Better Than Myspace

Late February is nothing but winter in New Hampshire. When you're stuck in nothing but winter, it's nice to have a way to kill time. My time killing activity of choice these days is now games.com. It's free. It's mellow. No posing. No profiles or photos. Not even much chit chat. But if you want to play a game of Scrabble, Boggle, Yahtzee, Monopoly or Battleship, it's your place to go.

Is It Soup Yet?

I am now 4/10 of the way through my paralegal certificate program. w00t!!1
This just-ending term and the next eight week term will be the worst of it for me. "The worst" being defined as having to teach my classes, study the pl stuff and do the bookkeeping at my uncle's simultaneously. The bookkeeping gig should end in April when my uncle returns from Florida. The classes I teach will end in May. The paralegal program goes until August, I think. Somewhere along the line I need to shave something off so I have time to devote to my own translating and consulting business. I barely even bother looking for clients now because I don't feel like I'd have enough time to devote to getting their work done if they had any to give me. I knew this year was going to be like this. And it is like this. I'm maintaining. Even though I want everything to change and happen RIGHT NOW.

I Know...

that last post was whiny and all boo-hoo poor me I'm not rich. Sure, guilty as charged. I suppose every parent wants to give their kids the best they can. There's nothing wrong with that.

Had, Have not

I should know better than to feel this way, but that doesn't really help so much at the moment. I just dropped my girl off at a friend's house for a slumber party tonight. (It's vacation this week.) I googled for directions to the house and figured it was probably going to be a nice neighborhood. And indeed it was--big, beautiful houses on big lots. I dropped her off, gave her a hug and a kiss and went on my way. And proceeded to feel more and terrible as I drove home away from those big beautiful houses on big lots back to my duplex that I can barely afford, and even still with the trashy neighbor downstairs, in a much more modest neighborhood.
Yeah yeah. I know it's not supposed to matter. We have a nice enough home with a fireplace even and a little side patio where I can plant flower beds in the summer, but I grew up in a big beautiful houses and it was nice. We're supposed to say it doesn't matter, as long as we give our children all the love and guidance they need. As if somehow having money would preclude us from being able to do that. I think sometimes that's just a leap in logic people make when they can't afford as much. It makes me feel crappy because I can't provide that kind of life, at least not right now I can't. And even the house I did have that I had to move out of to get away from my ex and save my sanity isn't all that great. This is terrible but I'm worried she'll come home and ask me why we don't have a house that nice. What can I say other than that it is a result of the choices I have made.
Sure, I realize if I had made different choices that led me to the big beautiful home at this point in time I wouldn't have the girl I have right now and she wouldn't have had the experience of being a baby in Hawaii. She wouldn't have spent seven years of her life living in Japan and wouldn't be bilingual. She wouldn't have had the four or five trips to Hawaii that we took during those years. She would have still had the summers in New Hampshire since this is where we would have been to begin with, but she wouldn't have had anything to contrast them with. I wouldn't be who I am and she wouldn't exist, so it's a stupid thing to ponder in the first place.
Still, as someone who got to grow up privileged to live in a nice house with nice stuff, it's frustrating to know that I'm not providing the same for my girl. My folks didn't grow up rich. It's not like I'm letting down some long standing family tradition. Most of the time I don't think about it much really. Probably because thinking about it makes me feel like somewhat of a failure.

Sounds like it'll be a lot of work...

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I Give Up

My dog travels back and forth from house to house with my girl. When he comes back here, he wants a lot of attention. I've spent weeks yelling at him to stay off the couch when I'm sitting here in the evenings. He whines. He sneezes at me. He wedges himself in a couple of inches of space between me and the arm of the couch and then twists around and types on the keyboard with his claws. The more I scold him, the more he bothers me. I finally decided to give up. Now he comes up onto the couch, snuggles up to me, settles in and sits quietly. (Except right now where he appears to be trying to eat the string of the hood on my hoodie.) He never used to be so snuggly. I guess he misses me when he's gone.

Whatchu looking at?

Every morning I brew up coffee at home, put it in my travel mug and bring it with me to school. Being a slow drinker (and it being a big mug), I'm still usually about halfway done when it's time to go to class, so I bring my mug o' coffee with me. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I feel like people are eyeing me and my mug suspiciouly sometimes. Like they're wondering if I'm really this weird naturally or if there's something in my mug helping me out. Good lord, people, I'm not drinking on the job. I just don't earn enough to justify spending $2 a day on coffee from an on-campus vendor. Stop looking at me and my mug like that.

Where's My Head?

Woah,weirdness. As I typed in the title of this blog my fingers hit "rt" rather than "d" after I typed "Where's my hea". Interesting.
Let me come straight out and I say I hate this time of year, particularly this week. A big part of that is Katie and the fact that she is still no longer here and I think about her a lot when the anniversary of her death comes around. She drove me nuts and scared the shit out of me when she was alive, but I still love her and I miss her. Last year my mom gave us yahrzeit candles to light and we all talked about it before the anniversay day arrived. This is the anniversary day this year and no one has said anything, at least not to me. I'm sure we're all thinking of her though.
Sometimes I think her absence shapes so much of how I live. I feel like I have to get everything right. I have to get it all right as a daughter so my parents don't have to ever feel that kind of loss again. I have to get it all right as a mother so my girl doesn't grow up feeling as lost as Katie must have to live her life the way she did. I don't think it's my parents' fault. No one knew what was going on or how to help her find her way back. I kind of knew what was going on, but I was a kid too and had no power to make things any different. I suppose even now I don't really have the power to make sure bad things won't happen to any of us. Maybe it's just a game I play with myself, a bargain I try to strike with the powers that be-- if I do it all just right, nobody will get hurt again.

I'm Not Saying It's Spring Yet

I'm not about to say it's spring even though the weather seems like it. I know spring and February have nothing to do with one another here in New Hampshire. Even that 'r" they share is purely concidental. I have, however, noticed that the sun is up earlier. Actually, I just noticed it this morning when my alarm went off at 6:15 and I opened my eyes and saw it was already getting light out there beyond the blinds. I peaked out the bathroom window before I got into the shower and I saw the sun coming up orange in a pink sky. I'm not saying we won't be hit by some huge blizzard or an artic blast or two before spring really decides to show up sometime in May. It's just nice to see the sun showing its face so early in the day.

Roadkill

What is up with the squirrels this week? It's like the streets are paved in squirrel carcasses and gore. Has the warm winter caused them to get fat and slow? Is the lack of snow and ice allowing drivers to drive faster?
I'm getting tired of seeing smeared squirrel everywhere I go.

Told You She's Special

I always knew my girl is special. I took her to get an eye exam this week since she brought home a note from school saying she needed to get one. Not only did she get her first pair of glasses (which look adorable), we also found out she is colorblind (well, "color deficient" is the new proper term, apparently). Her father is colorblind and so is my father. I guess she ended up with that rare genetic combination and is one of the fewer than 1% of females with colorblindness. She wasn't particularly aspiring to be a fighter pilot, electrician or hunter anyway.