Day 5: Horoscope

Monday, November 5: Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21)

There's an art to staying connected with the people who are important to you. You know who your top-five priority relationships are, but it helps to list them.

I'm rarely one to check the daily horoscopes in the newspaper as most of the time it's some generic "Someone new will enter your life" or "Look for exciting things to happen" type of mumbo-jumbo. But being at a loss for today's Terribly Interesting Post, I thought I'd check the horoscopes and comment on the absurdity of it.

But this one doesn't seem to absurd. In fact, I thought this was actually rather interesting and it caused me to start thinking. Who are the top-five priority relationships in my life? Do I have to list names or can it be a generic "Grandparents" which would encompass four people? And if I really think about it, would I include them on my list? Being a dutiful granddaughter, I know I should. I know I need to cultivate these relationships and stay better connected than I do because at my age, it's a blessing to have all of my grandparents still living. But would they be on my top priority relationships list out of a sense of loyalty or because I honestly feel that way? Can I make it a Top 10 list to get everyone included that I think needs to be? Can I generically lump people together like "Grandparents" and "In-laws" and "Sisters"? Am I over-thinking this entire thing? (I think I know the answer to that last one.)

I know who the first person on my list should be and I'd put him there without question.

I was recently reading through posts I wrote last year, back when Paul and I weren't speaking and the continuation of our marriage had come into question. It was painful and I'm not sure why I kept reading. I did skip over some things I'd written because I knew how bad things were at the time and how angry I was when I wrote them (most of these weren't published, by the way). I was still in tears reading just the bits and pieces I did. We had definitely lost the "art of staying connected" and while I wasn't thinking "divorce," I was definitely thinking "how the hell can I get myself out of this situation?" I grit my teeth when I hear someone dismiss what happened last year as merely the "Seven Year Itch." Sure, it was an itch. One of those itches you might have if, while covered in chicken pox, you roll in a bed of poison ivy. This wasn't an itch--it was a full-on rash. The "Seven Year Hives" perhaps. And it could have happened to us at three years or thirteen years. It was a combination of so many things, many of which were little things that simply and quietly built up until they were big things, creating such turmoil in our lives that we were utterly ill-equipped to handle.

We're much, much better now--thanks in no small part to a very patient and kind therapist last fall who reminded me of why we liked each other so many years ago and what we needed to do to like each other again. She helped me remember what it meant to stay connected. (We opted not to go to couples counseling for a variety of reasons and while I'm sure it would have helped us, my going individually helped me heal many of the hurts I was nursing and get rid of lots of anger I had which in turn, helped our marriage. You know, because I wasn't a raging and/or crying lunatic and Paul would actually speak to me.) I can't speak for Paul but I know it's something I've been working on every day, sometimes to more success than others but I think that's true of any relationship. There are still some discussions that must be entered into delicately, making certain to use the "I statements" and to be cautious to avoid anything accusatory. But again, true of any relationship. I'm eternally grateful to the people who were put into my life, not only the therapist but some very wise and supportive friends, who helped us through a very long rough patch and gave us the skills and the knowledge to help us muddle through to our 8th anniversary, one we celebrated by actually talking and laughing and enjoying each other. And hopefully we'll still be muddling through as we celebrate anniversaries well into our golden years. Because when it comes down to it, in the end I definitely don't want to be without my top-priority relationship.

(And just in case, lucky numbers for today: 1, 5, 39, 33, and 49)

Day 4: "Call your dad"

Paul and I had a little project to do this afternoon. We recently purchased this switch to replace the light switch for the outside lights. For most DIY-ers, it would take about 10 minutes to complete--turn off power, unhook one switch, hook up new switch, turn on power. And continue with the rest of your day.

Because we aren't the handiest of people, we typically plan for at least three times as long to complete any project. After 30 minutes, one fuss over which switch to flip in the fuse box to turn off the power and why do I need to flip the switch back on if we know the power is off just to check to make sure that's the correct switch, and both of us staring at the electrical box trying to decide what order to hook up the black-blue-white wires since we have a black-red-white combo, we decided that we need to enlist the help of either of our dads or my granddad C. who was an electrician back in the day and still can't feel a 110-volt jolt. Seriously--as soon as we pulled unhooked the light switch and saw that the wires didn't jibe, Paul said, "Why don't you call your dad?" You know--because my dad who is 1000 miles away will totally be able to fix this problem and hook up a light switch (Paul's reasoning: Dad helped installed a couple of dimmer switches during one visit). Paul's parents will be home on Tuesday. Maybe his dad will be able to figure out this conundrum. In the meantime, our fancy new timer switch with latitude/longitude coordinates is back in it's packaging, taunting us with its super-simple instructions and blue wire, letting us know that, once again, we are proving ourselves to be the Worst Adults Ever.

