12.28.08
Hot hot hot
It’s 75 degrees F (23 C) with beating sun. I hate this climate. December should be cold!
12.26.08
Aaron Zigman…
…made this absolutely fantastic soundtrack I just discovered! It reminds me a bit of the Neverending Story soundtrack, but updated and modern. Very wonderful. Completely unsuitable for Becky, of course, but lovely. Just had to share…
My little girl is growing up
Hearing my sister proudly announce that she is now regularly landing all her doubles, made me also very proud. She is only 12 (and a half) and yet she is very talented. I haven’t seen her skate in a year, but I have been told she is tremendous. As long as she practices her spins and her moves-in-the-field she should soon be ready to move up to Novice A, a level I never reached. She is going to need new music. I could leave it up to her coach, but I’m not going to. I love the strenuous process of finding music, and I’m not going to give it up.
Novice A, at the age 13, is very difficult, music-wise. She is expected to have a higher level of music and maturity than was required of her in Novice B, but it can still not be as mature as a Junior. It’s not an easy position. I’m currently thinking either ethnic/flirty/soft, but I’m not excluding anything at this time. I’ve got a very obscure song in my mind, that I’ve never heard in competition-circuits but once, and that was in ice dance about 10 years ago.
I’m also going through my ever-building collection of typical movie soundtracks, currently listening to Nim’s Island. I’ve got a pile on about 20 cd’s right now, but that will quickly change.
It’s 26th…
And so Christmas is over. My first Christmas in the US. Very weird, slightly uncomfortable, but all in all pretty nice. We forgot to make the stuffing and as a result D refused to eat the turkey. Oh, well, well. She received hippo-slippers from her Swedish grandma, and she hasn’t taken them off since (I had to physically force them off her when she was going to go to bed). The same goes for the star-necklace she received. I definitely think that the hippo-slippers were the best gift she got, in her own opinion.
Her mother never called Christmas. Not once to wish her little girl a “Merry Christmas”. It’s shameful and appalling. She didn’t even send a text. Pathetic. D was upset about it, but tried not to show it. Poor kid. (And as I suspected, not a word from her paternal grandmother, no gifts, no card, no nothing. Hubby called his mother, and spoke for maybe 5 minutes, and all she could talk about was how there was no skating on TV. Me and D weren’t even mentioned by name. *Sigh*)
I currently feel like I’ve gotten run over by a…. reindeer I guess, now that it’s just been Christmas. Didn’t sleep to good either. Hubby’s finally sleeping normally, after weeks of no proper rest. Only now he steals the covers in the middle of the night, and I’m left to freeze to death. And just to let you know, that’s 8.5 feet of covers (2.5 m)! My head hurts and I feel like I’m coming down with a cold. I’m going to go and get me a hot cocoa.
I got excellent Christmas gifts, I’m very happy with all of them. Didn’t get a single thing I won’t use! Wonderful. I also got something which made me switch career-path, but that’s a later blog-entry.
Take care everyone.
12.23.08
Not yet Christmas
At least not here. For all my immediate family though, it’s Christmas. Very early, yes, but it’s Christmas. It feels very weird not to celebrate on the 24th. I know I’ll just be walking around tomorrow, kinda clueless. It doesn’t feel like Christmas. I think it would, if we’d had a tree, but we don’t. The meager little decorations I scattered around the house look out of place and kinda stupid. But I had to try. I think I’ll be making a bigger effort once we get the house.
However, there’s one good thing about this whole ordeal, and that’s that we still are going to get mail tomorrow, so there is still a chance that my hubby’s present will get here on time. I do hope that it’ll make it, since I know he’s going to love it.
I think I’ll go nuts with restlessness tomorrow, so I think I’m going to make it a goal to mail off my poetry submissions, plus we need to go to the recycling.
I made brownies today. They turned out really nice.
I’m just rambling. *Sigh* off I go.
12.19.08
3 and counting…
In the year and a half since I left them, 4 out of my 7 girls have quit. Looking at the picture in my kitchen, taken mere days before I left, there are 7 of them. Now, looking at the roster, only 3 remain.
The thing is, I knew this was going to happen. I knew it. I knew they were going to be shuffled among coaches, not getting anything steady, and they and their parents would tire. They are not talented “enough” to receive attention. I didn’t care about such things when coaching them. They were a group of really sweet kids, who did really well, and had a lot of fun on the ice. And really, that’s what mattered. They were mine, and I adored them. I still do. I still look at the website, eager for results, pictures, anything telling me of their successes. I miss them terribly, and feel horrible about this whole ordeal.
The rest will quit soon enough, unless some miracle strikes. Ida will be first to go, due to her age, and the difference of maturity in the group she skates. She’ll feel like an oddity, out of place, and will quit. Victoria will be next, for various reasons. The coaches never understood her, nor ever will. She is… special, and needs to be pushed. They won’t, her parents will see it, and pull her out. Last to go will be Caroline. She’ll fade out in her teens, mainly because since she has the body and is petite, like a skater “should” be, she is getting the attention of the coaches. She’ll hang on for a while. But in the end, she’ll go too.
It’s very sad, but unfortunately true. Unless some miracle happens and someone starts caring about these children.
12.15.08
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas….
When I left earlier to go to the gym, I saw a butterfly flying past the front door, and the dandelion is still growing strong next to the mailboxes… It’s almost a week left until Christmas, 72 degrees F (22 Celcius) and sunny. It’s just not fair. *Sigh*
12.14.08
I hate…
…..D’s mother. Truly hate her. She is evil, selfish, cruel and just plain stupid. You all already know D’s 10th birthday was Thursday. She didn’t get any presents from her mother, as they were going to celebrate the kid today and take her out for lunch. Slightly odd, in my book, but I passed it off as some weird American/Trinidadian custom.
