Giant memoir and magic village

A deadline has been met. The first draft of a very lengthy and plodding War and Peace-like Paris memoir manuscript has been sent to my developmental editor in New York City. There are not enough exclamation points in the world to punctuate that sentence so I'm going to leave them out and go for "calm and understated."

At this point, that beast of a book is 5,000,000 words and is so, so boring. I've stared at the words I wrote back in Paris for so long, they have lost all meaning and I've lost all perspective. I can no longer differentiate between "an interesting story" and "a stupid snoozefest of a story" so said, "f*ck it" and threw everything into the soup.

I included a story, only a few paragraphs long, about me exchanging compliments with the man who owned the boutique outside our building. I included long aimless tales of searching for bottlecaps in the streets with Lucien but -- spoiler alert -- sometimes we didn't find any. I included three pages about a dinner where the climax, and only remotely mildly interesting thing that happened, was Coco pelting me in the head with a piece of pineapple.

I have no idea what I'm doing. I vacillate wildly between joy -- "this is going to be a great book!" -- and despair -- "this is going to be a f*cking terrible book!" I'm hopeful it will be made more clear after a couple rounds of editing; I'm hopeful my editor will be able to wade through the muck and pull out some diamonds.

The only downside to devoting these many months in Mexico to compiling my humongous manuscript is I haven't lived life to the fullest in Mexico City. From the time the kids head off to school to the time they come home, I don't move much. I stare at my laptop screen, sometimes blankly, for hours -- write delete write delete -- and play with fidget spinners when the words refuse to do what I want them to do.

Mario, our driver, texts me a daily anxious, "Are you sure you don't want to go anywhere today, Ms. MJ?" Paulina, our housekeeper, may suspect I'm agoraphobic and definitely suspects I'm emotionally unstable by the way I scream while aggressively manhandling the backspace key. I don't think Paulina has ever seen me put on real clothing (it's the pajama and yoga life for me) and go outside, but perhaps she also firmly believes that it's in the best interest of the general public.

My submission deadline was the day before my bestie from Seattle arrived. We set that submission date intentionally. I didn't want the book hanging over my head while Seattle Mom was here, didn't want to be distracted to the point of suddenly yelling, "Yes! That's how to make that toilet paper story really pop" and taking off in the direction of my laptop, leaving Seattle Mom confused and alone in the dust of Teotihuacan.

Distraction free and climbing pyramids again
I will never tire of them

Seattle Mom was our final visitor. I loved seeing all my favorite tourist sites one more time, loved seeing yet another friend who never thought they wanted to come to Mexico City fall in delirious love with the place. Seattle Mom walked through our neighborhood agog, absorbing all the sidewalk cafes lining the streets and the impeccably dressed waiters and the beautiful parks full of lounging people. She said, "It feels just like a European city except everybody is warm and friendly!"

Templo Mayor, the Aztec ruins in the middle of the city

sitting on top of a pyramid looking over at another pyramid

I'm back again, Frida, I can't quit you

we ate the best food

and this is by far the best picture we've ever taken together with a toilet in a castle

We took Seattle Mom on a day trip to Tepoztlán, one of our favorite towns about an hour outside the city. Tepoztlán is charming, not touristy, surrounded by mountains. It's the type of authentic Mexican town where cars often share narrow streets with old men riding burros.

Tepoztlán is one of the dozens of "Pueblo Mágicos," or "magical villages" to be found throughout rural Mexico. Pueblo Mágicos are villages whose cultural, historical, or natural treasures have been deemed -- surprise! -- magical. They transport visitors back in time, far from cheesy all-inclusive resorts and buffet dinners and cheap fruity cocktails with tiny umbrellas in them. The Pueblo Mágicos are truly the Mexico worth getting to know.

The Tepozteco pyramid sits atop a mountain overlooking Tepoztlán. The hike up to it was originally described to us by friends as "a moderately strenuous walk, just a lot of stairs" but in reality was "a stupid hard climb with no 'stairs' to be seen, only slippery boulders occasionally placed in stair-like formation, better suited for a mountain goat to climb than a human being."