Day 3: Jubjub

Since I've shared a bit about myself and my husband, I'll spend today on the third member of our little clan: the cat. I guess the best starting point is how he got his name. It is a tad bit unusual, I'll give you that. And most people eventually get around to asking us how we came up with it. It's not a very interesting story but here's how we named our cat.

After I graduated from Tech, I was teaching in Sunray and living by myself for the first time, away from Paul and my friends. Everyone kept saying I should get some type of pet so I'd have something there to greet me when I got home each afternoon. Paul and I discussed getting a cat that would be "ours" but would live with me. We didn't have a cat yet but were talking about what to name one when we got it. Paul kept suggesting things along the line of Warhammer and Stormbringer. I just couldn't imagine naming my cat something so overwhelmingly sci-fi nerdy. My top choices were Dexter or Alice, neither of which Paul liked because he thought they were just plain nerdy.

Out of the blue, Paul suggested the name Jubjub, the iguana from The Simpsons. It only appears in a couple of episodes--one with Duff Gardens (Paul's favorite) and one where Selma marries Troy McClure. It was the latter episode I saw, which ends with Selma walking off into the sunset with Jubjub the Iguana and says "Come on Jubjub. Let's go home." I swear I had major PMS because that made me cry so I agreed to name the cat Jubjub. Not knowing how to spell it, we opted to go with no hyphen, which is how it is spelled in the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (which is where I will occasionally credit the cat's name even though it had nothing to do with it--it sounds better in some crowds). No matter; no one spells it correctly. Kind of like my name.

A week or so after deciding on a cat name, my then-sister-in-law called to ask if I'd like a kitten. Her sister had found one and ex-SIL couldn't keep it since she already had a couple of pets and 2-year-old twins. So I picked up this sad little kitten, barely a month old, and loved him and hugged him and squeezed him and called him Jubjub. It's been over 10 years and I have to say that everyone was absolutely right. I definitely needed something warm and fuzzy to go home to every day.

Jubjub's one trick--he'll stand up on his back feet so you can pick him up and stretch him after you've been out. Some days, all we have to do is only be gone long enough to pick up the mail and he's waiting for a stretch. We're not sure how he figured out to do this, or what I did to train him to do it, but it's awfully sweet. One of my favorite pictures of Jub. This is from the apartment I lived in when I first moved to ABQ. That's a roadrunner on the balcony railing. Jub didn't know what to do with a bird of that size.
We thought we'd be clever and leash-train the cat. He'd go limp every time we put it on him, as if the mere presence of the leash was completely paralizing.
Paul's granddad Owen doesn't quite understand what our cat's name actually is. He's always asking us "How is Jojo doing?" We don't correct him. We simply reply "Jojo's doing good. Real good." Jojo's even better when there are bags and boxes around for him. No bag or box, no matter how big or small, is safe from the girth of Jojo. He loves them all. He gets very offended and will limp away if you have to move him.Someone (I believe it was my dad) once commented on our pet name choice: Stupid name for a stupid cat. That pretty much sums him up. I can't argue--Jub is cranky and simple. Jub's current BFF is the humidifier in our bedroom. He's always lying beside it, even when it's not on. Jubjub {hearts} The Humidifier.

And I {heart} both of these guys.

Day 2: Paul

I don't have many pictures of Paul as a little guy which is unfortunate because he had fabulous hair as a baby. It was always surprised. My mother-in-law said she'd tried to smooth it down but it was standing up again as soon as she'd stop combing. He still gets fabulous bedhead if he even pretends to lie down.

Instead of a view of Paul through the years, I thought I'd post a few little glimpses of How Paul's Brain Works. I've always said that if Paul ever committed murder, his entire defense would consist of "But it's Paul!" and he would be cleared of all charges. Of course, I've threatened murder if I have to hear one more time "He's so cute!" which he is--and very clever and quick and funny and all that-- but sometimes, just sometimes, I'd really like a normal picture.

