behindtheax

posted by mary j. @ 5:11 PM 0 Comments

my kingdom for some peanut butter

I’m fasting this week. Well not really – I am drinking a mixture of lemons/ water/ cayenne pepper/ maple syrup every morning and at dinnertime I am eating a bowl of brown rice. Started Monday and I have four days to go. Why you may ask? I don’t know – I seen it on our local news show. Suppose to cleanse away the old toxins that accumulated in your body, which makes you sluggish and prone to illness or something like that. Just very curious if it will give me energy? I had stopped jogging again and want to start up when the girls go back to school next week. (never did train hard enough to do the half marathon this year) However, now I want to rise early and start the day right, so I am hoping this will help give me the will to do that.

So anyway, now I’m kicking myself because I have to last the week (promised myself I would) but it is making me miserable. It is not that I feel hungry all the time or anything. That drink really does give you a full feeling and I think it is the cayenne that gives me a boost of energy. It is only at night when I feel like I want to kill something and eat it.

The added bonus however is you lose weight – like a pound a day – I have never dieted, I don’t believe in dieting – when I begin to gain weight I jog but I can’t say I mind losing some weight. I never really had to worry about weight gain until I hit forty. Just very lucky. Even when I was pregnant I gained very little – I got away wearing my sundresses and jean overalls through the entire pregnancies. People would argue with me at nine months that I wasn’t that far along. And when Monica was born the obstetrician wanted to know where I hid my babies during the final semester. Both times I think he believed they would be smaller than they were. But they were both healthy sizes Erin was 7lbs 3 ounces and Monica was 7 lbs 5 ounces. Anyway, this good fortune stopped at forty. Now, I need to jog. So, I hope this experiment works.

posted by mary j. @ 11:03 AM 0 Comments

posted by mary j. @ 4:20 PM 0 Comments

this week

The clouds this morning
lean on one another swollen and sullen
comparing bruises

Dark day but tall sunflowers
At the line of fence
Open yellow

Just spent three days finishing up that job for Greg and I think it’s done. Long hours at the computer. It wasn’t difficult work, just a little tedious. But I was glad for that “useful” feeling it gave me. Now I face a house that needs a lot of care and attention today. I think I mentioned before that I am not a multi-tasker. I was wondering if at first though I should cheer myself up by walking to the bookstore. Add something else to my yet to be read pile. I was thinking I ought to try Proust. Is that crazy? I heard he was a bit neurotic, I like neurotic writers. I figure if I read Joyce, I can read Proust?

Currently I am reading Steven Erikson’s Garden of the Moon. Fantasy. It’s pretty good. Any book that drops away the places past its borders and leaves only the story to fill my head space, I’m fine with. Anyway, must get at things. Monica had a wonderful time in New York. Erin is starting to get a little antsy about high school. I remember high school very well and oh, I wish I could protect her from all that. Prime beating yourself up years.

posted by mary j. @ 10:21 AM 0 Comments

maybe not

Looks a little like rain today. I think I will clean the basement. How’s that for an interesting Saturday? I went to the driving range last evening just to hit a few balls and this older gentlemen approached me and gave me a few pointers and they worked. Greg tries all the time to help me but for most of it all I hear is, “blah, blah, blah” . and it is probably great advice that he is trying to give me but I got so much advice from him over the years that it all warps into white noise now. Especially when it comes to golf.

Things (knock on wood) are looking positive for Greg in New York. The trip concerns the web application that he has been working on – He was so hoping to have had it up and running before this but cash flow and time wasn’t always that easy to come by. Anyway, he had two meetings and both parties showed some interest so hopefully the trip was a worthwhile one. I know it has been for Monica, she is loving it there.


The authors of two separate blogs that I read became new moms over the last year and I have been enjoying their sparse but touching entries on motherhood. Of course this had me reflecting on my own first years as a mom and I went back to my old journals to see if I had anything to make a blog entry about. I found a few touching moments but mainly it was me whining the whole time. Monica, I believe I handled things fine. Second time around is the charm sort of thing. But I was lost as lost could be with Erin. And so incredibly lonely at times. And in a few entries I may have bordered on psychotic. I am not sure.


