Sugar Blues

What was Mommy's glucose fortune at her appointment with the obstatrician on Thursday?

"No sugar lumps in your tea this winter -- you've got gestational diabetes, sucker!"

Well, fiddlesticks.

As disconcerting as it was to hear my suspicions confirmed, I can't say that the news came as a surprise.  While I understand that I had a few factors playing against me since the onset -- a genetic predisposition to blood sugar issues, my age (which somehow seems like a wallop in the face because I'm only thirty!), and a personal history of hypoglycemia, I was still in complete denial.  I've been so spoiled to being fairly healthy all my life, and diabetes feels like a sign on my back. 

So I sniffled a little.  I shook my head.  I grumped at my poor mom, who was patient enough to sit through the whole thing.  I indulged in a uncalled-for guilt trip on myself in the car.  I drove around in manic circles through the #$&%*#& illogical construction on Interstate 630.  Then we had some lunch and I picked up a ginger peach candle to burn in our bedroom. 

Because what else can I do than take care of myself and go on?  My fabulous pregnancy nails are already bitten off.  Better nails than cookies, I suppose.  Meh.

I'm praying for wisdom.  That's all.





Here baby, there Mama, everywhere Daddy Daddy.....

"Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder

of my HAIR, HAIR, HAIR, HAIR...."

~ from the Broadway musical HAIR

 

 

Dear sweet baby,

 

If it's anything like mine, I apologize for your hair.

 

While I have no idea if you will have curly hair, straight hair, or any hair to speak of until you're two and a half, I figure we might as well discuss this issue before you hurl your first brush across the room.

 

Let's explore some likely scenarios:

 

You might not have any hair for awhile. 

 

 

 

From what we've heard from our moms, both your daddy and I were as bald as Mr. Bigglesworth for a significant stretch of time when we were little. 

 

This might not be such a setback for you.  Many follicularly deficient individuals have lived lives of conviction and distinction -- noteworthy individuals such as:

 

 

The starship captain to be reckoned with, Patrick Stewart,

 

 

Irish rastafarian she-warrior Sinead O'Connor,

 

 

and Jedi master/reinventor of grammatic order, Yoda.

 

When you hair does emerge, it will likely act one of two ways:

 

 

Sleek, straight, and as well-behaved as your daddy's was, or.....

 

 

...the hair gods help you, like mine.

 

 

Your hair might unexpectedly change in color or behavior without warning.

 

This gave your daddy the shock of his well-groomed life in junior high, and I've heard stories of other closely related family members experiencing this phenomenon.  It very well may happen to YOU.

 

You might go to the salon one day for the new short style that's in fashion, and within a few ill-calculated snips wonder why your straight, brushable mane has begun to resemble Vicki Lawrence's wig from Momma's Family.  That's happened.

 

Your bodacious blondeness might turn as flat brown as a hicker'nut.  That's also happened.

 

It might turn white in your twenties. 

 

It might turn red, then brown, then reddish-brown, then auburn with copper highlights. 

 

Or it might just turn on you and eat your face.

 

 

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM!

 

 

Never fear, my little popsnorkel.  No matter happens on the top of your sweet little head, whether it's this:

 

 

or this:

 

 

 

or this:

 

 

...know that mommy and daddy have been through the good, the bad, and the unsightly with their own hair and will be waiting to comfort you with open arms and a fabulous hairstylist on speed dial.

 



Mommy's Mini-mix

On my way to work this morning, I was fiddling with the Avenger's CD player (because I'm cheap when it comes to chipped and wired doodads and couldn't care less about owning an iMoneypit) and thinking of how lovely it is to have reached an age where I feel no need to apologize for the music that I endorse and enjoy. 

The music that we like can be an invisible badge. 

That badge may proclaim, "I'm easygoing and uncomplicated.  Three chords and the truth are enough for me."

It may declare,"I'm cerebral.  I like music that alienates the plebeians and sounds like math."

It can tell the world, "I'm no conformist, and I'll prove it by blasting a song that's sold 3 million copies!"