My mother-in-law gave us some of Paul's old schoolwork that she'd saved. One of them was a journal he had to keep in 2nd grade. Most entries consist of "Today I'm saking (sic) " or "Today I'm buying." It took me a bit to catch on as to what he was writing. I finally understood when it was explained that they wrote in their journals in the morning. He was writing about lunch. Occasionally, he would expand: "Today I'm buying. There is pizza for lunch." He also bought on hamburger days. He did write for about a week about the new kitten the family had gotten, a little white furball originally named Snowball who slept with Paul on his bed. In later life, Snowball became known as Pirate Kitty thanks to a gnarled ear and scar on her face (Snowball was apparently one tough furball and not one to back down from a fight). There is also a week-long story, complete with pictures, that was about space ships and aliens, probably right after parent-teacher conferences. Then he was back to saking (sic) or buying.

(There is some discussion as to when the following papers were done. His mother thinks they were 2nd or 3rd grade but Paul thinks he was older--4th, 5th or 6th grade. Either way, I think it's very clever and very indicative of how my husband's brain still works.)

Paul declares that Richard Scarry is the greatest author of all time. He definitely was inspired by Scarry. For example: The Picklebird from Outer Space. The shape was on the paper and the students had to do something with it. Paul created Picklebird. Of course. Who wouldn't?

The circles were drawn on the paper and Paul had to create things with them. My personal favorite is the rather formal circle man pushing the baby stroller.

An 11-year-old Paul's Rube Goldberg take on a pie-making machine. He's never helped me make a pie--perhaps if we can figure out how to make this machine. . .


And in my never-ending quest to just take a picture of my husband, I present the following proof that it will probably never happen.

Taking it on the chin on the wharf in Monterey, CA. He couldn't just stand there.

Very unhappy about being back home and back to work:

In Chicago at the photo-op spot in the Hancock Building. (The beam is vertical with the photo illusion of looking down behind it.) I had almost the exact same picture but Paul's the one who gets all the glory (and his was better, I admit). His comment was that the eyes were really good but that he should have curled his leg around the beam more. He never stops improving upon his bad pictures.

In Chama at the train depot. Most people just take pictures of the trains but not Paul. That would be too easy. Paul had to set up this whole picture so that he would look like he was getting sucked into the fan--he was trying to figure out if he could look like he was rotating in the fan. There comes a point when I have to refuse to be party to the madness.

This is Paul's personal favorite because "Look at that mouth! I was really convincing about how bad it hurts to have a dinosaur bite your head!" My family might recognize this as one of the dinosaurs in Clayton. Again, too easy to just stand beside it.

But all his goofiness does translate well with our nieces and nephews (and all our friends' children). On one visit, he spent much of the time being corralled into singing on the toddler-karaoke machine with a then 2-year-old Sarah. It was some Wiggles song about ducks say quack, cows say moo, etc. Sarah said "ooooooohhhhhhh" into the microphone the entire time. Paul added his own chorus: "Party people in the back! Say quack, quack, quack!"
So, there it is. A wee little glimpse into life with my husband. It's never dull, I'll give him that.

Day 1: Me

I was born on November 8, 1974 at Memorial Hospital in Dumas, Texas--my parents' second child and second daughter, arriving a little over 3 1/2 years after my sister Donna. It was a Friday night when I entered the world--right around 9:45 p.m. My mom jokes that I interrupted her watching of "The Rockford Files"--she had to be wheeled to the delivery room just as the big chase scene started. I enjoyed the rank of "Baby" for 13 short months until my sister Amy came along. No hard feelings though. She was what they call a "pleasant surprise." And in the end, it wasn't too bad having a sister so close in age. It was good to have that partner-in-crime as a teenager.
(Age 1 or so--I think the black dog is my grandparents' dog Belle. Not sure who the other one was but it doesn't look thrilled with the loving pets it's receiving.)

I think I had a fairly unremarkable childhood as far as childhoods go. Except for the one little part about my father dying when I was 2 1/2 years old. He was 30, it was cancer, my sisters were 6 and 18 months, and no I don't remember anything about him. That's really about all there is to say about that. I did go through the grief process when I was about 15--I remember being very angry that I had this thing that made me different and really wished my parents had just divorced like everyone else's parents. It's easier to explain divorce than death. But I was very fortunate that my mom married a man who stepped into the role of Dad for three little girls. I know it definitely wasn't easy for him but, as mom reminded him from time to time when we were teenagers, he knew what he was in for when they got married. And I appreciate him.
(We have lots of pictures throughout the years where my sisters are staring at me like this--I tend to "act out for attention" because I'm a middle child or so I've been told. I think it's more that I can be a wee bit obnoxious. And I love that 7-year-old Donna is wearing a one-piece pantsuit. How 1978 chic.)
(I loved this tunnel. We played with it until it fell apart. I bought Abigail a tunnel in hopes that she would love it as much as we loved this one.)

