I want another weekend--this one wasn't right!

Sometimes you plan and you anticipate, but from the start, things go wrong. This can be because of other people and their problems. Or it can be because of your own unexpected issues. This weekend, Saturday was impacted, as they say in the bureaucracies of the world, due to the illness of my mother-in-law. Sunday, it was because my son was ill. And I really put out some awesome mothering and wifing and tried to keep all the balls balanced and spinning. But a naughty neighborhood friend of my son's came along and tried to conceal how he broke furniture in my house last night during a playdate ("hang-out" to them) with my son. This was the end-point of my patience. Actually, it wasn't. I was still supermom and very nice, trying to think of clever and creative ways we can rehab his act of childhood villany (he tried to talk my son into hiding it and bribing him not tell and guilting him out). While I pondered that, my son argued over taking a ten-minute-early "lights-out" for his role. This also saw me being very patient and loving. Which only lasted until he picked up something and threw it to the ground. Childish temper! Never mind that he is a child--this is not aceptable! Then I told him to leave me alone and get in his room. He didn't like that. Today, he showed me "the hand" this morning and refused to talk. Naturally, we reconciled and he apologized, as did I. He knows he has it good. Sometimes too good.

fast driving by a "woman driver"

Are you old enough to remember how men would say, patronizingly, "Woman driver," as a widespread social joke? I remember men saying that on tv and in pop culture when I was a kid. At least my dad never said it. He might have been somewhat sexist inside his Southern Baptist-rebel head, but in real life, he never said anything to his 3 daughters to imply they were lesser, they could not throw footballs or play baseball, go to college, or do anything they wanted to do in life. But when it came to driving, he visibly shuddered at the thought of us getting in a car with a boy and driving off. Death would ensue, was the unspoken feeling that came from his look of horror and distaste. He'd lost three siblings by the time he was 14, so he knew death. None of them died in a car crash---but one, his favorite brother, was killed in a tractor roll-over when he was 18. We went out on our dates, with a boy, in a car, alone---but only with strong mom support and with the promise of getting home on time or hell to pay.
If only Dad could have seen me on the racetrack at Buttonwillow Speedway last week, in my new fast car, the Jaguar of my dreams for 20 years now, and I just got it---going through the curves quickly and competently but ONLY after hours of instruction in class and in short car clinics prior to revving that baby up to 110 on the short straightaways. If we'd been from the higher social classes who took driving skills more seriously and had the resources to pay for lessons, we'd have been in charge, not left to the mercy of our hapless 16-year-old dates. Dad could have felt far better about his daughter being at the wheel, in control of the speed and the destination. Rather than the old trick of my mom's, "Always keep a dime in your pocket for the payphone, so you can call home if you want us to come and get you," we could have kicked any wayward teenage suckers out of our cars and driven ourselves home safely. But I survived. We all did, at least so far. Dad scared me enough so that I kept a firm rein on any wild-driving dates, which I didn't really have anyway--I dated the nice, respectful types. Money isn't everything--caring is. Dad showed it the best he could with what he had. And I guess it worked.

making gf cf turkey tandoori

This morning, I've put some gfcf turkey in the oven. I had to come up with a new form of turkey because I couldn't stand to buy the same package of lo-salt Trader Joe's turkey yet again. It has an unpleasant smell and taste to me (although no one else in my new blended family complains). So I bought self-righteous turkey cutlets with no fat (also avoiding the lurking e. coli halo which shines from ground meats, which we do eat sometimes, making me an occasional hypocrite on food purity).
But I was depressed at having to make gf food again. Seems like my son's gluten and carb issues are rising again, and so time to cut back on those and increase clean gf products, gluten-free for you lucky souls who are not reading this with awareness of what hell that represents. You know--you've seen it in the grocery stores now, but luckily, you can just think it's some weird food preoccupation and walk on by. We are always cf--casein-free, as dairy is the faster-acting villain--but gluten is a ticking time bomb for some kids.
So I pulled out my new fun life experiences to try and alleviate the dull sadness of the old gf cooking activity. I've just been to India, so I thought of tandoori, a yummy red-seasoned chicken dish that I think my son will eat and not object to as too spicy, too slimy, too cold, too much gristle...yayaya. But them I remembered--yogurt is required! A gf/cf no-no. But I whipped up some Dari-Free milk (made from taters and available at www.Vancesfoods.com) and added that to the roasting turkey. It cooked quickly, 20 mins in a 375 oven, and I poured off the liquid, added more tandoori seasoning, and I swear I would have eaten it myself if I hadn't overdosed on a pumpkin muffin yesterday and cheated myself by also eating some of the leftover half today. Just too full to eat right now. But it tastes good. Kids love red foods chock full o dye, so let's hope he will eat it for dinner, snack and lunch.The lurking turkey will jump out at him everywhere he turns. But he likes turkey. Children are starving in India, I'll tell him, and this time, I'll have first-hand street cred behind this classic guilt-trip.

Around the block and still going

When you're a child on a Big Wheel, you long to pedal madly to the end of the block. Such a long way! You can't see around the corner and getting as far as the forbidden stop sign is enough for you right now. After you get to the stop sign, you look and there is another street, one you knew existed in a hazy way, having heard adults talk of it. So you want to go around that corner too. Soon you're walking around the block like you own it, which you do. It's yours and your life happens on it...people met, places you've gone, schools and friends and holidays spent on that block. Eventually you move away, but you always find things in your new life that remind you of the block that was the setting for your experiences. Eventually, you find yourself on a similar block, and you might think, hey, I've been here before. Not exactly here, but someplace like this, so familiar....And you have. But you have changed. Are you ready to go around the block again? I've been around a few blocks a few times. Marriage, state lines, divorce, lovers old and new, parenting, commitments, lawyers, damn doctor's offices, jetways, IEPs, friends, exes, the frightening white space under UNTITLED. But there are a hell of a lot of blocks to go around, and they're never exactly the same as the first time you negotiated them.