My pseudo -psychotic episode happened three days after I got Erin home. She was so tiny and wonderful and new and I started to fret that the environment she was in wasn’t clean enough and so I started scrubbing. And I became overly concerned with the litter box and since we lived in a very small apartment at the time there really wasn’t any where for it but just outside the bathroom. Anyway, I’m cleaning out the litter box and I notice a little white worm and I freak. I mean I freak. I called the vet and said my cat has worms, they are all over her litter box and I have a brand new baby. And I’m a little frantic on the phone and the vet’s assistant is being really polite and telling me to bring in a sample along with the cat and I’m saying – I can’t do that until tomorrow because my husband is at work and I have a brand new baby and no car and what should I do in the meantime? Can the cat pass these worms onto my baby?

and she is more or less trying to tell me that unless the baby eats the cat shit- its all fine.’

But I was not fine. I started seeing little white worms everywhere, in the carpet, towels, bathtub and I carried Erin about that whole day and I wouldn’t put her down. And to top it off the cat didn’t even have worms.

New baby + isolation + busy husband = Whoa! Not a good mix.


So, anyway maybe it’s a good thing I couldn’t blog back then. ;)

posted by mary j. @ 3:19 PM 0 Comments

shopping and stuff

Greg and Monica are in New York. I loved the phone message I received from Monica last evening.

“Hi mom just wanted to let you know that we had a safe flight and we are in New York and New York rocks my socks even though I’m not wearing any right now. So, you know, I love you, bye.”

Greg is down there on business and he took Monica. His friend’s girlfriend is going to show her some of the sights today. Which is very kind of her. Greg will have the weekend to show her the rest. Next trip he’ll take Erin. Erin and I did a little shopping yesterday. I purchased a new pair of runners. She got two pairs of jeans. We ordered out Chinese food for supper. It was a fun day, however when we ran to catch the subway I left her behind on the platform. The doors closed just as I got on. I swear, I thought she was right behind me. We met up again at our station and I apologized. How the parenting skills just continues to slack off with each added year. She is nearing fourteen now and oh my gosh, I have no idea how to parent a fourteen year old. Just like I had no idea on how to parent a thirteen year old. I count myself very fortunate because she does make it easier by not trying to grow up too fast. She appears a little younger than some of her friends, which right now I count as a good thing. She did ask to lighten her hair and so we finally purchased some dye but then she backed off. Decided to stick with her natural colour. And except for the nail polish she isn’t in to much garnish. Doesn’t need it anyway. When she starts high school , I know this may all change quickly. One of her friends just got her lip pierced. Ouch! These are a few of the things I don’t worry about at the present time which is just fine with me. I enjoyed yesterday. I guess she must get it from her dad but she has such an understated wit about her, some of her throw away one liners make me laugh so hard. Hanging out with her yesterday made me think of something I had jotted down a few years ago – when I was up early one morning in New Brunswick, sitting on the front step of our small rented cottage.

The river surges
it weaves, it abates
tangle free
near enough that I can hear
it swallowing the salt
the ocean feeds it.
At times it lags
enfolded
in the song of gull,
Osprey and shag

mornings
gather thick here on the river
and though the screen door
I watch my daughter sleep.
She faces the panel wall
enfolded
in morning’s oblique blaze
She is all leg and arm
And smells of sun and river clay
Tangle free
So near I can hear
the song of her
childhood

posted by mary j. @ 11:36 AM 0 Comments

posted by mary j. @ 8:08 PM 0 Comments

books

I thought I would attempt to write a book review. I looked through the recent books I read and decided on Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. At first I thought I would visit Amazon or Indigo and read the reviews they had up just so I wouldn’t get too far off the beaten track with mine. See at first what others thought but then I figured that was cheating and anyway the hect with the beaten track, give me my hatchet, I’m going through the overgrowth. Don’t mind me, I don’t think I’m well.

