Maybe February Is Better

We love our spot in Grafton, Vermont. It feels like we're home when we see that corner church spire and walk into the main inn to check in before unloading our (insane amount of) stuff into our room across the street. We really like to move in when we go there.

Last year, we went in February because we'd just moved, and it was too overwhelming to think of doing Christmas away (we'd booked it well before realizing the timing of selling our house and moving into the new one).

This time, we realized that maybe February is a better time to go, in general.

It was still relaxing and we enjoyed the bookshops and walks around town and up the hills. But...

1) February has more snow. There was a bit, but it kept icing and we actually had to cut the trip short a day thanks to an ice storm that came through Sunday night to Tuesday (we were supposed to leave Monday). The ice made it hard to hike, and warmer temperatures meant more mud.

2) There are fewer giant families in February. They're were maybe three different giant multigenerational parties there, which made everything feel a little...crowded. We could never quite find a time to use the common area with the fireplace in our building. Breakfasts were very, very full and there were many high chairs (filled with adorable tow-headed children that tugged at my heart scars) and self-absorbed people who left their strollers right in the middle of busy entryways. The game room was almost always full of people, and by the time we snuck in for a game of ping pong, there was an odor that seemed to be either a) a spill of something terrible or b) pee (also terrible). We reported it, in part to make sure it was clear we didn't go around stinking up the place, but with all the large families with small children they said it happens. That and being left with the dregs of the eggs at the buffet Saturday morning due to a large party that came in ahead of us, I was more than a little resentful of the large family influx.

3) We just really love our house at the holidays. The weird thing is, in our house we can have a fire with no one else around, there's ping pong in the "basement," we can read and be cozy... We sort of recreated Grafton in our home.  The only things missing are the lovely people we see who work at the inn, housekeeping services, and dining options we can walk to. And creeks and rocks and pine trees, of course.

Grafton

Grafton

Oh wait, that's not Grafton, that's home!

So, we decided that perhaps we will shift our cozy winter stay in Vermont to February break from now on. More snow, presumably less large family gatherings, and more time to enjoy our home at the holidays.

See ya next time, covered bridge! 

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These Are A Few Of My Favorite Books

One of my favorite holiday (and birthday) traditions is the stack of books Bryce gifts me. He picks them out based on what I've loved in the past, but also based on lists like the NPR Book Concierge (so I cannot look at that list until after Christmas) and prides himself on finding books that I would not have picked out for myself.

The other night at dinner, he asked me, "What are the best books you've read in the past few years?"

Oh man, that's a loaded question. I read a LOT, and I have to keep track in a Keep list because I cannot hold all the titles in my head, but a peek at the title brings a flood of details back to me. So I had to think on it a bit. And consult my list.

I thought it would be fun to share with you this, my list of books that I consider BEST, from the past couple of years (in no particular order). It may be a bit more than "a few":

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood 
Speculative fiction/dystopian: farther-in-the-future sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, gloriously multi-faceted and didn't ruin a favorite.

The Invited by Jennifer McMahon
Fiction: A sort of modern ghost story where a couple basically builds a haunted house, supernatural with mysteries and observations on human relationships.  Love this author (other favorites are The Winter People, The One I Left Behind, and Don't Breathe a Word.

The Seven (and 1/2) Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (my edition was Canadian and didn't have the 1/2) 
Fiction, mystery: A mind-bending twisty mystery with a bit of supernatural that had me thinking long after I'd finished, immersive and not a particularly easy read as you have to pay close attention. Totally worth the effort.

first, we make the beast beautiful: a new journey through anxiety by Sarah Wilson
Nonfiction, memoir hybrid: LOVED this book, best book on anxiety I've read in a while. You can pry my sugar out of my cold, dead hands. Loved a lot of the other practical exercises, though! :)

The Three Dark Crowns series by Kendare Blake
YA Fantasy: Like Game of Thrones lite, awesome world building and cutthroat traditions, strong female characters

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrande
YA Fantasy: Ditto the strong female characters and cutthroat traditions, more modern day with horror fantasy woven in, interesting premise.

Bitten by Witch Fever: Wallpapers & Arsenic in the Victorian Home by Lucinda Hawksley
Nonfiction/Art: A Bryce Find that explores the history of colorful Victorian wallpaper that was totally laced with arsenic, interspersed with full color panel reproductions of said wallpaper. FASCINATING.

Notes to Self by Emilie Pine
Nonfiction, Essays: Beautifully honest, gorgeous essays including some discussion of womanhood and infertility. Has been reviewed by Different Shores and The Road Less Traveled.

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
Fiction, YA-ish Fantasy: A gorgeous mystery with some dark fairy tale twistyness woven in, magical and dark. Another Bryce find

The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams
Nonfiction, Memoir: An incredible exploration of living with adversity and then the process of dying unfairly young from colon cancer. Beautiful, haunting, honest, and raw.

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Weijun Wang
Nonfiction, Memoir: Amazing explorations of living with schizoaffective disorder, eye-opening, honest, raw, beautiful.

