Snow Week and True Confessions of an Armchair Psychiatrist

The kids are finally back to school after what seems like another vacation. My older two had half-days all last week, then the youngest missed last Friday to spend the weekend in Kentucky with family. Monday was a scheduled day off, then we've just had two snow days. After a delay of two hours, everyone is gone and now the house is quiet for the first time in a while. It always feels a little strange and I have to take a minute to figure out what to do next because no one needs to be reminded to do their chores or is telling me the cats need food.

Today I have to wait for a repairman till noon, so I'll be cleaning and doing laundry then I'm off to the grocery to get ready for my annual weekend away in PA. And the cats do need food, so I have some guidance there as to what to do, otherwise I'm on my own. It is too icy to run outside, so I'm forced to resort to some sort of exercise video (which means my workout will likely be the walk around the grocery store with a little bit of core strengthening thrown in from trying not to slip and fall in my driveway), then I'm off to the cabin.

Though I've tried a little bit, I'm still not really reading other blogs, which makes me even more appreciative that anyone still reads or comments on mine. I know there's etiquette here and I haven't been keeping up my end of the bargain. I've been trying to help a friend who is suffering for the past 6 weeks or so, and I've felt like I just didn't have room in my brain to know what anyone else was thinking or even doing. Things have changed though. My friend is still suffering, but I'm not what she wants as help right now, so I'm off the job other than to keep loving her and being here if she changes her mind. I'm okay, and have been okay, it has just taken up a lot of the spare energy I might have used on other things. Now that I'm letting her let me go, I have a little margin again.

I have this copied into an old journal. It applies somewhat here:

"Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannot congeal in winter."
- James Fenimore Cooper

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Intimations of Mortality

I had a nice conversation today with one of my most enduring friends. We've known each other since our very early teens and have managed to stay in touch on and off now for almost 30 years. She lives in California and I'm working on trying to see her when I'm there next month for work. We had the opportunity to talk about her brother-in-law, who was also an important friend from my teen years, who has been fighting cancer for a long time and has gone in and out of remissions for several years. Now it is back with a vengeance, they have abandoned western medicine for alternative options and he is very, very sick. They are very optimistic about the treatment they've found, but it will be a hard road. She said I wouldn't recognize him because he is so wasted by the disease and the treatments. This is a man just 4 years older than me.

We also talked about a mutual friend, who was younger than us by a couple of years, but with whom we both spent a lot of time. We were close enough that we had sleepovers together and borrowed each other's clothes, etc. This friend died last July from a rare and violent form of cancer that ravaged her body in a matter of months. My pal didn't know about this yet but when I told the news, it hit her hard, and for the first time, me as well. This time, I had someone our age, who was connected with her in a similar way to spark memories and share thoughts with. Thus my response to her death evolved rapidly from a detached sort of sadness about the death of a woman I once knew who lived far away to reminiscences about someone I loved and with whom I shared my hopes and dreams during my formative years.

Uff. That's it. No platitudes or advice. Just a deepened awareness. Make of it what you will.

That's me on the right holding the girl up. Rachel, who passed away, is on the left.

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An Auntie Again

My youngest sister had her second baby yesterday! She came three weeks early, before my mom could even get out to Arizona to help, but she's fine and beautiful to boot. She looks like her brother, with cute cheeks and dark hair. This brings the grand total of nieces and nephews to 18. We are especially happy to have another girl because of my folks' 23 grandchildren, only 6, now 7 are girls. It's a bit boyish when we all get together, so this new infusion of femininity will be welcomed by all. They range now in age from my oldest at 21 (almost 22) down to Newborn, with number 24 on the way in June. Pretty amazing. I'm so happy for my sis to have an uncomplicated pregnancy and delivery as she has Type 1 Diabetes and has to be super careful when she's pregnant. She's been blessed though, and this little one is just fine. I know her name, but I've no idea how it's spelled. It is Aubrey Susanne or something that will sound like that, if not look like it. Anyway, congrats to my darling sis!

