The Dingo Ate My Goats and Other Random Thoughts

When I was younger (much younger), I worked at a law firm in Central Wisconsin. It was my first "real" job. The senior partner was an older gentleman who I found quite contrary. At times, he was smiling and laughing, and at other times, he would be crabby. Like the day he found me in a hallway and told me to write something down only to find that I didn't have a pen. He then reminded me that "I wasn't hired to smile." It is because of him that I usually carried a pen around with me at all times when I was working after that. Whenever I think of this senior partner, the one thing that I remember is how he would sometimes suddenly start telling a story. You could be in a hurry, you could be in the middle of a big project, it just didn't matter; you were going to stand there and listen to his story. Some made sense, some just didn't, but they all started the same way . . . "So, there I was . . . " I think that is the perfect beginning for any story, and especially the one I'm going to share in this post.

So, there I was at the veterinary clinic yesterday picking up my cat. It is always crazy busy there because the veterinarian is the absolute best. I was standing at one of three receptionist stations waiting for them to give me my cat. A teenage girl was standing at the next station proudly showing me her new pink collapsable square cat carrier. She was thrilled about the pink cat carrier. She asked me if I thought it was wrong to get a pink carrier for her "boy" cat, but she didn't wait for my answer before she started texting on her iPhone. I'm sure she was texting about the pink carrier.

As I was standing there, an older lady came in. She was shortish and very composed. She walked up to the third receptionist station and waited for the receptionist to hang up the phone. When asked how she could be helped, she said, "I would like the vet to come out to my truck. A dog got in my goat pen and bit up three goats. I got what's left of them in the back of my truck, and I need to know if there's anything worth saving." Time seemed to freeze for about a minute while we all processed what she just said. The receptionist went to get the vet right away.

The teenager got her cat in the pink carrier, but didn't have a credit card to pay the bill. She was calling her Mom for a credit card number. I got my Gita and was carrying her out to the van. The vet was walking right ahead of us and held the door open. We talked about my cat, and then she went to look in the back of the goat lady's pickup truck. I stood transfixed. The goats must've been badly mutilated because nothing made a sound, and I couldn't hear anything moving in the back of that pickup. And I felt so sorry for that lady and her goats. I have no idea why she is raising goats, but they seem like fairly docile creatures, and it is a shame that a dog capable of severely injuring three goats is on the loose.

So there I was feeling sorry for three unlucky goats. That's not something that happens everyday. I don't think I would ever want to be a veterinarian.

Ten Years

I can't believe my beautiful baby girl just turned ten. I swear, I just brought her home from the hospital. I knew time would go fast, so I've tried to memorize certain things through the years: how good she smelled when she was a baby; the feeling of her little arms wrapped around my neck; the wet kisses all over my face; the way she looks when she's sleeping; her doodles of flowers and butterflies; her small hand in mine; and her beautiful eyes.

Happy birthday my wonderful girl.

Dance like everyone is watching.

Love always ~

Mom

Why I am Dysfunctional Today

"Sanity is a cozy lie." Susan Sontag

I can't focus. I had forgotten what a crazy busy time spring is in this household. And I'm not handling it well. For every step forward, I end up two steps back.

I feel like I'm walking through quicksand or slogging through mud. My head is in a fog, and I just can't shake it off.

I used to be able to multitask, and now I'm lucky if I can concentrate on one thing at a time. Some days, I just shouldn't get out of bed. I think maybe I should stay in bed for a month.

I'll blog again when I get my act together.

"'Know thyself?' If I knew myself, I'd run away." Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The Best Day

I was doing some spring cleaning today. I decided it was time to weed out some of the kids' books and toys. I always feel a bit sad about how fast they are growing up. I had a pile of toys and books to go to charity, a bag for things that were so well-loved and so well-used that they needed to be thrown away, and a pile of things that I wasn't sure what to do with. I had my daughter's Taylor Swift CD in her CD player, and I was listening to it and came upon this song "The Best Day" about the relationship between Taylor Swift and her mother.

The song reminded me of my Mom and I, when I was younger, and it reminded me of my daughter too. By the time the song gets to the leaves changing color in the fall, I was crying. How wonderful is the love between mothers and their children.

And I looked down at the pile of books on the floor. On the top was one called "Muffin Mouse's New House". I remember reading that to Kate every single night. When I was pregnant with my son, I would curl up with her on her little bed and read it over and over again. One of the pages has red crayon on it from when she was so small and first discovered crayons. The pages are worn and dog-eared. And I picked up that book and put it back on the shelf.

I guess this song isn't the greatest song to listen to if you want to stop getting sentimentally attached to things, but it is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. Give it a listen and see if you don't think so too.

The Best of Both Worlds

I'm in desperate need of some comic relief here in suburbia. So, I found something that is wonderful to look at and funny too. The best of both worlds.

It has to be the combination of good looks and sense of humor that makes me love the character of Sawyer on "Lost". Not to mention that swagger.

And to all you ladies that are reading this out there in cyberspace . . . you're welcome.

The Rodney Dangerfield of Soccer Moms

About a thousand years ago, or so it seems to me, I found out that I was pregnant with my first child, and I was the happiest woman on Earth. I went to the doctor's office in my steel blue Liz Claiborne pantsuit, matching shoes and purse, impeccable makeup and hair, and drove there in my sporty black two-door coupe with a rear wing spoiler. I held the square positive pregnancy test administered at the doctor's office, staring at the little plus sign, thrilled beyond words. I bought my husband the book "The Expectant Father", wrapped it up and gave it to him to let him know that we were expecting our very own bundle of joy. We were over the moon. I made all the rookie Mom mistakes (registering at Target for 32 onesies in a newborn size . . . hello???). I ordered car seats, crib mattresses, and searched for a diaper bag that would be just right. Ignorance was truly bliss.