It seems our friends and I

do not share the same definition of "moderate"

nor "stairs."

It was much harder than we anticipated. It was also crowded. We also had Lucien and Coco but, thank the ancient Tepoztlán Gods, they were intrigued and excited by the complexity of the climb instead of made crabby by it. They did not complain on the hour long slog straight up the mountain, a fact that seems to lend credence to the belief Tepoztlán is magic.

Something had gone terribly wrong with our hats

by the time we reached the top. 
Seattle Mom's no longer wanted to hold its shape
and mine sat ten feet off the top of my head.
Everything else was great, though.

Seattle Mom doesn't speak any Spanish so I was in charge of our Spanish-speaking needs during our Mexico City wanderings. It made for some great comedy. Sometimes I would ask a question and get an answer back in a rapid torrent of unidentifiable words. As the speaker spoke his incomprehensible message at inhuman speed, I would turn to Seattle Mom, smile big and say, "I have no idea what's happening right now." Then we would laugh and laugh and walk off, never having learned the answer to our question. That's OK, we like a little mystery.

I'm not sure what I told this server 
when he asked what ingredients we wanted in our salsa. 

But I must have told him something 
because he hand ground it right there in front of us. 

Alex and Coco are back in Seattle for two weeks. It's a long story (and one that caught us by surprise) but to make it short, the only way to guarantee Coco's spot at her school in the Fall is to have her finish out this academic year as a "short term returning student." Alex had to go back to Seattle for meetings anyway so I packed her a suitcase and off they went. 

Her return to her old school was glorious. She was treated as celebrity. I hear there was a lot of hugging, squealing, jumping up and down, and crying. Coco loves her friends and her teacher in Seattle and has talked about them near constantly since we landed in Mexico over six months ago. It's obvious Coco left her heart in Seattle and I'm happy she's been reunited with her people.

I've never been away from her this long, though, and it's weird and I don't like it. At least I know she's in capable and lovably nutty hands. I called upon our circle of friends for help with childcare and ended up with a complex spreadsheet entitled, "The Coco Shuffle." Coco has indeed been shuffled to school, to houses after school, to birthday parties, to sleepovers, all by our people while Alex attends work meetings and late work dinners. We are lucky and grateful.

There was another happy reunion in Seattle --

Natani apparently "lost her bananas" when she saw Coco, one of her two most cherished tiny people in the world. She was later inconsolable when Coco got back into the car to head to the next leg of her shuffle. She sat at the window and whimpered for hours, straining for another glimpse of her favorite girl out the window.

My heart hurts for her. I promise she's coming back for good soon, doggo.

Lucien and I are enjoying our one-on-one time. It's such a rarity. It reminds me of Paris in a way, just The Loosh and I taking on a foreign city all day long. We are celebrating our time by going out to eat often at our favorite restaurants and watching many movies, some at the theaters but most at home after school. We're being selective about what we watch, choosing only the most promising titles from the Netflix and Amazon Prime menus, such as this obvious award winner --

Now that the manuscript is out of my hands for a whole 4-6 weeks, I've got time to blog again. There's so much to catch up on, so much I'd like to capture before we're gone. I sure hope I get to it all. I should also leave the apartment sometime soon so Paulina and Mario can stop worrying about me.

Tired wannabe author out,
MJ


PS. For the record, it wasn't a misnomer. That was truly a big ass spider --

Guessing Game

I'm back at the Paris book.  I have a developmental editor working with me now and she's been huge. We're dismantling all my ideas from back in November and developing new ideas.  Who knew there were so many ideas?  It's exciting but my head's swimming.  

While my head is in the bookwriting clouds, here's a fun game.  Guess which of these French quotes hanging on our kitchen wall Natani can reach?

yep....that one

That was too easy.  How about this:  Guess what terrifying object Natani is growling at and fiercely protecting us from?

That's right!  It's her own toy!  She forgot it on the back porch and it then blew into a strange, unrecognizable and frightening shape.  I like to believe she felt foolish when I let her outside and she circled growling at it until she worked up the courage to approach and sniff, but I'm not sure dogs are that self aware.

Here's another fun guessing question:  What's wrong with the schnauzer?  Did the schnauzer die?