I love being an Auntie, with the only downside being that I am far from all my siblings, thus all my nieces and nephews. I make up for it by trying to be friends with as many little ones here as I can, and the hugs I get go a long way toward filling up that void. Hopefully though, we'll be in Arizona for Christmas and I'll be able to play with lots of little relatives.

This is almost all of us in the summer of 2007. If you're trying to count, there are several missing: My son Jeff, plus one of my brothers, his wife and two children are missing. Oh and one brother wasn't married yet, so his wife and her kids aren't in this one either. Time flies I tell you! The new mama of today's post is sitting down on the rock on the right side.

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The Eyes Have It

Being a woman of contradictions such as I am, the fact that I had so much fun today makes some sense, but still, to look at me on a typical day one would not think so.

What am I talking about? Well, today I got to go to the Fila Academy where my pal Scarlett is a student and be her eye-makeup model.

Can I just say that she is amazing? A true artist. The best part was watching this girl work. Scarlett first did "Smokey Eyes" on me in a selection of green tones, and that turned out great,
but then I quickly stripped that off and got ready for a day-to-evening bridal look. I'm still wearing that one, including "flares" which are little wisps of artificial eyelashes that are applied with an adhesive to fill in one's natural lashes without the need for mascara. They don't have the heavy look of traditional false eyelashes (which I wore for the Smokey-eyes look), but they add thickness, length and definition. These are a bit long and dramatic for me, but the idea is sound, especially since they will last a week and you don't need mascara-pretty cool actually.


So why the surprise that this was so much fun? Because I am a beauty expert like Scarlett's worst nightmare. I use $1.49 Suave hair products. I wash my face with Cetaphil lotion and use sunscreen as a moisturizer. 4 days out of 7 I wear no make-up and barely do my hair. Yes, to me, L'Oreal is an upscale brand. Even though I've bought lots of Mary Kay and admittedly a trip to Sephora is really dangerous for me because I love trying new stuff that smells good and feels nice, I always end up back in my old habits and go no further than CVS or Target for my beauty needs. Even when I do wear make-up, it is paired with the same outfit I've worn since 7th grade-jeans and a sweater or t-shirt. Thus the contradiction. I love the idea of looking totally groomed and put together, of wearing black dress boots under my jeans for that great casual-chic feel, but I never quite care enough to make it happen during the normal course of my life. I do it for church and work, but the rest of the time, I tend to go au naturel. I like being able to put my hair up and out of my way rather than spend 60 minutes (yep, that's what it takes, even when it's short) blowdrying it and straigtening it. Maybe if I had an entourage and could sit and listen to an audiobook for the two hours it would take to put me together each morning, I would get into it. As Cindy Crawford the famous supermodel once said, "Even I don't look like Cindy Crawford when I wake up in the morning."


For now, today was a an awesome fantasy under the tutelage of a truly talented woman. I felt pampered, I felt pretty, and I appreciate the difference that make-up makes. It was totally fun to see the classroom setting and see how passionate the instructor and the students were about helping people look and feel beautiful.

Thanks Scarlett for the glimpse into the other side of me!

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What is it about Wuthering Heights?

I love this book. I carried a copy of it around with me in high school and just picked it up and read it at random times. I wasn't a dark, gothic, melancholy sort of kid, but this story with its intense language has always touched that that bit of me. I love movie versions of it, including the latest one on Masterpiece (I know it's not the best ever, but I'm easy to please-I love seeing the characters come to life and the settings, plus this is one was filmed in Yorkshire). It is so tragic that it is cathartic I suppose, and there is something about Heathcliff's misery. He is the iconic untamed man, possessing that deep sadness that begs to be healed. Something. I don't know. I remember once Evan was watching a version of it with me (my kids are pretty used to me watching costume dramas and will usually sit down and watch with me) and people started dying right and left and he finally looked up at me and said, "Mom is anything good going to happen in this movie?" I said, "Nope." He excused himself, shaking his head at my foolishness. Oh well. I always watch to the very end, weeping for the lost opportunities and imagining Cathy and Heathcliff together at last, wandering the moors. I'm putting the back of my hand to my forhead and sighing as I type this, really.

Oh, Heathcliff!

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