I Speak With the Tongue of a Thousand White-Hot Lies!

Scott is improving; Mom is death warmed over. Not sure what's going on tomorrow, yet, but I have plans and contingency plans because that's how I roll, y'all.

Today was actually nice. Also kind of not--I kept getting overwhelmed now and then by this feeling of total isolation. Which makes sense--in a country of 300 million people, I'm sure we weren't the only ones not doing the giant feast thing, but you wouldn't know it. Z. didn't seem to notice or care, so that's good. I just, every so often, thought damn, it would suck to be a single parent without family.

Anyway. The day was really, really quiet. Which was wonderful--look, I don't want my husband to be sick, and it sucks, but one thing I've learned this year is that when you're not happy with a situation there is still nothing wrong with finding and enjoying whatever you can out of it. (I'm not super-keen on my work schedule, but I am allowed to enjoy the writing time it gives me.) Usually on days when we're all in the house, there's stuff from Scott's computer, or he and Mom discussing his homework, or lots of chaos in the kitchen, along with the TV or the computer games Z's playing, and it's noisy.

Today was not noisy.

My son also listened to reason. A lot. I explained that I was going to take him to the park today, but that we should wait until the afternoon so there would actually be kids there since it was Thanksgiving. He was cool with it. He was great about going to CVS for cleaning supplies. He was great about helping me Lysol everything in sight (though I figured that would happen). He played in his room while I cleaned it and did not hinder my progress. We painted pictures, made Scott a get well card, watched TV.

When we went to the park, he was bummed because there weren't any kids there his age who wanted to play, but after some moping about it, he took me up on my offer to play. He pretended to be an alien from Jupiter and crashed his spaceship, and then we went around the playground looking for the parts he needed to fix it. Then he was a baby velociraptor who had traveled through time to hatch at the park, and his egg was a time machine. So we traveled through time to find his siblings. (Let me tell you, I am extremely happy we have reached this stage of play. I can play pretend like a mofo.)

After the park we got meat and juice and came home. We had dinner, played "Who? What? Where?"--which is basically charades for kindergarteners. My favorite of his was he had to be a dog, bowling, in an igloo. He walked around pretending to shiver and sort of half-assed bowling a ball, and when I said, "How do I know you're a dog?" he threw out this tiny, frozen, "Arf?" His favorite of mine was the Queen doing karate in a swamp. So I hiked up my "skirts," kicked stuff, did the Queen wave, and smacked my neck like a mosquito had bitten me.

When I went to clean the kitchen up after we ate, he drew me pictures--also in the kitchen. One of them was a fairly respectable crab.*

We watched some TV for couch time, and he was falling asleep on me as we read books for bedtime. He was out like a light ten minutes after he was in bed.

I had forgotten the shape of our days, back before he was in school and I was working every weekday. And this wasn't exactly the same (I would have killed for naptime around 3:30 or so), but it was nice.

*Dudes, his handwriting and drawing skills have gone through the roof since he started kindergarten. Apparently he's still not quite up to snuff with the literal writing yet--his teacher told us that it's fine and not hurting him academically, but he just needs some more practice--but as I told her, I'm really pleased at how much he's improved in a few months. I'm cool with her sending him the extra work home and practicing with him, absolutely, but damn. In addition to this, he came home with an "abstract" crayon drawing of a himself that he did in art class--the teacher was teaching them about abstract art generally, and Paul Klee specifically. Paul freaking Klee. Whose name, the Zweeble informed me, is pronounced "Clay." So I of course went and checked ... and it is. I've never been so tickled to have my pronunciation corrected in my life.

Yay, Doctor Who is back! Yay!

I dunno, though, I'm still having trouble with the idea of River as Amy and Rory's kid--not so much that she is, but because it seems like ... well, I personally, a week after having my baby, would have been grabbing the Doctor by the bow tie and telling him to screw all of time and space, we are going to find my baby, and you can either help me or get the hell out of my way while I hijack the TARDIS--I brought you back to the world at my wedding, I'm the girl who waited, you owe me, Raggedy Man.

