and sleeping and wondering and hiding in the corner next to it (a hiding place henry can never remember). my new favorite thrift store (since all of the new directions thrift stores with their piles of dirty bins for digging and crayon marked price tags, are sadly out of business) is (i hesitate to mention it in the event that someone local steals away the magical finds that i should buy first) the habitat for humanity “home” store, whatever that is trying to mean. one side is full of furniture, books, housewares, fabric scrap and bolt, rugs, and miscellaneous household stuff. the other side is full of wood, doorknob, light fixture, miscellaneous hardware and mystery objects that i have no idea for what purpose they serve. it’s fantastic with good prices and no junky plastic toys to avoid, although we did buy a wooden space rocket riding toy (indoor) and had a hard time avoiding a pink trampoline that was very bouncy on the sidewalk.

hooray for henry’s keen eyes and hooray for my cell phone, which i used to confirm with ernie that we did want a couch and that he did trust my choosing of the couch without first seeing it.

oh how i love to dig at the thrift store.

from time to time,
look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

inked

January 13, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment

a little cat for my christmas

January 10, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment

jude carries him around singing this song that he composed himself, son of musicians that he is: “kitty cat, kitty cat, a little cat for my christmas!” over and over again. the cat appreciates the easy transport, i’m sure, tucked under a two year old arm, being sung to with two year old lips.

henry tries barbossa in his pouch. made for gary and other inanimate friends, the pouch makes henry a better father, as all pouches do when slung about paternal shoulders. the cat settles in and purrs, as always, the constant state of his purr easing our minds as we watch the cat learn to dance, drive trucks, dress up in a variety of costumes.

it feels more like home with a cat inside, snoozing in the sun, frisking with a string, a paper, a ball of aluminum foil. single girls and old women know this, and we do too.

with whip

January 9, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment

henry is a cowboy and he knows it. he tips his hat over his face and props his boots up on a chair for a rest from the strenuous work of his play. we discuss the construction of spurs that won’t hurt his horse or his ankles. he carefully chooses dust-brown pants, a shirt that snaps up the front, a cozy suede vest that i wish were my size. he barely has to work magic to turn his bike into a horse who enjoys long rides into the sunsets of the backyard, stopping to graze on fallen leaves, gravel, chunks of mud that jude has made in the corner. with much fanfare we introduce our son to john wayne and there is no stopping him. he eats “chuck” and sings of the range, a horse, and a girl named mary who dresses in red.

ernie surprises us with a belated christmas gift: a cat, a normal one, that is amazingly patient and playful. henry wears whiskers, holds the cat close for a purr and a sleep. the cat prefers ernie, watching his every movement as he walks through the room, hunting for the movement of a finger, the scratch of a beard. we feed him and spoil him and name him for pirates.

jude seeks mud and water and puddle, and there is much of this to find. it rains for days and, being “natural” and in need of air and tree, i send him out to play in the mist, the drop, the ocean of slime and smear. we change his shoes. he jumps and splashes and laughs a laugh i do not possess. i watch him and feel his sparkle. and then we head inside to keep from catching cold. i am a mother now, i do not laugh at rain. sometimes i smile as i watch it fall, but i do not have glee reserved for it. i scrape mud from jude’s shoes and sigh and think that maybe next time i will jump, too.

the sun comes at last, sunny and cold. i look out the window, past the glass and horribly perfectly pruned holly hedgerow under the sill. i think of tilling the whole yard and casting seeds as for a meadow. i wonder if there is a sidewalk beneath the grass that leads up to our front door. on rollerskates i fly and my ears and nose sting. the wind whips at us and all hair turns cold and whiplashed as we walk to the car. “stop, wind!” jude commands. his cheeks are red and his hair is glitter in the sunlight.

sleeping in a trundle bed

January 3, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment

as i looked over the recommended read alouds for five year olds (one of which i nearly have!) i realized just how old henry is becoming when i saw that the little house books are on the list! i remember being introduced to laura and mary and jack and mr. edwards when i was henry’s age and find it difficult to believe that i am now a mother who will be reading these books to a small five year old.

a few minutes later i realized that i do not in fact own the little house books because the yellow paperback copies that i read and re-read growing up burned in a fire and my mother since replaced hers with glorious hard-backs, too nice to pirate away from her library to mine. i wish that i’d realized this before Christmas — it seems greedy to have greene eggs already so soon after being so generously showered with gifts. nonetheless, the little house books are now on my greatly-desired for-purchase list.

i also need to decide, do i buy them in hardcover or soft? i do know that i don’t want the full color edition, even though they do cost a bit less, because the black and white illustrations are too familiar to me. there’s something luxurious about the hardcover edition, but i remember (ernie would cringe) the pleasant feeling of rolling the left hand side of the book back as i read the paperbacks, and wonder if paperbacks are better suited for children to handle. thoughts?