Ks Are Wild

Meryl Streep is the best actress ever Ray.  You are SO wrong old man.

Home. Let the healing begin.

Surgery is over. Managed to keep my uterus after all. At least for another couple of years hopefully. It was a surprise surgery. I wasn’t sure which way it would go and had to wake up to find out what happened. After lots of shaking and tremors and lots of rounds of nausea (until night time), I’m finally round the bend. Waiting for them to administer the next round of pain meds but wanted to follow through with my promise to update. Thanks to everyone for their cards, plants, flowers, meals, and offers of assistance be it carpooling of playdates or making play dough so my mom can have another activity to do with them. I should be released some time tomorrow if all goes well.

I can’t help it.  Whenever I see these “fancy” Turk’s Cap pumpkins…..:

……I think of a baboon’s ass!!!:

Am I right or am I right?!  So to me, they’ll always be dubbed, Babboon Ass Pumpkin.  I know, I can be so juvenile sometimes.  But tell me honestly, it made you smile didn’t it?  Then I guess it was worth telling you.  And I bet you will always remember that image whenever you see those pumpkins, and in a weird way, think of me.  I’m honored to somehow have baboon asses associated with the memory of me.  On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t have shared that one

I’m cleaning like a “mother-ucker” (as they sing in Flight of the Conchords). Between Kellen missing the toilet at night a couple times and my stomach flu last week, we were in dire need of a good thorough cleaning with disinfectant. So no computer time, didn’t even get to grocery shopping which we desperately need.

I work this weekend. It’s Le Tour de Plants; a big deal around the state, so it ought to be a long and busy day. Luckily this guest, Kham’s Uncle Jim, or “UJ” as they like to call him, is low key and low maintenance. Good food, chilling in the back yard, hanging out with the kids, and a beer or two, maybe some cribbage games, and he’s good to go…or so I’ve been told. He hasn’t been here yet so I’m eager and I get those first time jitters/excitement. He helped us move here, but to a storage facility so he hasn’t even seen this, or any of our places set up. He is a really sweet guy and fun to talk to, or just sit next to while enjoying the night air. I’m glad the kids will get to know him a little better. I can’t wait until Kellen gets a load of his “tractor”, the big cab part of big rigs. He’s gonna freak out!

Man, oh Man, do I love my brother.  I was really blessed with awesome siblings, it just took me until I graduated from High School to stop being petty and jealous an start appreciating my sister.  But my brother, Kalani, who is six years older than I were always tight and I worshiped him.  I wanted to learn about all the stuff he liked so that he’d let me hang around him more.  I think he genuinely enjoyed “teaching” me too – like how to climb a brick wall, chain link fence, punch, throw a ninja star, light a lighter, use hydrogen peroxide and Sun In on your hair, how to play PIT, how to boogie-board, this is Robotech, Piers Anthony, Depeche Mode, Samantha Fox, how to blow a giant bubble with Big League Chew, Star Wars, a Delorian, Star Trek the Next Generation, how to get to through the Dungeon levels on Super Mario Brothers, let me see the cover of a nudie mag, how to drive stick, he even was my guardian at the Renaissance Faire and I couldn’t be more than 20 feet from him at all times.  Alas, I wasn’t “in” enough to be welcome in his Dungeons and Dragons playing.  I was still the annoying little sister though, the one coming up with every excuse in the book to be able to knock on the teenager’s door to tell him dinner was ready, or mom wanted him, just to get him to open the door so I could see what he was doing.  And he’d open it, just wide enough to see one eyeball, and I’d strain past him to get glimpses into the forbidden zone.  I’d fetch stuff for him all the time.  I remember my mom telling him to get stuff for himself but I didn’t mind.  It was a free pass to leisurely explore his room as I made my way to the requested item.  I loved to touch his many-sided D&D die.  I browsed his tape collection, picked up nun-chucks to see how heavy they were, tried on his acid washed jean jacket, clicked his multi-colored pen, being very careful to place everything back exactly as I’d found it because I knew he would notice….It might as well have been a chapel with the deference I gave it; quiet, awe-struck, curious, reverent.