I want my invisible badge to state:  "My favorite music reminds me of people and places I've loved."
While it's on my mind, I'll take a moment to list a few of the special songs and pieces that have lifted my spirits over the years by illuminating memories of the moments in my life when they first proved themselves.  If I were to make Mini a custom mix to sew into her emotional armor, these would make up that patch:

Don't Give Up (Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush):  I appreciate that this song is not a statement, it's a dialogue.  I first heard it before I fully understood what "for better or worse" truly meant; listening to this song now, I better appreciate the encouraging character voiced by Kate.  It's an awesome illustration of how a family should encourage one another and try to boost each others' spirits when it seems that the world is closing in.

Lullaby For an Anxious Child (Sting):  I love that this lullaby is voiced in a very masculine way -- somewhere between beseeching and commanding, while empathizing with the upset child by painting a sympathetic world crying alongside her.  I always imagine that the mother is looking in on the father reasoning with a infant and laughing under her breath from behind the nursery door.

Homeless (Paul Simon):  It isn't so much the subject of this song that affects me as much as the sound of the unfamiliar language being sung.  It's easily my favorite track from Simon's Graceland album (which is no low compliment -- it happens to be my favorite album of all time), which my dad used to keep in his Geo Metro's cassette player.  It would tickle me beyond words to hear his rumbly Baptist-bass voice mumble through the lines:

Kuluman
Kulumani, Kulumani sizwe
Singenze njani
Baya jabula abasi thanda yo
Ho!


Neither one of us were quite sure what those sounds meant, but it thrilled me when he somehow nailed the whole run of 'em!  I still can't do it by ear.

"These are the days of miracles and wonder..."

Sweet Baby James (James Taylor):  When I was twelve, my parents took me and my Grandma Bennett to see James Taylor in concert at Barton Coliseum in Little Rock.  Obviously, that made me the coolest kid in seventh grade.  (Pfft!)  I didn't care.  I was socially hopeless anyway, and my parents were probably thrilled that I was into any artist other than Nirvana.

It was magical.  J.T. was the first true showman I'd ever seen, and it fascinated me that he could take a lyrically-dependent song like this, stand with his feet planted in one spot in front of the microphone and captivate every eye and ear in the house without the use of pyrotechnics or wiggly half-nude band members.  I remember that I was glad it seemed that I was the youngest person in the audience, and it felt like he was singing a lullaby to just me.

Maybe because of this song, I've always liked the name James.  That's Jason's middle name. 

We'll put that in our back pocket for another pregnancy. 

"Goodnight, you moonlight ladies...and rockabye, sweet baby (Jason) James..."

This Is My Father's World (Maltbie Babcock):  I used to sing this song with the kids in my Sunday School class.  The lady who led our music would hold up a huge illustrated book printed with the lyrics so we could mumble along with her.  I knew the song so well, I used to just look at the pretty 1970 's-style pictures of hippies and lilies and stuff and try to figure out what "music of the spheres" would sound like.  Jefferson Airplane, mebbie?

Minute Waltz (Frederic Chopin)  This was the most difficult piano piece that I could play (rather clumsily) by the end of my senior year of high school.  According to Chopin's biographers, it was inspired by nothing more than a dog chasing its tail.  That seems to be the perfect metaphor to describe my brief career as an underachieving classical pianist. 

Mairzy Doats (Drake/Hoffman/Livingston) -- Grandma Bennett used to sing this to me and enjoy the look of incomprehension on my face.  I just.  Didn't.  Get it.  Now I look forward to confusing my kids with it.

This song also makes an appearance on my favorite television show of ALL TIME, Twin Peaks.  That's how I found out that G'ma didn't make it up.