Rachel Hartman's trilogy (Seraphina, Shadow Scale, Tess of the Road)
Fiction, YA Fantasy: Caveat that I haven't read Shadow Scale yet, I got Tess of the Road first and then went back to the beginning, although you don't have to read them in order, a Bryce find. Strong female characters, bucking societal norms, dragons and giant snakes and interesting mini-dragon things called Qigutls. Great world-building.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
Nonfiction, Inspiration/memoir hybrid: Gorgeous manifesto to the power of creating despite fear, super inspirational (but I still have fear, sigh). Love her writing, even though I hated Eat, Pray, Love.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Fiction: Part hilarious, part heartbreaking, a story of a socially awkward woman and her quest for belonging, romance, friendship, overcoming her personal demons. Laughed and cried in equal measure.

The Changeling by Victor Lavalle
Fiction, Fantasy/Mystery: An amazing mystery with a man searching for answers about his father who mysteriously disappeared and trying to figure out what's really happened with his wife and son (wife is accused of killing his baby son, which sounds like a terrible premise for ALI people but I swear it's okay and all is not as it seems, without spoiling anything). Although it takes place in Queens, strangely steeped in Norse mythology.

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
Fiction: A brilliant reimagining of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Gorgeous.

The Darker Shade of Magic trilogy by V.E. Schwab
Fiction, Fantasy: Blood magic allows special people to travel between nearly identical worlds, some with magic, some without, some devastated and angry... it's got magician's competitions, pirates, a little romance...I devoured them. Bryce Find.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Fiction, YA Fantasy: Book 1 of a series, worldbuilding based on West African mythology where a race of magicians are persecuted and in danger of genocide, colliding of the ruling class and an ever-powerful maji. I love that as she gains more power and confidence, her hair gets wilder and more natural (and the author insisted on having natural hair for the cover flap photo). Immersive. Also, more blood magic.

The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater
Fiction, YA Fantasy: I DEVOURED these books, and cried when they ended. A Bryce Find that resulted in him gifting me 4 books as they came out. Combines boys' boarding school/town girl, supernatural psychic stuff, Welsh mythology. She's a gifted writer.

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
Fiction, Fantasy: Imagine if Scooby-Doo took place when they were in their early 30s as a sort of reunion when bad stuff starts happening and one of the gang has died. Super weird, gloriously so. A Bryce Find.

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
Fiction: A beautiful book about loving someone with severe depression who is intent on dying by suicide. Told by the sister, moving and lovely and sad.

Okay, Fine, Whatever by Courtenay Hameister
Nonfiction, Memoir/Essays/Project: A love letter to trying to live less anxiously and overcome fears (or at least attempt to), Courtenay chronicles her difficulties with a change in her career, her relationship with her weight, her dating escapades, and other adventures. It was like reading a conversation with your new (and very smart) best friend.

Anything by Maira Kalman (esp The Principles of Uncertainty)
Nonfiction, illustrated memoir-ish: Hard to classify. Love her honesty, her dealings with loss and grief, her amazing illustrations. A Bryce Find!


There you go, a by no means exhaustive list of favorites but a list of books that made me happy in the past two years or so, many of them gifts from Bryce. Also, I apparently read a LOT of fantasy and memoir/essays. I'm not sure what that says... Maybe I love escaping into other worlds and other people's lives.

EDIT: I can't believe I left out Between the World & Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates! A letter from Mr. Coates to his son on life and race, a tough but necessary conversation and a call to action.

#Microblog Mondays: A Deep Breath

It is the first official day of break -- the last day of school was Friday, but today is the first weekday where there is no responsibility, no school, no work at all unless I choose it (which I don't).

I did have my alarm clock set, for the 8 a.m. Pilates class, which unfortunately I was still late to because I forgot that I always go from school, and that's twice as far from my house. It was a glorious start to the day, getting all stretched and lengthened and taking those big, deep breaths that feed your body luscious oxygen. I always feel taller when I leave.

I feel like I am just taking a big, deep breath, getting space back into my life over the next two weeks. It's a magical year where there's two full weeks off from school, and it's this massive expanse of time and opportunity to feel rested and rejuvenated.

My subconscious doesn't quite trust this luxury--I had a nightmare where we were called back in for 3 mid-break days of school, and I was utterly unprepared and everyone was stressed and angry, but then I woke up and realized NOPE. No stress. I banish you, stupid stress dreams.

The presents are wrapped and under the tree (we're like kids ourselves, I have to stop myself from inspecting shapes, and I have a guess about one of mine but I'm trying to erase it), we have our plans for dinners before we leave for Vermont, we'll be in our favorite Vermont spot in the middle of this expanse of time and then when we get back...there's still SO MUCH TIME left to breathe, to unwind, to slowly prepare for the return to normalcy.

Happy holidays to you, and I hope you have the space to take a deep breath and enjoy all the good things of the season -- the giving, the family and friends, the traditions, the moments of slowed down time if you can snag them.

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#Microblog Mondays: Bye, Silver Highlights

I loved my silver highlights. I've been getting my hair (and cutting it) and not dyeing it for over a year, and I loved the pretty silver streaks at my temples.

How funny, I'm wearing the same shirt today. Hey lovely anniversary Jeff Goldblum print in the back!

Ah, you can really see the contrast in this one! 

I wanted a change though. And all but the tippy tips of my hairs were no longer touched with dye.

So I made an appointment to get some fun things done to my hairs.

I felt a bit like a sellout. But I was did it because I wanted something different, and I can always grow out my greys again. That's the amazing thing about hair.

So here it is, my mid-forties fun hair:

As close to a "before process" picture as I could get, I forgot until the root dye was going on.

