In case it doesn't make it into comments:

Heh. I love the determined look in her eyes.

And the blade in her right hand.  Just needs a plate of cacciatore.

By the way, great pics from flyover country.  Stunning stuff. 

And I didn't omit Seattle -- I've been there (enjoyed it, would visit again). 

The other places listed in my Fantasy Friday post below would be first time visits.  I have a much larger list, but those locations cited 03-DEC-04 are top of my list.

 

 

  9:11:53 PM    comment []

I just realized I'm going to get kicked down a notch in the next 24 to 48 hours.

By an Avon Lady.

Watch out, Rob, you're next!

Who knew Anew could do?

 

  6:58:27 PM    comment []

He was leanly muscular and tall.  He had to stoop slightly to rest his chin on the top of my head.

His gait reminded one of a large cat bounding, rolling softly from one foot to the next with a slight spring as his weight eased from sole to sole.

At close range, one could see that his hair was a coarse mixture of natural color, ashy blonde and ashy brown peppered together.  At a distance, his hair was like a deer’s coat. Gray-brown in shadow, blonde in sun, it was never quite the same from moment to moment.

The eyes were liquid, a color neither brown nor green.  They were clear, piercing, unblinking when not flashing with easy humor.  His hands were sculpted, long fingers defined like those of a fine statue of antiquity.

He rarely sat still.  There was always something to do; his favorite sports beckoned, his favorite playthings demanded attention.

Yet he’d invest time in things that one might not expect of an active man.  He took time to review every flower in the florist’s case, hand-select each bloom for an arrangement.  In advance of special events, he’d carefully coordinate his wardrobe to that of his escort’s, down to the boutonnière and wrist corsage.

He was highly articulate, rarely losing an argument for lack of cogent thought conveyed clearly.  His friends rarely disagreed with him; it was hard to fault him.

On our first date, he leaned in tightly to take my hand, to breathe into my ear as he whispered about the movie.  He grasped my thigh gently, and then whispered he thought I was more muscular.

I should have known at that moment, but I was too much in thrall.

He would find fault with everything I was, with everything I did for the next five years.

After that first date, I took up running, biking, jumping rope to tighten my thighs.  They were hard and cut when he told me he wished I was taller.

I wore three-inch heels, even at work, suffering from muscle cramps and backaches after eight hours on my feet.

He stared deep into my eyes, told me they were “cow-brown”; he told me he loved them, but he’d always had a thing for green-eyed blondes.

I lightened my hair.  The eyes I could do nothing for at that time; I avoided looking at myself in the mirror.

There was always something more I wasn’t.  He would tell me he loved me, buy me tortured bouquets on the appropriate occasions with love notes attesting to the same.  And then he’d tell me he wished I’d long hair instead of short hair, or some such thing.

Having become his intimate, his confident, he felt comfortable with making confessions to me.  He would point out beautiful women and discuss their attributes with me.

I only nodded my head.  Here he was, beside me, this choice piece of manhood.  How could he be wrong?

It went on.  And on.  He must be right, I thought; I have to do this better or that better.  I’d bemoan in silence the things I could not change by the accident of my birth.

He went about his way each day, doing what he loved to do.  Even at parties, he would sit beside the prettiest girl in the room, chatting about the things that made him happiest, the things he wished he had.  I would find myself alone, outside, gazing at the stars, waiting for the time we could leave the party and head home.  Sometimes I waited almost the entire length of the party. 

He would go to parties without me, too.  It was easier, waiting at home.  I could read or sew, maybe try a new recipe that he might like.

Sometimes women would drop by out of thin air looking for him.  They would leave quickly after making a stilted good-bye; I don’t think they expected me to be at home.

It built slowly, a pan put on the boil at the barest heat.  It took a little over four years for the anger to finally roil and break the surface; it took friend’s gentle chiding to see the absolute ridiculousness of my situation, to break through the thickness that had grown up around my girl’s heart, choking the untried intuition of a young woman.

He had a temper tantrum during dinner, with guests at the table.  Why had I not deboned the chicken breasts instead of serving them as is, bone-in, in the chicken cacciatore?  I tried to defuse the situation quickly by deboning his portion for him immediately, dying of embarrassment, my face as red as the sauce.

That friend still teases me about that night and that chicken, all these years later.  How is it a smart, confident woman would put up with such bratty childishness from any man?

Why was it not his womanizing that did it?  Why was it not his carelessness with me that did it?  Why was it not all the other countless petty abuses that did it, driving me to and over the line?

Why was it the cacciatore that tipped the balance?

I don’t know the answer, even decades later.  I only know that I decided that evening that I’d had enough.

He was vain.  Shallow.  Selfish.  Petty.  Thoughtless.  Verbally abusive.  He was everything he hated about his own cold, demanding father.  He was nothing that he admired about his loving, generous mother.  He was unmotivated to change things, in spite of having the resources to make dramatic change within his own hands.

