Funny

Funny is….

….spending three days and up until two am working on documents and forms for a very important banker, showing up to a very nerve wracking meeting, and holding the meeting while the banker was dressed in a toga for Halloween.

A Walk in the Forest

So, we went walking in the woods yesterday, it was gorgeous, the leaves had fallen, the air was crisp but warm.

Here’s me.

Here’s Blue.

Here’s Red.

Here’s the man of the house, fishing, um, manly style.

mingling our stuff

I was fortunate that when J moved in, he didn’t bring a bunch of bachelor pad furniture and junk that the stereotypical bachelor man might be carting around. Fortunately for me, it was alot of manly tools that can hang out in the basement and some really cool music and computer equipment, keyboards and guitars and drum machines.

He also brought a hell of alot of clothes. Much more than I own.

But I reaped the benefits of his big comfy man bathrobes, similar to the coveted ones in nice hotels. He’s got a few of them and they have been hanging on our door for the last six months, enough for us each to have one and similar enough that it doesn’t matter which one we grab to put on.

I was thinking about what we each bring to the table here in our house. We each bring patience at different times when the girls are behaving crazy. If I am not being patient, it is likely he is, and vice versa. It enables us to each have a break when we need it.

Last week I was moving slow, we’ve been working daily to finish up negotiating for our piano bar. We’re still unsure of this one will happen in the end, but we’re taking it one step at a time. We’re in FINAL negotiations tomorrow with the sellers and then are finishing up the rest of our financing.

Talk about a literal pain in my neck.

Apparently, I carry the stress right there and I’m moving around very slowly.

At any rate, on Thursday, at 7am, the girls were up for school, and J woke me up briefly and told me to stay in bed and he would take care of things.

When I re-awoke at nine, they had been fed, their lunches had been packed and they’d been delivered to school.

I realized how this is a first in my life, to have a partner willing to and available to take over when I need it. And it’s the first time I have trusted it.

So I sit here in one of the robes that he brought when he moved in and he’s sitting across the room in the big easy chair drinking the cappuccino I make for him every morning. The kids are watching Sunday morning television and eating cream of wheat, (something he taught them to love).

And I can’t believe he’s been home for six months and we are where we are.

On this being a Tuesday

I partially love that I get ignored when J is around with the girls. Yesterday, the girls came home from school, forgetting he had driven north for his Monday night gig, shouting his name, looking for him.

It made me weepy, because I wanted him to be there too.

Being a mom is partially about cleaning up silly putty from the carpet, yet mostly about how it feels by the end of the day when they are in bed and I feel like I spent quality time and handled every up and down graciously throughout the day.

It’s amazing how they come home from school at 3 and by 7, I am wiped already and I wonder “how on earth did I do it without killing someone, or myself, when they were 2 and 4 and I was a new single mom and the only relief was when they both actually slept?

I hardly remember those days.

Yesterday, I looked at my kids, who were tired from their weekend with their dad, who admitted that the Circus scared them, after years of him taking them, and thought about how much I love them and how proud I am of who they are.

And I told them so.

You know what they said?

“Does that mean we can watch some tv tonight?”

Why yes, yes…I am so frickin’ tired, and so proud of you, you get to watch tv for the first time in a month!

And so, they did.

At any rate, I am sitting here watching YouTube videos while eating a lunch of butternut squash soup and ritz crackers, hardly a substitute for the icecream sundae I would much rather be eating.

J was up north for the night, playing piano.

I am considering sitting on my ass and updating my website (with my paintings) but can’t decide if I should do that or actually PAINT.

I picked up J Sunday night from the airport, drove an hour to Logan in the snow and sleet and wind and rejoiced in something I have never experienced….The Cell Phone Lot.

How cool is that?

The one drawback is that there was no bathroom and MAN did I have to pee. Thankfully, he landed right as I was pulling in and only had to wait fifteen minutes for a McDonalds bathroom stop on the way home. Three days without him was nice in a way, to get stuff done, watch my own television stuff, eat Luna bars and drink lots of coffee in the morning. I even bought a loaf of monkey bread.

I-love-monkey-bread.

Upon returning home from our drive from Logan, in the storm, it was midnight before we went to sleep. He fast forwarded through a very uninteresting football game and when the alarm rang at 5:45 in the morning for me to get out of bed to drive back down to Boston to pick up the girls from their dad’s and bring them to school, I could hardly move.