Oooh, pretty, my first time with foils. They were heavy.

See the different colors? Ooooh, ahhhh

Okay, so this is shortly before I started sobbing, so I look tired and sad, but there's the front.

Today after blowing it out myself. I might need to get a curling iron! And I think I could probably go a little bolder if I wanted to next time. :)

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Holiday Grief Attack

I did not expect to be on my couch, in front of my (adorable, 5 foot) Christmas tree, face in hands, wracked with gut-heaving sobs on a Friday night. Did not see it coming. I have not cried like that in years. It felt and sounded like pure loss, just pouring out from the core of me.

Friday evening started a little differently -- I was late meeting Bryce for Mexican dinner because I got my hair done. And by that, I mean that I no longer have my silver highlights, instead I have some fun multicolored hair, which is tomorrow's post. We had our dinner, which was completely delicious, and then we decided to go home the way we used to when we lived at our old house.

The reason was an annual pilgrimage to the Holy Molar.

What is the Holy Molar, you might ask?

It is a light display between the restaurant and our old home that I suspect is homemade, and is basically a nativity scene... but, as you can see below, the manger has a striking resemblance to a tooth.

Behold, the Holy Molar in yellow. And also a new red camel and JOY sign.

One year there was a giant pink angel that resembled the Tooth Fairy. It was glorious. 

Anyway, we decided if we were going to go check on the Holy Molar, we should definitely go swing by our next door neighbors for old times' sake and pretend to be carolers. 

So we did. 

It was fun to surprise them, and super odd to have our old house look not so very different (my gardens are still there, my little section of white picket fence is still there, the shed is all lit up and they lit up the pine tree next to it). 

What planted a seed of horrific loss for later blooming though was when we asked how the new neighbors are. I guess the moral of the story is don't ask questions that you will regret, but really I had no way of knowing the impact the answer would have on me. 

Remember when we were selling our house and the people who bought it had two boys, and one was a little tow-headed boy with curly hair who looked just a LITTLE too close to the child I'd imagined we'd have had biologically? Because the Universe isn't at all a big jokester. Good one, Universe. 

Well, the youngest was described as a "mini-Bryce" who is constantly building things and engineering things in the backyard and asking for boxes and tubing and all kinds of things in order to make inventions. He's all kinds of science-y and they were like, "It's like Bryce never left!" 

I think you can see where things started rupturing deep inside me. 

The pressure continued to rise as then they told me that the older son, who is in 7th grade, loved climbing out the upstairs bathroom window to read on the roof. "He reads all the time," they said. "They love all the bookshelves," they said. 

It all stayed tamped down until we got home, but the rumblings were definitely there. 

I don't know about you, but when I am sad or dealing with grief I don't really want to deal with, it comes out sideways. It comes out as supreme bitchiness. 

Bryce looked at my hair and said, "I see the red, I see a fair amount of purple, and there's the blond bits!" And all I heard was "purple," and it made me mad because when I said I was going to bite the bullet and get some fun color in my (finally 95%) virgin hair I'd been growing out for over a year, he suggested that getting some purple in it would make me look old -- like I was trying to be "young and fun" but instead it would just look like TRYING. Harrumph. I don't 100% agree with that, but my plan wasn't solely purple tones anyway. 

But when I heard him say that, I heard, "I DON'T LIKE YOUR HAIR" with an undertone of "YOU'RE OLD AND WE COULDN'T HAVE BABIES SO YOU ARE COMPENSATING WITH YOUR MIDLIFE CRISIS HIGHLIGHTS." 

That is totally not what he said, and so he was flabbergasted when I snapped at him and said "IT'S NOT PURPLE!" (even though there actually are purple highlights in with about 3 other colors, but not in a circus-clown kind of way). He said "WHAT is GOING ON with you?" 

And then I started to cry. I couldn't get it out verbally, which was probably frustrating, but it was just so painful and so deeply held that when it started erupting I couldn't stop the flow to explain. 

These people who moved into our house, the one we had before that saw all of our family building efforts die a horrible death, HAD THE CHILDREN WE'D ENVISIONED. They had a little sneak-out-the-window reader and a little invention-tinkerer. They had a bookish kid and an engineer-in-training kid. Who knew that that was the moment where I remembered that I used to sneak out my bedroom window and sit on the roof of the pantry to read, get a moment of quiet time, and perhaps in college to smoke a disgusting Parliament Light on the sly. That last bit sort of ruins the fantasy.

My shitty brain then immediately took me on a mental journey through what it will look like when the kids run down the stairs Christmas morning and see the tree and the presents all laid out and these people, who I do not know and have nothing against, will have the holiday moments we always wanted in that house but never got. 

It was a horrible trip hosted by the Ghost of Christmas Never, You Infertile Sap. He's a dick Ghost.

So at first the tears came flooding out my eyes while I heaved, and then it became full-body wailing, and I just felt so sad and gutted and like I was feeling all of the losses compounded with interest. 

Bryce got it, though, and just sat next to me, rubbing my back, allowing space to just feel everything and let it all out. Unfortunately by the end I was a wet, snotty, mascara-trailed mess, but I felt lighter. 

And then I looked at our tree, and our beautiful house, that is definitely HOME, and felt like I could breathe again. I didn't feel quite as haunted. 

