(alternate title: Where Dawn mentions death, yet again.)

This happened in 2006, one year to the day after my Grandma died. It was one of those dates that made me go ‘huh, I remember this day last year’ – not something that I was wearing all black for and making a big deal of.

(high school graduation. 1933)

But ya know, I think we all hope for signs or whatev, that life is okay – whatever that life is, wherever that life is – however all that works out.

So being the date/time dork I am, I of course, remembered what time she died. I knew when “the minute” was. It passed. No big thing. Just passed on by. Followed by several more minutes – cuz that’s what minutes do.

Then it started raining, which is in the “no big deal” category these days b/c it does that about every other minute right now. I noticed the rain had stopped – and that the sun was out – I thought “What’s the chances?” and even a more punitive “Grow up Dawn, quit looking for signs.” But I got up and looked……

TWO rainbows – all the pretty colors – even purple – and I think the purples were fading back into blues at the bottom.

Lilacs are what my grandma and I planted once upon a time. Lilacs that did not bloom in my backyard until after we got back from the funeral. Lilacs that have decided they apparently like my backyard now and are gonna stick around.

I missed those lilacs when we moved last summer, till I looked out this week and realized there are two huge bushes on the side of our new house.

Peace Grandma, I hope your homecoming was even better than this.

Before I had Alex, I didn’t even know such a thing as “Attachment Parenting” existed. Apparently it’s my parenting style though, as he sleeps in our bed (cuz it’s easier on me), I carry him in a wrap instead of a stroller (cuz it’s easier on me), and I’ll nurse him as long as it works for me (cuz I’m a cheap ass and don’t want to buy formula or whole milk.)

Amy, the Crunchy Domestic Goddess asked if some of us would post a press release for AP International and their new site. I’d planned to say more about this, but given the week we’ve had, we’re just gonna go with the flow … which is a little accidentally AP as well

Attachment Parenting International (API), a non-profit organization
that promotes parenting practices that create strong, healthy emotional
bonds between children and their parents, has several exciting changes they
would like to announce, including:

• A newly redesigned web site and new logo at Attachment
  Parenting.org ;
• Attachment parenting worldwide supportforums;
• href=”http://www.attachmentparenting.org/pep/pep.php”>ParentEducation
  Program – a comprehensive series of classes for every stage
  and age of child development from infancy through adulthood;
• A new book based on API’s Eight Principles of Attachment Parenting by
  API co-founders Lysa Parker and Barbara Nicholson which is expected to be
  available this summer;
• A series of podcasts, webinars, chats, and forums with API Advisory
  Board members and other supporters of AP. Future events are scheduled with
  Dr. Bob Sears, Dr. James McKenna, and Kathleen Kendall Tacket. Check out
  the
  href=”http://www.attachmentparenting.org/events/events.php”>eventspage
  for more information.

These are just a few of many exciting things going on at API>.
I hope you’ll stop by and check it out for yourself.

More of Lotus’ WW here.

2 generations.

4 generations.

I want him back. How do I do this without him?

And just to give you a laugh, if you haven’t read my guest post over at Sunshine’s about some of his quirks, be sure to check it out.

Well, it didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t go all ?¢‚Ǩ?ìwitchypoo, witchypoo?¢‚Ǩ¬ù because crows?

They don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t talk like that.

No, this crow, this crow Came. Just. For. Me. That?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s how dramatic it was, with a
capital letter full stop each word.

Scenario: Bus stop. Two people plus one average, everyday, witchypoo.

Minding our own bidness, because that is how to best get along at a bus stop.

No asking them what they bought at the nearby liquor store because they might
think you are getting all judgmental on them.

Or hoping they will share. Neither of which makes friends, but could cause bodily
harm. Not all the people that wait at a bus stop near a liquor store are nice
people.

But you know, I really wanted to ask them.

My filters are much better now. I know things.

Crow is waiting on the lamp standard while all of this goes through my tiny
little brain.

I feel a touch on my head.

Crow has nudged me with his wing. Hair molesting crow.

Crow lights on the pavement directly in front of me.

The other two move away from me.