My man, who usually keeps sleeping, got up with me and drove me to Boston to get them.

I love him.

Today is a half day of school, which means I had three hours exactly to get a few things done, take a walk and finish a few paintings.

As other mothers roll their eyes at the half day and question of “what to do with my kids today?”, I am psyched to just hang out with them, get out some paint, order lunch in, clean their room up and then get on to their tennis class later this afternoon.

J will be home soon.

I was thinking last night, as I slept with a turtleneck, sweatshirt, wool socks, and sweatpants AND a heated pillow (one of those microwavable things), how much it sucked last year to not have him here. One night a week isn’t so bad now, in retrospect, but I still prefer going to sleep with him beside me.

I’ll never take it for granted.

Funniest line ever at midnight

This has nothing to do with this post, but here is a painting I just finished. I’m in the process of framing it now. Framing=pain in the ass.

Yesterday J flew to Orlando to play in a dueling piano gig this weekend. It vaguely reminded me how last year at this time he was flying out for six months to play for the winter. This time it’s just a few days and I am using the time to get ready for some art shows (ie: paint) do some shopping and cleaning and catch up on some tv on the DVR he doesn’t care about. (ie: The Good Wife, The Forgotten, Drop Dead Diva, Castle)

Last week some folks asked where he was headed for the winter and he goes, “Well, nowhere so far, I want to stick around here.”

Considering we’re still lovin” each other, that’s a good thing.

We used the good old Skype last night, something we depended on last year so much, for our daily chats, watching the inauguration together, having breakfast together, or flashing boobs and all that good stuff. (See “history” section on the left sidebar for “Movin’ Down the Road” to read more about that)

He’s in Florida at the moment for a private party, a dueling piano gig. This means he and another piano player play two pianos, and it turns not into a wonderful music extravaganza, but more of a comedy show with some fast fingers. It’s a riot, I have been to a gig with him and it’s generally about making fun of the audience and each other.

He and the other other piano player went out to dinner and to a piano bar that is over near Disney last night.

J called me from outside of the bar and goes, “I hate piano bars”.

This is funny seeing that playing in piano bars is not only his specialty, but it’s his favorite venue.

But being on the “other side” of the piano, he hated.

We came to the conclusion that he would not be the kind of guy who would frequent piano bars, ever.

This morning, he called when he woke up.

The first thing I heard when I answered the phone was, “Orlando sucks”.

Apparently, his hotel is on a busy drag and he listened to cars and trucks driving by all night. (note: he did admit that he could be anywhere but when he woke up after a bad night’s sleep, he decided he wasn’t loving Orlando)

Last night when he was in bed, he Skyped me. I answered Skype and he appeared on the screen buck naked eating chicken wings on the bed.

SEXY.

We chatted some more.

I flashed him.

We talked about masturbation (come on, you’ve talked about it before, you know you’ve done it….) and out of the blue, the funniest thing ever said by J on Skype…. “You know, I learned years ago, not to masturbate with soap.”

And looking at his face while we both laughed hysterically, I thought to myself, THIS IS WHY I LOVE HIM.

Expensive

In our house, the tooth fairy leave $5 for every traumatic tooth-losing moment.

Turns out, every time a tooth comes out, it’s traumatic.

So you know where that leaves the tooth fairy.

Creatures of Habit

J and I have been eating out alot lately. It makes me slightly mad though, since I am a menu planner, I can cook with my eyes closed, better than some restaurants at times, I shop for fresh ingredients.

So when we are tired or short on time, we stop off somewhere and get a bite to eat and in the end, I throw away food that has gone bad. (like the asparagus that is fermenting in my produce drawer at the moment)

I also gain a few extra pounds.

Especially with the extra donut here and there.

At any rate, when we eat out, we have our favorite spots and our favorite dishes and I realize that some places we’ve eaten at for the last year and a half together, I have only had one or two things on the menu because I go there “just for that”.

The chili lime wings and avacado mango salad at one place, the fish chowder at another, the reuben sandwich at another.

We ate at Denny’s this morning and I had my usual Denny’s breakfast, where I can pick four things from a list of ten. I usually stock up on the meats, bacon and sausage, have a few eggs over hard and two pancakes with that horribly yummy soft whipped butter and cheapo tasting syrup. Of course, the bad coffee tops it off.

