PTSD Week in Madrid

Actually just Fashion Week but I could definitely see this working on a larger scale of the population.

I bought a great hat at Kmart today. They didn't have the cheap-but-cute pants I needed to I bought a cheap-but-cute hat I didn't need. It did not look like a bird cage. But it will do nicely.

Today is day three of my new temporary gig as a nanny. I wore my "Little Miss Bossy" t shirt yesterday and gave time outs and was still a big hit when all was said and done. The kids are confused by my asymmetrical haircut and nosering and lack of decision about what I'm drawing when I'm drawing. But the oldest, Male 11-year old brilliant cutey, explained that I'm just being inspired. So, that's the homework I do while they do algebra quotients and 25-minute reading assignments. The five year olds play my little pony or polly pockets exclusively.

But the house I'm nanny-ing in has two bunnies, a dog named MONA!!, two cats and a mouse. Actually another mouse is in the freezer awaiting a proper burial. Not that anything could really be proper about taking the mouse out of the freezer and moving its tail just to scare the nanny. Now really.

I really like the kids. Things are ok this week.

Sometimes.

As long as I'm wearing my birdcage hat.

I Met a Pug Named Elvis: he was standoffish

Last night after lots of preliminary panic I agreed to go with Pat to a bonfire/reunion of his band Yardsale.

Even though I made a huge social gaffe at the beginning of the night it seemed once the fire was started the other guests had stopped telling the story and laughing at me. It wasn't necessarily water of a duck's back but it wasn't as paralyzing as I thought a gaffe like that would be. Are you wondering what I did? Well, I'd tell you but then you'd think "No biggie. Get over it" and then I would feel crazy all over again.

When it got dark the boys pulled out their guitars, mandolins, ukulele, congas, bongos and tambourine. First a guy I just met played "Tangled up in Blue" then it went from there. Silvio, The One I Love, Family Jamboree (written by our friend Joe B), For You Blue (Pat's uke lead on a Beatles' deep cut), Devil in the Deep Blue Sea (Pat in lead on his uke!!), Going to Jackson, Mercury Blues, Down Under, Cripple Creek, Pink Cadillac AND The Sunny Song with Pat on uke (the best song ever written about my daughter...so far.)

I didn't get the nerve to sing like I wanted but I played the tambourine pretty well. Sunny did a Lord of the Flies type dance solo during For You Blue.

Now I have the throat and snot problem all the popular kids are getting this week. I don't think it's the swine flu. We'll see.

Anxiously yours,

ex-poetdogwasher

Thrones of Old London

S + R forever and ever and ever

Sunny is in love with her new best friend from school. Their love has been made forbidden by their not-very-smiley teacher. They are not to talk or giggle across the room to each other. They are across the room because it is forbidden for them to be near each other in any way unless it is recess. And the multi-tasking needed to do all their playing at recess has left Sunny already angry at "the man" in a way all to familiar to me. I was sitting in the no-no chair a high percentage of kindergarten.

Well, since I am no longer gainfully employed I actually hosted two play dates with Sunny's new best friend. They handled it just like five year olds.

I handled it by running to my blog which I wish was really a hallucinogenic substance that would kick in and obliterate my short-term memory. Do you hear me fairy-god-entity???

What Am I Gonna Do?

This blog perplexes me now. I have too much explaining to do. So much that I may not do any explaining at all.

Right now my days are spent telling myself in my head, "you're ok you're ok you're ok" then I end up yelling, "I'm NOT ok!!!@!@!" and having one of the many anxiety/panic attacks due to me in each 24-hour stretch. Roving body pain. Chronic fatigue.

And, hardest, no more dogs! Except for my lovely Mona.

But we are living at my parents' house. Business is kaput. The bank repo'ed my mobile grooming van last Friday. Can't wash dogs for fun. (You shouldn't be washing anyone with your bad back Ed).

My lovely Lucy cat died a few days before we moved out of our too-expensive-on-one-reporter's-salary house. Our kittens are being housed about 45 minutes away until Christmas. I haven't seen them since the end of August. My sweet boys. Growing up without me. And for some reason the girl watching them (and being generously paid to do so) changed their names! Who does that?? She named them after Twilight characters.

Mona went to stay at my best friends' house and is having a blast. And I have a key so I go and lay on top of her a few times a week while she squints and does her best adorable polar bear look at me.

I still have the lovebirds with me at my parents' house. They are loud. Too loud for this house. But still proof of God with their amazing artistic bodies.

Pat and I celebrated our eleventh anniversary Saturday by going to a Danish village about 90 minutes away called Solvang. We stayed at the Viking Motel. Better known as the looks-just-like-the-Barton Fink motel. Wallpaper peeling. Fleas in the bed. Sticky bathroom door and not cleaned bathtub. Coffee pot with no coffee in the room. A ketchup packet of conditioning shampoo. Just what you'd expect for more than 100 clams a night. Right?

But we made the most of our fun. Yay us for being united this long.

More later. I'm getting ready to walk my Sunny to kindergarten. Where she does not like her teacher. And her teacher has labeled her "disruptive and stubborn."

Emily, Adriana, Christy, Kelli, Gina and anyone else still stumbling on my blog. Please know I love you and miss you. Feel free to write me.