I did hear though that this was one of those books that was often selected for a book club read and I would agree that it would make a good book club book. It does have the ability to churn up a lot of conversation. It is definitely a book you want to talk about.

I enjoyed it immediately, from that very first chapter. I thought her writing was so fresh, imaginative, humorous and detailed. I love fantasy and Susanna Clarke does it very well in a quirky, intelligent way. However, it is a thousand pages long and I did find once the story was underway and the main characters were introduced, that the book slowed right down and I spent a fair amount of time during the middle of the book, hoping something substantial would happen. There were several nights that I could only read four or five pages before my eyelids started drifting shut and I began to wonder if I had the stamina to get through this book. This being said I am so glad I pushed forward because the last four hundred pages came to life again and I ended up truly enjoying it. When I was in the middle of the book I would have said this book could lose three hundred pages easily without affecting the story but after I finished it, I wasn’t convinced of that anymore. It was the world she wanted to build and she put a lot of detail and history into it, and in the end it made the story richer.

This is the second novel I read this year with footnotes – the other being “The Amulet of Samarkand,” by Jonathan Stroud (Monica and I are reading that series) - and if this becomes a trend than I will need to find away to read footnotes without it slowing down the momentum of a story for me. I am drawn to read each footnote I come across and at times I was jumping back and forth, reading several different things on the same page. I don’t enjoy that. Although, Susanna Clarke’s footnotes about certain books of magic and fairy stories were great reads all on their own. Little miniature short stories here and there but still so many footnotes was very distracting for me.

Anyway, I recommend “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell”, especially if you love fantasy. Actually, I recommend it even if you don’t.

posted by mary j. @ 10:17 AM 0 Comments

posted by mary j. @ 10:15 AM 0 Comments

dream

August and her wings
wasp with mustard polish
Bee and monarch, moth
Cornflowers with purple pouts
Sunflowers with solid stalks
Nights of low tolerance
a need to leave the house
the kitchen door the heat glued shut
gives with a grunt
the small garden a mirage
White lights shine down between
Green grape
night swims across
the textured glass of the patio table.
Fence of pine, raccoon eyes, just a flash
Heavy furry bodies lumbering off
And in this twilight a wish to be more
Lays its weight on every weed.

I had this dream where I kept going out every night to all these different bars and casinos. I was meeting up with friends and was very excited about it all. Many of the people I was meeting were childhood friends of my brother and of my sister Sandra and even a few characters from books and from Coronation Street. The bars/casinos were much shadier than the ones in Las Vegas and most of the time we ended up sitting around a round table playing poker in a corner. As it is with most dreams - somewhere you really want to be is never that easy to get to and I was having all kinds of trouble finding my keys, purse, shoes, etc every time I tried to leave the house to meet up with these people. When I finally did arrive the first thing someone would ask me, “Is your sister coming tonight?” And I would answer, “I don’t know?” Every night they would get a little angrier with me and I thought it was because I was always late until one of my sisters pulled me aside and said, “They really are expecting Sandy, not you. I don’t think they even know you that well.”
but I ended up yelling at her and went anyway and only realized after I was sitting holding my five cards that I was being completely ignored by everyone and Steve’s mom from Coronation Street (Liz I believe) was actually giving me these dirty looks and it dawned on me then that this had happened every night that I sat down with them but I hadn’t noticed before and I woke up actually embarrassed that I had tried to force friendship on these people until I realized it was a dream. Strange.

Today it feels cooler and I am plodding along doing a small job for Greg. Kids are bored out of their tree and the air outside is carrying voices easily about up and down the street. From my bedroom window I can hear the two landscapers near their truck, speaking in low tones just as clearly as I can hear the two moms down the street talking about their weekend. The air is less heavy, easier to carry voices perhaps?

http://I Love her music

posted by mary j. @ 10:04 AM 0 Comments

summer moments

posted by mary j. @ 7:56 PM 0 Comments