Which is funny, because Bryce said, "Don't worry, that house is haunted. It won't be as awesome as you imagined it." 

I hope it was only haunted for us. I hope that this family has their lovely holidays and their family moments and their secret reading hideouts and their backyard building projects without any shadow of the losses that made staying in that house unbearable and unsustainable for us. I hope that the move exorcised that, and we can be happy in our new life and they can be happy in their life that just strangely echoes what we wanted ours to look like once upon a time. 

I'm encouraged, because while Friday night was rough, and I felt like I'd been torn apart inside, we watched some silly TV and went to bed and I felt perfectly fine yesterday. It didn't feel fresh, or raw, or anything. It felt like I'd released something toxic, almost like when you're sick (or to go back to college, hung over) and you feel so much better after you finally throw up. 

And now I can enjoy our Christmas for what it is, and spend no more time on what it is not. Unless there's another moment that hits me right in that tender spot, but I know I'll feel it, release it, and then be just fine with where we are now. I can be kind to myself when these things happen. Which wasn't always the case before.

It's an odd sort of holiday gift, to be at a point where these grief attacks can happen, but not disrupt all the goodness of this season for us. 

 

Being Remembered

One of the lovely things about being a teacher is that you have moments when you run into former students, and they recognize you in the wild. Sometimes you're in sweaty workout clothes with NSFW sportsbra cleavage hanging out, holding a jumbo pack of toilet paper or something equally embarrassing in the grocery store, and sometimes you'll look totally respectable and have a cart filled with vegetables. Even when it's awkward, it's lovely to feel a little locally famous.

Yesterday I had two of these recognition moments, at Wegmans after work (while looking tired, but respectable).

As I walked in, I saw a student and his mother ahead of me, and I'll be honest...I booked it so I could say hi. I had this student two years ago, and tutored him in the summer. He and his family were lovely.

Being a special education teacher is tricky... Sometimes kids AND parents do not want you to see them, and they shuffle away and avoid eye contact like you have leprosy or rabies or something. We aren't typically the ones yearbooks are dedicated to. While we work to unlock potential and help students find success, we are also a living, breathing reminder of struggle, difficulties, and other-ness. Which makes it all the sweeter when you've been sighted and people are genuinely excited to see you.

I yelled out the student's name just inside the entrance, and he and his mom turned around and then lit up with recognition.

"Mrs T!" he said, and then we had a 15 minute conversation by the cold beer case. In my defense, the beer case is right when you walk in this particular entrance. His mom said, "It seems like just yesterday that you were his teacher!" and that sounded like a good thing, so it made me all warm and fuzzy inside.

On my way out, I saw a former student and her father at the self-checkout. I did the awkward smile and neck turn without success and then again, found myself shouting a student name in Wegmans. She came over all happy and smiley and I introduced myself to her dad. "Hi, ___'s dad, I'm Mrs. T." Then HE lit up, and he was like, "OH MY GOSH! She LOVED you! She used to talk about you ALL THE TIME!" It was crazy, because I WAS HER STUDY HALL TEACHER. She wasn't on my team, she wasn't on my caseload, I saw her once a day in my crazy study hall last year.

But clearly, all the math and English help and the answering of weird awkward questions didn't go unappreciated. I've never had such a clear sense of recognition from a parent who I've never met before, so it was clearly not lip service to make small talk. She really did talk about study hall and the nutty teacher who ran it. Something about that connection stuck.

She was super bubbly, and talked about how she's made some new friends, and is doing okay in 9th grade, but her study hall isn't as fun. I made a joke about how that's okay, because study hall probably shouldn't be super fun anyway. Ha.

This was my third period study hall where I had to split them up because 1/3 of the football team was in the same room with me and they were NAUGHTY, and there were a lot of seventh graders without any work to do so the whole idle-hands-devil's-work thing, and this was the study hall where we had a lockdown drill (my first day back from the hysterectomy) and one of my students got on a filing cabinet and TRIED TO CLIMB UP IN THE DROP CEILING like Tom Cruise in Mission  Impossible. It was a crazy, crazy study hall.

The point, though, is that it is so wonderful to be remembered. To have those days where you can really feel the impact you have on these young people. It's one of the perks of teaching -- it has ripple effects that just go out and out and out. And as someone without kids, this legacy is very important to me. I love these moments of brief, minor celebrity, and hoping that maybe years on down someone will stop me in the grocery store and I will have taught them forever ago, and they'll still remember. My best friend ran into our 3rd grade teacher while on the Jersey Shore this past summer, and she was in her 90s. It made her cry to be remembered so many years later.

I would love to experience that, tears and all.

Self-Advocacy

With the exception of a couple months surrounding my hysterectomy, I have been doing Pilates at a studio for a year. I have really strong abs and good muscles underneath a soft layer of cheese and pie.

I love this studio -- it's small, classes are typically no more than 4 people, and you get great individualized attention on several pieces of crazy torture-device-looking contraptions called The Reformer, The Tower, and The Chair. I love that I feel like a circus performer when I'm using all the springs and bars and whatnot, and I definitely feel that my balance has improved along with my strength and I am far less of a fall risk than previously. Which was shamefully high for someone who is not 80.

Anyway, I got an email asking those with classes during the "closed for the holidays" period to feel free to choose from a list of class times so we didn't have to miss a session. I picked a 5:00 pm class, but when my email confirmation came, it was labeled...(cue Jaws theme)...

