I know, I know.  Everyone is tired of hearing about the snow.  But really, that's pretty much our life these days.  Each morning I look out the window and hope that it was a bad dream, but it's still all there.  It's all white.  It hasn't even had a chance to get to that "dirty snow" thing, because it never stops snowing.  There is always a new layer falling to cover up the exhaust fumes and slush piles.  Oh wait.  Slush would imply something had melted.  We haven't gotten that far yet since the temperature has hovered so far below zero that my brother-in-law in Alaska is feeling sorry for us.

Only one car is accessible in our single driveway, the other being tucked in the garage under.  I don't like having a car inside my house.  It's wrong on so many levels.  And it is sitting on a "donut" wheel anyway, so before we can make it go very far there is work involved and no one has the energy to do anything.  Commuting has become a tedious nightmare.  They say they have been working on the subway connections and that we should have full service tomorrow.  Maybe.  If it doesn't snow any more.  Which it always does.  One day last week I spent five hours on a round trip to a job where I work for eight hours.  And not a big job.  I'm no brain surgeon.  The pay is piddly, although the atmosphere is pleasant.  But come on, people!

I had tickets for community theater last night, but I was so spent I couldn't go.  It was snowing (again) and I'm getting over the flu, and I just could not move.  I was in my nightgown and robe by six o'clock.  On a Saturday night.  My grandparents used to go to bed at 7:30 and I would pity them and also laugh.  I'm not laughing any more. This is getting depressing.

If I weren't such a wuss about driving on ice and snow I'd go to the art museum. I find I am starving for color, for the sight of trees, for beauty of any kind that isn't white.  What I don't want to do is spent two hours at my open bedroom window, wielding a shovel which has been married to a broom handle through the magic of duct tape, trying to push snow off the roof of the porch below so that it doesn't collapse under the weight of the snow.  The curtains blow in my face.  The snow blows in my face.  And it looks as though I've done absolutely nothing when I've finished.

I'm getting so desperate that Himself invited me to join him at the gym and I'm going.  Just to move in a non-shoveling pattern.  Or drink coffee with strangers.  Or swim in the pool and pretend I'm in Bermuda.  Monday is coming up fast and I need to brace myself for the Herculean task of getting to work.  If you remember, for one of his labors he needed a shovel, too.

It's been "One Of Those Weeks".  I've worked the office job from 10 to 3 Monday through Friday (after working at the boutique on Sunday) and then Thursday and Friday nights I worked at the boutique until 10.  Saturday I worked from 11 to 3:30, and today it's 2 to 7.  Son Number One's girlfriend arrived (love her!) on Saturday morning at 1AM and I am, quite frankly, a tad fatigued.  The grass is almost peeking in at the window sill and sobbing for attention.  It will wait a few hours, I'm sure.  Plantar fasciitis is tuning up for a symphony in my left heel.  For right now I am enjoying sitting still.  The torrential rains have left, and this Sunday morning the windows are open for a cool breeze and birdsong to start my day.  There is a book at my elbow which is singing its siren song, to which I have every intention of succumbing.  Give me a hot cup of tea and I shall rule the world.
I don't know what I did during the fourteen years I was lucky enough to be at home with my children.  It certainly wasn't housework.  They had their music lessons and sports, karate black belts and play dates.  My universe revolved around their schedules and that was our choice and our privilege.  Most people don't have the option of walking out on their careers and taking an orchestra seat at life.  Getting back into it (not a "career", but a "job") has been challenging.
So much of how we define ourselves involves how we make money.  At a party, when approached by a stranger and asked "Who are you?" the answer often is "I'm a doctor" or "I work in computers" or "I'm a cashier at Walmart and a pole dancer on weekends".  I was stuck for an answer for a while, feeling a little guilty that my life was mostly driving the car and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  There was the embarrassment of not making a paycheck, but also an embarrassment of riches.  I had time with my children.  My friend Flanagan (whom I miss with a white hot heat) would call many days and be the only adult I spoke to between the hours of 8AM and 7PM.  He would chide me to "Be a human being, not a human doing!" and remind me of how blessed I was to be in my situation.  He would repeat the importance of the airline safety drill of "putting on your own oxygen mask before trying to take care of everyone else".
While the children were in school I would visit with retired friends, and eventually, with my mother in her last years at the nursing home.  I was free to spoon feed her lunch and amuse her cohorts with a song or a borderline-appropriate joke or two.  I got to learn what really mattered.  After a year of emptying out my routines, children off to college, Mother and Flanagan and Webb passing away to where they don't need me, I'm filling up my life with other things.  But I have learned to appreciate the sheer luxury of sitting with a hot cup of tea and counting my blessings.  And on this sunny, bird-filled day, I gently remind you to stop and do the same.

