Letter to Mason Winston
Dear Mason,

Please let whatever's wrong with you be easy and inexpensive to fix. I love your little mancat self and it's killing me that you're not feeling well.

Love,

Mama Ter

More on the tiedye enterprise
In between freaking right the hell out about toad, I've been working hard on my etsy store. I've got more stuff done that I need to shoot and load onto the site this afternoon and I'm prepping more today, some of which is custom work.

If you were looking for something tiedyed, what might that be? I keep my eyes peeled for unusual blanks as I'm roaming around town and online, but it's helpful to know what other people like. I know what I like, but it turns out that not everyone agrees.

No suggestion is too unusual and though I might not be able to find what you think would be cool, you just never know. While I can't figure out how to tiedye a corset, I've been looking for a rifle case that would work...

Thanks in advance!

An open letter to the people saying stuff
Dear straight people getting divorced,

(This will also pertain to the bi people married to someone of the opposite sex who are getting a divorce, so don't get your panties in a bunch right off, all right?)

I know that divorce is hard. It's messy and painful and you can't believe the stuff that you feel about someone you used to love. You can't believe the shit that they're pulling and the things that they're saying. It sucks donkey butt to have to figure out who gets the platter you used when you hosted your first Thanksgiving meal together.

I KNOW.

But for the love of all that is holy, if you tell me one more time how much easier lesbians have it because we don't have legal relationships so we can just quit any time, I will drive to your home and I will nerf ball you within an inch of your privileged, unexamined, clueless, stupid little life.

With all due respect, shut the hell up.

frog

Snagged from m0g0
Jezebel came up with a list of 75 must-read books (mostly by women). I thought it might be fun to see which ones I've read (ones I've read are in red). Feel free to copy if you're in the mood for another book meme.

* The Lottery (and Other Stories), Shirley Jackson

* To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

* The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

* White Teeth, Zadie Smith

* The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende

* Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion

* Excellent Women, Barbara Pym

* The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

* Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

* The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

* Beloved, Toni Morrison

* Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

* Like Life, Lorrie Moore

* Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

* Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

* The Delta of Venus, Anais Nin

* A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley

* A Good Man Is Hard To Find (and Other Stories), Flannery O'Connor

* The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx

* You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, Alice Walker

* Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

* To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

* Fear of Flying, Erica Jong

* Earthly Paradise, Colette

* Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt

* Property, Valerie Martin

* Middlemarch, George Eliot

* Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid

* The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir

* Runaway, Alice Munro

* The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers

* The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston

* Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

* You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates

* Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

* Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill

* The Liars' Club, Mary Karr

* I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

* A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith

* And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

* Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison

* The Secret History, Donna Tartt

* The Little Disturbances of Man, Grace Paley

* The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker

* The Group, Mary McCarthy

* Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

* The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing

* The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank

* Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

* Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag

* In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez

* The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck

* Fun Home, Alison Bechdel

* Three Junes, Julia Glass

* A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft

* Sophie's Choice, William Styron

* Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann

* Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford

* Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

* The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin

* The Red Tent, Anita Diamant

* The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

* The Face of War, Martha Gellhorn

* My Antonia, Willa Cather

* Love In The Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

* The Harsh Voice, Rebecca West

* Spending, Mary Gordon

* The Lover, Marguerite Duras

* The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

* Tell Me a Riddle, Tillie Olsen

* Nightwood, Djuna Barnes

* Three Lives, Gertrude Stein

* Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

* I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

* Possession, A.S. Byatt

Go, Speedracer! Go!

Memething
Shuffle your iPod and note what comes up for the following life categories--my results are listed.

Opening Credits: Hold a Candle to This, Pretenders
Waking Up: Nothing Breaks Like a Heart, Pretenders
First Day at School: My Song, Brandi Carlile
Falling in Love: Waste Not Want Not, Pretenders
Losing Virginity: Teen for God, Dar Williams
Breaking Up: Criminal, Pretenders
Life: Wasted, Brandi Carlile
Mental Breakdown: Let Me Go, Melissa Etheridge
Flashback: Sense of Purpose, Pretenders
Getting Back Together: Human (Class Mix), Pretenders
Wedding: Minimum Wage, They Might be Giants
Final Battle: Leaves Don't Drop (They Just Let Go), Carrie Newcomer
Death Scene: Galileo, Indigo Girls
Funeral Song: Until I Die, Brandi Carlile
End Credits: Particle Man, They Might Be Giants

She can't be bothered to lick her own butt, but she'll spend 45 minutes on her littermate's ear

Lychee grooms Tamarind.