I Don't Want To Live On the Moon (Jeff Moss, as sung by Jim Henson):  Even though this is a song written for Sesame Street, it still holds weight with me as much as any other.  As an adult, I recognize my predisposition to be a chronic dreamer and an occasional wanderer.  When I heard this as a tot, I think it resonated with the corner of my young heart that blossomed into that personality.  "There are so many places I'd like to be", indeed -- but "none of them permanently."  Well put, my little orange foam friend!  Watch Ernie sing this song!

and finally:
Bulbous Bouffant (The Vestibules):  On Sunday mornings when I was a Mini-Bennett, my dad and I used to tune the kitchen stereo to Magic 105 and listen to the Dr. Demento show.  Dr. Demento was a disc jockey broadcasting from Culver City, California who spun records by pseudo-musicians like Spike Jones and Tom Lehrer and comics like Andy Griffith. He was also the genius who gave Weird Al Yankovic his first national audience.  Listening to his show was like being assaulted by a one-man band outfit being operated by a capuchin monkey jacked up on Adipex.  It was genius.

The point of this song is....nonsense.  And big hair.  And..... galoshes?

Isn't that the meaning of life, according to the religion of some isolated island off the coast of New Guinea?



Boingboing is enlightened...and you can be, too, for a fee! 

\

The Weekend Scoop



Do you recall the kind of morning I mentioned in the previous post?  The one involving lingering laziness and hot tea and light literature?

We had that morning on Saturday. 

I woke to the sound of rolling thunder and the footfalls of a nervous dog pacing to and fro on the bedroom carpet.  Pulling her protectively to my side, I shuffled toward the window in a drowsy stupor and was greeted by the glad sight of rumbling storm clouds stretched from horizon to horizon.  Lightning zagged between the ominous billows in lazy patterns, assuring me it would hardly consider touching the ground.  Ah, thought I to Baby Dear.  Today is for blessed rest.  Then I realized that the cat was gone. 

I peeped into the green bathroom, where she often sleeps in the sink, cooling her fat cat belly.

No Daphne.

I searched the underside of our bed, where her saucer-round eyes sometimes illuminate the dark dustiness like a storybook monster.

No Daphne.

I flicked the closet light on retrieve my purple robe so I could go downstairs in some degree of modesty and search for my hard-to-conceal eighteen pound cat when I heard a pitiful "Mew!" coming from a low-hanging row of blue jeans. 

"Daph?" I called. 

A little pink nose protruded warily from a forest of denim.

Of course!  She could always sense impending weather disturbances and would dive for cover like a meth-head in an episode of COPS.

Miss Daphne's prediction of heavy rain was quickly confirmed.  Shortly after I found her, our little crispy piece of droughted heaven was drenched with a frog-strangler of a storm!  Praise be!

The trembling dog and I sat on the balcony with our noses high in the air, sniffing the first violent rain spatters fleck what brittle grass was left from the hard summer.  When the thundercracking and lightningbolting became too much for her fragile disposition, we retreated back inside where I made coffee and tea and cereal and blueberry bagels to bring upstairs and share with my husband as he was just beginning to stir.  He and I spent the rest of the next three hours with the windows and doors flung open, feeding our souls with the assurance of the rain while reading stories and patting on the dog until her heart resumed its normal rhythm.

All in all, it was an ideal morning.

I was so happy after the rain, I wore pink!

After the clouds had finished their work, we got ready to journey to civilization and look into buying new flooring for the bottom floor of the Clenney hut.  Why would we look into such a major expenditure on the eve of a new arrival? you ask.  Er, because our washing machine exploded like the Death Star a few weeks ago, leaving our laminate looking like this:

Bustedness.

Despite this inconvenience this little episode caused, it's become just one avenue through which God has provided for us.  Thanks to our merciful insurance reps, replacing all this mess with something we'll be even happier with is very well within our grasp now.  All we have to do is choose what we want...

....which brings me back to Saturday morning.  We were nearly ready to pick up and git when I began feeling a mite clammy.  Thinking that the rising temperature outside might have been to blame, I went to close the bedroom windows.  Then I broke into a heavy sweat.  My arms had became leaden as I rested my fingertips high on the lip of the windowsill. 

Wait, I thought, this shouldn't be happening.  I ate breakfast!  It was only 11 o'clock. 

No reasoning with my body could change the fact that I was about to kiss the rug.



I made my way to the bed as carefully as possible and laid down.  Jason came running as soon as his name was out of my mouth and I asked him to get me some food and a glass of milk. 

