Eden M. Kennedy's Blog, page 11
January 7, 2012
Let's call this Photo Friday
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January 6, 2012
Lepidopterology
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January 5, 2012
Pumbled
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January 4, 2012
How are you!
Today was a very, very, very busy day at the library. We'd been closed for three days because of the New Year's holiday, which gave all of our patrons time to read the books they'd borrowed, then scour their own shelves for more reading material, then think about all the books they don't really need anymore, fill several boxes with them, and bring them down to donate to the library. I lifted, scanned, toted, flipped through, checked in, checked out, and redirected all the books today. All of them. In the world. Anything left over was moldy and I recycled it, but if you go through the bins behind our branch you can have them, spider nests and all. You're welcome.
The other thing that happened today was people kept asking, "How are you?" On a normal day, maybe three people ask me that, and I say, "Fine. How are you?" But as the day wore on and my mood wore on in an equivalent manner, people kept asking me, "How are you?" like there was something going wrong with my face, and the more they asked the more I wanted to say, "I don't feel like answering that," or "Why do you care?" or "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you," because I really didn't want to say, "Fine," I wanted them to stop asking. But I couldn't because they were always so nice about it, and filled with holiday cheer. Finally, I just turned my back and started reading a donated Cesar Milan book, because if he could save Banjo the anti-social lab rescue dog from euthanasia, maybe he could save me, too.
January 3, 2012
Winter sky
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December 28, 2011
Welcome the Christmas Dick
I'd woken up feeling shaky and nauseated the day before Christmas. I honestly didn't think I'd had that much to drink the night before, just some champagne after work. I'd been sober enough to read 15 pages of The Hobbit out loud at bedtime. I'm always aware of the fact that there's a child in the house and someone needs to be sharp enough to perform the Heimlich Maneuver or a crude tracheotomy. (I keep forgetting about 911. I could actually just go ahead and descend into genteel alcoholism, but I feel like that's something I want to save for when I'm elderly and frail and have trained a herd of small dogs to make beer runs for me.) But I've had this cold for weeks and my defenses are down. An afternoon nap helped, but then the whole sleepless cycle started all over again, fueled by a boy who loses his mind every Christmas Eve.
11:30 p.m.
"Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom."
"Hi. I'm awake. What time is it?"
"I don't know."
"Look at the clock."
"Can you come snuggle with me? Mom? Mom."
"No. Go back to bed."
"But I can't sleep!"
"Figure it out."
12:00 a.m.
"Mom. Mom. Mom."
"Yes. I'm still awake."
"I still can't sleep."
"Well, climb in, then."
"I don't want to sleep with you guys."
12:30 a.m.
"Mom."
Sometimes there's no point in requiring him to be grown-up and independent. My God, he's only ten, why shouldn't I get into his bed to talk about video games, or death, or Yoda, or whatever it is we talk about on Christmas Eve? (We talked about 30 Rock and girls. And death.)
"I'm going to get you guys up at five o'clock so we can open presents!"
"No, you are not."
"Yes, I am! Five o'clock!"
"Dude, don't even think of opening that door until there's a six on the clock."
"Okay, I'll get you up at 5:06."
"Goddamnit, that's not what I meant. I mean when the first number on the clock is a six."
"Five thirty, then?"
"SIX."
He let us sleep in until 6:30. We'd taught him to use the espresso machine the night before, and he was under strict instructions not to wake us up until he'd made a double espresso with two sugars and an almond-milk cappuccino. And God love him, he did it.
But Christmas morning I felt like Death. No, wait — how could I feel like Death? Death is sharp-eyed and clear-minded and gets more than five hours of sleep a night. I had turned into something much worse.
I had turned into The Christmas Dick.
When people ask The Christmas Dick what she wants for Christmas she thinks, "Nothing?" and then spent 20 minutes on Amazon looking at colored tights and mid-range watches. She's polite enough to throw some stuff onto her wishlist that she sort of wants, but she's too conflicted about the meaning of it all to remember that people want to buy her something nice because it makes them feel good to do it. She gives with love but she's not nearly brave enough to want nothing at all.
So when The Christmas Dick gets what she asked for and finds that she really didn't want it at all, whose fault is it?
