Barnmaven

We reel it in and cast it out all over again....every single year

Two more days until this year is finally over.  i'm not sure how i feel about that yet, its been such a crazy year.  In some respects it was the biggest grandiose bitch of a year EVER, so much so that if I could find some way to make it suffer for my suffering, I would.  Time, though, has a way of dulling the pain of all things, and so I know that someday in the future I will look back upon 2009, not remember the feeling that the top of my head was being peeled off and my brain was being set on fire by green-haired gnomes.  Instead I'll think to myself "It really wasn't so bad." 

Still, it was a watershed year.

I managed to send out Christmas cards this year (at least a few), but I did not include an annual letter, ending I can't remember how many years of tradition.  This year I just had no fucking clue what to write.  How do you put this stuff in a Christmas card?

The first part of the year, after the excitement of the inauguration (GO-BA-MA!), was punctuated by the death of my birth grandmother.  She was my "bonus" grandmother.  I got her when I found my birthfamily.  My maternal grandmother had passed on in 1995, my dad's mom died when I was really little (which is probably a good thing, since she was the meanest, scariest grandma EVER), so in some respects it was nice to have a grandparent again, even if she was a little rough around the edges.  She loved her family, was often judgmental of them and perplexed by them (aren't we all?) and she gave to each of them not in the least equally, but to the measure that she felt each needed.  She had this habit when talking to one of us of lambasting all of the other grandchildren to hell and gone.  She would rant endlessly about their misdeeds and poor choices.  None of them could do anything right, with the exception of the one she was talking to.  Except you knew that if she wasn't talking TO you she was talking ABOUT you in exactly the same way to one of the other grandkids.  At first it really bothered me, that she did this and it was unfair, but over the years I understood finally that her endless fussing and worrying was what passed for love in her generation.

Her funeral was an interesting affair, it was the first time I'd seen my birthmother in well over 12 years.  We did not speak.  Of course there was drama, there always is when it comes to this side of the family.  I won't go into all the minutiae of it, but I will say this:  1.  When your grandmother leaves you money in her will, while it is being probated, it is unbelievably CRASS and RUDE to call the estate attorney on a weekly basis asking "When am I getting my money?"  2.  If the only ONE AND ONLY thing you are asked to handle at your grandmother's death is to put her obituary in the paper?  Could you do that?  Please?  3.  It is her funeral, it is not your stage.  I didn't know there were 8 verses to Amazing Grace, let alone that you felt compelled to sing EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM for us, a capella.

Some of my birth relatives are real assholes.  I'm an asshole too, but this is my blog, so I get to talk about them as if I'm perfect.

Spring came.  I did get in a couple of trail rides, which were lovely and fun.  In May I took my mare to Full Circle Ranch for a training weekend.  I met a new friend, I learned a lot, I had a great time eating Angie's cooking and drinking Bill's wine and riding my horse, getting away from my life for a few days.  I also brought home The Kittens, which act probably gave my marriage its final push out the door. 

June was a horrible month.  My marriage disintegrated.  (No, I will not go into details here.  Its private, this blog is public, everyone has their own side of the story. Period.)  My boss got let go, which sucked because I liked him a lot.  I was figuring out I needed to file bankruptcy.  I was a mess.  I didn't ride for almost three months through all of this, that's how bad it was.  In July we had to take the already-planned and paid-for trip to New Jersey to visit the in-laws and friends.  I was so excited to see people I loved and missed, I was determined to put a good face on all of it and enjoy it despite the difficult circumstances.  Well, Difficult Circumstances didn't much cooperate and even though I enjoyed some wonderful times with beloved people and Child A learned to swim in the pool underwater on her first day, there was tension and drama and that part of it really really sucked.

August the separation became reality, and it was a time of big adjustment for all of us (and yes, I know, "big" is really understating it, I just don't feel like thinking about it).  in many ways I think I'm still finding my footing.  Its been a struggle to let go of old patterns and ways of thinking.  As hard, humbling, frustrating and oh, my gosh, challengingas it has been, it needed to happen.  I can only speak for myself, but when you try to change for other people, change likely won't happen, and if it does, it isn't real and it won't last.  When you change yourself FOR yourself and your own self alone, THAT is when true change occurs.  So I'm grateful for the chance to change.  My therapist says that its when you feel your worst that you learn the most, and I guess that's true.  It does piss me off, I admit, that I thought I was perfectly bloody FINE before, and you know everything that happened in life had to be someone else's fault.  Except life smacked me in the head and said "Shut up, bitch. I isn't always about YOU."  Well, some of it is.  I'm working on it.  Sometimes I want to stab myself through the eye with a pencil, but really, I'll survive it.