Pre/Post Natal Core

OH HELL NO. I emailed immediately and said, "hey, I think I'll take the 8 a.m. class, I'd prefer not to be in anything -Natal, thanks, sorry to be weird!"

I was super proud of myself, all not-super-explainy but taking care of my psyche at the tricky holiday time, if slightly awkwardly because that's who I am.

Then I got another message, saying, "Oh, they're all 6+ months post-natal at this point, it's really a Core II class now, and they're a really fun group! But, I can move you if you really want."

It was then that I realized that maybe I needed to be clearer.

I had two choices, 1) don't say anything and keep the time at 5 and suffer through because I didn't want to be "weird," or 2) explain a bit and be firm that while they may be a fun group, it's not the class for me. I guess there was also 3) insist on 8 a.m. and not explain why I was weirdly against joining a really fun group of new moms.

I would have totally picked #1 earlier in my experience. I would have swallowed down my feelings, and thought, "how bad can it be?" while totally KNOWING how bad it could be, and then smile through a rotten experience and feel terrible the whole rest of the day, just because I didn't want to inconvenience anyone or make it seem like I had something against a group of new moms who would never know that I'd had angst in the first place and who I likely didn't know at all anyway.

Well, I am proud to say that I picked door #2. I very politely said, "Hmmm...I'll go with the 8 a.m. class...Sometimes a group of moms can inadvertently cause me complicated feelings because I tried so hard to become one for so long. I'm sure they're lovely, thanks!"

I was promptly rescheduled, and it wasn't "weird," and the owner was totally understanding (I'd shared some info when doing my intake, and she'd just forgot that piece, which I take as a compliment, but she did feel a little badly for not remembering that piece of me).

Self-advocacy for the win.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy! 

#Microblog Mondays: Nothing Gold Can Stay

Ah, but it was amazing to have a butterfly burst into being in our home because we were reluctant to throw out a green worm in our local, organic broccoli.

Every day was an adventure -- would he still be there? Where would he be?

But alas, I fear that the Lucky Attack was fatal, just belatedly so.

One week after we discovered his existence in our kitchen, I came home from work to find Broc's lifeless (but still beautiful) body in with the Christmas Cactus.

It was a beautiful week, and while he was only with us a short time, he was a sort of tiny miracle that came from a small act of kindness.

I did the documenting of his short life in part tongue-in-cheek, but I was genuinely saddened to find his empty husk of a butterfly body last week.

Even though it was sad, it was also kind of lovely to celebrate a beautiful moment that passed quickly but that we stopped to appreciate and enjoy.

As one of my students said in an index card condolence card, RIP Broc. Fly free in the flower fields in the sky.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!

#Microblog Monday: A Very Good Day

Last week I had a spectacularly bad day; the kind that makes me call Bryce to say I need Five Guys, Ping Pong, and wine, stat. 

But I don't want to talk as much about that day, which left me feeling exhausted and utterly drained. 

I want to talk about Friday, which was amazing. 

One of the things that made Thursday hard was an emotional moment where a student of mine who is in foster care (not a foster family, but foster home) shared that her birthday a week ago sucked, and it was so hard being away from her family, and her mom didn't have money for a present, and she had cake with her foster parent but no presents, and it was the same as her nephew's birthday and she was missing that, and she just cried and cried. I asked if she had wanted anything in particular, if she had something that she'd been hoping for but didn't get...and she said, "If I could have anything, I would just want my family back together." And my heart just broke. She asked for a hug, which I gave gladly, and then she said, "You give really good hugs," and my heart hurt a little more. She went down to lunch, and I went to the back of my classroom and sobbed silently, and then my TA suggested that I go take a moment in the lead teacher room. 

That's mostly bad stuff, though. The good stuff started to happen when I was in the lead teacher room, because that's when I called the school psychologist to see if maybe, just maybe, we could have a little birthday party on Friday, and I could run out that evening to pick up some small presents and then wrap them all up separately and then bring them in and we could make her 13th birthday a little more special than it seemed it had been a week before. 

I was worried this was a boundary issue, but the psychologist said no, this was an unusual situation and there was no reason why we couldn't. 

So I may have gone a tiny bit overboard...

Fancy coloring book, set of gel pens, brainteaser puzzle (she loves those and is freakishly good at them), happy cactus bookmark clips, lip balm, a set of scrunchies (because those are cool again somehow), and a bag of lemonheads. 

I wrapped it all up in tissue paper and butterfly stickers and had two cards, one for me and one for the psychologist, which we weirdly wrote very similar things in completely separately. My TA had a metal cat magnetic board for her door (to put pictures of her family on), glow in the dark sparkly butterflies for her room, three yummy chocolate bars, and a card too. 

We set it up so 9th period my students stayed with the science teacher and we all met at the school psychologist's office eventually. She was guarded but when we said it was for her, she perked up and opened the cards first ("because that's what you do" she said), then the presents, and was excited but (understandably) understated. We had cupcakes, and hugs, and I went back up to work with my students who are not separated from their families and have nice birthdays, but who at some point will need a little something extra and I will be happy to provide that for them, too. 

She stayed after school and came back up to my room, and I asked her if it was too much, because I was worried it might have been overload. She said, "I LOVED it. I just want to hug you guys forever. Thank you so much." 