After all he brought me was consumed, I took a few minutes to wipe my brow and get my wits about me.  It was a very, very strange experience, and not altogether unfamiliar.  I'm fairly sure I had some similar spells back in junior high after gym class when it was scheduled before lunch. 

I've been very careful in the days since that spell that I constantly keep something simmering in my tummy, no matter how weary I might be of chewing.  Little Girl is depending on me to keep our ship steady.  Our next appointment with the baby doctor is coming up this Thursday.  Please say a prayer that perhaps this was just a random incidence of loopy-ness and not an indicator of something sinister.  I'll be honest.  I'm spooked.

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

To keep sugar and spirits up after church on Sunday evening, husband-dear and I stopped for Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream.  Just one meager scoop.  I was overjoyed.  I haven't wanted it in a coon's age.

I can has an ice cream.....?



I was so excited with my new acquisition, I couldn't even wait to get into the car before I attacked it.  My tongue hadn't even had its first full lick when the whole everlovin' scoop dislodged from the cone, rolled down my arm, smeared the side of my car and splattered on the gas station pavement. 

Utter and complete failure.

Between fits of giggling tears, Jason said it was the funniest crap he'd ever seen. 

That's ok.  The nice lady at the counter gave me another scoop when I presented her with a red facefull of tears and an empty ice cream cone. 

God bless the Sheridan Baskin Robbins. 



Makin' the best of a cat-stinkin', coffee-scorchin', sleep-deprived morning

On one of those mornings when my eyes flap open at 3:15 a.m., the enormous cat sleeping next to my face smells like hot fried yarf, and the stopped-up coffeepot boils over and makes the countertop look like the inside of a Wooly Willy game, I have to confess to beginning the day with a teensy chip on my shoulder.

This is what mommy and daddy used to play with before our toys were more intelligent than us.

While I'd relish the opportunity to remain cocooned in the bedclothes with a cup of honeyed chamomile and a few pages of James Herriot (sans the fragrant Miss Daphne), I realize that the responsibility game waits for no one.  Today must begin, and it might as well be a good one.

There's always happiness to be found, if one knows where to search! 

I'll begin by simply gazing out my bedroom window:

...and then I'll quietly patter downstairs and lend a flame to the wishful-autumn-thinking scented candle...

...wake the little popsnorkles and let them flee into the wild for some morning relief...

...bring the gentleman of the house and the father of my baby some coffee (the second round, post-coffeepot explosion) and kiss his eyelids good morning... 

...and then catch a glimpse of the winter boots I couldn't resist buying for our winter-due sweetheart...

 

....and get my groove back on.

Bonus round for you, gentle reader:

Goobery baby Heather!

 

Family With Fur: The Clenneycats

Dear Mini,

today I'd like to introduce you to two of the hairier members of the Clenney clan (I'm finally not the hairiest one in the house anymore!  WHOOP WHOOP!). 

PROFILES IN FEROCIOUSNESS

NAME:  Miss Daphne Rose Pitterpat

AGE:  Four-ish

ALIASES:  Daphne, Daph-Daph, Daphenator, Miss Vicious, The Crap Factory

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:  Fluffy.  Fiesty.  Eighteen pounds of cat food and attitude. 

CURRENT RESIDENCE:  The tops of things.  (ex: Mommy & Daddy's bed, the bathroom sink, the countertop in front of the microwave, the lid of the baby grand piano, the back of a very surprised pug)

LIKES: Torturing bugs, NOM-ing toes in bed, drinking from the sink, rolling over to be petted and acting cute for three seconds until optimum attack position is assumed, laying on the back of the couch and watching the other sorry suckers beg for attention on the floor, and food (understatement of the year!).

DISLIKES: Pugs, Jazmin (sorry, kid), the @*#&$* vacuum cleaner; being pitched off of an unmade bed.