I felt special when I was with him.  He’d share things with me that he wouldn’t tell or show anyone else in our family.  He’d invite me in to the forbidden zone of his room and he’d help me with Math sometimes.  I’d time him on solving the rubix cube, or holding his breath at the bottom of the pool, or count as he added yet another Saltine cracker to the pile in his mouth at Bob’s Big Boy.  When I was bullied at school, I knew, at least he liked me and that he understood because he had his share of meanies growing up.

I just felt lit up and loved when he was around.  Although, he RARELY ever expressed or expresses those actual words.  When he went off to college in Colorado, I missed him terribly.  He gave me his childhood teddy bear for me to keep until he returned.  And even though I was in the 7th grade, I slept with that thing nightly.  He wrote me a letter on his college notebook that he sent back with my dad after helping him move that helped me through some of the anxiety I felt towards entering Jr. High with new kids.  Letters from Kalani are precious and few and I cherish that one the most.  And when he returned for summer break, he introduced me to Led Zepellin by playing “Stairway to Heaven” while we laid on the carpet and stared at the ceiling.  It was magical.

I guess there’s a lot I could attribute to Kalani’s influence: love of scifi and fantasy, a softspot in my heart and a tenderness towards “nerds”, love of 80s music, interest with the Renaissance Faire (where if I hadn’t gotten involved, I never would’ve met Kham and be where I am today), and a general love of all things Generation X (I’m the last year of that at 1977) – including “older” men like my husband, he-he.

And he’s fantastic with kids.

Kalani holding an infant Kellen at his wedding

Kalani and Jesse

But the bummer is that my kids barely know him ortheir Auntie Jesse because they rarely see or have much interaction with them.  I think that’s the crime of the century!  Kellen, in soooo many ways, reminds me of Kalani (and Kham’s brother Chris).  We joke that Chris had our naturalist/biologist son, and we had Chris and Kalani’s Engineering Techie son.  Well, we’re just going to have to foster his interests by sending him to Camp Kalani and Camp Chris.

The kids have been pumping me for info. on our relatives like what they did when they were little, what is their favorite _____(color? animal? candy bar? movie? musical? food?)? It’s been interesting because memories have surfaced from long ago and also, has shown me how much I’ve forgotten or don’t know about my own family that I know about my friends.  Kosette and Kellen just soak it all in and really latch onto stuff.  So when we went to the Benton County Fair last month and I saw Kellen’s fascination with the juggler, I told him that his Uncle Kalani could do that.  Their eyes widened in disbelief.

Kalani, part of the Juggling School, at 1997 So. Cal RenFaire

They thought I was kidding so I asked Kalani to send me a video clip of him juggling so they could see.  He did it within an hour of our phone call too.  It was awesome!  Those are the things that he does to show his love for people.  He might not say it or write it very often, but he does stuff like this.  My kids are so lucky to have him for an uncle.  And the older I get, the more my love for him deepens.

At my parents 2008

On a semi-related side-note, I have  enjoyed revisiting the series Freaks and Geaks, that was tragically canceled after just one season.  It is so well-written and performed and really launched the careers of its writers and actors.  You must rent it if you love that 80s decade!  It’s wonderfully funny, sad, and has an awesome soundtrack.  The weird thing is that unlike the last time I watched it, I’m seeing things from the parents’ perspective and judging their reactions to situations.  Boy is that an indicator of age and where you are in life.

How cool is this crazy quilted bathrobe?!

There’s a dozen or so movies that I can think of that I would always watch when they came on tv.  Not that I planned it out and checked the tv guide or anything, the ones that are cyclical or seasonal that the basic tv stations would air every so often.  Didn’t matter how many times I’d seen it or even if I owned it, it was a guilty pleasure thing that would suck me in and I’d watch while doing some task.  Splash comes to mind and Swiss Family Robinson, pretty much any musical ever, and Babes in Toyland starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon from 1961.  It’s a musical of all the characters from Mother Goose’s book of rhymes and tales.  The scene with the talking moving trees used to scare me but I’d still watch it.  Mainly, I’d just watch the first half of the movie for my favorite part; a song called “I can’t do the Sum” by Annette Funicello.  Remembering how much I enjoyed this movie, I knew Kosette would like it too.