It could be because I start to talk to crow. ?¢‚Ǩ?ìWell hello, crow. What do you want
of me??¢‚Ǩ¬ù It had to be English. I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t talk crow, except for ?¢‚Ǩ?ìcaw, caw?¢‚Ǩ¬ù, and then
crow would think I was making fun of him. Crow hopped sideways a few times, because
crow doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t want you to know exactly what it is doing.

If you don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t believe me, just watch crow around food.

Crow lands near food, cocks his head, as if to say ?¢‚Ǩ?ìWell, looky, here! Food!
Lucky me!?¢‚Ǩ¬ù then hops nonchalantly over to the food.

That?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s how crow rolls.

Crow cocks his head, looks at me right saucy it does, and does
the same thing on the other side of its head.

The other two people at the bus stop are nervously and longingly fingering their
liquor store purchases.

Crow does an elaborate crow dance, interspersed with many right
saucy crow looks. I knew that somebody had died. I knew it.

They had sent crow so they could say goodbye to me. ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThank you for your message,
crow.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

I say this out loud, in front of those potentially dangerous, liquor store-
shopping bus stop people.

Only now, they think I am the dangerous one.

Why? Not only did I talk to crow, but they saw the crow dance, the crow dance
meant especially for me.

Also? They knew it was for me. I saw the looks.

I get on the bus with that sick, dread feeling in the tummy. I start to make my
phone calls when I get home. Grammie is 95. She answers the phone. Whew. I go
through a list of possibles, leaving the call to The Papa for last.

Why? The Papa has been very ill; I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t talk to him much, since he considers me
a Tool of Satan and all.

The mildly amusing OCD Stepmother calls me.

She tells me that The Papa is having a good day. Whew.

She used to live in the city where I live now. Still gets the old home town
paper.

?¢‚Ǩ?ìI saw an obituary in the paper from the city where you live now. It said Saucy
Man died. Is this the same Saucy Man that we met??¢‚Ǩ¬ù

Oh. My. Yes. Yes, it is.

I should have known. That was one saucy, hair molesting crow.

Witchypoo can be found 7 days a week at psychicgeek.com. Yes, she is psychic, and a geek, and awesome, and beautiful.

Pssst. Is she gone yet? Is the coast clear?

Whooohoooo. Party at Dawn’s place, hosted by yours truly, Janet!

Usually, I hang out in my own universe … on the Planet of Janet, with the Wonderhubby and my daughter, the Roo-girl (13), and my stepdaughter, J-bear (17). I have three older sons as well, but they don’t live at home and are not germaine to today’s story.

Anyway, Dawn gave me the keys to the place for today, so let’s party!! Go pour yourself a drink — there are margaritas at the bar — and take a seat by the fireplace. I have a tale to tell.

Soooo …

Wonderhubby was gone for four days.

It was a loooooong four days. Not as long as last October, when he went to Ireland (without me — the bastard), but long nevertheless.

It was part work-related and part hobby-related, combo’d into … well … four long days away.

And the day he came home, I was off with the Roo-girl at yet another theme-park cheerleading competition, so it was after 6 p.m. on Sunday before Wonderhubby and I finally occupied the same zip code.

And I was REALLY happy to see him. And he was REALLY happy to see me.

You do, of course, know what that means.

After the Roo-girl and J-bear were fast asleep … we were not.

And it was a lovely thing!

So there we were, doing the deed when, out of the blue, Wonderhubby blurts out: “I remember the joke that Ken told.”

“Uh, what? You where? Um, huh???”

“The joke …”

Silence from my part of the bed. This deters him not.

So this woman calls out to her husband and says, “Honey, come quick. Make love to me NOW!”

And the guy thinks, “Wow, cool,” and hops right to it.

They finish … and the guy says, “Gee, honey. That was great. But what prompted it?”

“My eggtimer broke.”

I burst out laughing. “Dude, you stopped what you were doing to tell me that?”

He was laughing too, and just a little red-faced. “Uh, yeah.” “Jeeeeeeeeezus, dude! You are so ADD!!!”

“Uh, yeah.”

I had the giggles for at least — ahem — two minutes.

Ya’ll have met my Loter right? The uber Sarcastic Mom?