Fall brought some semblance of peace, some time to ride my horses, even if it wasn't nearly enough time.  All too soon the winter dark was here, but I survived that and finally the holidays arrived to give us some twinkly lights and stuff to look forward to.  With my folks gone to Arizona (I desperately miss you, you old snowbirds, dammit) there weren't a lot of us to celebrate with, but God bless my brother for coming over for Christmas, our first together in, oh, gosh - fifteen years?  At least.  It was one of the best Christmases I've had in a few years.  Second best, after watching the kids open their pressies  was my time with my brother.  If you have never played drunken Wii Bowling with your brother or practically thrown out your shoulder trying to strike him out in Wii baseball, I highly recommend it.  A very good time was had by us.   Christmas was awesome, and J and I managed very well to coexist peacefully in the same space so the kids could have both of their parents for Christmas.

I don't know what next year will bring us.  I know the things that I wish for, the things I want, but I also know that life will undoubtedly feel compelled to inject a certain level of SUCK into it.  And that's ok.  I can handle it.

Happy almost New Year.  I love you.

I'm trying to teach you something here, get with the program

C:  "Mommy, I wish we didn't have Lady anymore."

Me:  "Why, what did Lady do?"

C:  "She chewed up my toy."

Me:  "Well, just because she chewed your toy doesn't mean we don't love her anymore."

C:  "But she chewed up my toy!  I wish she didn't live here!"

Me: "Do you remember when you dropped my snowglobe and broke it?"

C:  "Yes.  I didn't mean to."

Me:  "Well, just like you didn't mean to break  my snowglobe, Lady didn't really mean to chew your toy.  She needed something to chew on and you left your toy where she could get it.  I wouldn't ever wish that you didn't live here after you broke my snowglobe.  Same with Lady, we wouldn't want her to not be part of our family anymore just because she did something naughty.  If we operated on that principle, NONE of us would be part of this family!"

C:  silence

Me: "Do you understand what Mommy is saying?"

C:  "I wish we didn't have Lady anymore.  She chewed up my toy!"

Me:  Long, drawn out sigh. 

I tried.

Christmas lasts 10 minutes

Its Christmas day.  The turkey's in the oven, and as it requires basting every half-hour for the next few hours, I'm going to just sit right down and put up a post and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

My brother is spending Christmas with me, the first in probably 20 years we have had together and it is a real treat.  Well, except for the fact that we currently have five dogs in the house since he brought his two.  That I could live without (and so could the cats, frankly).  Its a dadgum zoo around here with his two little yappy dogs chasing the cats and beating up on my big dogs.  Juliet, resident princess kitty, is severely offended.   That and Gizmo the chihauhua periodically emits this piercing "YAP!" that makes my eardrums bleed.  Gizzie used to be my dog, but J hated his guts and it seemed mutual, so when my bro was looking for a younger dog to be a companion for his aging Dachsund, I decided it would be a good time to rehome him.  Its been a good move, my brother is patient with him and he is a much improved dog over a year ago.  I suppose I can tolerate him for a couple of days.  What doesn't kill me...you know the rest.

The kids spent the night at J's house and he brought them back over in the afternoon and stayed the night here with us so we could all have gift-opening together.

We made cookies for Santa:

But Little Man had to do some quality-testing:

After dinner, we rented some movies, then put the kids in their new Christmas pajamas to go to bed in my room, after putting Santa's milk and cookies out:

 
Someone please tell Child A that Tinkerbell pajama's aren't THAT scary.

I went off to church for midnight service and left the guys home to watch violent, sex-filled movies.  I realize there's a dichotomy there, but we can live with that.    After church I came home in time to catch the tail end of a very disturbing movie called District 9.  I'm not sure if it would have been more or less disturbing if I'd actually seen all of it.  The tail end was absolutely loaded with gore and blood-spatter, and then the guy turns into an insectile alien and apparently spends the rest of his life living in some futuristic refugee for bug-aliens, eating garbage.  Sorry if I gave the ending away.  You don't really need to watch this one, trust me.