As a child, I was bookish, a ham at home but not outside, a quiet student, always a little overly-cautious about everything, sensible, very focused on being a good kid and a good student. I played t-ball because it was the thing to do in 1st & 2nd grade definitely not because I was good at it, I was in Girl Scouts, took piano lessons, read lots of books, played outside, climbed trees, invented games with all the other neighborhood children, played with my friends and my Barbies, which I reluctantly put away when every other girl in my class was doing the same thing. Like I said, nothing very exceptional but a very good childhood. It's always interesting to me that while I definitely do remember the fights and yelling and rough times, and there was plenty of that which doesn't need to be rehashed here, I also remember lots of laughter, family and fun. I guess it all evens out eventually.
(Showing off my YMCA swim badge. I don't think I ever progressed very far past the Tadpole level--maybe Guppie but that's about it.)
(I'm in 5th grade here and yes, I cut my own bangs. It started out as a trim the night before the church Christmas pageant and I couldn't get them even. So I kept cutting. This was the end result. But, placing appropriate blame, I did ask Donna to help me but she WOULDN'T GET OFF THE PHONE. So, really, it's all her fault. Or something like that. Mom & Dad were out at a Christmas dinner and were, um, surprised when they came home to this hairdo on their middle child. Oh, and Amy can mock all she wants but she did the same thing--when she was 17. )

We moved to Texline just before I started 8th grade and I was absolutely convinced my parents had completely ruined my life. It turned out that they hadn't. And it probably was a pretty good thing for me in the end. I "blossomed," I "came out of my shell," I started talking and didn't stop. Living in a town of 450 and attending a high school with 50 students meant I got to be involved in everything. It didn't matter that I wasn't the best at any of it--if there was a group to join, I joined it. I played basketball, I played tennis, I ran cross country one year and then decided that it was definitely not the sport for me. I was in the drama club (not just a drama queen), I participated in the academic contests, I was in FHA. I won English Student of the Year four years running, I was voted Most Likely to Succeed, Most Versatile, Most Talented. I continued piano lessons until the end of my junior year of high school and participated in various music competitions and occasionally filled in as the pianist at church. I hated that though--even though everyone was always so complimentary, it just made me a nervous wreck to do it. For my after-school job, I taught piano lessons for a few years. I put lots of miles on my car driving up and down Main Street in Clayton and spent lots of money on Cokes at the Sonic. I flirted, fussed, flounced, cried, laughed, and while I wouldn't want to do it again, I enjoyed being a teenager for the most part.
(Christmas during my 8th grade year (1988). I couldn't put the hat on flat because then it might mush those carefully crafted, AquaNetted-within-an-inch-of-their-life bangs. The band was a black and white houndstooth pattern that matched my dress. I actually still own the hat but not the dress. I think my left leg might fit into the dress.)
(During Spirit Week '93 when I was a senior and Amy was a junior. Peace, love, and beat Hartley.)

Off to college--University of North Texas as a freshman; Texas Tech for the final three years. I've discussed my reasons for not going to Tech initially but mostly it boils down to the drama queen thing. But as all things go, it worked out in the end. I didn't enjoy UNT, mostly because I didn't want to be there not as a reflection on the school, and happily transferred at the end of the spring semester. For as much as I was involved in high school, I wasn't involved in college. I didn't join any clubs, groups, sororities, or anything. I went to my classes, I went to work at my little part-time job, I hung out with Amy and my friends. Looking back, I wish I had done more but can't change the past. Initially, I started college thinking I wanted to go into journalism--I'd worked for the local newspaper in Clayton one summer--but decided after a semester that I didn't think print journalism was what I wanted to do with my life. I transferred to Tech as an English major and when told I needed to declare a major focus, stammered out "Education!" There was some thought put into that statement--my dad had just been out of work for 9 months and I remember thinking that my mom, a teacher, had never been fired. So it was all about job security that I graduated as an English major with a secondary education minor. But it's turned out to be a good choice.
(Labor Day, 1997. With my friend Stephanie, whom I met at UNT--Paul still makes fun because Steph and I didn't really look at the Monet exhibit so much as talk while walking by the paintings.)

I taught for a year in Texas before moving to ABQ to pursue my master's degree in Secondary Education and pursue that wedding ring. I got them both in 1999. We moved into our house during the summer of 2000. I started work on my Library Science endorsement in 2001 and became the school librarian in the fall of 2003. And we've lived happily ever after.

Or something like that.

(At Heron Lake, where Paul's parents have a cabin. And, no, Paul's not standing on a rock. I'm really that short standing next to him.)