My mind amuses me sometimes.  Yesterday, for example, driving on the highway at about ten miles over the posted speed limit, I heard a scratching sound coming from the passenger side of the car in the front quarter, accompanied by an occasional "squeak".  By the time I got where I was going I had completely convinced myself that a squirrel was either A) in my glove compartment or B) sitting on my engine and clinging to life.  Neither thought made me cheerful.  I actually considered, for a mili-bleep, opening the glove compartment as I was doing 70.  The impracticality of this move, thankfully, did occur to me.  I mean, hell...what if I was right and it fell out?  Or even just grossed me out?

I controlled myself until I got to my destination, went to the outside of the car (maybe it was a branch stuck underneath?) and was relieved to see that it was only my front fender, working its way free again, as it has so often since being first pounded by a car door flung open into it as I drove by, and a year or so after we repaired that one, creased by a guardrail in a dark parking garage.  With a modified karate kick it was back where it needed to be, and tormented me no more.  Until the next time.

Which brings me to my point:  Why do I manage to manufacture the weirdest scenarios out of the simplest situations?  I have wasted more time in my life worrying about things that never happened than I care to think about.  We all do, to some extent, but I have made it into a creative art form.  Someone (I have no idea who, but whoever it was is brilliant) said: "Worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair.  It's something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere."  I love that.  My other "worry quote source" is the Dalai Lama.  He says that worry is a waste of time.  "Either it's something you can change, and you use your energy to change it, or it's something you can't change, and you use your energy to accept it."  Someday when no one is looking I am going to swap him for the Pope.  Meanwhile, things I never saw coming continue to sucker punch me and lay me low, but I suppose that's life.  Now for a cup of coffee and a bit of quiet time so I can listen to the voices in my head....

Well, it turned out that the "Fun Run" was from the running store to the bar across the street after all.  I came in first.   Other strange holiday events this week include my mistaking the dark-haired angels with golden wings on my festive red socks for flying reindeer wearing yarmulkes.  Without my glasses on those wings really looked like antlers.  Then yesterday I decided to take the cumbersome duvet cover out of the laundry basket where it's been taking up residence for I won't tell you how long, iron it, and actually put it on the down comforter.  Not so much for decor, you understand, as to claim an inch of space in the laundry basket.  Suddenly the biblical passage about "wrestling with an angel" came to mind, except the language used in the adventure was not exactly celestial.  It's a queen comforter, which doesn't feel that big when Himself rolls over in the middle of the night and captures three-quarters of it on his side of the bed.  But when trying to tuck its four sneaky corners into what is essentially a giant pillowcase, the bloody thing is massive!  After a half hour of struggling with it, cursing it, and twisting it into strange shapes (accidentally) I did the only sensible thing.  I called my friend in Wales. 

My friend is actually English, but lives in Wales, a country I LOVE, and has for over thirty years.  They know how to deal with such things there.  He also taught me how to make a mean risotto.  Luckily he was home, and patiently, but with undisguised amusement, walked me through the whole process, which involves turning the cover inside out, then slowly unrolling it over the comforter, rather like putting on a stocking.  It worked!  And in my defense, he told me that the last time HE had had to put on a duvet cover, he had employed a word that is heard quite frequently in the States.  It began with an "F", but it wasn't "fun".