What? She doesn’t splay her limbs out seductively for you? Just me? Right on. Just as it should be!

Well. My girl is having a run of luck that is more like a run of suck, and I’m not talking suck of a fun kind of time (such as a GLOW JOB) I’m talking a moldy, haywire thyroid, rock/hard place/monsoon/typhoon/threesome with Spitzer and Ferraro kind of suck luck run.

Enter Lotus: HoF’oSho, the brain child of the beautiful Angie at A Whole Lot of Nothing and the sista project Change for Change, compliments of my heart friend Victoria at VDog and Little Man.

For complete deets, head to Lotus: HoF’oSho to find out how you can help the Lotus feel limb splaying happy too!

I don’t even know where to begin.

I’m sitting here, staring at the screen and this whole thing is just too damned big to be able to explain, to figure out. It’s hard for me to breathe as I type this. I don’t know what to do, the perfect solution isn’t here.

Which means I have a little something in common with Kyla.

The difference is I’m trying to write a blog post and she’s trying to manage the complexities of multiple doctor appointments and therapies for her three year old.

Oh, and when it comes to financing health insurance for their daughter, their options are 1. Rock 2. Hard Place 3. Molten Lava 4. Tsunami 5. Threesome with Jabba the Hut and Dick Cheney.

This isn’t a case of “oh honey, should we get health insurance or should we go to the casino and eat some steak and play some black jack.”

This is something that could happen to each and every one of you (and me) reading these words. What happens if your health status changes? What happens if your company’s insurance premium goes up so much that you would have to choose between insurance and your home?

The key is, I didn’t get it till Kyla started writing about what is going on in their family. Which is really shameful because I provide therapy. *I* am part of the flawed system.

For kicking me in the ass and showing me the light, I give you Kyla’s Perfect Posts for the month of February. The first link is to her personal blog, The Journey where she writes more about the emotions of a mom in all this, the second is to Momocrats where she really broke it down into all of their options.

And you better believe when I cast my vote in November I’ll be voting for the person most likely to take care of Kaytar. Because as Kyla says, “It just shouldn’t be this hard to protect something this precious.”

Amen, Kyla. Amen.

For more Perfect Post Awards, check out Suburban Turmoil and Petroville.

I’m a sucker, what can I say, but these are just great. Alex loves his grapes.

(Does that sound unintentionally dirty to anyone else?)

In graduate school, I had a better half. Her name was Elizabeth (snicker). Elizabeth always had my back when it came to my men, my grades and my temper. She held my hand through tests, career choice, national boards, moving, my first real job. Elizabeth took care of my day to day nonsense and kept me from saying what I really thought to some choice teachers who I would have loved to give a piece of my mind. Picture one small girl frantically trying to leap across a giant room of people to clamp both hands over the mouth of the Tasmanian Devil. There you have a visual of what we were like.

In exchange, I tried to hold Elizabeth’s heart in my hands. I tried to keep her beautiful heart from breaking as she watched her mom’s cancer return, as she watched it take her mom away from her, some days by inches, some days by the speed of light.
It was the most unfair thing I had ever watched happened. I stood on the sidelines and all I could do was try to hold Elizabeth up with whatever gifts I could share.

She called me moments after her mom died, and I asked the question, I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t ask.

“What do you need?”

Oh, dumbfuck. You know this answer.

“I need my mom!”

Dammit. I knew that answer. I knew it, and I asked the stupid question anyway.

Sara was born 60 years ago today. If she were here, Elizabeth would have a blinding migraine because her dad would have given her carte blanche to plan the Most! Perfect! Birthday! Ever! She would have succeeded. I would have teased her about it. Then I would have shown up to help her clean up after it was over.

So Elizabeth, for you to celebrate, I give you this video. At 1:30 in, you will know why I picked this particular video for you today.

Four years later – I still think of you and become a weepy ball of snot when I hear this. Know I don’t forget you, or Sara, even though we’re far apart.

Because of Sara, I live life better than I did before. I’ve seen that it can get short, and not go the way we plan. I stumble in my daily life, but in my overall life, when I see the end of it, I will have lived it better because she lived.