Nowadays, I walk the kids out to the bus stop in sweatpants and a t-shirt with my glasses on and not a stitch of makeup on my over-40 face. I step on Legos. I let my kids pack the groceries at the grocery store and end up with squished loaves of bread. I drive kids to dance, violin lessons, sleepovers, playdates, and baseball. I taught Sunday School, I chaperone class field trips, I volunteer at school, meet my kids for lunch sometimes, take my kids to movie matinees, and I let them play those machines with the metal claw to try and win even more stuffed animals. In the years that I've been a mother, I've been peed on, pooped on, puked on, bled on and cried on. I am the "fixer", the "maker", the "helper" and the "giver".

I am also the "enforcer" at times. Like a couple of weeks ago at the bus stop when my kids started fighting about who would be first in line for the bus. It was my daughter's turn, but she got to go first the day before when my son was home sick from school. So, my son figured he was due to be first. Push came to shove (literally), and my son pushed his sister into the street with a car coming half a block away. I grabbed his arm and yanked him off his sister, got my daughter picked up and dusted off, and then got both of them on the bus. I thought nothing of this the rest of the day. As far as our days go, this was pretty much par for the course.

After school, I was unpacking backpacks and getting homework together. The school nurse wrote a note that my son had gone to see her for a "bruised arm given to him by his mother." I called my children to the table for homework and asked about the visit to the nurse. My son had gone to the nurse, gotten an ice pack, and was sent to the guidance counselor for further questioning about his mother's actions that morning. The guidance counselor then called my daughter out of her classroom to question her about that morning. So, I asked my daughter if she explained how she had been pushed into the street and I grabbed her brother's arm in order to get him off of her. She hadn't. She simply confirmed for the guidance counselor that I had yanked her brother's arm. The three of us sat at the table looking at each other. My daughter asked if I could go to jail. "Probably," I said, "But it's okay, someone will cook for me and clean up after me there." Nothing ever came of it. Child Protection Services must have bigger cases to look into. (BTW, it turns out his arm was sore from an altercation on the playground the day before. Of course, he didn't tell anyone at school that, and he didn't tell me until days later.)

Then, last night, I was cleaning out my son's backpack. He had done a "Beach Day Squiggle" for art class. Out of his squiggle, he made a giant snail. Underneath the snail picture, he drew a lobster, two people in a boat, clouds and an airplane overhead, and he wrote, "I allwese wanted to go to Hawiey but my Mom never let me go. The end."

I'll accept the blame for yanking him off his sister. But I will be damned if I take the blame for my seven-year-old not going to Hawaii. There is going to be a family meeting over this. That child was 8 pounds, 10 ounces at birth. I nursed him for 15 months. And THIS is the kind of BS that I get??? Those kids are going to have to come up with something better than tissue paper flowers and Hallmark cards for Mother's Day this year.

I get no respect around here. I feel a "Mom Strike" coming on.

3:22 a.m.

The cat threw up a hairball at 3:22 a.m. I heard it happen, got up, cleaned it up and went back to bed.

I was wide awake at that point, so I laid there thinking. I had been having a dream before the hairball incident. In the dream, I was having a conversation with someone about a knitting bag. It was a complicated conversation, but I couldn't remember any of it.

I just couldn't get back to sleep at this point, and thoughts started popping into my head. My brain literally felt like a popcorn popper with random thoughts flying about. Here is a sample of the things that were flying about in my brain:

My daughter will be ten soon. She will likely only live with us for eight more years. Geez, that makes me sad. I need to do more stuff with her. Mental note to self: Make time to paint ceramics with her soon. Didn't I just bring her home from the hospital? (Then the theme from "The Way We Were" started playing in my head.) Geez, "The Way We Were" was a great movie. A young Robert Redford . . . insanely good looking. Of course, Robert Redford is still good looking. What was that movie he was in with Michelle Pfeiffer? That one had a good theme song too. I don't remember the name of the song, but Celine Dion sang it. Hey, Robert Redford was great in "The Sting". Another good movie song. I wonder how many Robert Redford movies had hit songs?

Then I heard my husband's Blackberry chiming in the kitchen. I wondered who was emailing him. Probably someone half-way around the world. I wondered where they were. I wish I knew someone half-way around the world. If I did, I would get up and send them an email, and then they would wonder why I was up in the middle of the night sending emails to them.

It was then that I started drifting back to sleep only to be jolted awake by the cat who decided to profess her love for me by purring and cuddling up next to me. I looked at the clock. It was 4:12 a.m.

Then I laid there thinking about the Olympics and Canada. I wondered what it would be like to live in Canada. Are they that much different from us? I wonder if I could pass for a Canadian if I learned the words to "O Canada" and started putting an extra "u" in words like "favourite" and "colour". I might have to learn about hockey. I think maybe the Canadians would see through me. They seem like a smart bunch. I really like Canada. That's where William Shatner is from after all. Captain Kirk was my first crush.

And somewhere in the middle of Canada, Captain Kirk and the Olympics, I managed to fall back asleep for a couple of hours.

I see that the damn cat is sleeping peacefully right now. I'm going to go wake her up just for spite. I wonder if cats dream? If she were dreaming, what would she be dreaming about???

I need to find an "off" switch for the random thoughts that make their way into my brain.