Oh dear.  Back in the emotional sludge. The lack of sunshine isn't helping my already dour mood, I'm afraid.  Sometimes it is just all too much.  There's not much to do except lash oneself to the mast and ride out the storm.  The squeeze of being between the generations is one of the hardest challenges facing the Baby Boomers.  Our parents need us desperately, yet so do our children, and somewhere in there we are supposed to take care of ourselves, but that seems to get pushed off to last on the list.  If it makes the list at all.

I'm trying to keep a sense of humor through everything that is going on, but it gets harder and harder.  I feel inadequate to every task.  A patch job is the best that I can manage at the moment, and it feels as if I'm trying to put pantyhose on an octopus.  Just when I think I have things covered, something pops out somewhere else.  Is Thanksgiving REALLY less than two weeks away?  I can't wait to hug my children, but I'm already dreading putting my younger son back on the plane on the Sunday after the holiday.  That's just dumb.  Tonight I get to take care of my mother-in-law for a few hours on my own while Himself and his brother-in-law take Dad out for a Veterans' Day dinner.  It's a lovely idea, but I'm not sure I'm equal to the task.  It involves walking in circles for hours on end.  She never naps, watches television, or sits except to eat.  While feeling very sorry for her, I also wind up feeling sorry for myself and praying that I never get to that point.  Everything feels sad.

The bright side is that I feel a poem forming.  When the hurt gets to the point of bursting it usually comes out in the form of words, and the sharper the pain the brighter the images.  Everyone has his/her bag of rocks to carry.  I'll get through.  Humor, faith, and poetry in no particular order.  What a mighty arsenal!

So here it is, more than half-past October, and we haven't turned on the heat yet.  There have been a couple of chilly moments, but we have warm clothes and blankets, down comforters and flannel sheets, for all of which I am very grateful.  By now it's a matter of principle.  November is when you turn on the heat in New England.

My friends on Facebook confess when they cave in.  We all feel a little guilty when we bend to the lure of creature comforts.  The cost of oil (and gas, I suppose) is certainly a consideration, but I've always thought it had more to do with a perverse pride in being from "sturdy pioneer stock" and sheer stubbornness, at least in my case.  We are playing "chicken" with our friends to see who can hold out the longest.

My nose is pink, my lips are blue, and my LL Bean chamois shirts are covering my waffle-weave underwear, but I'm not about to crumble!  However, if you are looking for me later, you'll find me at the library, or the supermarket, or the mall, or pretty much anywhere that doesn't play the same silly games that I do!

Nursing homes really are not funny places.  I should know.  I'm visiting one an average of five days a week to see my dear Mom who is 89, wheelchair bound and dealing with Alzheimer's.  But why is it that I so often want to write a sit com for some brave network about the residents?

All of my mother's neighbors have their "quirks".  There is the one who puts her makeup on with a shovel and flirts with everyone.  There is the one whose dentures really need adjusting and who sends her teeth flying when she gets yelling, which is fairly often.  There is the debonaire guy with severe arthritis who rolls out to the nurses' station every day at the same time to get his two cigarettes which he then takes down in the elevator so he can smoke them in peace outside.  There is the guy who does amazing bird calls....all. day. long.  And then there's Snoopy.  That's not her real name.  I won't tell you her real name.  But you've probably met her.  She hangs on every conversation, especially the ones in which she is not a participant.  From another table she will chime in with her two cents on any subject.  She asks unbelievably personal questions, and is guaranteed to make at least one very unwelcome personal observation in the course of a week.  "Geez, you've packed on a few pounds," she will tell you, whether it's true or not.  "Your mother's hair is getting thin.  It's the medicine," she kindly offers, even though Mother could probably have lived without the information.  It goes on and on.  The nurses have moved her to another table for meal times.  It's not for my mother's sake.  It's for mine.  And for Snoopy's safety.  Because one of these days I'm going over the table and strangling her.  I'll just snap.  I can feel it coming.

