(note that it was raining on monday morning. no garbage vandalism; however, i was awakened in the wee hours by the wild turkeys looking for food. note also that the turkeys were all over our property but did not tear open the trash...)

i have so much to say about seeing my kid onstage, but i just don't have ALL the words.  here are some, though...

i was so pumped up that i woke up a few hours later and even could have made it to work if i hadn't taken a vacation day...

some time this week, i'll dump my photos onto my flickr, and will put them onto myspace to tag the band.

_____
* my parents are not Sid's grandparents. as i've posted a few times in the past, the [four] kids' mom was... absent. when i met her, it obviously did NOT go very well; however, she saw how the kids interacted with me - they were still small, with Pin, the oldest, barely in his teens and the youngest, oh, six maybe? - she named me their guardian if anything happened to their dad.

biology, as i've said a million times, isn't the only way to make a family. i just have to remember to tell that to the kids' friends when i meet them. based on the stories, they expect to meet a witch - no offense to real witches - when they meet the kids' mom!

except when i have to explain this, i never think of Pin, Sid, Duz, or Corey as anything but my own.

I hope that everyone else's kids called :)

my mom was probably pretty happy... my brother drove down and mowed her lawn, dropped off a new shower head that he'll install next visit (my dad was in the shower when my brother arrived) and then he had to go. but she saw him. i got her the gardening gloves she requested, plus i brought her fair trade white chocolate and a book from the church book sale yesterday. besides that, i also took her to the supermarket - in other words, the stuff i do all year without a hallmark holiday (well, the gloves were a one-shot deal).

my friend amy, with whom i've been friends forever, called this morning to go for breakfast. i love hanging out with her! and wish we'd had more time.

after breakfast, i went over to the park across from my house, to clean the jungle gym with the graffiti remover so recently donated. (my friend donna had offered to replace it if the people whose cars were vandalized had needed it! thank you so much, sweetie! but one of the neighbors has a power wash and cleaned all the cars.)  the jungle gym had, surprisingly, been recently cleaned. i got off the most recent filth. two neighborhood kids came out to keep me company, and walked with me to the trash can, and picked up litter with me. their mom and dad have taught them well :) - who'm i to undermine that!

got an interesting message among the OKCupid messages. alas, a girl younger than three of my kids has a crush on him. creepy.

i phoned liz, the awesome mom who rented to my boys when they were old enough for their own apartments. she saw sid last week and i'd be jealous if i weren't going to see sworn enemy tomorrow night. (that's my kid on bass!!!) had to wish her a happy mother's day; i'd honestly say that she's the best thing that ever happened to the kids, present company included.

close to ready to go tomorrow. with the fibromyalgia, i don't really drive much anymore, between my hands, and my skin hurting if i sit too long. but i've got the gps, i can stop at the rest stop in stamford (which is only 25 miles from the venue). i've got my green velvet Doc Martens, clean black jeans, and a clean WM3 shirt. (i, however, have not gotten my government massage stimulus check, though the IRS says it was to be deposited by last friday...) the only thing left is to get the junk out of my back seat (why leave a target in the parking lot).

now... i'm off to sleep. in my car.  why? you may ask. well, our trash has "mysteriously" been ripped apart every week. only ours, and not the neighbors, so i'm doubting it's turkeys or feral cats. besides, last week, the bag ripped apart was one with papers, not table scraps. i'm thinking that it's someone (ahemjunkieahem) on whom i'd needed to call the police last year... if i catch her, i'm pressing charges.

on christmas morning, i thanked my mom for raising me in such a way that people want to spend time with me.

chrissy, the other crazy cat lady (along with me) who lives in the house behind ours -- but wait. if you don't live in a residential area, you may not get it.

i posted this map picture of my first trike route.

 

i live at the X... see where jones street goes past pagano court? at that little tail past is where chrissy lives... we share back yards.