Nope, no worries, he's alive.  We just took him on a hike. He was happy for half of it and then he was most decidedly not happy at all.  He just kind of flopped on the ground and said, "no."  So we carried him back.

I'm too old for this sh*t

Seattle is a boomtown. Our population is exploding, our home prices increasing to ludicrous new highs. It will soon become common to hear "I bought this ramshackle 1957 bungalow for 7.5 kajillion dollars."

Our neighborhood is changing rapidly; old homes are being torn down on every block and clusters of skinny townhomes soon built in their places.  I hate these new ugly buildings and my kids know it. When we drive past yet another old home being tickled to death by a bulldozer, Lucien or Coco will mutter,"Dammit.  There goes another Victorian with turn-of-the-century charm -- the architectural details along the roofline were to die for -- being torn down to make room for an ugly modern box lacking in character and quality."

Hearing your words coming out of someone else's tiny little mouth is both eerie and heart-swelling.

Thanks to all this urban progress, streets are regularly closed in our neighborhood for big construction machines and utility crews.  Driving the kids to school has become a frustrating task because there are always new and unexpected "ROAD CLOSED" signs popping up in front of the car.  I then must improvise, zig zag around, find a new unimpeded path.  Then the next week there are more signs -- the new route's closed now, too.

I'm convinced someday there will be no possible route to school so we'll go back home and watch movies and eat Nacho Cheese Doritos.  The excuse I will call into the school will be "there are no more streets left."  I guarantee the office staff will understand.  They will probably be taking the call from their own living rooms, having found no viable route to school themselves.

oh god.  no.  just stop it.

Alex and I attended the elementary school fundraising auction over the weekend.  Alex bid on a restaurant gift certificate because he's been wanting to treat his hardworking team at work to a nice dinner.  He missed a few crucial details before he bid and won, though -- namely that the certificate was for $200 worth of bagels. That's going to be one weird team dinner.

I took Coco and Lucien to the Seattle Bouldering Project while Alex was in Mexico for work last week.  I love bouldering, especially at this point in time.  When I'm hanging high on a wall by only my fingernails, all I can think about is how to keep hanging on.  I can't think about the words I'm using for the Paris book, and how most of the words I'm using are stupid words and I need to find good words. Bouldering is a reprieve from crippling self-doubt.

I may love the singular focus that comes with bouldering but my kids were less enthused. Within an hour they could not feel their arms nor legs so laid in whimpering little kid puddles on the mats and begged to go home.  Seattle climbers are a very supportive lot; they high-fived me and said, "Nicely done, Mom, you got 'em!"

We're going back whenever the kids get uppity.  You giving me lip?  GET ON THE WALL.

We took another trip in the RV before Al left for Mexico.  Taking off in an RV is more work than it sounds because you have to empty the RV when you're not using it and refill it when you're ready to take off again. You can't leave food in there to rot, can't leave linens in there to get damp in our wet Seattle winter weather.  It's like packing a tiny home each and every time so something is always inevitably forgotten. Last time it was ketchup and eggs.  This time it was butter and a pillow.

We also forgot to buy firewood.  Other campers' fires dotted the campground as we attempted to make our fire with a roll of toilet paper, small sticks and some damp leaves.  It was brief, brilliant, and smoky.

There are three types of RVers we've encountered so far.  The most common type is the retired couple.  Then there are young families like ours.  The third is more difficult to categorize in a definitive way -- they're the kind that shuffle around the campsite in dirty bathrobes and slippers and don't make eye contact. I'm not sure of their age or family situation.  It's anyone's guess what they're all about yet they are definitely my favorite.

and old man schnauzer went on a hike

Lucien recently told me about a girl he has a crush on at school.  He was invited to go to a movie with her family and while we waited for her dad to come pick him up, Lucien said, "I really hope I impress her."  I worried about what "impressing her" might entail (probably farting on cue) so I asked cautiously, "Hey Loosh....how do you think you should communicate with a girl in order to "impress" her?"  He thought a minute, pointed at me, winked and said, "I'm gonna speak to her in German."