I realize that she can't help it and that she is bored out of her mind by sitting in the same place all the time.  I do know that I represent "the outside world" and that she is starving for conversation and company.  Sometimes I even try polite chit chat with her, because I'm not a monster.  I have a heart.  The foibles and weaknesses of all the other residents I view with patience and compassion.  The nearest I can figure out is that she represents all the traits I see in myself which I like least.  And if nothing else, she does help to keep me humble.  Because for all my smugness about what a wonderful daughter I am, I am truly ashamed of how often I dream about hitting this poor old lady right in the smacker with a large cream pie.

I love community theater.  I watch it, I perform in it, I paint sets, usher, and sweep floors for it.  I have even been known to clean the toilet, in spite of the fact that I'm reluctant to tackle that job at home.  Lately, however, I do find that it is getting on my nerves in one particular area.  There are no roles for women "of a certain age".  Well, that's not strictly true.  There are some, and there is a circle of delightful and talented women whose company I greatly enjoy who all audition for the same parts.  When I walk into the audition hall there are hugs and kisses on cheeks and gabfests as though among long lost friends, and let me make it quite clear that this is all genuine and authentic admiration and affection we're seeing here.  Nevertheless, I have been forced to form the "O.N.C."  That's not the real name.  The middle letter is different, but I didn't want to offend anyone. 

When I see these wonderful, talented, and delightful women, the little voice in my head says, and I paraphrase here, "Oh NUTS!  She's here!"  I'm not proud of it, but there you have it.  When I look at those gifted ladies I do a mental rundown of their past theatrical triumphs and realize that I haven't got the prayer of a snowball in hell to get the part.  Oh, once in a while I get something here or there.  I played Kate Keller in Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" a few years back and it got nice reviews.  And I can sing, which helps narrow the field a little.  In the long run, however, I am playing with the big girls here, and I'm over my head.  These ladies are so dear to me (and not the least bit stuck on themselves, any of them) that I have paid them the compliment of informing them of their membership in the O.N.C., of which, since I thought of it in the first place, I am President.  Let me tell you, I didn't have to explain the concept.  They all got it right away.

This rainy Sunday afternoon I have just returned from a performance of "The Savannah Disputation" which starred not one, but TWO members of the O.N.C.  I had auditioned for the part of the "sweeter" sister (although I would have preferred to be the witch, but Sharon nailed that role) and got as far as the callbacks, but I lost out to Karen, who did an amazing job and really deserved the role and put a spin on it which would never have occurred to me.  In a situation like that you don't so much watch the play as dissect it.  I was so hoping to find a major flaw.  No such luck.  It was fabulous.

So, once again, my ego in tatters, but my heart full of admiration, I take off my hat to the ladies of the O.N.C.  We are an amazing group.  And I made Karen Vice President.  Good thing we don't actually have elections.  I might be out of a job there, too!

Audio books are fun in the car.  I'm currently listening to something called "Don't Miss Your Life" which seems like good advice and is read by the author in a perky voice.  One of the challenges thrown out there as I wended my way home from a gain at Weight Watchers (never good for my mood) was to "think about your happiest childhood memory."  The first thing that came to mind was an enormous cardboard box which had contained a refrigerator.  It became, in turn, a house (complete with "curtains"), a train with an empty coffee can chimney,and after my brother and  I upended it, it became a store.  We sold mud pies, made from the backyard dirt.  There was no garden and very little grass  We grew up in the city in a three-decker house and my grandparents lived next door in a one bedroom apartment.  The stairs on their fire escape became the "shelves" for the mud pies.  I suspect that we broke several fire department regulations that day, but it all turned out well, as most things we worry about do.  We played for hours and days with that box until eventually the rains turned it into mush.