 

so... chrissy lives behind us. when i dropped off her son's book on saturday morning, she said, "why dontcha come over on christmas eve. i know it's not your holiday, but..." making sure i understood that she was inviting me to join her family and friends, and that she knows i'm not Christian. really, she had more to worry about, as far as she was concerned, with feeding me non-meat items.

i felt so... loved and welcomed. i told her, obviously, that coffee and someone to talk to would be fine. and that i'd love to come.

come christmas eve, as i'm heading down to my car (it was much too muddy and icy from the snow to do as we do during the summer, and just cut through our shared back yards), Pin (warning = adult page = beware when clicking), my oldest son, called to wish me a happy holiday! oh, i kvelled... he's never had my number (that's between him and Pops) so he's never phoned me before. and no, he wasn't calling for money; he works three jobs. he's got a new dog and he's happy and healthy and busy, and that's all a mother can ask for. he likes nice things, and knows that no one's gonna hand them to him, so he's working for them. this is a kid who'll never tell me to blow off work to come down and hang out, let me tell you. (neither would his brothers... though his Pops has been guilty of that one.) i know he gets this from seeing other people make messes of their lives, but i'd like to think a little of me got through to him.

as we ... well, we got disconnected! and chrissy phoned to say that her granddaughter wanted to know if i was coming over. my key was in the ignition, so i left at that point and drove. (i'm so spoiled... we used to walk up and down our block on christmas eve when we were kids. heck, we walked all over town - miles - in colder weather, weather so cold the boom box batteries would freeze and play "45s sound[ing] like 33s!")

dre', the wonderful mechanic/neighbor, and his lady friend and their daughter had given us a candle for the holiday, which we can't light because of my dad's oxygen. i brought that with me, for everyone to enjoy; i also got chrissy's granddaughter a rubber duckie with "tattoos" and a "pierced ear." i was seated between the other two smokers, next to the window.

i got stuffed on broccoli and cheese, and tortellini. i wish i'd left room for dessert!

more important than the food was the conversation. i heard about chrissy's kids (including her granddaughter's father) terrorizing the babysitters, some of whom are still close to the family and were there. the stories actually made chrissy's husband dizzy with remembrance!

her son B came over from break from work; he barely had time to eat two plates of food and rush back out. poor guy - no sarcasm.

later, her other son, J, came over - he's the one whose screenplay i'm transcribing. he's a doll. everyone wanted his attention, so i quietly left the room with chrissy to work on her computer for her for a bit, to give him some breathing room.

when we came out, i talked to J while chrissy "fixed a plate" for my mom. the four foil carry-out containers nearly tore the bag! (the anginettes are gone... the chocolate chip cookies are nearly gone... and the tortellini and broccoli are going down...)

there were small gifts but, more importantly, a house full of love and family and stories and, i hope, everyone else i care about was as lucky as i was.

it's simply too hot for anything to be going on.

movies: who wants to go with me to see sicko and/or nice bombs (NYC)? the producer of nicebombs used to be my best friend, and my brother's guitar teacher. i haven't had anyone to go to the movies with me, other than the 15 min. connective tissue, since 2004. don't you feel bad for me?

i've been going to work, the supermarket a few days a week for a mile walk in air conditioning (it's closer than the mall, and the salad is cheaper). i've been getting my work done and getting sent home about half an hour early. i've been napping every afternoon. i've been keeping up with RSS feeds, adding "my regular" blogs as i remember.

i still haven't pre-ordered the new vachss because i'm still looking for coupons. (it comes out in september).

i've been planning boxes to send to soldiers. and i'll send them when the weather cools off.

i read degree of innocence this week and enjoyed it. from the last two books i read, i've got points i want to share - but i haven't even turned on my laptop since last week. i've also got URLs in emails that i want to bookmark, and i haven't bothered. i only have a few dozen interesting links left on that random guy's bookmarks that i stumbled upon, and haven't been bothering to link those, let alone clean up old bookmarks.

my baby, corey, messaged me today. he's going to be in new york soon and wants to tattoo his ol' mom. (my mom flipped but i said it's like hanging his pictures on the fridge.) he, uh, also would like a very expensive hoodie. whatever; he (1) emailed me (2) still calls me mom*; and (3) still signs it "love." he'll get his I ordered the hoodie [iOffer], though i may wind up with a bootleg. (i'll wear it then; it may be expensive, but it's damn cool.) all his myspace pictures are scary. i should look for baby pictures.

 

* my kids' mom, for new friends, is a decent lady but a crappy mom. her kids have been calling me mom for over fifteen years; if anything had happened to their dad, who had custody, when they were minors, i was legally next in line for them. i do give her credit for recognizing her weaknesses, and for not being too proud to ask for help. besides, i got four awesome sons out of the deal! fifteen years of memories, good and bad, and i didn't have to go into labor.