We go there when we’re driving by on the highway usually, the kids like it and we’ve tended to go with a chessboard and made it a Denny’s event.

My first time in a Denny’s was last February when J and I ate at one a few mornings when I visited him in Curacao, where he was playing piano.

I thought it was funny that Denny’s was in such a tropical foreign place with other languages being spoken, but still, the food is the same here as it was there.

And I am still ordering the same damn thing.

The girls are in 1st and 3rd grade and this is the first year they have been interested in school lunches. It’s been nice to give them two bucks and a bottle of water and know they are getting fed at school and I didn’t have to think up something new for their lunchbox. (I’ve added pickles and cereal sometimes to spice things up).

Every week, the circle the same thing on the lunch menu, since I let them choose two days a week. Friday Pizza and Wednesday french toast.

Creatures of habit?

I think yes.

Tonight, J is gone for his Monday gig up north and will be back tomorrow morning. He called while I was taking a power walk this afternoon and I told him that I hate how my clothes are fitting me (or not fitting me)….way too tight in the jeans…and he goes, “well, we’d better have MORE sex then!”

Tomorrow, he said he’ll be home before the girls get out of school. I told him I needed at least an hour workout.

But still, with him gone tonight, I got myself a teeny itsy bitsy California Pizza Kitchen pizza to have while watching chick shows on the DVR (ones he refuses to watch) and get to some more painting for the swelling of holiday business I seem to have, starting around Halloween…but worse than that tiny pizza, and I will admit it and not be glad that I did it….I was very happy to see Mallomars back on the shelf at the market today….so I bought a box. I have eaten two and seriously considering dumping them down the garbage disposal…because they are so good, yet sooooo bad.

Thursday Night Play

(Here’s a picture of the girls walking ahead of us to school one morning last week)

The girls have been intent on putting on plays recently.

If you have young kids, you may know of our pain.

It lasts about half an hour, only because we put a time limit on it.

It seems we are just watching them talk to each other, change their clothes, laugh alot and bow at the end.

There’s basically no storyline.

Tonight, their play was upstairs in their bedroom.

As we started up the stairs, J handed me a glass of red wine.

I balked and said, “NO RED WINE UPSTAIRS ON THE WHITE CARPET!!”

And he goes, “We won’t spill it. We’re just watching a play.”

He was right.

As we sat there watching all the crazy nonsense commotion (which I knew made sense to the two little girls who were performing, with glee), he turned to look at me with a smile after about ten minutes and goes, “Aren’t you glad you brought your wine?”

What’s goin’ on?

This is the question that my dad asks when he calls from Los Angeles.

I update him on the kids and then turn the tables on him, asking questions about his business (he is a working artist, like myself) his health, his lady (who is like a mom to me).

Unfortunately, “What’s goin’ on” is something I’m not sharing until it actually happens, but it encompasses the thought and idea of  J and I are looking at a property  (and have a final negotiating offer on the table today on) to open our own piano bar and restaurant by the Spring.

Will it happen?

We’re not sure.

We want it to.

If we wait another year and keep looking or hold out for a different location or a better deal, we will.

We figure we will know when something is right, taking it all the way to the point of following all the way through or to a point of walking away.

If the numbers don’t match up, we won’t do it.

If we can’t get proper permits and licenses, we’ll hold off.

It’s been 5 months of planning to this point.

I learned how to write a business plan and have written three.

J has spent endless hours working with numbers, spreadsheets, talking to town officials, getting quotes.

We know the bank really well and the bank knows us.

The neat thing is that they are all rooting for us, even the sellers. We seem to remind them of themselves at our age.

At any rate, we’re supposed to hear today if they are accepting our “final offer”. The broker seems to think we are close.

Talk about being on the edge of our seat.

Even worse, if this one location doesn’t happen, we have a second we are already investigating.

So much for lazy Fall days naked in bed while the girls are in school!

Piano-bar-with-the-kids

Yeah, so sue me.

I take the kids to the bar.

Actually, it’s not technically the bar until you are sitting in the bar area, which is on the other side of the piano.

We’ll neglect the fact that the piano is also a bar, itself.

Columbus Day weekend is the final weekend of the season and then it closes down, so I took the girls for their last hurrah to see J play.

Someone obviously took over. (and it wasn’t me, even though I sang Landslide for the first time)