When I think of my sons' childhood, it is largely populated with plastic toys marked "Fisher Price", a fine company and the source of many hours of enjoyment.  I've already told you about the pirate ships and castles which will outlive all of us and may, someday, make it out of my attic and into homes of their own.  But I wonder if they missed out on something.  Most kids today are proficient at computers and video games, and can program an iPod, an iPad, and the Space Shuttle from the age of three on, but given a long summer afternoon with an electrical outage I wonder what they would do.  The pace of "Sesame Street" and life in general has produced a generation that is not very good at doing nothing.  Or at doing something simple and non-electronic.  There were the occasional "forts" made out of kitchen chairs and bed sheets (mostly when Auntie Lynnie babysat), but not a lot of going into the back yard (or "back of the 'ard" as Son Number One called it rather endearingly) to just "hang out".  I'm rather sorry about that.  Oh, they read like fiends and even wrote their own books but I don't remember a single over-sized cardboard box in their entire life that wasn't dutifully taken apart and recycled on trash day.

One of my favorite pictures of Son Number Two has him lying on his back in the middle of a field, legs casually crossed, arms under his head, and just staring at the sky watching the kites.  He wasn't worried about dirt, bugs, or dog poop.  He was enjoying the tickle of the grass and the colors darting across the ridiculously blue sky.  I don't know about you, but I think that sounds like a brilliant idea.  And I think I know where to find a kite!

Did you miss me yesterday?  I missed you!  And why?  Because someone somewhere cut a fiber optic cable and there was no internet from 9 o'clock yesterday morning until sometime in the wee hours of this morning.  You know the kind of panic THAT sort of thing engenders.  When did I become such a cyborg that I cannot take a deep breath without checking Facebook, or comments to this blog, or the weather once an hour?  At what point did my cell phone become the equivalent of a pacemaker, so that I have anxiety attacks when I realize I've left the house without it?  This is just silly.

As I lay awake this morning I pondered these and other weighty issues.  How many years have these electronic invaders been running my life?  What did we all do in the days when we relied on the telephone and GASP! the hand-written note to communicate?  Remember when it took effort to keep in touch, so we only kept in touch with the people we actually cared two hoots about?  If I remembered your birthday it was because I wrote it on my calendar in ink, and at the end of the year I transferred it onto my new calendar because you were a person who mattered in my life, not because a pink wrapped box popped up in the top right screen to tell me today was your big day.  Well, here's a bulletin:  I still write it in ink on my calendar, because you do, indeed, matter.  Oh, I send out a "HBTY" to acquaintances, but the friends who go back (and I am grateful that there are so many of you) know who you are.  I don't need a reminder.

My sons were worried about "missing their high school friends" when they went off to college.  Hah!  They play video games with one another across the country.  They chat face-to-face on a regular basis, and get constant updates on every trivial event.  And it requires zero strain on their part.  I think they're missing out on something.  The effort is part of the gift of friendship.

Don't get me wrong.  I love being able to catch up with so many more people than I used to, and I can't tell you how much I miss my almost daily e-mails from my Dear Friend Flanagan.  But at some level of my soul I was calmer yesterday.  I worked on the extremely imperfect scarf I'm knitting for Son Number One in his school colors.  I played the piano.  I read.  It was a mini-vacation.  Perhaps it's one I should take voluntarily more often.

When I was young and charming (well, younger than this but probably not as charming as I thought at the time) my mother had a long list of expressions which she used to guide us on the path, as it were.  "If you want a thing done, do it yourself," was a biggie.  Also, "Depend on yourself and you'll never be disappointed."  There was a theme, now that I think of it.  She often said, "Fruit is golden in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night," which took me until I was about 17 to figure out.  The subject of today's musing, however is, "Patient waiters get good tips."

I am not waiting patiently to hear about my job interviews.  I don't actually wait patiently for much of anything.  I want to know and I want to know NOW.  When I was carrying my first child I remember buying orange juice in the supermarket and being amazed, AMAZED I tell you, that by the expiration date of that carton I would be a mother.  That juice couldn't go bad fast enough for me!  The weeks leading up to Christmas are always torture, of course.  There is no snooping allowed, nor would I want to, because the surprise is always the best part.  But it kills me.  Bananas seldom reach full maturity in my house.  So sitting here waiting for the phone to ring is not making me a happy camper.  Realistically, I should be putting out new resumes and exploring new leads, and I have every intention of doing that, but as I type I look over my shoulder at the wall phone every third sentence or so, as if that might make it ring.  Sometimes it does, but it's usually "Rachel" offering me a better rate on my credit card.  I hang up.  One does not waste time on recordings around here.