HOW SHE WILL LIKELY WELCOME YOU HOME:  Day 1:  Hide under the bed.  Day 2:  Hide in the bathroom sink.  Day 3:  Hide in the fireplace.  Day 4:  Begrudgingly accept another tenant in her house by accepting your spilled milk as a gift offering and a sign of subservience. 

WHAT SHE WOULD SAY IF SHE COULD TALK:  "Me me me me mine Mine MINE!"

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

NAME:  Miss Celia LeFoot

AGE:  Unidentifiably young

ALIASES:  Silly Cilly, Poor Baby (due to the her many injuries accrued in a short period of time), Sweethead

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:  Sleek.  Slithery.  Bearing a remarkable pupillary resemblance to David Bowie.

CURRENT RESIDENCE:  The plush red cushion on the front porch swing or sometimes behind the potted Thai basil.



LIKES:  Peeking around the house from the front porch and mewing sweetly as Mommy heads up the walkway, snuggling with large dogs (DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH, CAT?!), sleeping behind the rocking chair (AGAIN, MUST I ASK?!), being held like a baby across Mommy's shoulder, and delicately nibbling Armor potted meat.

DISLIKES:  Ants in the previously mentioned potted meat; when someone sits in the rocking chair and rocks.

HOW SHE WILL LIKELY WELCOME YOU HOME:  Rubbing the potted meat juice which coats her face onto your onesie. 

WHAT SHE WOULD SAY IF SHE COULD TALK:  "You smells like lumlums."  *LICK*

"A home without a cat -- and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat -- may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove its title?"
- from Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

Story Time for Baby-Mine: Artist Rima Staines

Dear Mini-dear,

I'm so eager to tell you stories!

Not only the stories of the loving family you're arriving into, but also those involving otherworldly creatures and peculiar characters which will expand your imagination like a cat's cradle and prepare you for the utter absurdity of life.

I was a very fortunate tot to have a mother who recognized the value of such reading material.  While I had more than my share of mild Little Golden Books, my favorite tomes were the stranger, serious-looking ones -- volumes of Aesop's Fables, Grimm's Fairytales, Childcraft's poetry and nursery-rhyme book, even my daddy's illustrated Bible featuring a very stern-looking Moses and John the Baptist rightfully depicted as a skin-clad wilderness wanderer.  Those that dwelt between those pages were never anesthetized or Disneyfied to ease the hearts of their young readers; in most instances, these wild figures were cunning, clever, artful, darkly colorful and, well, wild. 

About two years ago, I stumbled upon a creator and true-life embodiment of such delightful eccentricities, artist/musician/blogger/nomad Rima Staines. 

When I initially discovered her other-worldliness at The Hermitage, this Dartmoor, UK native was living pretty much everywhere.  How can a gal be everywhere at once?  Suspended between heaven and earth in an extraordinary house on wheels, of course!

Jump, Rima, jump.......ACK!!!! Not onto your lovely pictures!

What a romantic, brave manner of living!

These days, she resides in a captivating English cottage with gorgeous seasonal views which she often shares with her readers:

Macha soaks in the bohemian bonhomie.





The first piece of Rima's art that sunk its claws into me was this piece which reminded me so fondly of the pleasurably bizzare illustrations from the books beloved in my youth:



My intention was to set a print of it in a roughed up-looking frame next the front door of a straw bale house that your Daddy and I had an interest in purchasing once upon a time.  Sad to say, the deal on that one fell through.  That's okay, though.  The house we're in now has plenty of shadows and cobwebby corners to spark your imagination.

These days, I love to excavate the toybox of Rima's art and read of the tales that have found their way onto her drawing desk.  Let me show you some of the found images I thought would thrill and fascinate your wee eyes:

...and there are a dazzling amount more I am desperate to show you!  But I suppose that will have to wait for another time.... perhaps in a few weeks when the mercury has plunged and the leaves have fled the trees.  Then it will be time to write of spooks and haints and wide-eyed strangelings, my darling.

Love,

Mummers

A exhuberant THANK YOU to Rima Staines for the use of her images on this entry.  I adore everything that you are and do, ma'am! 

Again, please pay Rima a visit at The Hermitage!  Your imagination will thank you!