holy boo

let your true self shine

First contact with the newest Mormon Missionaries: I am sitting on the side deck surrounded by chickens, cats, and dogs, reading The Amityville Horror, drinking beer from the Devil Dash glass in one hand in the other coffee from the "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" mug, & wearing my Ben Franklin "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" shirt.  

Well Hello Boys, Meet the real housewives of 10th West!

road rage

[Driving home in the dark]

Me: I am so tired.

Beach: I'm sorry.

Me: Hey, see that pizza delivery car? We could force it off the road and hijack the pizzas.

Beach: Mom?!?! 

Me: Sorry, I am just really tired and hungry and I still have to feed chickens and cook dinner.

Beach: Are you hungry enough to be an ax murderer? 

Me: No, I'm too tired to be an ax murderer...

Beach: But not too tired to be a hijacker?

     

going in drag

So I'm at a Halloween Party dressed as a 1950's House Wife, the make-up, the hair, high-heels, obnoxiously cute dress.  At this party I know the Host & Hostess their 3 small kids and my kid who I came with but no one else.  Great, my friends tonight are all 10 yrs old and under. *awkward* and the house is packed with all those No-One-Elses I don't know.  I mean packed!!!! The little house is nearly splitting at the seams!
I make my way slowly through the crowd standing alone in each corner of the upstairs like an over grown house plant before heading to the basement hoping to find the familiar face of my kid.  What I found instead was a tattooed man sporting a full beard wearing a child's sized Disney Belle Costume including the wig.
I look at him sitting uncomfortably in his dress and he looks at me standing uncomfortably in my dress and we both mentally agreed somehow we 'know' each other.  Maybe not in a 'we have met before' way but in a 'I get how you are feeling way' and he offers me a seat on the sofa, "Have a seat. We're watching the game." he says roping in the guy dressed as a Mobster sitting lounged out on the other end of the room into our conversation. So I sit with them.  Belle and I discuss the many downfalls of dress wearing, turns out his wife made him wear his.  Suddenly the Hostess bursts in the room rounding up children for the dance party about to begin.  When she sees me, Belle, and the Mobster she laughs, "I knew I would find you down here Misty!"  It is really nice to know that under it all no matter what I am always predictably me.  What is less nice to know is that I find a grown man in awkward Disney drag as my familiar and social equal.  
  

lonely ship of fools

There is a shot in the movie Bounce (2000) where the character Abby is sitting alone in a crowd of people in a stadium at a baseball game.  She is waiting.  To be honest it has been so long since I have actually seen the movie I don't remember if man she was waiting for showed or not but what I do remember is the look on her face as she waited... how do you explain the disparity of knowing you are alone and 'he' is not coming while holding fast to a hope you don't believe in that 'he' is.  Strange as it may sound that manufactured look (end result long forgotten) helped me to leave my first husband.  Being alone is one thing, lonely quite another.  I would say the difference between alone and loneliness in contextual.  A fine line kept neat by how you feel about yourself.    


To me there is a peace in being alone and there is a sweet sadness and if you walk it right a victory.  But at the end of a long day driving home in the dark it is simply Alone.  Street lights breaking the night striping the car in light, gap of dark, light, gap of dark, light...bathed in fleeting comfort the same as being with friends, alone, being with friends, alone.
Lonely has no street lights.  You drive the gap, endless and cold.   
We (Misty & Beach) are alone too much.

I like being alone, perhaps I like it more than I should.  BC once told me he it was okay I was so busy gone so long swallowed up by the red bricks of the medical center, "I like missing you.  I have never missed anyone before."  He and I are alone together, two people in love but unbound.  I've said it before it is the greatest strength and the biggest weakness of our relationship.

My Dearest BC, 

Yesterday long after I sat alone surround by friends watching our daughter 'win', after leaving alone, but before I wandered over to Grows to watch the girls play in the leaves, eat a hot dog (they know me so well!), and enjoy a beer, and way before I spent a few hours late into the night helping get the gym back to being the gym (post home gym put back).  Between all that, sitting a stop light crying I decided to tell you it was "time to make this something that is more just fair" ~BLN, call and answer.  Yes, I know an annual call for the two of us to come home together after a lingering summer and a October spent mostly apart.  The same way we united our first year, our first October, our first falling November.

This morning I woke up sick, too much dust in the gym, too little sleep.  I have saved you a some sweet rolls (best I ever made!), and I have pic's of Boo's meet, you can even see her floor routine!!! Her pumpkin is carved and on the porch, sorry the pumpkin seeds are all gone, the Halloween light drive done and over but we still have a few mountains to climb although you will need to buy some wine, afraid that is all gone too.

  

I will see you tonight when you and I are back here together.

Come home we are expecting you.     

  

 

to believe

I once heard it said you can tell how a person feels about you by

the quality of the photo they take of you.

  

This I believe in. 

It is about chemistry, reflection, and attention.

I would love to be beautiful, in the same way I would have loved to be a princess or a ballerina.  But I would never wish to not be me.

These shots were left on my desk top for me to find.

The 'Taker' sees me the way I see myself.

In black & white...

And in real life.

the substitute farmer

There are more than a few dozen mornings in the still of winter when I am grateful it to be the early riser, the maker of coffee, the stoker of the wood burning stove. 

I schlep around the kitchen in socks and watch as BC sleepily slips into thick boots and an old coat.  The slider doors exhale as he is careful to open them just enough to get through: the hens are waiting for him.

I feed and water the dogs.  And the cats.  I start laundry in the frozen mudroom.  I cook a hot breakfast and pack his lunch.  He appears cold, sometimes wet or muddy or snowy but he is always smiling. 