So I shall continue to wait, patiently or not, because really, what choice do we have here?  But I do find myself thinking of the cartoon with the two vultures sitting in the tree and one vulture says to the other, "Patience my ass.  I'm gonna kill something!"

From the time he was in kindergarten I took great pride in the fact that my older son never had a broken bone.  He played violin, but even this didn't get him beaten up in middle school, because he also had a black belt in karate.  And he was so good at violin that he made money playing at the weddings of various teachers.  He played baseball, soccer, and basketball, and did a fine job at every sport.  There were five stitches in his forehead when he walked into a tree at age three, but other than that not one emergency room visit did we make. He never played hockey or football. We didn't "forbid" it,  but we certainly never steered him in that direction either.  He is now in his second year of college and still has not had one broken bone.  But I know now that it is a matter of time.  My son has discovered rugby.

It's probably our fault.  We used to take him and his brother to England to visit friends fairly often when they were little.  The only thing I know about rugby is that I like the shirts that L.L.Bean makes by that name.  My friends now inform me that it is basically football with no padding.  Great.  I understand that the equivalent of a touchdown in rugby is called a "try", and that he was responsible for one this past weekend.  I get a weekly text to let me know that he survived the game and the level of his bruising.  He started on some safe position off in a corner somewhere, probably the "left field" of rugby, but was so enthusiastic that he is now in the thick of it.  They are going to break my baby, I know they are. 

He is almost twenty, and although I share this with you, I don't worry him much with my worries.  Of course, he will read this and then he'll know, but he won't be surprised.  We know each other pretty well.  The plan is to go pick him up at school in October for his fall break and bring him home for a week or so.  But we'll have to wait for him to finish his home game.  That's right.  I have to watch him get pummeled.  So we'll drive through the autumn glory, watch the game (I should look up the rules first, huh?) and then pick him up.  I just hope it won't be with a squeegee!

One of the paybacks for the pain of childbirth, years of cramps, and mood swings is the ineffable joy that only women (well...and a few cross-dressers) experience at the end of the day when slipping out of pantyhose.  It is a bliss that dwarfs the best chocolate in the world.  This is probably one of the real reasons that people bemoan the end of summer.  The sandals go on in May and come off with a crowbar around the time chilblains are forming on the toes.  So when I needed to get "dressed like a grownup" for a job interview I had to try to remember what I had actually done with said instruments of torture at the beginning of spring.  Not one clue.  I put on the suit, the tasteful earrings with matching necklace, the heels, but my legs were bare.  And then it dawned on me.  I had read an article that the Duchess of Cambridge ("Kate" to her friends), had "revived" the trend to wear hose.  I was a little surprised since I was never aware they had gone out of style.  Just my rotten luck that I had missed the fad I'd been waiting for since I was thirteen.  And now it was over.  Or was it? 

I seemed to remember that there was a discussion about how "old fashioned" it was to wear hose and how surprising it was that the Duchess was going that route.  OK.  If it's old fashioned, maybe I could get away with being "with it" by being "without it" and not bothering.  I felt absolutely racy, but I was running short of time, so off I went.  All the way to the interview I held the debate in my head.  "Should I? What does this say about me? Does it say I'm on top of the trends or down on my luck and can't afford L'eggs? (Do they still make L'eggs?)"  This was a burning issue.  With ten minutes to spare I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a pair of Sheer Energy in nude (if you wear them, they HAVE to match your skin tone) and stuck them in my purse.  I asked the opinion of the cashier and her bag boy.  "Do people wear pantyhose anymore?"  Heads shook from side to side.  "Can I get away with this?"  "Well, what are you wearing?  Is that the outfit?  C'mere!"  I got the once over and was gratified to receive two thumbs up.