I saw this clearly, my eyes opened.  I looked deeply into my own brown eyes in the mirror that evening, teary from his tirade over a little chicken breast in a homemade tomato sauce.

These eyes aren’t “cow-brown”.  They are a shade of chocolate. 

And I am lusciousness itself, a petite woman of exotic background and hungry intelligence.  I was an eager and passionate partner, a helpmate, a willing fellow traveler, a companion in the darkest and longest hours.  I’d lost sight of all of that, growing up those last few years into womanhood under his shadow, under his thumb.  I would never be a tall, willowy blonde with green-eyes who would wait on his every whim.  I would be everything but that.

And that was okay.  More than okay. 

In fact, it’s been more than enough.

I’m not alone in thinking this, either.  I know that’s what the friend who still kids me about the damnable deboned chicken, fourteen years of marriage and two kids later, thinks too. 

Whenever I get a little too forgetful about that certain kind of man, ask me for cacciatore.

I hope you'll understand when I say hell no and laugh.

 

 

  5:14:59 PM    comment []

[ begin rant ]

Really, truly annoying: Attractive men with adequate means, moderate intellect and a decent job that whine about meeting only fluffy Barbie women.

I would like to say to the same: Navel gazing to excess is not healthy; more so when done in the mirror.

And when persistent navel gazing yields only more Barbies, it's time to do something different.

Like cracking a book, really using that grey goo in the brain pan, instead of talking to other shallow, self-centered navel-gazers.  Try talking to non-Barbies in places where Barbies don't meet. 

Or doing something for somebody other than the navel in the mirror for once in your life.

Maybe even give thanks to the cosmos and any other entities responsible for the under-appreciated wealth around you, beyond that in the mirror.

If you were my son I'd put you in timeout until you quit the whining.

What the hell...it's no skin off my nose.

You're in time out.

[ end rant ]

 

  2:14:13 PM    comment []

I’m with Marsha of Hot Water Bath.  Until now, the ferrying of children that other parents have described has been neatly avoided – but Marsha and I are now on the hook.  She’s running her four-year-old around to various activities as well as doing all sundry errands and shopping.

In my case, it’s sports.  My daughter has started playing basketball in a tightly condensed season.  My guess as to the cause is that there were so many girls that wanted to play that they didn’t have enough coaches; when they finally got the coaches they needed, the season only had six weeks for all practices and games and championship.

Six weeks.

Yeesh.

We have three practices the first week, two practices and a scrimmage the second week, punctuated by a holiday.  Then one practice and two games this past week.  That’s a lot of running back and forth, to and from the house and school and everything in between.

The next three weeks are a mystery.  I have absolutely NO clue what the schedule is this week; they haven’t published it yet.  Absolutely NO idea what scheduling conflicts lie ahead, either.  I am only certain that I will be shuttling Kids A and B to points C, D and E numerous times.

The worst part is shuttling my son hither and yon at the same time.  He has a general sports class on Tuesdays, meaning I have to drop off my daughter, run him to class, run back to pick her up if her father can’t pick her up after he leaves the office.  My son is taking this class because he felt left out; why was his sister in a sport and he wasn’t?  Telling him he’s too young is simply not cutting it.  Frankly, the exercise and continued work on gross motor development isn’t going to hurt him one bit, and it’s been too sloppy outside for him to get the same kind of workout while playing in the yard.  When he’s not in sports class, he’s forced to make the run to and from the school for practices and games – he is getting a bit testy about spending so much time in the car.

I don’t like not working; I’d rather be employed, making some sort of regular contribution every day.  However, it’s damned hard to get these kids into an intramural program of any kind without having to cut into a schedule.  Since I’m not working it’s much easier to simply drop what I’m doing and shuttle the kids wherever they need to go.  It’s not as if I’m overbooking them, either; they’re only allowed one intramural activity at a time.

How do parents with more than two kids do this?  I can see in a few years when my son reaches real sports programs that we’ll have a scheduling nightmare on our hands.  And I’ve only got the two kids.

What happens if and when I go back to working fulltime, 8-to-5 Monday through Friday?  How do fully-employed parents, single parents, do all this running?  It looks like a miracle.

There is a silver lining, though, all this running around and watching basketball.  First, I get to spend some time alone with my son; he’s reaching that tenuous point where he still wants to have dedicated time with mom, but is starting to pull away.  We might not have the same kind of relationship next year when he becomes more of a full-fledged schoolboy and less of mom’s baby.

And I’m learning to appreciate basketball.  I’ve hated it for as long as I can remember.  Perhaps it was because my short stature never really leant itself towards the sport.  A long-term relationship with Mr. Not-at-all-Right who LOVED basketball only reinforced my dislike of the game. 

But everything changes when a girl with your eyes and her father’s legs runs down the court towards you, dribbling away, a pack of other equally intent girls hot on her heels.  You can feel your heart stop in your chest as she aims and shoots, the ball sailing away from her hands towards the basket, your breath caught and held as the ball whirls around the rim.

Yes, everything’s changed.

 

  12:46:32 PM    comment []