Here at the Castle

Life is a fairytale, here at the castle. Quests, dragons, love, adventures, rainbows, and tall grass... we got it all.

This latest illustration from Maria is for a CG animation she and William are collaborating on. They make an excellent team.

So, here at the castle, our Bird House, we have a lot going on, and because I am not ready to tackle the load just yet, I am going to jot a few things down...

~Pick up bicycle from shop
~Stop at post office
~Send in sixth grade camp particulars
~Bring Alex home, and the little ones
~Make snip-snip appointment for Ferris: Yes, we went through this before, but things weren't where they were supposed to be, so it was postponed. I am being vague: You're welcome.
~Buy groceries

Gah! I just realized today is the last day of Spetember... Septmeber... S E P T E M B E R. Well, good. Because I have been spelling it wrong all month long anyway, so good riddance.

~Make dinner
Seems like I shouldn't have to remind myself about the simple stuff, like "make dinner," but some days I need all the help I can get.
~Shower
~Take vitamins
~Breath
~Blink
~Repeat

Okay... enough lounging around. It's time for this self-rescuing princess to kick the dragons to the curb and whip the castle in to shape.

Packus Rattus

This is the last box to leave the garage. There are no more moving boxes in the garage. Which is not to say, the garage is empty. The right things are in the garage now, the purposeful things. But we are not unpacked, not technically.

Here it is: I am the single greatest roadblock to us being fully, completely, totally unpacked. And I am ashamed and overwhelmed. My office is an overflowing testament to my lifetime collecting habit, compounded by seven years of not taking inventory of all I was amassing. In kindness to me, I blame having to move every two years, and not being unpacked since 2003.

But. And this is a big butt I should have learned from past sessions, when I was overwhelmed by stuff.
I really, really wish I had stuck to a restrictive stuff diet, and resisted the urge to keep every single thing we might want or need. Now I am immobilized by our my things, and I am thinking back to that strange and extremely rare time in our lives when for two months we were unpacked and organized... until we moved again. Those two months, as I recall, were good. Short, though. Very short.

I am the single greatest roadblock to us being fully, completely, totally unpacked, and besides feeling overwhelmed by the physical workload of undoing my damage, I am scared of progressing, of finally settling down.<---------- That admission is weird and irrational, and probably should have come out in professional therapy.

Geoff is looking for a T-shirt he saw, with a message he knows fits me: "Some people think the world is flat. Cool." There is a guy in a kayak about to go over the edge of the flat world. The message fits me, because deep down inside I suspect that the world is flat, and deep down inside I suspect that if we settle down and make ourselves at home, then it will come undone, and we will have to move, again.<---------- That admission is painful, and possibly irrational, and probably should have come out in professional therapy.

Whatever my psychological deficiencies, and fears, this office is absurd, and it must get whipped in to shape. ugh... this is going to hurt.

Love Makes Us Beautiful

Geoff and I were invited to a wedding.
Which meant I subjected myself to a month of anxiety and self-loathing. I could have subjected myself to a month of intensive cross-training and food deprivation, but I manage to do things the hard way. I could have spent the month in meditative contemplation, visualizing love, commitment, and self-less devotion to greater causes, but that pretty much didn't happen either. I mostly went for the anxiety and self loathing. That is the truth. I am being real.

I had to shop for a dress, which means three-way mirrors, and fashion confusion. New dresses also call for new shoes, and under thingys, which takes us back to those three-way mirrors. It was all very traumatic.

But there was a sweet moment: I came home, successful in the hunt, and Maria asked to see the dress. She clasped her hands and sighed, and assured me, "Lovely. This is beautiful for a wedding..." and then the fashionista paused, "but what about shoes? You did get shoes, right?"

Where does this gene come from? This instinct? This knowledge? I have a basic, learned understanding of the girl-dress-up requisite list, but I trained for it. How does she so naturally understand these fundamentals? How? By the way, she approved the shoes.


Do women still wear stockings-pantyhose-hosiery where you're from? I don't see it much in So Cal. And honestly, I would have thrown a fit and ditched the whole evening, if I had to wear pantyhose in yesterday's heat. That is the truth. I am being real.

The shoes made me happy, in a retro, perky, way, and they inspired black eyeliner, which I practiced applying about four or twenty times that afternoon. I also put my hair up in twisted clumps, so I would get body, waves, an alluring coiffure. In the end, I got a kind of Bride Of Frankenstein-1984-frizz festival. I tried taming it, and I tried making a smart up-do, and then I even looked around for our buzz kit. I wore it up, then down, then up, then finally, down. It was all very traumatic.


I changed the earrings. I wore pearls that dangled from gold filigree leaves. I put on darker lipstick. I remembered not to rub my eyes, smudge the eyeliner. My home manicure was less than stellar. The color, Wet Sand looked like a glossier version of my own skin tone, which had the effect of making my fingers look like shiny tipped sausages, and then I dented and dinged them. I am woefully out of practice.

After ironing Geoff's blue, "iron-free" shirt, and accepting pizza hand hugs from Maria, we were off! And the month of anxiety and self-loathing was... was kind of pointless. I am what I am, right? Forty-three, with actual gray hair, and big arms, an aversion to gyms, malls, and style salons. Shy. Insecure. Kind of afraid to do all the things that might make me look "good." Kind of afraid to admit once and for all, that I want to feel and look good just as I am.

And at the wedding, where I knew only Geoff and John E., and not really anyone else... I forgot all about me, and was moved to tears, and meditative contemplation, visualizing love, commitment, and self-less devotion to greater causes, because it was a beautiful wedding for a lovely couple so clearly in love, that everyone was reflecting the glow of their happiness. That is the truth. I am being real.

Ugly Delicious :: Chocolate Edition

The family motto: Never give up, never surrender. Obviously, I really take this to heart, sometimes. Not necessarily in meaningful ways, and sometimes in the least meaningful ways... which explains how we end up with a cake that looks strikingly familiar. Now, where have I seen this disaster aberration gesture of maternal affection before?


Yes! Ugly Delicious! Strikes Again! A cake so lovingly made, it cannot be denied... it is special. A cake that teeters. A precarious assembly of wholesome confections procured from our dear friend and Fearless Flyer, Trader Joe.


Measured, mixed, and mashed "frosted," by me, the Fearlessly Flightless Chica Blogger.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I planned it this way. I have studied with a professional.


Maria added the gelatin-dye-free chocolate sprinkles. Jessica, Eli, James H., Alex, Max, William, Maria, Ferris, Homer, and I gathered together and we admired and adored it, and we were sort of in awe of it... it was amazing to see in person, close up. How did it stay nearly vertical? It was like the leaning tower of chocolate. Then James H. did the honor of slicing and serving, which was no small feat. Well done James H.

And it was so delicious and moist. It was like a Portal to cake goodness. It was Ugly Delicious.

Cake eating was followed by tent camping, movies, late night fun. And this morning I found an empty platter. I was silly enough to ask, "Wha' happened to the cake?"
William smiled, affectionately, he declared: "Success!"