I made it to the interview in plenty of time.  I don't know if the panel noticed that I wasn't wearing hose.  They were busy watching me scramble when my telephone screamed a message from my purse that the nursing home was calling me for the second time in two years.  I tried to ignore it, but they insisted that I take it. Things went rather well, other than that, or at least I think so.  The whole day was quite an education. And by the way, have you tried to buy a slip lately?

Tomorrow I will do something I haven't done since Jimmy Carter was President of the United States.  No, not "wash the kitchen floor," although that was a good guess and I can see where you might come up with it.  I am going on a job interview.  That's right;  after sending out fifty resumes and pleading cover letters, I got a call.  Actually, I got two calls, one for next Tuesday.  The interesting thing is that they are in two completely different fields.  This is the time in life where I get to re-invent myself.

For thirteen years I've been juggling piano and violin lessons, soccer tournaments, karate classes, and basketball, not to mention the gruelling schedule of the high school musical (both my boys love the stage and they're both great).  But the nature of work has changed significantly since I left the wacky world of local television.  There is no such thing as videotape anymore.  Everything has gone digital.  I don't want to go back to television anyway.  But since I had been in "the biz" for 22 years, everything from finding leads to how to write one's resume has changed.

I took a course on interviewing.  There is a wonderful non-profit group in the Boston area called "One Life At A Time" which helps people who are re-entering the workforce to catch up with what the world has been doing while they've been elsewhere.  I re-wrote several forms of my resume, I did mock interviews which were recorded and critiqued, and I learned the culture of searching on-line for job openings.  A dear friend of mine even gave me a three-piece suit for my birthday so that I could look professional on interviews.  Luckily, it will be ready at the tailor's today.  I told you I was short.

Now all I have to do is figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  Substitute teacher?  Concierge?  Town official?  Office administrator?  Writer?  Voice Over actress?  The number of possibilities before me is almost enough to paralyze me.  Another one of the gifts from my dear friend, Flanagan, is the sudden realization that I don't have all the time in the world to live my life.  None of us knows how long he has.  So I'll dust off my sensible shoes and go see what the world has to offer me and try to make them realize that I am just the right fit for whatever it is.  Because once they meet me they have to love me...who wouldn't, right?  But it's tough to get your foot in that door.

I'm off to research the companies I'll interview with (that's very important, I'm told).  But first I think I'll go wash the kitchen floor, because you were right.  It really is time.

It be "Talk Like  A Pirate" day!  There be many annoyin' varmints who be talkin' all day like a parrot be sittin' on their shoulder and they be deep in the grog, and by noon I be makin' them all walk the plank!  Oh good heaven, that's enough of that nonsense!  I was first introduced to TLAP Day by my children who find this endlessly entertaining.  I feel really sorry for their professors today, because I'm not sure either of them will be able to turn it off just because they are going to (very expensive) college.

Pirates have a long history at our house.  It started when Son Number One was three and Santa brought the Fisher Price Pirate Ship.  Then came the Castle.  The next year Santa brought Son Number Two the new and improved Pirate Ship.  Then the new and improved Talking Castle.  All of this, along with more toys than Macy's has in stock for Christmas, filled what would be a den in a normal house. Walking through the room was interesting, because the chance of getting hit with a flying plastic cannon ball was very high, and it didn't matter if you were family or honored guest, you were a target. At one point Himself and the boys made "pirate hard tack", which were disgusting cookies or biscuits or something made to the actual recipe that the pirates used.  Happily, they left out the maggots which usually took the place of sprinkles that adorn better tasting cookies.  They turned out interesting rather than tasty, and were tossed into the trash after one information seeking bite.

The ships and castles are in the attic waiting for the boys to get apartments and lives of their own.  The population of little pirates and ghosts and dragons and knights are tucked into plastic boxes awaiting the next generation.  There are still two small pirate flags on either side of the bay window, and my husband's toy box from his childhood, covered with 1960's pirates and ships and flags, is serving as a coffee table. We still call it "The Pirate Room". 