It's worth a shot, I guess.  Better than farting.  If it doesn't impress her it will at least befuddle her and that's worth some laughs.  So go on, baby, sprechen sie deutsch.  And good luck.

Coco just ran into the kitchen and announced, "Donald Trump just bit me."  Frankly, I wouldn't put it past him.

Anyone want a bagel?
MJ

The Dog Ate the Spirograph

That's our wonky Christmas tree over there.  Our tree's trunk is so crooked it's tied to the wall in hopes it won't fall over.  I'll keep you posted.

Mama's back from her month of writing and not a moment too soon.  Alex was in charge of many things while I was hunkered down in the corner of my favorite coffee shop and some of those things didn't end well. For example, he selected the Christmas tree.

Other things weren't Alex's fault at all; they were the fault of our terrible/wonderful dog, Natani.

Natani destroyed Lucien's glasses when he sat them on the counter and turned his back.  I pulled out his back-up pair of glasses with a firm, "DO NOT set these down on the counter!" He didn't listen, sat them on the counter, so Natani cheerfully destroyed them, too.  Lucien was without glasses for nearly a week and kept running into doorways.

We're not used to big dogs.  We're used to small dogs who can't even dream of getting their paws up on the counter to sniff around for dog contraband.  Our dog trainer recommended spraying her in the face with water whenever we caught her with her paws up on the counter.  That worked for awhile, until the day she found the water sprayer on the counter and ate it.

Natani also demolished a Spirograph set bound for a little girl's birthday party one hour before the party was to begin.  I was writing at the coffee shop so it was up to Alex.  He gathered his wits after a moment of panic and tried the Amazon one-hour delivery service.  It worked.  Less than an hour later a Paris coloring book was delivered to our door. They wrapped it up and were out the door just in time.

A Paris coloring book sounded like a great idea so I bought Coco the same book for Christmas.  I thumbed through it when it arrived and felt instant panicked mortification.  There were several pages of lingerie in the very adult Paris coloring book. One page bras, one page panties, one page bra-and-panty sets, topped with a couple pages of the Red Light District.

We'd wrapped a bra-and-panty spectacular and given it to a six-year-old child -- even worse, a child whose parents I'd never met.

I sent an apologetic email to them, explained the situation -- "our dog ate the Spirograph"-- and assured them we really weren't that weird,  At this time, I still have not heard back from them.

It used to be a mattress

But wait!  There's more!  Natani also recently jumped into our large outdoor planters after a rainstorm and got stuck chest-deep in the mud therein.  I had to pull her out and carry her mud-covered self into the house, straight into the bathroom for a bath.  But Natani is terrified of baths, you see.

She splayed all four of her legs and braced against the sides of the shower door.  I tried dozens of times but she fought hard. I eventually got her into the shower but only after the bathroom and everything in it -- the walls, the mirror, the floor, the sink, me -- was covered in mud.

When I finally emerged from the bathroom an hour later, Coco was standing ashen-faced on the other side of the door.  She said quietly, "Wow, Mommy, you said a lot of bad words." Hey, in my defense, the dog is a maniac!

As for our other dog, Oscar the old guy is still hanging in there.  He has to wear a diaper all day now because his bladder is not even remotely trustworthy.  It's gotten to the point he won't even stop to pee, just keeps walking as it happens, resulting in long pee rivers all over the house. He could not give two f*cks.

I recently bought him some more dog diapers on Amazon and noticed in the "Frequently Bought Together" section of the order page a can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli.  Can someone explain the connection between dog diapers and Chef Boyardee ravioli?  I'll admit I'm intrigued.

She's nuts but we love her so. 

Dogs do that to you.

My writing month went very well.  It felt luxurious to say "no" to everything but writing for a full month.  I was productive, got more done in that month than in the previous four years.  The terrorist attacks in Paris rocked me hard and led me to shelve the project for awhile, at the time I thought possibly forever.  I eventually picked it up again with an even greater desire to share stories about the city and its lovable/quirky inhabitants.  I haven't felt that clear and focused in ages.

Recently I've been referred to a good developmental editor who will hopefully help me shape the thing into something interesting. I hope there's a story to tell in there.  Still thinking of you, Paris.