To be safe I called her guardian before she got home on the bus to let her know we'd had a little celebration and that was what the bag of loot was, and that we just wanted to do a little something to make her 13th birthday special, just to cover our bases. 

And then I sat at my desk, and felt all warm and fuzzy and like my heart was exploding. That was probably one of the best days of my teaching career. 

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy! 

The Ballad of Broc the Butterfly

We have a lot of wildlife in our new neighborhood -- we've seen deer, foxes, heard coyotes, seen bobcat tracks and black bear scat, and we have all kinds of crazy birds.

Most recently we've been visited by our neighbor's guinea hens -- he lives across the marsh, and we thought they were turkeys until they showed up behind our house doing a weird cluck/quackle noise, and then Bryce drove over while I watched them roosting on our deck boxes, and we discovered that a) they aren't turkeys, b) they are "free range," and c) they eat ticks and slugs. So, uh, we are the proud timeshare borrowers of some guinea fowl! They are awful cute.

Bryce the Pied Guinea Hen Piper

But then, we discovered we had wildlife INSIDE the house. One evening, we discovered a butterfly in the kitchen, on a mug near the (anemic) basil plant.

Broc, birthday 11/12/19 to our knowledge. 

It sort of looked like it had just hatched. Which was weird, because we'd had snow, and it's November.

But then, we remembered that in October we'd had some local broccoli, and when I cut it up, I was surprised by a bright green worm/caterpillar.

It looked something like this:

It was cold outside, and I didn't have the heart to send it down the drain or anything, so we just sort of... let him be. I admit, that's a little weird, to let a little green creepy crawly go loose around the house, but we have some potted herbs in the windowsill, so I think that's where he went. Because honestly, until the butterfly appeared, WE TOTALLY FORGOT THAT WE HAD A GREEN WORM IN OUR HOUSE.

And so, we christened the butterfly, which we found out thanks to Google Lens is a cabbage white butterfly (which makes sense because the picture above is from google and it is a cabbage white larva), Broc. (For the broccoli we found him on.)

We were sure he'd be short lived, but he showed up the next day:

Broc on the bar with some sugar water and the basil plant for familiarity

We were worried he didn't have anything to eat. Bryce put out a brussel sprout, but I think that's more of a caterpillar food than a butterfly food, so I put out the sugar water and a little fork ramp.

The whole time we were so nervous that Lucky would discover Broc, because Lucky is the Great Moth Hunter, and if he found Broc, that butterfly was toast.

The next day, Broc was still with us!

On the dining room cookbook bookshelf, under a lamp

But then, I didn't see him. Once we found him on the floor, just sort of sitting there, but most of the time we found him on the table, or on the side of the bar or bookshelf.

Then, yesterday, we saw him sunning himself on the sliding glass door window.

He's got SPOTS! 

It was like he wanted to go outside, but clearly, as you can see, there is snow and he would die pretty quick. 

I started to worry. First, he was in the bottom 1/4 of the sliding glass door, prime hunting grounds for Lucky. Second, the only flowers we had at the time are some dead mums (I did terribly with late fall gardening and killed all my mums I meant to pot with pure neglect), Bryce's orchids, and one early blooming Christmas cactus. I don't think Cabbage Whites go for any of that.

So then, I became the sort of person who buys flowers to serve as a food source for home-hatched butterflies.

Picked this one for the hydrangeas and the mums, which I think the butterfly can get nectar out of.

He didn't find it on his own though, and this morning we found him again in his favorite spot in the sunshine.

Still snow. Looking real pretty, Broc! 

This time, though, he did not escape Lucky's notice. It was very confusing for Lucky to see something white fluttering at the window and then have us freak the fuck out when he went to catch it, like he's done a million times with white moths without any fuss from us.

But Broc is sort of family now.

And so we were devastated when we thought Lucky had gotten the best of our fluttery off-white friend:

Wing dust from where Lucky batted Broc off the window

Wing dust on the sill from where he assailed Broc some more closer to the ground. 

We frantically shooed the cat away, and found Broc down in between the runners of the sliding glass door sill, looking all in one piece but traumatized.

Bryce used a piece of string to airlift him up to the flower arrangement, where he'd be safe from kitty paws and also have some food options.

Heal up, little Broc! And have a mum snack while you're at it! 

But then, I saw him looking all tilted sideways on the hydrangea a few hours later.

His little body looked all crooked and a little broken, too. 

Bryce begged me to leave him alone, that if he was going to be okay, he would, and if he wasn't, well honestly it's just a matter of time before the life cycle gets him anyway.

But this evening...

He's alive and well! And on the move throughout the flower arrangement, and hopefully snacking on that mum.

One day we will have to say goodbye to our new friend, Broc, but for now... he is a survivor. So he fits in real well in our house.

And that is the tale of our newest family member who hatched in the kitchen, Broc the butterfly who immigrated to our home in a bunch of broccoli and came into the world with wings on our basil (we think).

#Microblog Monday: Oh, Seth Meyers

I love Seth Meyers. I think he's hilarious, and smart, and maybe even hot. I love his show, and those videos where he invites Melisandre to his wife's baby shower and Jon Snow to a dinner party and coaches them in social graces.

