Be still (redux).

Monday night, after a not-very-productive or enjoyable day at work, I walked in the door at home and went straight to the computer. I hadn't accomplished much with my day, and the little bit I managed to do was, I felt, not very good.

Most people go home after a frustrating day and just try to get over it---a little How I Met Your Mother, maybe some pizza, probably some beer, and after a couple hours, they feel like they might be able to answer the charge again the next day.

I'm not so good at that. Usually, I'm re-living the battle, but trying to do it in such a way that it comes out differently. Sometimes this works just fine and I come out ahead. Mostly, though, I just come out tired.

That was the situation when Muffin Uptown came in and began making cookies in commemoration of having finished her last class. She brought first the cookie dough and later the first cookie for me to taste and approve. Which I did. Then she went about her business and left me to mine.

Then, about a half hour later, I heard her sitting in the living room, singing softly to the cat.

And every difficult thing about my day fell silently and completely away.

photo, Riana Ambarsari.

Originally posted December 12, 2007. Something tells me I'm going to want to remember this one.

Small things (redux).

Since school has been out for the summer, Muffin Uptown has been filling a sketch book with tiny little cartoons.

I got a look at it yesterday and liked it so much, I said I would like to publish some of it.

She might not have actually been in the room at the time.



Originally posted August 7, 2007.

Keeping those lines of communication wide open (redux).

From my office voice mail, sometime Monday morning:

"Hey, Mom, it's me. Listen, I just wanted to let you know that the cat threw up on the rug in the living room. I can't clean it up right now, but I didn't want you to come home after work all excited and run over to the TV and--you know--step in it, or something.

It's shaped like a heart."

Just in case I don't recognize it. What with my excitement to get to the television, and all.

image, Matt Cox.

Originally posted March 25, 2008.

Sister, your slip is showing (redux).

Last weekend, I went to brunch with Muffin Uptown, my ex-husband, and my ex-wife-in-law. It was mostly just an excuse for everyone to spend a little time with MU before she embarks on her big LA adventure.

We don't exactly hang out, but we've spent a goodly amount of time together in the interest of parenting this (now grown up) child. We all went to the parent-teacher conferences, the music recitals, graduations, and art shows. They've come to my house for Christmas, and I've been to theirs for Thanksgiving. We've eaten out together. We collaboratively celebrate her birthday. We have a lot in common.

And we are very, very, civilized people.

Driving back from the restaurant, her dad was telling me of their plans to remodel their ten-year-old kitchen. The plan is to knock out a wall and extend the cooking area into the space that is now the garage. Their kitchen is already the size of a football field.

So I said, "Oh-my-gawd, Vickie! It's going to be HUGE!"

Muffin Uptown put her face into her hands. Then she looked up and shrugged at her stepmother, who held up her hands like, "What can you do?"

"What?" I said. "What?"

Then it hit me. My ex-husband's wife's name is Jackie. Vickie was the name of wife number two.

photo, Vintage Pulchritude.

Originally posted May 28, 2008.

My mom will get it (redux).

Although practically perfect in every way, Muffin Uptown has a very short fuse when it comes to balky mechanical equipment. I warned her about this when she asked for her first sewing machine. As those of us who already own these contraptions could easily have told her, sewing machines exist for the sole purpose of testing one's certitude in a higher, beneficent being. Anyone prone to crisis of conviction would be better served at the mourner's bench than in front of a sewing machine.

And MU's constancy? Well, she loses her shit when a zipper gets stuck.

She's building an ambitious art installation that involves PVC piping and yards and yards of fabric, and had a meeting scheduled with her advisor on Tuesday to evaluate her progress. It's been going well. So of course, the machine inexplicably stopped in the middle of the next-to-the-last, nine-foot-long seam.

She telephoned me at work to test both my diagnostic and prognostication skills. Normally so articulate, she was struck dumb in the face of total mechanical malfunction.

"Mom! My sewing machine is all messed up. The wheel thing won't turn and it doesn't work. Well, it will turn--but it's really, really hard and when it does, the other thing just moves back and forth, instead of up and down and nothing is happening. This is really making me mad. What's wrong with it?"

Click. Click. Clickclickclickclick.

"What is that noise? What are you doing?"

"I'm turning the other wheel thing. But nothing is happening. Why won't it work? This is really making me mad."

"I think you should stop doing that--it isn't supposed to make that noise. Check the needle and make sure it isn't bent. Look for knotted up thread behind the bobbin. Check the presser foot."

"Presser foot? What's that?

Clickclickclickclickclickclick.

Ultimately, she was reduced to finishing her project on my sewing machine--a Singer 301A, circa 1956. There was a lot of inarticulate moaning and groaning about that, too.

"Does your machine even work? It's old."

Later, during her project review, she detailed the difficulties she'd had to her professor and complained of having to finish her sewing on a "Triangle Shirtwaist Factory sewing machine."

"That sounds cool." her professor said, "I don't think I've ever used one of those before."

Originally posted January 23, 2008.