My laptop was put aside long enough to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends.  I made the cheesy potatoes and the appetizer plate.  I sliced the hell out of my finger trying to peel jicama.  Don't try to peel jicama; it's a fool's task.  The skin is so thick, so unwieldy, it seemed the jicama was mocking me and my peeler. I got frustrated, reacted hastily. And then I was bleeding.

Thanksgiving began festively with a street brawl outside our friend's house just as we pulled up out front.  Their neighbors have a tricky situation going on.  A woman used to date one of the brothers but now she's dating the other brother so when the family gets together -- say, for Thanksgiving -- things don't go so well.  I called 911, of course, because that's what I do, then stepped gingerly through the angry family dropping f-bombs liberally with my cheesy potatoes and a tentative "Uhh, excuse me? And sorry! And Happy Thanksgiving?"

We love our community.  We always have a good time together but truly outdid ourselves this year. The high point was blaring New Edition's "Cool it Now" during dinner.  We sang the lyrics we all still remember from our youth in between mouthfuls of foodstuffs. The low point was when Coco took an elbow to the face on the trampoline and came indoors bleeding profusely from her gums.

And a final celebratory November event -- we finally bought an RV.  We are now the proud owners of a Winnebago ("The Winnie B" as we're calling her) though we still haven't taken possession of it thanks to a recalled propane line.  Bummer.  We're anxious to begin living "the lifestyle."

Alex and I went to the RV dealer last weekend to do our walk-through of the coach.  It took three hours.  The technician pointed out every switch, every button, every gauge, every sewer pipe thingy and gave ominous warnings like, "never ever do that, you could blow up your propane tank."  Alex and I tried to take notes but the amount of information was so voluminous, so overwhelming, by the end we were just staring blankly at the dude and whimpering.  We will therefore, upon taking possession, immediately blow up the propane tank.

she's a beauty

November was so good,
December is bound to be a disappointment.
MJ

Family Fun Day

Family fun days are not always full of family fun.  They are sometimes a kind of well-meaning torture. No sooner do you step out your front door than the whining starts -- someone needs the bathroom, someone's thirsty, someone accidentally put on shoes they outgrew two years ago.

The worst is when you realize you forgot your directions and/or tickets to some event on your desk.  The second worst is when you realize after you've hit cruising speed on the highway you forgot to put your youngest in the car and she is still standing in the driveway.

(never done that but came damn close)

I've taken to a lot of teeth grinding when we all go out for family fun days.  It's an overwhelming challenge to keep everyone in the same place and get everyone happy at the same time.  More than once I've become a manic-eyed Clark Griswold -- "This is a QUEST, a QUEST for FUN" -- as I've shuttled my family members from one area of the city to another.

Sometimes there are parks involved

 Sometimes carousels

Sometimes the overcrowded treehouse playground at REI, where you can hunker down at the adjacent World Wraps and dull your family fun anxiety with a Black-n-Blue smoothie. 

All that to say -- I'm pleased to announce we have finally found a winner for family fun day.  It's a family fun activity that is actually fun.  It's the only thing we've ever tried that has won enthusiastic, joyful approval from all members.

Boing boing boing

Boing boing boing

Trampolines.  Ridiculous, yes, but magical.  When adults jump on trampolines, it instantly erases years from their person.  They get giddy, and have way more fun than their kids, and it's about time.

If you're not into jumping around aimlessly and prefer a little more structure to your trampoline experience, perhaps you would enjoy trampoline dodgeball.  It's like reliving the horror of junior high dodgeball except you're bouncing all over the place and can't control your body and look like a total spaz -- actually yeah, just like junior high dodgeball. 

The above game was dads vs. kids.  The dads smoked 'em because kids are small and can't throw very well.  A kid would give a wildly inaccurate throw, it would land ten feet from its intended target and the dad would respond by pointing and laughing at them for a minute before BOOM, beaming one right back at their face.  It may seem heartless but everyone knows there's no compassion in dodgeball.

