Advice. Sorry, can't help myself.

Nothing funny here. Just a reminder about something important. I like the words I used to describe yoga to my brother-in-law so I'm going to repeat them here.

For me, Bikram yoga has replaced the operating room, physical therapy, medication and the gym. I can't say enough good about it. A healthy spine and strong core are gifts to myself that I don't know how I lived without. A dark, scary time in my life a year and a half ago, when I was scheduled for three level fusion surgery of my cervical spine, has turned into something beneficial that touches all areas of my life, mental as well as physical.

I don't want to go on and on because, just like blabbering to a mother-to-be about your labor and early parenting experiences, the uninitiated have no frame of reference in which to process the information.

Try a class if there is one near you. Go to www.bikramyoga.com. The class finder link is on the left. If not, at least try a hatha yoga class, the therapeutic benefits may take longer without the aid of the heat, but the postures in Bikram yoga are based on hatha yoga.

Happy strengthening and stretching and sweating. The end.

Rain.

So I head out today for a certain "salon" appointment. I tend to put this one off because it, well, HURTS. Anyway. I arrive at my appointment after driving through dust/ash/mud slicked streets that are enjoying their first soaking rain in almost a year. Whee. It turns out that the crappy-ass neighborhood my salon has recently relocated to has a minor issue with storms. I didn't make much notice of the three major intersections I passed through that had police directing traffic until I show up for my appointment and find out there's been no power to the area since 9pm last night. Hmmm. New appointment for next Monday. Now I've got to psych myself up all over again.

Upside: I'm offered a free skin-care product for my inconvenience. Yay.

Then, I get on the freeway to return home. Oops. ALL lanes blocked, probably due to some unseen tragedy up the hill and around the curve. I'm starting to wonder about this much needed storm.

Upside: It's not my car that caused the back-up.

So finally I arrive home, it took about an hour to creep to the next exit and wind my way through side streets, ala Steve Martin's commute in "L.A. Story." I hit the driveway, push the gate opener and find one more casualty of the rain. Yup, gate won't open. My car's ass is hanging out into the street while I grapple with the oily, dirty pin so I can open the gate manually, and I slip and fall flat on my face into the dust/ash/mud stream coming off our property.

Upside: Power isn't out to the house, so hopefully we only need a fuse, or mabye a new transformer. And, I was already doing laundry...

So I'm still thinking maybe this run of bad luck is the storm's fault when I remember that it was yesterday that I discovered, before all this rain started, that my AMEX card showed six fraudulent charges.

Upside: Whoever stole my credit card info. was smart enough to use a fake phone number and email, but overlooked the fact that all the weird crap they ordered online was still being delivered to my address.

Anyway, now that I've documented my string of bad luck, I hope it will leave me alone for a while. And rain, I'm sorry I doubted you, keep it coming.

A half acre ain't gonna be enough..

There have been many creature funerals at our house. Everything from the cat who came before the kids to a praying mantis that was killed with kindness. The mice are buried on the wild back hill, the fish went, um, down the toilet, and the lizards have their own well-populated rocky area near the cactus.

Today I discovered a private burial site for something I didn't even know ranked it's own funeral.

My youngest daughter's favorite plaything all weekend was a balloon with a gobstopper inside. Who knows the appeal? All I remember is it watched TV and slept with her for several days. I'm sure that I've mentioned in the past that she's a combination of immature for her age and also very nurturing?

Anyway, unfortunately, on Monday after school, it met the end the way most balloons do. It popped unexpectedly, scared the shit out of all living things within range, and the gobstopper disappeared under the dusty recesses of some (yet to be identified) piece of furniture.

I saw her tear up, but how much sympathy can I muster for a balloon that just about stopped my heart? I breezed over her disappointment and got on with whatever important Mom thing (facebook) I was doing.

My sweet little thing handled it in her own way...there are now two new headstones in the yard with fresh flowers scatted in front of them. One for "ballooney" and one for "gobbey". They even post the day and year (month excluded) of their demise and a RIP rounds out the epitaph. How touching in a strange little girl sort of way...Love ya Mads.

And, yes, like my sister-in-law suggested, I may need a bigger yard soon.

My favorite season.

OK, so my spawn have returned to school.
Fourth day now to be exact.
I can run around accomplishing the mundane tasks of "wife and mom" without any input from the peanut gallery about when we should leave Costco or just how many errands is too many in one outing.
Big sigh of relief.
I can browse the net without someone reading over my shoulder and, today, I turned the car stereo WAY up and listened to a whole damn song without interruption.
Another whew.
One problem.
I keep making comments out loud, like maybe someone is listening.
Is it possible that I..gasp..miss them!
That's crazy!
Have they evolved enough from the needy hell that is baby and toddler that I now might actually LIKE having them around?
Oh, shit, I just looked at the time, I only have an hour left before school pick-up.
That's nowhere near enough physical and mental space for one day.
I take it all back, thank god for school.

Summer

As an adult, I still look forward to summer with the anticipation of FREEDOM that those months brought to me as a child. Not only did the responsibility of school fall away, but so did the need for boots, mittens, sweaters, umbrellas, heck, clothing in general.