So I was super excited when I saw he had a Netflix comedy special called "Lobby Baby." I feel like a total tool now, but at the time that I suggested Bryce and I watch it while eating pizza on a Saturday night before we played an hour or so of ping pong, I honestly thought it was a political title.

Like, "Lobby, baby!" in terms of pushing for a political agenda in Congress. Not a total crazy thought, right?

Instead it was 90% adorable and hilarious, but 100% about his wife and then two children, and how his second child was literally born in the lobby of their apartment building. Once that story came out, I had this "Ohhhhhhhhh yeahhhhhh, I totally remember reading about that in People magazine" moment of clarity, and realized that I had willingly yet unwittingly watched an entire special on new parenthood.

I knew what I was getting myself into when I watched (both of) Ali Wong's specials while pregnant, and Amy Schumer's special while she was also pregnant.

For some reason I was caught off guard by Seth Meyers. Maybe it was because once I realized, I was feeling all well-adjusted and like, "Yeah! I can watch and enjoy a comedy special on parenting and babies and not feel sad! Look at us!"

Well, until this nugget was dropped:

"It's fun to be a parent, because I think in a lot of ways it makes you a better person in general because you just have more empathy; you care more about the future of the world."

It's followed up by "In other ways it makes you morally a worse person, because now there are things you would never have done before that you will do for your kids." Which is a setup for a joke about entertaining the thought of stealing a missing toy piece from his son's playmate's house, but... BUT.

I don't think he had to go there. I do not think that having children is the quality that makes you more empathetic than someone who does not, and that caring about the future is not limited to people with progeny. It makes me super prickly.

Also, at one point he talks about how he and his wife don't like to hang out with couples who have just one kid, because they're too uptight (not having the other kids to mellow them out), and parents of two kids is just too much... but he loves hanging out with parents of 3 or more kids because they are super relaxed and don't worry at all about bangs or sounds in the other room. Which is funny, but also left out "people with no kids" entirely. I mean, I get it, as new parents you want to hang out with people who have similar experiences as you, but people with no kids being mentioned not at all sort of left me feeling icky.

I get it. It's a comedy special, ha ha ha, don't take things so seriously, blah blah blah. I won't lose any sleep over it. But I will say that it knocked Seth down a few notches in my regard. (He's still hot, though.)

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!

Three WOMP WOMP Moments

There are some times when I feel like the soundtrack to my life could be Debbie Downer's WOMP, WOMP. Recently, there were three that left me feeling like I need to get placards for me and Bryce to wear that say "REALLY, our life is NOT SAD, we are QUITE HAPPY!"


1. Where I Am Socially Awkward

A few weeks ago, I was delivering copies of the teacher's union newsletter to classrooms. When I volunteered for the newsletter, I thought I was volunteering to help write and edit it, but instead what I had apparently signed on for was literally just delivering it in my building, which I guess is a fine way to serve the union but not exactly my intent.

I went to one person's classroom, wearing my TEACH THEM KINDNESS sweatshirt, and I swear to the heavens that she asked, "Are you pregnant?"

I was, understandably, put off by this question, and I was like, "NO, um, WHY would you think that?" I was thinking my maternity sweatshirt wasn't so sneaky after all.

Then she said, "Well, I just thought that because you were passing them out that you were a part of it, that's all."

OH. She said "Partofit," not "PREGNANT." That made a lot more sense.

I fumbled through saying "Well, I'd like to be part of it, but as of now I am just the delivery person." And then I left, feeling like I had a) misheard weirdly, b) had no idea how to fix it without being weird, and then c) made a plan to try to fix it, that apparently was DEFINITELY weird.

I sent a message through facebook -- I am not friends with this teacher (and I fear I never will be now, ha), so I sent a friend request and a terribly incoherent, rambly message that basically said, "Hey, sorry, I feel like I was super snippy and it's because I thought you said "Are you PREGNANT?" when it turns out you said "Are you part of it," and I was wearing a sweatshirt from Target that just happened to be a maternity sweatshirt, and I was super confused because I had a hysterectomy last year, and that's why I was out for 6 weeks, but I am excited to be a part of the union newsletter and I'm sorry I was awkward. Actually, you probably think I'm crazier for sending this message, so I'm sorry about that too, but I just wanted to explain myself."

Are you shocked that I never heard from her and that the few times I've run into her she (in my crazy mind) makes a concerted effort to not make eye contact with me?

Sigh. Verbal Vomit for the lose.


2. Where Someone Else Is Socially Awkward

When we went "away" (a whopping 20 minutes, but it was enough) for our anniversary, we met another couple at the bed and breakfast. We are REALLY bad at meeting new people in situations like that, but this time, we hit it off with another couple who just happen to live 15 minutes from us. So much so, that each breakfast we ended up chatting with them for a good hour past everyone else.

Our first interaction was a little rough, though.

Everyone at the table was talking about kids and grandkids, and then all the guys were talking about work and military stuff, and then the woman asked, "So, you guys don't have kids, right?"

First off, that's an interesting way to ask that I didn't hate but wondered how it came to be, and then I said, "Nope, we don't have kids."

"Well, as a teacher, you must have your kids at school and that's enough." (I cannot tell you how much I hate this statement, even if it has a note of truth to it, teaching and parenting are very different beasts and one doesn't preclude the other).

"No, actually, we did want kids, it just didn't work out." (See me trying to give minimal information?)