Lucien dragged Coco onto the court with him for the savagely fought "big kids" game.  Coco's no dummy.  She knew what to do --

Here's hoping trampolines never lose their novelty so I don't have to go to the aquarium or the science center or, god forbid, the library ever again.

I've recently started going to a co-working site to work on my Paris book.  It's impossible for me to write a book at home.  The lure of the laundry, or the home repair projects, or the snack cabinet is too great.  There were many times I sat down to write but then jumped back up to lip-synch some rad tunes into a large spoon.  I am prone to procrastination when I'm afraid of something so I guess writing that book scares me very much.

I needed some accountability in the form of other bodies.  Not that those bodies would stand over me and hit me with sticks if I didn't write, but more they would notice if I sat there and stared at my laptop screen doing nothing.  Then they would probably think, "She's the dumbest writer ever because she never writes anything" and I don't want people to think I'm a dumb writer so I would write a ton out of fear of judgment.

The co-working movement, if you haven't heard, is about having a place to go for people who work from home.  It's a way to combat the loneliness of working alone and to rid oneself of the distractions of home.  Instead of puttering around getting nothing done at home, participants in the co-working community gather in a place, each focused on their own pursuit, and get nothing done together.

I was nervous walking in my first day not knowing anyone.  I may or may not have given myself a few pacing pep talks before getting into the car.  It's hard to put oneself out there, walk alone into what you assume is a well established community, and beg them to love and accept you. 

I reassured myself that if I walked in the front door and realized it wasn't my scene, I could backtrack silently, cover my eyes and walk slowly backwards putting my feet in exactly the same places they had been when I walked in, and nobody would ever know.  Or perhaps they would all be sitting there and clearly see me doing that and think I was a lunatic but who cares, I'd be gone. 

There was no need for nerves.  The co-workers at my site are pathologically friendly.  Now that I'm settling in nicely, being in a co-working space is much like having regular co-workers.  We all work silently, heads down, the only sound in the room the "tap tap" of laptop keys until suddenly someone stifles a giggle.  Moments later the rest of us receive an email because a fellow co-worker has found something delightful on the internet they need to share right away.  That's how I came to have "Vladimir Putin Gay Dress-Up" in my inbox. 

The stream of people I've met at co-working are super Seattleish -- artists and software people and web designers and writers and not-for-profit idealists.   One guy has a science-themed radio show.  One guy works for the Beacon Hill Food Forest  (The Beacon Hill food forest is an urban public food forest -- if you want an apple, just take an apple!)  He also partakes in drum circles, which I imagine is obligatory for young Seattle men who work in public food forests.

One woman is an artist and has painted kids room murals depicting children in pink capes flying over Mount Rainier and the Space Needle.  One woman is a writer and community organizer and was one of the driving forces behind the "Hopscotch CD" event we took part in last summer.  Very few of these people have children so I'm a bit of of a foreign specimen.  When I pack up and leave shortly after noon because I have to get Coco at preschool, I am met with puzzled looks.  Most of them have just recently rolled out of bed, you see.  They nod thoughtfully when I explain about the kidfolk and now call me "The A.M. shift."

Lucien's karate class discussed their word of the month, "kindness," this week.  The teacher asked, "How do you show kindness to others?" and one little boy raised his hand and said, "I guess if somebody had hypothermia, I would probably help them, I guess."

Karate: shaping the leaders of tomorrow!

Boing boing boing,
MJ

Learning curves

At Coco's most recent HELLRAISER BALLET class, the teacher noticed she tends to lead with her left foot and is therefore, possibly, a leftie.  We nodded our heads together in mutual lukewarm enthusiasm for Coco's hypothetical oddity.

Then the teacher mentioned "a little test" her family doctor mentioned to her years ago.  If you want to know if your child is right-handed or left-handed, stand behind them and, without warning, give them a little push.  Whichever leg they step forward with to avoid faceplant is likely the side they favor.

The following scene may or may not have played out five minutes later in front of the community center:

Me: *shove*
Coco:  AAAAAHHH......
Horrified Onlookers:  You are a terrible woman.
Me:  Confirmed!  A southpaw!