And Amy and Rory seemed relatively calm about it all, aside from one line in an alternate reality and some stuff in the mini-webisodes that not everyone watches. Sure, yes, their marriage is on the rocks at the beginning of this episode, but that's not about losing the chance to raise their kid (having her be their best friend growing up really doesn't make up for that), it's about this whole other level of tragedy that comes out of that mess.

I can basically get rid of the trouble while I'm watching the episodes, but afterwards I end up thinking about it. I kinda feel like Russell T. Davies was better at incorporating the human-level tragedy into the show than Steven Moffat is. Then again, Steven Moffat has the twisty weirdness thing going much better than Davies did. Everyone has a talent. :)

Next week is dinosaurs on a spaceship, which I am hoping and praying isn't too creepy so I can let Z. watch it. The boyo has not connected at all to Eleven, he is a Ten fan through and through, but space dinos might do the trick.

Today my parents are coming over to have pizza and play with the kid. Tomorrow we may brave the beach--last week was rough. Nothing horribly serious, just stressful crap about school and suchlike, but I could really use a day at the beach. Preferably Lover's Key, where we could rent an umbrella.

I've been musing over Kill Bill and what it says about my narrative/character kinks, and I want to post about that, but probably not today. :)

Odd Things

It looks like they replaced the top of my laptop, as it's not nearly as scratched as the old one was (as Scott says, this only makes sense). In addition, when I booted the laptop up last night, it came up as plain mint wallpaper. So of course I went through all the wallpapers to fix that.

I don't remember all these wallpapers! There are paintings (including the Seurat painting Sunday Afternoon--if that's the real title, I don't know my pointillists as well as I ought to), and photos of, like, Buddhist temples (and I am now beginning to think this computer might be trying to tell me it belongs to David and not me ...), and how did I miss this when I was setting the computer up the first time?!

Not to mention the cool screensaver that makes it look like my photos are dropping, one by one, on top of each other.

I always expect, when I have a new computer or something like this makes it seem new, that the internet will also be new and shiny. And it really never is.

Water and Speed!

We live about five minutes away from a small water park. Not the usual water park we go to, with the cute water features and the mini-train; no, this has water slides and a pool and a "lazy river." This place is ridiculously expensive (I think), but Z loves water, so I've been considering whether to take him there. Well, a couple of days ago I saw that they're doing a $7 admission for the next two weekends, as these are the last two weekends they'll be open until around March, so today we got sunblocked and bathing suited, and headed over.

It's a lot nicer than I was expecting (though not nice enough to justify their usual admission fee), with complimentary life jackets, and there was actually quite a lot that Z could do. First he hit the kiddie slides that were kids-only, then we hit the pool/lagoon and took the inner tubes around the lazy river. The lazy river is basically a canal thing filled with about 3 feet of water, with jets that create a current. The second time Z. and I were in there, he didn't want an inner tube (who could blame him--his arms are too short to really grab the handles and it was like he was in an inflatable submarine), so we went without. He was bobbing along with his life jacket, practicing swimming, while I waded behind him looking around for Scott who was wiping chlorine out of his eyes. I glanced back and, thanks to the current and Mr. Z's vigorous kicking, found my kid scooting along three feet ahead of me!

Once we reunited, Z. decided he wanted out, so we exited the river. Then we hit one of the big slides, which he could only do with a grown-up in a dual tube.

So up we go, Scott with a single tube and me with the double, hauling these things up the stairs, placing them in the water, and then getting Z. situated in the front and me in the back. Then off we go ...

... and the tube around the slide is pitch black.

Well, that's a trifle disconcerting.

But I am a mother who does not want her son to freak out, so I start yelling "Woo hoo! Awesome!" Scott said he could hear us whooping all the way down the tube.

At the end of this, I discovered that there is no graceful way to exit an inner tube.