There is something to be said for being the one who starts the day among a flock of birds.

open lines

In the dark on the day of first snow drinking coffee with BC watching Beach try to act surprised she woke up in our bed for the second night in a row...some one let her watch yet another Stephen King movie.  In my defense, okay I don't have one I just let her do it. 

So there we are nearly picture perfect morning minus the kid in our bed, the cat in our bed, and my dog's nose circling the bed like a shark's fin. 

Me (thinking about snow and how cold it is getting) "Hey, when are you leaving hunting again?" Now I have already answered this question in my head 'I've decided to stay home with you Dear'.  This I have a defense for: he has not said one word about leaving again since he got home whenever that was.  But turns out BC has his own answer and it was very different from mine, "I was trying to get out of here this afternoon but I really need to finish the tile job." *spit coffee out my nose* "OH!" trying to recover from the shock, "So you are leaving tomorrow then?" Here too I have the answer in my head already 'No, I think I will stay home'.  And again he seems to have his own answer, "Probably tonight."

Yeah-so, I'm really glad we had this little talk because about dinner time I'd be looking for you but do me a favor, if we ever get the chance to go on one of those game shows where the couples have to each write the same answer on a card to win things, let's turn it down. 

walk with me

walk with me

away from all you know

and all you have to do today

abandon yourself to footfalls among the fallen leaves

forget yourself under the shadows of the trees

for there is a softness here you can't find out there

a gentleness not given

absolution

walk with me in my silence

 and don't ask me what I am pondering

let me be

here beside you

and nothing more

weave through wet grasses

leap over small streams

make your way slowly

letting smallness take you over

this is heaven's gate...

so unless you intend to lie down in Forever's long sleep

don't stray too far

and don't stay too long in the shelter offered

it is okay to forget yourself

to walk with me here

on the edge

(for a while anyway)

but you must always remember how to find your own way back home

~mlb 10/24/12

running on real ground

I didn’t take a leap of faith and hit the street running because I believed I was ready to return to being me; road runner me.  I did it because before Beach and I headed to the pool today my treadmill refused to turn on (happens from time to time).  I needed that run and no mater how hard I tried to ignore it I couldn’t.  Hours passed and I couldn’t let the day go without the sweet heat and abuse of a good run. 

 

I got dinner rolling: Parmesan chicken, roasted red potatoes, and ginger glazed carrots.  Turned to BC and said, “Don’t burn the chicken I’m going running.”

This used to be the normal but it is something we haven’t seen in sometime.  He played it cool.  He didn’t ask even one of the six best questions to be asking me: Have you eaten today? Is your foot really okay enough to run on? Are you hydrated? Have you checked your sugars? Do you know it is cold and raining? And are you taking the dogs?  Instead he assured me dinner was in good hands then ever so slyly suggested I take my phone and he let me walk away alone, unquestioned, unchecked, and dog-less into the damp cool night.

Love is a gamble, win or lose. 

Friendship is an Ace, it can help make you or break you. 

Believing you can turn your weakest card into a winning hand, that is either called stupid or brilliant depending on the outcome.

“You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run.”

~Kenny Rogers, The Gambler    

[photos from today 10/23 last year Topaz Mt.]

things

BC (yelling!): Beach that is not an activity to do in bathroom that is an outdoor activity.

Me: What is she doing?!

BC: She is holding a window screen over the sink and trying to run the water through it. (turning to Beach) That is a great learning activity but take it outside.

Beach (dragging a dripping wet 18 x 36" window screen behind her): Come on Screen, let's go...

look what I can do

If I can pretend that I didn’t drink too much at last night's Halloween party and that I didn’t spend most of the day on the edge of diabetic trouble and that after smacking my head on the corner of the chicken coop it didn’t hurt and that after a breakfast of half a bowl of Top Ramen "broth" imaginary lunch and imaginary dinner a run was a fine idea... Yep, If I can do all that than I figure I can pretend to not have noticed the dead hen partially hanging out of one of the nest boxes…

Dear BC, if you don't bag a deer out on the hunt I might have a solution for you. 

ps to the trip

As it turns out I don't sleep well alone....I got the hint about this new insight into myself while BC was working out of state but honestly until I was in Vegas I didn't realize how bad it was.  I literally don't sleep.  I leave the TV on and any light I can get away with and still can recite the TV line up from 2 am on. 

So I have spent three nights not sleeping but on the plus side I can tell you all the local news including who to vote for in Nevada and I am looking forward to a good nights sleep then it hits me BC is leaving hunting tomorrow and won't be home until some one dies.

I.am.so.screwed.

But on to the next problem.  I got home and as far as I can tell BC has not eaten anything but donuts, cleaned anything or thrown anything out or shopped since I left, yikes! However he did admit to drinking too much, eating from a taco cart next to a laundry mat (forgot to ask why he was at a laundry mat)smoking inside and that Josh is on his way over... So, I'm tired and hungry and a bit tipsy from finally getting a drink and this places doesn't have a buffet...

the 9 yr old's Vegas to do list

shop for jaw dropping items

bask in the pool

sight see her own way

take in a little local culture via Caesar's Palace

study the wild life up close

bet on a game, or two...

see a national treasure

swim

get personal with a shark

slide and live to tell about it

enjoy the sun

See a magic show.

Do a magic show.

Avoid scary strangers for 3 days until you find this guy in downtown Vegas give him a quarter to make him robot dance for you.

And a 39 yr old's to do list when in Vegas while traveling with Mormon parents and a 9 yr old?

not gamble even one quarter

get her non-drinking parents to volunteer to buy her a margarita during a magic show (I hate magic but the show was really funny and the drink was super strong!)

carry a purse up and down the strip with a two headed dragon sticking out of it

walk around a lot

safely get off this dam!!!!

(ps the day before we went some guy 'fell' off the damn thing and died!!)

see her smile her 'I went to Vegas' smile