Alex's co-worker from Beijing, who was in Seattle for a business meeting, came over for dinner last week.  He was born and raised in Singapore but has lived in China for many years.  In discussing plans for dinner, he mentioned he'd never been in an American house before and also had never eaten Mexican food before.  Alex decided to take care of both at once -- dinner would be takeout from our favorite fancy Mexican restaurant, Cactus, served in the dusty old American grandeur of Banister Abbey.

I ordered butternut squash enchiladas.  I always order butternut squash enchiladas from Cactus.  They are my favorite and I don't mess with a good thing.  We ordered Singapore/China Dad a Mexican basic -- carne asada tacos.  When the tacos came out of the box and were set before him, he looked at them with question mark eyes.  To him, the almighy taco was a truly foreign object.

Singapore/China Dad is a fascinating guy with a fascinating life.  We had a lively fun conversation but through it all, he remained lost with his taco.  He poked at it for awhile, then scooped the insides out into a pile in the middle of the plate.  He seemed happy with the deconstructed taco pile but after many sidelong glances towards me, Alex couldn't take it anymore and interrupted the conversation for a taco lesson.

When Al said he was supposed to pick up the whole thing and eat it with his hands, Singapore/China Dad looked at Al like he was playing a joke on him.  He then looked at me for confirmation and I said, "Yes, it's true!  Mexican food can be really messy!"  He believed me, likely because I had butternut squash enchiladas smeared all over my face.  They're not messy or hard to eat, I just get a little overexcited sometimes.

When we asked S/C Dad what he thought about Mexican food, he proclaimed it, "exotic!"  That's about the last thing Mexican food is to me -- it's more like a necessary staple, like bread and butter, really -- but I'm happy to give him such a scintillating cultural experience.

 Sibling teamwork.  Lucien on gas pedal, Coco on steering wheel.

I've experienced some dental hell lately.  The dentist tells me I need about five thousand crowns, which is odd given my number of teeth.  I went in recently for the preparation/temporary crown step and the dentist wanted to put a wedge thing in my mouth to keep my mouth open.  Wedging my mouth open with something like a tiny rubber horseshoe?  Dentists, go home, you're drunk!

I take my bodily autonomy very seriously.  I went for a facial chemical peel once and the lady wanted to put these little sticky things on my eyes to keep them closed.  I freaked out.  There was absolutely no need for me to have my eyes open but the fact she was taking away any possibility of me opening them made my fight-or-flight kick in and I punched her in the face.  I kid!  I kid!  I didn't punch, just threatened her firstborn.

Even hugs.  I enjoy being hugged by Al if the hug is a normal one.  But sometimes Alex thinks he's a bear.  When Al thinks he's a bear, he squeezes so hard I can't move.  Then our laughing happy "hee hee we're hugging" turns into me screaming and clawing his face off and him looking at me asking, "My God, what happened to you as a child?"

Claustrophobia ain't just about elevators, people.  And for some reason, for me, it's only kicked in the past couple years.  What is it about getting older and fearing movement restrictions?  My theory is it's a growing fear of the coffin.

I refused the wedge thing.  The dentist said "please?" and I said "no."  She said "you won't be able to keep your mouth open that long" and I said "watch me."  She said "you're absolutely not allowed to move for a very long time" and said "if it will help me avoid the tiny rubber horseshoe of death, I won't."

And I didn't.  Two hours of near constant open mouth.  I didn't move a muscle.  The dentist was impressed.  My will can be cast iron as long as I know I have options.

Al and I have been trolling architectural salvage yards recently.  They are some of our happiest places.  There's nothing like walking into a place full of rusted old house parts and seeing all the possibilities --

 

 

      

 

   

"We disagree, we are bored."

My book about Paris has been on the back burner for a long time.  There's always something happening that takes my attention from book writing and focuses it on a house falling apart or a child vomiting in my lap.

I need inspiration, and accountability.  I've signed up for a memoir writing class in the hopes of adding structure to my writing life.  My first class is this evening.  I'm nervous, primarily because it's a class full of "real writers" and I am but a lowly blogger.  I'm sure I'll look stupid.  Thankfully, this is not a deterrent.

 Grand finale -- Al in a bib.

A southpaw!
MJ