Well, watching this particular scene, and hearing the lyrics to this song, I was appalled at its message.  I have never been terrific at math (understatement of the century).  At my tutor’s house, I was mortified that her 1st grader could do what I couldn’t at 4th grade.  And a very sharp memory, that still pains me and probably would make my mom cringe if I refreshed her memory, was when I was in the car on the drive home from 6th grade, excited, because I’d finally figured out what I wanted to be —– a zoologist.  And you want to know what my mom said dismissively, “You can’t do that, you suck at math.”  Now I know, and I can recognize that my mom’s tone of voice, and technique, showed that she was using a bit of reverse psychology.  But it backfired.  Even though I protested, I did so weakly, because there was this little bitty part of me that just gave up hope, “Well, if my own MOM thinks that I’m bad at math, I really must be.”  Completely unintentional on my mom’s part….it’s just one of those learning curves as a parent I guess.  Something I’m going to try to avoid with my own kids.  There’s a whole mess of other mistakes already made and waiting to be made.  Sometimes I feel, I’ve been searching for a profession ever since.

So then I had a choice to make.  Should I donate the movie to someone else because it doesn’t fit my feminist standards?  Especially when I still sorta like it?  I opted to keep it, as I have others, to use it as a prompt for discourse with my children about messages they’re getting.  She’s going to ultimately come across stuff like this, does so on a daily basis.  I want her to be able to recognize it for what it is.  The movie is now in the category of “with adult supervision and dialogue ONLY”.

The total bummer…Don’t know why I never noticed it much before but most musicals are absolutely horrible in they’re gender messages.  I have to completely suspend that part of my brain and stay in complete denial now, when I, and we, watch them.  Like Twilight.  Don’t think about it from a Feminist perspective, it’ll kill the books I so guiltily love….they are the ultimate guilty pleasure for me.  When I was in college I took a Gender and Feminism in Film class.  That would’ve made my perfect final paper – sexism and gender roles/identity in the American musical genre.  Instead I did something based on all of the Alien films.  Betcha didn’t know I liked those did you?  They’re very different from Babes in Toyland and Beach Blanket Bingo side of me.

What do you think?  I wish I could’ve found the lyrics somewhere.  Looks like I’m going to have to sit down and write them out myself one day when I have all the extra time in the world – yeah right.

I’m so stoked!  Thanks to my new friend, Kriste, who has the same birthday as me, and who first introduced me to Flight of the Conchords, I’m going to see them perform LIVE tonight in PORTLAND!  Woohoo!!!!!   She bought the tix, I’m driving, and her friend who we’re going to pick up in Salem and whom I haven’t yet met is paying for dinner or at least part of it.  Anyway, I was so excited that she invited me and we’ve been counting down the days together for weeks now.  Of course, now I’m freakin’ sick with a head cold – figures- ARG!  Sometimes I feel like Charlie Brown you know.  It’s like a curse now – if I finally have some event or trip I get so excited it makes me sick?!  It doesn’t help that my kiddos are walking germ factories.  If the Swine Flu hit Corvallis we’d be screwed.  I was hoping to be over it by tonight since I came down with it on the 7th but no such luck.  I’m going anyway damnit.  I sure could use the real break.  Can you believe that I’ve lived her for 3 years now and have never been anywhere in Portland save the airport?!  No, I’m not exaggerating.  While I’m at it, same goes for Eugene.  I haven’t made it to IKEA in Portland or Trader Joe’s in Eugene.  It’s a travesty and something I MUST remedy this summer.  These kids and puppy are gonna be toted all around this summer because I’m getting out to see the area no matter what!  The nice thing about going to a concert in Portland instead of LA is that I don’t have to sweat the outfit.  I’m going to choose my lamest t-shirt ever like the character Brett, maybe a lame sweatshirt too or a polar fleece, and sneakers or clogs.  So, basically, my standard fare.

Now if only I could watch the entire second season this afternoon before leaving.  Don’t think that one’s gonna happen.  I had better clean out my car too so my guests aren’t sitting on spare doggie doo bags and army men.

Thanks again to Miss Jenny and her property full of inspirations; this one just happened to be calligraphied in a frame on her bathroom wall:

“Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”

Albert Einstein

Not much to say about it yet…still mulling it over.  It’s definitely one that makes you think.