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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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11:13 a.m. - 2012-09-06
There's been an elephant in my life. Not one of those awkwardly ignored elephants either. This fucker was HUGE and it wasn't politely sitting in the room while we made strained chat over and around it, the damn thing was stomping me flat. So. No blogging for LA. The elephant made it impossible. My elephant problems haven't gone away but I got the stupid thing to wait in the yard while I go about the business of cleaning up all the smashed bits and flattened stuff and try to speak of other things. To wit: Wolf started his sophomore year today. Took his 5'10" size 13-footed self off to school this morning with me up on the front porch behind the door discretely watching through the sidelight window. At his request, mind you. Last night he was dorking out, his nervousness finally overwhelming his gloom about going back to school, and I offered to see him off today. An offer he accepted with open relief. Just to get him giggling I goofed with him and said I'd wait in the open doorway in my horrible nightie and wave to him and boo-hoo loudly. No wait! I'd stand at the bottom of the driveway holding his hand and when the bus came I'd introduce myself to the driver and explain what a precious boy my son was and admonish the driver to take VERY good care of my child. Now wouldn't that be an excellent way to start off his second year of high school? Wolf got into it and after we laughed ourselves out about name tags and me getting on the bus to do up his seatbelt for him he kissed the top of my head and thanked me for never being one of those moms. I assured him I do try very hard not to be. I try not to be one of those wives either. I never ask those horrible loaded 'girl' questions like: "Does this skirt make my ass look fat?" and "Am I prettier than your last girlfriend?" I try not to abuse the power of the boo-boo face either. The boo-boo face is Mick's kryptonite. He'd rather I throw a vase at his head or slam a door or threaten to castrate him if needs be. Anything but the boo-boo face. Another nice thing about getting older, the power to be a straight shooter. I used to be quite the manipulative vixen, still can be when I want to, con-artistry runs in my blood, but emotional sleight-of-hand isn't as appealing as it used to be and I'd rather just lay things out these days. If it goes my way, fine. If not...well...let's just say I'm working on that. I'm learning to push back, finally. Most of my fancy footwork of previous days was simply me trying to have my way without ever coming out and saying, "This is the way it has to be." I've given in on far too many things I knew damn well weren't right and trying to soothe my outraged self-interest with bribes about how eventually it'll work out okay. Anyway I'd kept the peace and wasn't that the important thing? Not anymore. I am working very hard to give up my Chamberlain-esque 'Peace at any price' sniveling cowardice and put a little Churchill into my floppy spine. This is not easy. Especially since I've always been so very good at convincing myself I didn't need Poland or Czechoslovakia anyhow. Or Belgium or Norway or Denmark or Greece or...heh, you get the idea. Upshot is I've done myself out of too many things, important things, necessary things and told myself it was okay because I'd kept the peace. It's taken a stupendous amount of loss and missed opportunities for me to finally wise up a little. Okay, enough with the metaphoric philosophy twaddle. Back here on Earth the Sage clan is reluctantly letting go of summer and taking up the fall. Changed the front door decor this morning for the raffia wrapped straw wreath with the leaf clusters and tiny plastic gourds and the wee scarecrows. That wreath has seen better days. Frankly it looks like a big lopsided owl pellet- a partially digested mess with bits of things sticking off it at odd angles. But the summer wreath isn't in any better shape and I was sick of looking at it. The owl pellet only has to stay there for a few weeks until it's near enough to Halloween and I can replace it with the articulated glow-in-the-dark skeleton. Of course the neighbors four houses down from us would probably like the skeleton in any season, they drive a vintage hearse and their mailbox is a lovely wooden coffin with a red bony hand for the flag. Yet they also have cheerful window boxes overflowing with petunias and ruffly organdy curtains swoop across their big picture window. Sort of like this place with the big peace sign between the upstairs windows and a rather nasty evil-looking gargoyle in the front garden. Then, too, there's the house in the woods across the street with fantastic gothic arched stained glass windows and year-round Christmas lights. And the duplex down the street with an entire flock of lawn flamingos paying homage to a twice bigger than life-sized Infant of Prague. The winner is the house at the end of the block. It looks like an elephant's graveyard where lawn tchotchkes go to die. They've got a defeated army of gnomes with chipped hats, scads of faded resin bunnies and ducks in straw boaters and upended birdbaths and swans made from old car tires, and tattered whirligigs, little flags on sticks and on a leaning pedestal there's a busted witch ball that birds nest in. They are also the crazy Christmas house people and come December their place makes a visible glow over the horizon from the mad festoons of blinky lights and their demented collection of Santas, dancing snowmen, capering elves, wooden soldiers and candy cane fencing is second to none. Don't get me wrong here, I love crazy Christmas houses, I do. But the neighbor's decor- regular and seasonal- is all little things. Everything is tiny. The yard looks like it was carpet-bombed by Lilliputians with exquisitely bad taste and an open-ended charge account at the Dollar Store.
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