We would get up in the morning, throw on a swimsuit, succumb to the dousing of "OFF" (I grew up in Minnesota) and head out on our bikes to dig melted tar out of the street, skateboard down the spiral freeway pedestrian ramps, and plan the dreaded "can my friend sleepover" ambush on our parent(s). Pushing around those fluid filled blisters on our shoulders on a drive back from the day at the lake in the scorching sun was unending entertainment.

Church camp on a leech-filled lake four hours outside the city was our idea of heaven. The kids ran free for a week while the parents drank themselves into a boozier state of "holier-than-thou". There was nothing better than passing the swimming test to get your ankle bracelet that allowed unquestioned access to the raft 100 yards out into the lake.

You all know where this is going....Now I am the parent, when in the hell did that happen? I am surprised every year by the massive amount of responsibility and reduction of free time that summer rains on me.

WTF? My new favorite month is September, and NOT because both my girls made their entrance into this world then, or because I got married in that month, big deal. Whatever the date school starts on the first Thursday after Labor Day is my ticket back to sanity, order, and bedtimes in the single digits. The anticipation of freedom that I used to feel as a child at the beginning of summer has now shifted to fall.

Now...all I have to do is make sure my kids never get a whiff of the added work, the explosion of mess and NEED that this wondrous time of year creates. I want them to remember me buzzed on the beach with my boring friends while they run free on their scooters and bikes and boogie boards. They don't need to know how much effort and time is needed to produce these carefree memories.

So far this summer we have traveled to Portugal and Spain, blown up our own illegal fireworks, culitvated zucchini, tomatoes and beans, made paper, hung out at Venice Beach, ridden mechanical bulls, created underwater videos in the pool, and there have been no trips to the ER. Still in the works are trips to see family in the Northwest and a week camping at the beach.

I'm gonna pat myself on the back for a great first five weeks and hope my children come away with some lasting memories of fun and freedom. I'll ask them twenty years from now just how great it was...

Trading addictions.

So I'm a facebook whore. I can't stay away. At first, the draw was reconnecting with all the people I friended and lost in my many moves. Then it was Scrabble. Now it's Mafia Wars.

I barely even update my status anymore because any feedback I get on that might take away precious time better spent banking my money, robbing unsuspecting landlords and attacking other mafias. I won't even go into the shopping sprees where I acquire my many tools of violence.

I figured out today that my kids are suffering. Jos is begging for an email and a facebook page so she can join in on my obsession. Oops. Madeline has created a menagerie of clay sculptures in colors of clay we don't own, she's been "clay mixing" and forming friends while perched directly in front of the TV for hours on end. Double oops.

So I decided that I will only hit the internet when they are at school or asleep. Needless to say, I managed to wash a few dishes today, return some shoes, clean the cat box, and still spend about three hours buried in my make-believe world of crime and, uh, more crime.

My only hope now is for someone to take a hit out on Don Kempsey and end this obsessive nonsense. Ooh, ooh, I'm gonna go check to see if I'm still alive.

The Secret Lives of Cats

I have not written about the cats lately. They are as different from each other as my children.

Lilly is fluffy, clean, long-haired. She has a massive tail and tiny little crossed eyes that make her look sweet and a bit worried.

Bongo has short, wiry fur and a tiny body for such a fierce warrior. He's a bundle of muscles and curiosity and dirt.

We have been in and out of town a lot lately. The cats are allowed outside, but when we are gone, I just lock them in.

When we return, both run outside immediately to roll around on the driveway, because that's way better than rolling around on the wood floor. Then they follow us around for a while to say "we missed you", then it's business as usual.

For Lilly, she sits near a bush and watches the bugs fly around.

Bongo will rush around looking for something to kill and when it's dead he brings it back for Lilly to play with.

I often imagine what they do for days on end when we are away. Maybe something like this...

Lilly: "Bongo, there's no use trying to get outside, why don't you follow my lead and take a bath or something?"

Bongo: "Quiet! I see a squirrel. If I paw at this glass hard enough I think I'll get out.

Lilly: "If you really want to do something productive, see if you can get that bag of treats open."

Bongo: "Treats! My treat is that BIRD right outside, aaaahhh, must get BIRD!

Lilly: "Bongo, where are you going now? That's the family room, you can't get out that way either and the food, water, and couch are over here...OH, not again! I've told you a million times, the only thing that happens when you climb up the inside of the fireplace is you get more filthy!"

Bongo: "OK, I'm at the top, I can smell the outside, but you're right, and I'm stuck again. Can you talk me down? I keep forgetting how to climb backwards."

Lilly; "I'll help you out of the chimney, but you HAVE to promise to bathe once I get you out."

Bongo: (Claws crossed) "OK, I'll do it, now get me down so I can look for another escape route."

Lilly: "It's been two days, could you spare a moment to get the soot off the underside of your feet and maybe clean your ass while you are at it?"

Bongo: "Stop complaining, I licked my tail for a while yesterday, jeez. LIZARD! Oh god, my life sucks. Where ARE my humans?"

...and so on.