Tam returns the favor.



Tamarind thanks Lychee by bunny-kicking her in the head.


Lychee's upset that I've caught this whole thing on film.


It occurs to both of them that I feed them every day and all is forgiven.

On the occasion of Tali's first birthday
Dear Tali,

Last year on this day at this time, I was hopping around the office like a maniac, waiting for your dad to call me with the news of your birth. Early in the afternoon, my phone rang and it was him--I was SO EXCITED! He was calling to tell me that he was going to get a Snickers bar. He thinks he's funny. When you're older, you and I will bond over how wrong he is.

Your parents had a few names chosen for you but hadn't yet settled on one toward the end of your mom's pregnancy with you, so we started calling you Princess Consuela Velveeta. We thought it was funny. Your Grandma T disagreed, which I think made it even funnier.

You'll learn that the battle of the funny is a big deal in our family, though I think you know that already. I talked with your dad last night and he told me that you're walking, now, and that one of your favorite things to do is tool along, laughing about how much fun walking is.

I love that about you--your joy in the small things and how just by being born you've slowed the rest of us down. The first time I saw you, I cried. I cried because you were finally here and because you had your daddy's dimple and you looked just like your mama and because I wanted a baby of my own and I was torn up by this weird confluence of grief and love. I loved you fiercely from the moment I knew you were on your way. I always will.

During that first visit, I became Auntie Throw Pillow. I'd hold you, you'd crash out. turtle took many, many photos of you asleep on me in one chair or another, and usually at my urging, with her saying, "Do you REALLY want ANOTHER photo of this?" I did. And I do, because I don't see you nearly often enough and I know that you're changing all the time.

When you were about 8 and a half months old, you came for a visit with your parents. You and I were sitting on the floor in our sunroom, building a tower. You knew what you wanted to do--set a block on top--but you couldn't do it and you were NOT HAPPY. I suspect this will remain part of your personality, your desire to do things perfectly immediately. You and I have that in common, but I hope that you can be patient enough with yourself to master the things that will take you some time to learn, as joy can be found there, too.

I'm so excited about the coming year--I wonder what your first word will be, what you'll like to do, and what kind of a girl and woman you'll grow to be.

I love you, baby squirrel. Happy birthday!

Love,

Auntie Ter

Hello, my name is Slap Spear Palin
What would Sarah Palin and her husband have named you? Find out here!

When toad and I were together, we had these great friends. We spent a lot of time with them, celebrated the birth of their daughter with them, the whole bit. They were some of the first people we told when we were splitting up and they were utterly shocked. They had no idea anything was wrong--and why would they? I was busy covering for her, she was busy not being too crazy when we were with other people.

The other day, I had a conversation with one of them and he told me that he feels like a lot of the late 1990s and early two-thousands were built on a lie. He's right, and I feel it, too.

Over the weekend, I had a conversation with toad's sister and her long-ago-now-ex-and-family. They were road-tripping together and put me on speaker phone. I've been in touch with that sister again for a while, now, and more lately, but I was struck by just how much I miss them, and how irritated I am with toad for making it clear to all of us that I'm not allowed to have a continued relationship with them.

The hell with that--I'm seeing the long-ago-ex-of-C over Thanksgiving, along with turtle.

An insider view on a conversation at the hatchery
turtle: I know the thing with toad is stressing you out and I know you have a semi-permeable skin, what with being amphibious and all, and that's one of the things that I love about you...

frog: I don't have a semi-permeable skin!

turtle: Sure you do. Things touch you in a way they don't touch other people. You feel things really deeply.

frog: Well, that's true.

turtle: And you're always cold!

frog: (one raised eyebrow)

turtle: But, really, try to concentrate on being more like a turtle. We've got the soft parts, but we can pull them in when things get scary.

Lychee gets a bath
Photos by turtle, bath by frog.

An open letter to my freakin' ex
Dear toad,

When I ran up to the bank just now, I saw you walking toward my office building. I have no idea whether you were headed there or not, but the very sight of you had me timing my steps so you couldn't see me around the semi truck conveniently parked on my side of the street. I walked back to my office via another route just to do everything I could not to see you.