So it was pretty late and I was falling asleep on the couch with Hercules when I decided to go to bed.  I should have stayed on the couch.

My brother was in Little Man's bed and J in Child As, so I attempted to sleep on my own bed with two children and three dogs.  Yes, that went about as one might expect.  At 4 or so I dragged my tired self back to the couch and attempted to get a little bit of sleep.  Child A woke up at 5:30, got her brother up, and the carnage began.  It was over in 10 minutes...so glad we put all that time into the wrapping!  

 
Tearing in...

Rocky the Robot!!!

 

A Barbie Camper AND Polly Pocket Roller coaster...this child is spoiled.  But look at her.  She deserves it.

Lightning McQueen GeoTrax!  "Mom, stop taking pictures of me!"

The carnage.

At least this will keep them busy for a couple of hours while I work on dinner and picking up the same house I cleaned yesterday.

So that's it for Christmas this  year.  J went back home for a while, he'll come back in a couple of hours and we'll all have turkey dinner.  Speaking of which, time to go baste again.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, or whatever holiday you happen to celebrate.  May love and joy find you wherever you are.  Peace out!
 
   

  
   

The Sickness

No, I don't mean the swine flu.

I mean this:

I originally started this blog to write about my adventures getting back into horses again past the age of 40, having not owned a horse for over 20 years.  Sure, I'd write about my mommy-ventures and my fun with hobby farming, but it was supposed to be about horses.  As with most other things, my raging ADHD has taken over and turned this more into a meander through any topic that happens to flit through my brain.  (Its also caused me to leave more than a few gates unlatched and to never find my keys, but more on that later.)  Clean Shavings, the title of the blog, refers to newly cleaned stalls, filled up with a thick bedding of new pine shavings, clean and fragrant and soft.  Barn duty has never felt like a chore to me.  On a cold winter morning there is something truly comforting about pitch-forking up steaming piles of horse manure into a wheelbarrow and putting new shavings into the stall.  Yes, I DO realize how that sounds.  Anyone who shares The Sickness will understand. 

I caught The Sickness when I was three, from a horse named Ginger.  I remember the first time I saw her.  She was a fat paint mare, owned by the daughter of one of my parents' friends.  We were visiting them at their home in Montana and Cookie, the daughter, put me up on her bare back and led me around on her.  That was all it took.  Until I was 8 and got a horse of my own, I attempted to fill the void with stories of horses, pictures of horses, plastic models of horses, paint-by-numbers-horses and fantasy horses.  They were all I thought or cared about.  At recess at school I pretended I either WAS a horse or I was riding one.  I went to pony camp every summer (and just for the record, ponies are NOT the same as horses, but they'll fill the gap in a pinch when you're a horse-crazy kid) and I begged to go to the zoo and ride the pony ride there.  When I was five my parents finagled a ride for me on yet another friend's daughter's horse.  This time, sitting on the saddle at the end of the ride, the horse shook, as they will tend to do when hot and sweaty and wearing an itchy saddle.  I fell off and broke my arm.  My mom thought that might cure The Sickness, but NO WAY.  Still had it.

When I was 8 my folks bought two and a half acres on an island in Puget Sound and we moved to the country.  Dad built a house and a barn and fenced in the pasture - and horses followed soon after.

First there was Willy Wonka, grade palomino gelding (for you non-horse people, grade means "unregistered", palomino is a color, and gelding means a boy horse who has been neutered.  Get with the program).  He was followed by Little Bit a/k/a Norchas Super Fury, a registered dun quarter horse mare, and then by her baby, Fury's Brass Bell.  My life was All Horses, All the Time.  I joined 4-H, I went to clinics and shows and fairs.  I rode in the parade.  I didn't care so much about winning in the show ring, though I have my fair share of ribbons.  What I really loved was spending time with my horse.  Every weekend I would meet up with the other two "horse girls" on the island, Lori and Glenda, and we would ride all over the place.  In the summers we would go to the boat ramp at Mystery Bay and swim them in the salt water.  At low tide we'd go to East Beach and race on the tide flats.  If it was raining or misting out, we'd ride in the woods to stay dry. 