It's another day when I miss having the boys at home.  Himself is working at home today, but he doesn't have the pirate knack.  His brother, who lives in Alaska, is an expert, but he's not here.  So I be talkin' to meself today and missin' the bairn (who be all grown up) and realizin' how important be tradition.  I be surprised every day at the silly things I be missin'!  Arrrrggghh.

It's happened again.  They sneaked away when I wasn't paying attention.  I distinctly remember June, when I'd wake up at 4AM to trot down the hall (why do I keep having that late evening beer with Himself?) and being amazed at the racket that was coming through the window, absolutely guaranteeing that sleep would evade me for the next two hours.  And it was light already.  At 4AM.  That's the middle of the blooming night.  Since I wasn't sleeping anyway I lay abed and listened for a while, and I was charmed.  There was an amazing array of different songs.  I am always mystified at how such tiny vocal chords (I mean THINK about it) could create a sound that could carry so far.  Then the weather got warmer and I suppose the fans went in the windows, then the air conditioners took over for a couple of months so I could sleep, and now that I need neither I am aware of an eerie silence when I do my wee hour trot (pun intended).  Oh there is the odd crow, and the blessed faithful starlings and sparrows who stick around all year through thick and thin and snow.  There is even the occasional cardinal (non-denominational).  But the rich fabric of the morning has changed.

Those of us "of a certain age" as the French say (they make everything sound sexy) may remember the old Judy Collins song, "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" which asks the question about the birds, "Ah, how can they know it's time for them to go?" and I often wonder the same thing myself.  Their brains can't be all that big, yet I hear about these incredible distances they travel without benefit of a GPS.  I must say, I am very impressed. But I'm always a little disappointed that I don't notice the transition.  When does the song start to thin out?  Do they post on Birdie Facebook in August "This is it.  Next Saturday.  Stock up on bugs."?  Do they have one last bash in the birch tree outside my window before taking off?  Or do they, like too many of my aging friends, just slip away quietly, one by one until I look around and realize that I'm not living in the same world anymore.  It's still nice but it's different.

Soon it will be time to close the windows altogether because the nights are getting so much cooler, and then even the crows will be muffled and maybe I'll get more sleep (if I knock off the late night brew with Himself), but I must confess that I'm already looking forward to the racket that will accompany the spring.  And this time I'll pay attention!

It's trash day and I'm missing "my staff."  Granted, the trash is a lot smaller when the boys are away at college, and also that I am quite healthy and capable of hauling the recycles and bins out to the curb, but it is still making me sad.  I'm finding that I don't like having less trash.  Or noise.  Or chaos.  I rather liked being the center of the cyclone, and now that it's quiet around here I need to figure out what my days will look like.  There is a loneliness involved in this. 

The fact that autumn is fast approaching is not helping a bit.  Fall is supposed to be the time of new notebooks, backpacks that would make a burro cry, and endless papers and forms to sign.  And it is.  But not here.  Not this year.  I am so excited that my sons are getting a great education at two very wonderful (and expensive...never forget expensive) schools.  People ask me how I am doing with the "empty nest."  I get the feeling that I should either respond to this with a tear in my eye and a quivering chin, or a lurid wink and the impression that my husband and I are chasing each other through each empty room of the house and rediscovering the wild passions of twenty years ago.  Neither one is quite true.  And each is a little true.  It's nice not having to figure out what I'm making for dinner for four and not having to play chauffeur (that's right...neither drives) to various and sundry social engagements that really mess up whatever it is I want to do.  And, yes, it's very nice not to worry about who is going to come bursting through the door when Himself is working from home and we "break for lunch", but the truth is the house does feel empty.  What is my purpose these days anyway, if it isn't to be "Mom"?  I could be cleaning up around here, but that doesn't strike me as particularly fulfilling...or likely.

l guess this is my "back to school" time for a change.  Time to figure out what it is I need to learn.  Learning something new always makes me feel better.  I picked up piano 7 years ago.  Maybe I'll dust off the Evening Programs catalog from the local high school and see what they have to offer.  Because the evenings are worse than the afternoons around here.  The storm door gets locked a lot earlier than it used to, because once Himself is back from work, or his run...we're all in for the night.