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Did you try adoption?" (I can see that she is honestly, in her mind, being kind and thinking of solutions to this problem, but I can see that this is not going in a direction that I like.)

"Yes, actually, we did do 2 1/2 years of domestic infant adoption..."

"OH! Are you waiting now?" (obvious excitement)

"NO, actually, we DID do the adoption process and it was brutal and followed 5 1/2 years of awful medical treatment experiences and we're actually 2 years or so out from leaving that process behind."

Stunned silence.

"Wow, I'm so sorry... friends of ours did international adoption, do you ever think of that?"

(I would like serious credit for self control here) "Ah, yes -- we did consider that, but everyone chooses different processes for different reasons, and we really wanted to do infant adoption domestically. I don't think a lot of people know how that process actually works, it is so, so hard on the heart. You know, we were considered 6 times and to have that up and down and possibility and then have it dashed over and over, it was just too much. But we are happy, now. Honestly. It took a lot to get to a place where we can be happy after the losses, but we are. It's seriously okay."

"Oh, wow, I had no idea. I'm so sorry. Well... you never know, it could always happen naturally!"

(Internally: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!)

"I DON'T HAVE A UTERUS ANYMORE!"

Well, that shut that conversation down. I felt backed into a corner, and she was actually just oblivious and trying to be helpful, so I decided to go the education route, and then I resorted to yelling about my missing body parts in a quaint historical inn.

The happy ending is that the topic never came up again, we chatted again the second day, exchanged information, and even went out to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant last night with their 9 year old daughter, who was a super book fiend and so we had a great time, and this was an unfortunate blip at the beginning of what could be a lovely friendship. But HOLY JEEZUM, that was rough!


3. Where Bryce Faces The Awkwardness

Bryce had a meeting that ended at a local bar where you can play giant Jenga and ping pong and go bowling, all at the same place. It's like a quarter-end thing, a celebration of stuff that's gone well.

He left as they were cutting cake, and was like, "Sorry, I have to go meet my wife at home for dinner, and I'm not a big cake person."

His boss said, "Well, take some cake with you! Bring some home for your wife!"

Bryce said, "Oh, I can't -- she has Celiac disease, so she can't eat it. It wouldn't be nice to bring home cake she can't eat, ha ha!"

Then they said, "Bring some home to your kids!"

Bryce said, "We don't have kids, it's my wife and I at home."

Silence...then, "Bring some for the dog, har har har!"

Bryce sighed. "We don't have a dog, either. I don't think the cat will eat cake, ha..."

He said he felt a palpable WOMP, WOMP in the room, this sort of "Your wife can't eat cake, you have no kids, AND you have no dog? HOW SAD FOR YOU."

It's not often Bryce gets hit with the same sort of stuff I do on the social front, engineers aren't nearly as big on sharing personal details at work the way teachers are, but this one made him frustrated.

"I just wanted to say, BUT OUR LIFE IS AWESOME, PEOPLE!, but I knew they wouldn't believe it."



And that's the thing -- sometimes the awkwardness is ours, sometimes the awkwardness is other people's, but it all stems from this same idea -- that the idea of a life without children is somehow sad, or in need of explanation. I feel like I always want to make it clear that it WAS sad, that it was something we wanted, but that it is no longer quite the tragedy it once once. Because you can't go around being a walking tragedy forever, or no one will want to be near you. It will swallow you up. Eventually, you have to figure out a way to adjust and embrace the new life, whatever it is, because that is what you have.

Maybe I will get a button made that says, "Having kids didn't work out, but LIFE IS GREAT!"

Maybe...not. But yeah, it is, most of the time.

#Microblog Mondays: Ten Years!

Having two anniversaries is sort of confusing.

We have our Legal wedding anniversary, which is October 23rd and commemorates the signing of the papers and the waving of the Justice of the Peace's wand (or whatever that actually looked like), and October 31st commemorates our very small backyard wedding. They take place within 8 days of each other and we celebrate them both -- the Legal Anniversary usually with a dinner out and our "serious" cards, and the Halloween Anniversary with a tasty home cooked meal and our Halloween cards and ghouls. I don't quite have ten ghouls, but I have a transforming werewolf arm, a walking dead zombie, the Babadouk, IT, a creepy Donnie-Darko-style rabbit, a highly detailed spider, and this year I got THREE, so that makes... ten!

We went away for a romantic weekend away this year, too -- it is ten years, after all!

It is wonderful to think of the next ten years -- eight of the past ten were spent striving and losing and coping with our family building debacle, and yet they were ten great years. The next ten, I hope, will be untainted with that heavy grieving and remaking our dreams and our life into something different than we'd hoped.

Different, but beautiful.

Out to dinner on the Legal Anniversary

Hiking up a ski mountain for foliage peeping before check in at the romantic B&B

Doesn't do it justice

Cozy reading area of our room

Ahhhh

Cozy!

Even though it's blurry I love this picture because he made me laugh right before

Awww, Halloween (post wig hair) looove

Bryce surprised me with a DELICIOUS meal, Berkshire pork chops and white sweet potato puree and red chard

Envelope Ghoul, if Mickey Mouse was a bat

Second ghoul, appetizer inside card

AAAAAAA! Super creepy Marianne ghoul (from the French Netflix series which was so good but so scary)

I am NOT an artist, but I was stupid proud of my envelope Ghoul of many monsters.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!