Eventually, as all girls do, I grew up and went off to college.  My parents, not willing to create a welfare state for horses, sold my remaining two.  Fortunately, Little Bit went to a very good friend of mine, and every time I was home I would go to Judy's house and take her for a ride in the woods or down ot the beach.  My girlfriend Lisa who I'd been in 4-H with for years had her horses nearby then, and if we were home at the same time we'd ride together.  Pretty much every visit home for the next 15 years involved hanging with the fam, meeting my friends and riding my horse (truly, in my mind, she was always "mine" and still is).  Then in 1998, it changed.  I moved to New Jersey and my horse dreams died.  Everything was so expensive - even if I could have bought a horse I could never have afforded to board it anywhere.  Once children came along, between work and family there was no time anyway.

Fast forward to Spring of 2007.  We moved back to Washington.  Not the coast, but to the central part of the state where on my salary we were able to buy a house on small acreage.  And thus The Sickness returned.

I now have three horses.  Missy, the 25-year old pasture ornament, Miss B, her 7 year-old green-broke daughter (pictured top), and Zenon, a white-with-red-freckles Arabian gelding. 

Missy

Zenon  

I'd hoped at least one of my children would also have The Sickness, but so far neither of them seem to have caught it.  Oh, Child A likes to ride, but she's not NUTS about it like I always was.  She can take it or leave it.  Little Man is intimidated by the horses' size, although occasionally he will enjoy being put up in the saddle and led around.  Mostly, though, I'm the only one.  I guess that's OK, its not as if I needed an excuse to love horses.

Somehow this summer I managed only one trail ride.  I went from June through September without riding at all.  My husband and I had separated, life was just a general mess, and sadly there was no time to go.  Now winter is here and at my age, I just don't ride when its raining or cold.  But I still love to go clean stalls.  My horses are all fuzzy with their thick winter coats now and they enjoy the attention when I am able to come to the barn and hang with them.  I hug them, blow in their nostrils, stick my cold hands under their manes to warm up and scratch them just where they like it.  Someday there will be more riding time.  Until then, I'll just have to enjoy the smell of horse manure and clean shavings.  Spring will be here.  Soon.

Winter fun

Snorkeling in the bathtub:

And showing off the headband she made for Thanksgiving festivities:

I'm so excited to see their faces a week from today.  Santa is coming soon, mes petits enfants!
 

Orphan

I realize that it's ironic.  Dichotomous.  Odd, at the very least.  That a die-hard Christmas addict would feel so incongruously bereft at the holidays.

Millions of people suffer from depression over the holidays, due to family conflict, loss, unrealized hopes & expectations.  Mine?  Its my damn birthday.

As a kid, my mom always made an enormous deal of Christmas and Birthdays.  In our family, these were capital-H HOLIDAYS.  My birthday falls just after Christmas, and while my party was often held in November or January, the day of my birthday there would be a candle in my waffle and a special gift and "Happy Birthday" sung.  My mother has always made me feel like I am special, even more so on my birthday.  I have so many good memories tied around this, and its one of the many reason I adore my mother.  She treats my brother and I as if we are the most precious, important people in the world.

The other side of birthdays and Christmas, the side that I feel kind of guilty sometimes for even thinking about or mentioning (because, you know, I should be grateful), is my orphan status, my bastardy, the other side of my existence. 

I realize I am not unique in this.  I share ambiguous origins with approximately 6% of the population.  There are even some of us who are really famous:

 

 
OK, well we know who HIS dad was...

When I was a child, the sense of loss was something I didn't even know there were words for.  It was a simple sense of not being made the same way as other children, a sense of failure for somehow not being good enough to be kept.  A sense of being second best to my parents (as opposed to the lost biological babies, who were, of course, first choice).  For a long time the feeling of being celebrated helped keep those feelings small and quiet.  As I got older, questioned and wondered, the feelings took on a life of their own.  the more I understood about the complexity of human relationships, the more I understood that my birthday was also the anniversary of a tremendous loss.  The day I was not wanted.

I thought that finding my birth family would heal these feelings.  I searched and found, well over a decade ago now.  It took a few years for everything to shake out from that particular Life-quake, but over time things have a way of settling into patterns of understanding.  When I first met "S", my birth mother, I was overwhelmed by her.  Who wouldn't be?  Here was the woman from whose loins I sprung (sprang?).  She baked me and served me up to the world to be eaten alive.  I look like her (without the extra 150 pounds), I have her hair, eyes, bad hips, knees, other genetic propensities I don't care to mention, flair for drama (yeah, I know.  Bite me.)  Since she either can't or won't tell me who my birth father is (the jury is still out on that one), she is all I have as a reference point.  As God is my witness, this is NOT a good spot fo the starting push pin on the map of ones' life.

