Eight nine ten

October 25th was the last moment I had enough uninterrupted time to write here. I have a feeling even this post will be cut short due to a certain Beenie, who, in her troubled sleep is hacking up a lung as I type, which is quite distracting. She fell out of bed a half-hour ago and didn’t wake on impact with the ground. Poor sweet sickly thing. She’s had big gooey snots for the past week and now is choking on them, and Mimi is in and out of two days now with her second mystery fever of the season. I suspect this won’t be the last one. She’s not particularly sickly other than becoming quite hot in the evenings, and is now displaying lesser snots than her big sis, but snots nonetheless. Of course, this means I, too, have contracted some form of their hybrid scourge, leaving my right lymph node swollen and sensitive, as well as my left sinus filled to the brim. Damned viruses. Nothing quite as dramatic as to bring me to the doctor, but certainly tiring and uncomfortable, getting in the way of autumnal fun. At least we didn’t miss out on Tricks or Treats. The ladies donned flamenco dancer outfits imported from spouse’s old friend living in Spain. Extremely cute. I took the ladies to Michael’s, the hideously fantastical craft mecca to pick out the obligatory fake long stemmed red rose and acquire deep pink fake blooms to attach to headbands, completing the practically perfect Halloween costume. Despite traveling no further than two blocks from our little row house in Baltimore, the girls somehow came home with TONS of candy. Much of it to my liking, some of which I threw in the freezer, especially the copious M&M’s, some which I sent with my husband to his job. And there were a fair amount of Dum Dum’s lollipops left over from the candy bowl, which I now whip out when it seems like nothing else could help. Lollipops are the candy of choice by the resident three year-olds, with plain M&M’s coming in at a close second, though nobody sings an M&M song, which is not the case for lollipops.

** I have to pause for a moment… I really have so much I want to jot down, and it is just freaking me out now that it has taken almost ten days to to come to a place where I can sit down in solitude, at 11:34 p.m., listening to the clunky dishwasher half-wash the dishes (better it than me), listening to Beenie cough and cough and know there isn’t much more than what I’m already doing that is going to help her out. How is it possible my life has been so hectic that I can’t even write a blog post?**

You may be interested to know my brother got married this past Sunday to his Rebecca, who I wholly endorse and am delighted to have absorbed into my dysfunctional but creative and honestly strange and great family. Well done, young peeps! Okay, not that young, but younger than me, which gives me the right to say ‘young peeps’. Love love love. I offered up to do the flowers for their intimate event, a wedding bouquet for bride and boutineer for my bro, the groom, as well as random other arrangements dotted throughout their house, where they held the ceremony and reception. In case you didn’t know, it isn’t weird that I did the flowers for the wedding. I was a freelance floral designer for over ten years, in one of my many pasts. From my early twenties through my early thirties, up until I got suckered into learning how to make websites once I moved to Baltimore in 1998. I am old enough to have had two completely unrelated careers, if they can actually be called careers, both of which have exceeded ten years in length. If that doesn’t make me feel old, I don’t know what will. Anyway, I had two anxiety dreams over the course of the week I started thinking and discussing what kinds of flowers Rebecca wanted. My husband hit it on the head: I don’t have any sort of outside demands in my life, only internal to the house and people in the house (and don’t you worry, all of this is plenty demanding), so when an outside act that would require some sort of work and exposure to unknown people came about, it was more than my little pea brain could handle. It automatically went into potential failure mode and I started worrying about all the things I worried about when floral design was the way I made a living. Funny. It all worked out in the end, tho, you should be glad to read. The bride loved her bqt, groom was fine with bout, the flowers all looked great in their house for the excellent happening. Whew! Now I can go back to worrying about what preschool to send the girls to next fall, where my identity went, how in tarnation I’m going to squeeze out some artwork so that I don’t have to go into therapy for lack of creative expression, despite the fact that THERE IS NO TIME FOR ANYTHING. Breathe. Breathe from the belly.

Oh, and I think I’m going to start working soon. Like in the next two weeks. I got through the nine pages of paperwork required to start the process, then today had blood drawn to check for strange diseases floating around, and peed into a cup for a drug test. I felt a little bit violated, though understand why it is all done… I’ll be working with a hospital, in their marketing department, building out websites through a content management system, ten hours per week. If it all goes through, which it should. I never in my entire existence thought I’d agree to a drug test. But today I did. And lived long enough to tell you all about it. Someone said this sounded like a “Gateway Job”, which I thought was clever and accurate. It could possibly lead to bigger, more addictive employment. We’ll see. I can’t imagine being able to hold down a full-time job when both my daughters are sick. How do people do it? You can’t take ’em in to school when they’re sick. Reinforces my conviction that you should find the cheapest preschool available, that treats your kid/s well, but doesn’t have too many bells and whistles, because in the end, they won’t be there much in the first year or two.

Oh boy I’m tired. There’s more to write, like about me moving my petty art operation into a corner of my friend’s studio. Hoping to start work on a few commissions, get the turpentine flowing. Maybe that would clear out my sinuses. Can you neti pot with solvents?

On my way home from my pre-employment screening, the sun was beginning to set for the evening. The quality of light was something glowy and cool and warm. I drove by a nearby graveyard and snapped some pics. I find old graveyards to be grounding. This graveyard in particular has the most gigantic fabulous trees. The trees look like the sum of all the dead people was concentrated into growing these ivy covered mammoths.