We did that slide two more times. We also hit the really, really tall, but not quite the tallest, slide three times. That one, at least, we could see in. The second time, Z had suggested we do our Disney race car schtick, so I kept saying how relaxing it was right before we hit a turn and got water up our noses.

Scott went down the practically-a-freefall slides. ALONE.

Then we got ice cream, re-sunblocked, drank water, and went back in the pool/lagoon. Scott and I talked Z into hitting the lazy river again, and this time we sat him on one side of an inner tube and I told him to put his feet up like he had on the slides, and so he rode around the river as though he were on an inflatable car.

We hit a few more slides--he went on the kiddie slides again and figured out how to make himself go fast; the last time down he was flat on his back with one arm up in the air giving the world a thumbs-up.

And then we were all tired and ready to come home, and so we did. None of us are sunburned. The kid is playing video games with Scott. I'm sore from hauling dual inner tubes up stairs. But it was a good day. Tuesday I get buried in grading, so I'm glad we got to have a nice day out today.

Whew. Done.

All the crap that was hanging over my head is done. I have a bunch of stuff I need to do this weekend, but none of it is looming kind of stuff that makes me want to bang my head against my desk.

Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment, and once I get past the whole yes-I-gained-eight-pounds-during-our-hellish-August/Spetember-(but-hey-I-lost-three-so-I-only-gained-five-since-my-last-appointment!) debacle, my grandmother is coming over to spend the day, which means I'll be able to clean the kitchen and fold the laundry, and maybe--gasp!--mop!

Saturday my mother and grandmother are coming over to sit down and discuss the Thanksgiving menu, and possibly steal the boy for a while so I can work.

Sunday I'd like to see about maybe hitting the beach, depending on the weather (it got chilly today--another reason I'm in a much better mood).

Monday night, we're going to go see Stephen King read from his new book! I am totally geeked! I've been reading Stephen King since I was twelve years old. He has had a hand in forming my psyche, my literary tastes, and my vocabulary of vulgarities. RAWK!

And now, I am going to go read my book.

My father got the Zweeble one of those bubble wands that looks like a light saber--tube of bubble juice, long narrow oval attached to a red hilt. We already had a small bottle of bubbles from last year, I think. Then Dad also got the Zweeb a bubble gun for their house.

We now have two light saber wands, a (rather lame, actually) container of 80 bubble wands, a jug of bubble juice, and an (actually pretty cool and it works) unspillable tub for said juice.

All of which is to preface this: every night this week, we've been outside blowing bubbles.

I forgot that I love blowing bubbles.

In high school, the best birthday I ever had was my 18th. All of my friends got me really silly gifts (except for doggiesushi, but that's a story for another day), one of which was a bottle of bubbles. I walked between classes blowing bubbles, which I'm sure was annoying and pretentious--oh look at me, I'm whimsical!--but I can't quite roll my eyes over it as I look back. That was a rough year, and blowing the bubbles made me happy.

In college, I'd blow bubbles out of my third-story dorm room window. Also slightly pretentious. But fun.

Now I'm in the back yard with my kid during a really rough week, and ... calm. Blowing bubbles and being silly. I like the long cylinder of bubble before it breaks off and becomes round, especially when it catches the evening light and tinges purple. I like watching the bubbles hit the right eddy of wind and rise over the roof. And when one bubble blows across the yard and out into the vacant lot next door before it pops--I dig that. Yesterday I waved the light saber in the right place to surround the Zweeble with bubbles. He thought it was cool, but not as cool as I thought it was, apparently.

So, yeah, bubbles.

A nice, quiet end to a bad, bad week.

1. It's raining. Actually, it's rained around this time every day this week, which has been one of the few decent things going on.

2. Baby was snuggly and digging watching the rain after he woke up from his nap.

3. During the nap, I got to the halfway point in the notebook JC bought me ages ago (I've been writing in it for just shy of a year, though). This felt good. I got story stuff worked out.

4. My husband's on his way home, when I thought he'd be stuck at work late.

In other news, everything is a duck. My son is a suurealist.