If I had my way, I'd ban you from town altogether, but I can't really do that.

If I thought you'd hear me, I'd tell you, in detail, what you moving back to town has put me through. I'd tell you about the intestinal distress, which is in part about me eating like crap, but also in part because I can't calm the hell down long enough to eat like a normal human being. I'd tell you about the insomnia and nightmares. I'd tell you that, while the validation is amazing and helpful, the shame of people finding out just how fucked up you are (and how much I covered for you and lied to them about it when we were together) is overwhelming me to the point that I'm not that functional right now.

I want you to leave my friends alone--all of them, even the ones that you think you have some sort of connection with, at least in terms of guilting them into trying to help you. And, really, isn't that what you've been doing this whole time? If these people were really your friends, you'd have been in touch with them while you were away. You were not.

You keep saying that what you need is someone to rely on, but I don't think that's it. I think that you want someone to take enough pity on you to house you (and probably feed you) for the foreseeable future. I don't think it's going to happen. Who in their right mind is going to do that for you? Though maybe that's the key to the whole thing--if you find someone whose need to take care of you surpasses their need to take care of themselves, you're golden.

For a long time, that was me. It's not anymore.

toad again
She's without housing again and just called me again. As soon as I heard her voice, I said, "I need you not to call me" and hung up.

I hate this SO MUCH.

ETA: turtle just saw toad--toad doesn't know her and turtle was in the car, but WEIRD. She wasn't near our home, thank Maude.

Oh, nothing. Again.
I'm tired, I'm cranky, and, for reasons I don't understand, Pandora thinks I'm a Jessica Simpson fan. I'm a lot of things, but I'm NOT a Jessica Simpson fan, TYVM.

I'm having a little bit of an issue getting myself to church. Mostly, I just don't care right now. I don't love the priest. I don't know much about the new priest, so that's not pulling me in, either. I love and miss my church friends, some of whom I see elsewhere but most of whom I only see there.

I'm not sure WTF my problem is, but until I can convince myself that church isn't going to make me feel worse, I think I'm going to keep watching Globe Trekker on Sunday mornings and call it good.

Know WordPress? Wanna help an awesome blogger?
If that's you, please email me at frogblogger at gmail dot com. A friend of mine needs some help moving her blog from somewhere else over to WordPress.

Thanks!

Back to the grindstone
My busy season's started in earnest, now, and I'm spending most days running full tilt from one thing to the next, or so it seems. Honestly, in another few weeks I'll have readjusted to things and my work days won't seem quite so overwhelming, but for now I return home ready to crash out every single day.

The weekend was lovely--we spent much of Saturday lounging around watching X Files via Netflix, and on Sunday, we drove all over the place, first to see some friends, then to the capital for Small Friend B's second birthday party, then over to turtle's parents' farm for her dad's birthday dinner. It was great to see everyone and we had a wonderful time, but I could really use another weekend day!

Freudian email of the week
Dear Terri,

Please remove me from the email list. I am no longer afflicted by the department.

Thanks!

Name

Palin shows her true colors


Photo from CNN.

A scene from deep in the night at the hatchery
I'm asleep, as is turtle. There's some rustling--my hands are above my head, doing God knows what with a chip bag.

t: Baby, what are you doing?

(rustling)

t: Ter! What are you doing?

(more rustling)

t: Terri! What are you DOING!?

f: MMMmmmm, dunno, but I'm definitely doing something. (snoring)

Note to self
Don't use the clippers on your own head.

Nothing new, really
I'm enjoying my last weekday off from work until October--we're going camping with some friends to celebrate turtle's birthday for a long weekend, so this is really it until then and I'm focusing on getting the house and yard whipped into shape, which is no small task. I've got some tie-dye in process, I mowed the lawn, did a load of dishes and a load of laundry, and worked on some swap packages. And it's only 10:30!

toad hasn't called since I told her to stop calling me--I'm under no illusions that this is done, but it's awfully nice to have a little break, if nothing else. I still plan to tell her that I'm involving the police if/when I hear from her again. I hate it that it's come to that, but it's just too much stress on me and on turtle for toad to keep hassling me.

For those of you in the United States, I hope you're enjoying the holiday!