D just called, and sounded like she had been crying. She got no presents today either. None at all. No presents whatsoever from her mother+mother’s boyfriend+ older brother for her 10th birthday. I am so angry right now. What kind of f*****g mother doesn’t get her kid a present for her birthday? It’s just bloody incredible! I mean, she could have gotten the kid a $1 stuffed animal from the Dollar Store and some candy, SOMETHING at least! But no. Nothing.
I could have understood it if she didn’t have any money, but she does. She practices LAW, and her boyfriend/fiance (whatever) has a steady job as a car mechanic. And on top of that, she gets like $450 A MONTH from the government JUST for D. Which of course, she doesn’t use for D. We buy all her clothes, pay for all her activities, school supplies, toys, cell-phone bill, everything.
The funny thing is, I thought she couldn’t do worse, sink to a lower level, than last year. Last year, D got a housecoat/robe from K-Mart. And that was it. What’s she going to do next year? Steal money from the kid? Oh, wait, she’s already doing that…. Evil, selfish woman. I am fuming right now, SO angry. It’s just cruel.
There’s a quote, from Sydney J. Harris, that I think seem fit right now. “The commonest fallacy among women is thinking that simply having children makes them a mother – which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.”
You have to EARN the right to call yourself a mother, Marilyn, and I believe you just lost that right. Go to hell.
12.13.08
Writing and stuff
I got a B in my class. No surprise there. I’m fine with it. It’s 3 credits after all. The teacher is still an idiot (vikings mistreating their women…. codswallop…). I gave a biting review of the class. Incompetent morons. Never take the HIST151 from UNC, people, it’s utter rubbish.
I recently acquired Poet’s Market from Barnes and Noble. It’s enormous, and I’m working steadily through it. I’ve decided to start sending out my stuff in the new year. I quickly realized that I have way too little poetry. I have about 35 pieces, however, I kinda like about 10 of them. I’ve got to start cataloguing them, recording lines, titles, words, style… I’ve got yellow sticky-notes sticking all out of the book (28 right now and counting). I’ll need to edit the list down, but this is a wish list. I mean, I’m not going for the big ones, as they’d never accept me, nor am I really going for the ones that pay actual money. I just want to build a resume, get used to sending stuff out, and getting rejected a lot.
D’s 10th birthday was Thursday, but she got her gifts yesterday after we came home from picking her up – and Taekwondo testing. She loves her new Nintendo DS (which she pretty much knew she was going to get anyway…), but I think more thrill came out of my mothers package. The two biggest things were the Ahlgrens eatable foam cars and the Mr Nilsson toy monkey. Poor Mr Nilsson was dragged all over today, even to the Christmas party. And the candy…. well, the kid loves Swedish candy. And my mother. She is a big fan of my mother at the moment. She kept repeating it, “I LIKE your mother” all day, confusing the Taekwondo people, who know she’s never met my mother, since she is in Sweden. I was very surprised when she actually talked to my mother on the phone – with complete sentences! I don’t get it, first Cathy and now my mother! D usually is TERRIBLE when it comes to talking to new people, but the Swedes she adore.
I spoke to my sister-in-law for the first time today, Betty. As usual, my husband just handed the phone over to me, with a “hey, talk to C”, which I can’t stand, since I’ve never actually spoken to the woman before, or you know, met her, it’s kinda awkward. She has a son a couple of years younger than D. She seemed nice, but a little… uppity…. she was talking on how on Christmas, they were having a chef come in and make dinner for everyone, since it was such a success last year. *snort* Sure, next year, why don’t we fly in a chef from France or something to cook…. *sarcasm*, or, you know, actually invite us for the family Christmas dinner (Hubby’s both sisters and mother with their families, and some other relatives in Bermuda are all invited and are coming, hubby’s eldest sister lives in Georgia…) and pay for our tickets, since you have so much bloody money to waste on a professional chef. I’ll even help cook if necessary!
12.11.08
CSM
For the sake of my poor mother, I’m going to elaborate on a statement I made the other day.
Of course, I am always thrilled to see all of them, but Ethan is kind of reminding me of the whole CSM-thing. Especially the C.
CSM means Childless Step Mom, it’s a website I’m apart of. Why does it bother me? Well, the thing is, I’m in all senses of the word, a mother. I take care of a child, I cook, clean, nurture, listen to her stories, drive her to practice, comfort her when she cries, bake cookies with her, buy her things, reprimand her, put band-aids on her cuts, put her to bed, hug her, tell her stories, do her hair (2 1/2 hours EVERY weekend), get excited about the pictures she draws, the list goes on and on. I love that little girl. And yet, I do not have the right to call myself her mother. I am there for her much more than her real mother is, yet that woman is the one who will get the credit. She is the mother, and nothing can change that. She is the one who ultimately, comes first in my little girl’s mind, and in many others too. I am not allowed to call myself “mother”, because she is not, technically, my child. I’m just the woman who married her father. Yet I do everything for her, I’d go to the moon for her. But she will never be mine, and some days, I just think of that as very unfair. I guess I will feel different once I have a child of my own, but that will not be for at least another 3-4 years.
Well, well, I’m going to go to the store now and pick up some eggs and coconut flakes. There’s a Christmas party at our little girl’s Taekwondo Saturday, and I’m baking Swedish Brownies. It’s her birthday today, btw, she’s turning 10 years old.
Oh, mom, you still haven’t sent me the taffy recipe (kola).