At some point, after years of conversations, arguments, questions and investigation, at some point I understood that my relinquishment wasn't a case of noble or pure motivations.  It wasn't as if she was coerced or forced to give away a child she really wanted.  The real reason, the level of state authority, was more along the lines of "We're not increasing your welfare check.  Sorry." 

It was a hell of a lot better than the alternative, just ask my birth siblings.  The Kept Ones.  The Unlucky.  S raised the other five of us, if you can call a lifetime of abuse "raising."  Oh, I know just how fortunate I am.  But there's the other side, the darker side.  If any of the stories that have passed S's lips are true, I'm either a child of rape, the result of a drunken one-night-er or a relationship so brief that the guys' name is lost to memory and/or drunkenness.  Regardless, I didn't matter enough for her to even gift me with a name.  "Baby Girl M_____" is what's written on the birth certificate, and even the last name has been crossed out and "O____" handwritten above it.  Whether she meant for me to have the last name of her imprisoned husband is moot, since without a first name a last means little.  And if I ask her what really happened I can guarantee you there will be no straight answer. 

So each year as my birthday approaches, I try to find the right state of mind to navigate the dark twisted miasma as my favorite holiday, my childhood memories and the truth and lies about my origins morph into one big ugly motherfucker.  I'm so lucky to have had a reasonably sane, healthy family.  Yeah, no silver spoon there, but better than the alternative.

I mourn the loss of the dream of the kind of person I had imagined my birth mother to be.  I seek meaning in my origins, and hope someday to have enough peace about the entire sordid mess that I can finally forgive the woman who brought me into the world.  Or maybe she doesn't need forgiving.  Maybe my expectation that she somehow live up to my fantasies is unrealistic.

OK, now I feel guilty

God, I feel like an ass.

I posted not too long about about the Duggar family having their 19th baby.  You can read it here if you truly wish to be treated to my sarcastic and dry sense of humor.

While I want to state for the record that I still think this sort of celebrity multiple-birthing thing is really weird and a little icky, I also would like to ask that everyone send up prayers, thoughts, wishes, or whatever it is that works in your particular corner of the spiritual world on behalf of the Duggar's latest arrival.

Michelle Duggar had an emergency C section, and Josie Brooklyn arrived in this world at 25 weeks gestation, weighing just 1 pound, 6 ounces.  Statistically, she has a fair chance of surviving - about 82% according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.  For those of you that hadn't followed the news, Michelle was airlifted to a hospital in Little Rock, AR on Monday with contractions that were being caused by a diseased gallbladder.  The news channels all report mom and baby are in good shape.

Regardless of what I believe about the Duggars' choices in reproductive frequency, I truly hope little Josie thrives.  That's an awfully tiny baby to be out in this big, cold world.

My youngest nephew was born about 4 weeks after my daughter, at 28 weeks gestation.  He was, if I remember correctly, about 4.5 lbs.  Compared to the 11 pounds my daughter had reached at just four weeks of age, little J felt light as a baby bird when I got to pick him up out of his hospital crib.  Like many preemies, he has had some developmental delays, but when I say that this kid is healthy and thriving I am not yanking your chain.  My little Amazonian Princess is in about the 97th percentile for her age in height, and J gives her a run for her money.  We spent a week visiting with that side of the family in July, and by the size of him, you'd never know what a teensy weensy little guy he was when he first arrived.

I hope the same success for little Miss Josie Brooklyn Duggar.  I also wish her parents would stop reproducing, if only for the sake of the 19 children they now have. 

What little boys are made of

Riding in the car with my Little Man yesterday:

C:   "Mommy, how come people have to be made of meat?"

Me:  "Meat?  Ummmm...that's just the way we're made, I suppose."

C:  "But if we weren't made of meat then the wolves wouldn't eat us."

Me:  "Well, wolves don't really want to eat people.  They would only eat people if there was nothing else to eat, I'm pretty sure."

C:  "Oh.  Are there wolves where we live?"

Me:  "Not really, honey, no.  No wolves."

C:  "What about bears, then?  Are there bears here?"

Me:  "Not that I know of, no."

C:  "Where do the bears live?"

Me:  "In the forests and the mountains."

C:  "OK.  I dont' ever want to go in the forest."

Me:  "Good luck with that, honey."