A. It is the fault of The Dick, clearly
B. It is her husband's fault, because everything is
C. Jesus started this whole mess, I'm sure it's in the Bible somewhere
D. All of the above
The correct answer is B: it's her husband's fault! And then after some breakfast and a nap, the answer changed to A: Her own damn fault. And then the next day when her husband told her to exchange the watch for one that suited her more, the answer changed to C: Jesus, the Bible, WalMart, Amazon, the English (because of their cultish love for King Wenceslaus), and the Germans (because of the tannenbaums).
Luckily, since the replacement watch will qualify as an early birthday present, The Birthday Dick is no doubt hiding right around the corner! To be closely followed by The Valentine's Day Bitch and The Easter Cunt.
December 20, 2011
Here, look at this
Remember back in October when I told you how I went to New York to buy a cheesecake, and accidentally made a video with Alice and Bethenny Frankel? Well, it may have been the other way around. The point is, that video is now live and I am both contractually and morally obligated to show it to you.
The story I told is actually true. The only reason I thought of dipping the baby in the toilet was the fact that Jack likes to tell us how his dad used to rinse his hair in the toilet. Jack's dad was an incredibly dapper man who grew up on a farm in Indiana and went on to work for Esquire, be a TV cowboy, and write a Gene Hackman movie, so you'll have to piece it all together from there.
The other thing I was thinking during the video was, "Do I even have any Clorox products in my house right now?" And I remembered that I did because I specifically bought a big bottle of bleach the last time my survivalist instincts bubbled up and I thought I ought to have a way to make clean drinking water in case of [insert post-apocalyptic scenario here].
December 16, 2011
Also, it's Friday
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December 14, 2011
I haven't been avoiding you!
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December 1, 2011
Day Thirty
Today I had the strange pleasure of going in for jury duty. I've been on call since Monday and I got to that irrationally casual mindset where I thought the whole week would sail by without me getting to sit in a fluorescent-lit room with a bunch of other registered voters and licensed drivers. Then this morning, when I called in to the jury hotline, they told me my number was up and to be there at 12:30 p.m., which was right in the middle of lunchtime at Jackson's school where I was helping to fill bowls with udon noodles and baking sheets with almond cookies. (It was fancy. Jackson hated it. He is not a "soup person.")
I was late to the juror orientation but I got there just in time for the video. The last time I got this far in the jury selection process was before Jackson was born so I don't remember the orientation video being so relentlessly upbeat about what it means to serve on a jury. It's not all just crime scene photos and night terrors! No, it's seeing the judicial process at work, helping to make decisions that no one person should have the power to make alone, looking deep inside yourself to find the truth, and making lifelong friends with other jurors. It's like criminal justice summer camp. (Or business deals gone terribly wrong summer camp, or one long let's-just-cut-this-baby-in-half high school reunion.)
Then the judge came in. He wasn't wearing robes, he was in a nice dark suit with a yellow tie and he seemed very kind and wise and I liked him right away. He thanked us all for the sacrifices we'd made to come there, but apparently the sight of all of us potential jurors gathering had made someone on the prosecution or the defense realize that shit was getting real, that their case was actually going to trial, and they decided to settle. The judge said that this sort of thing happens a lot. He said he was glad to see so many happy faces reacting to his news, then he apologized to those who were looking forward to serving on a jury, then he said he was open for Q & A and everyone laughed, and then he wished us happy holidays and we all applauded.
But after watching the video (and discovering I had no idea I was so susceptible to woodenly-acted government-produced films) and listening to the judge (who I suddenly wished were my uncle), I actually was a little disappointed. Not that my life needs to be upended by a trial at the moment, but I feel like a seed was planted in me that hopes someday, before my mind gives out completely, I will be on a jury. But not for something awful; and not for some squabble about property. I think my ideal trial would be if someone famous did something funny and then somebody who was watching it died laughing, but the person who died was really old and so they died perfectly happy, and the dead person's relatives were all very nice but they felt the needed to sue the famous person so that the dead person's widow wouldn't lose her house or something, and at first the famous person is all NO WAY because everyone always wants a piece of her or him, but then s/he sees that it's the right thing to do and accepts the verdict gracefully. So, some sort of feel-good comedy civil suit. I'm just putting it out there, universe.
And thus ends our regularly-scheduled National Blog Posting Month. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have, which is to say intermittently and with sudden unpredictable spurts of commitment to keeping track of my life and my thoughts. You're welcome, posterity.
