Moonspun Spins

A while ago, blogging friend and bearer-of-moon-in-dryers, Linda aka Employee 3699 of The Random Memorandum waxed all excited about Google Reader and how it changed her life. I had heard of this mysterious phenomenon and after her passionate post, decided to follow her into the 21st century. Oh.my.god. Why did no one tell me about this before and slap me upside the head? It is truly amazing!  I love that I can read more blogs easier than before, know what’s knew and click to comment. It’s changed my life for the better. I read more, I comment more, I feel more organized. Love.it! Thanks, Linda for kicking my virtual ass into gear.

Now, after exposing her most lovely moon on my blog and hers, Linda also debated with her husband about whether or not she was an exhibitionist. Since her boobs appeared on the new sensation Boob Emancipation . I don’t know who won that debate per se, but I do know that I admire women who are proud of what they have. There’s a fine line between letting it all hang out in an “in your face” way and simply putting yourself (or different pieces or yourself) out there because you know there is some positivity in that.

I think that Miss Grace and her friends have a done a great job with Boob Emancipation. It’s a fun and creative site to look at. Congrats, to Miss Grace, by the way for winning a Boob contest that she rightly begged us all to vote for her in! This is my favorite picture of her boobs on the site. (yea I have a favorite, so what??? ) 

After being a regular follower, gawker ( in a good way) I mentioned to RP that I might want to emancipate my own boobs. Now my husband is a great lover of boobs, he’s an avowed boob man. He’s been a regular viewer of the Boob Emancipation site, although I don’t know that’s he’s commented yet. We both tend to notice women’s cleavage and nice breasts together and exchange observations and comments. I also know him well enough to observe when he is checking someone out and he is pretty subtle about it. It’s cute to watch.

 I’ve got a bit of a love/hate relationship with my boobs. They are big. They are lovely, but damnit they are heavy. There are some days, I’d just like to take them off and give them and myself a damn break. Not to worry about them boucing, or jiggling, or making sure when I wear a bathing suit there is enough sunscreen on the top of the fleshy part where they start that always seems to get burned, or whether or not my bra is clean or if it’s pulled up enough in that fine line between holding up the shelf versus cutting holes into my shoulders. I’d love to just have a day without them. Now I do appreciate that they are lovely to some (especially RP) and they do feel damn good when touched in certain ways and they are uniquely part of me. They are just so heavy sometimes!

 ANYway….RP was completely for me emancipating moonspun’s boobs. So I pondered the questions of how and wearing what. “The brown shirt” he said, a bit breathlessly, his eyes twinkling.  As I reached to wipe the drool out of the corner of his mouth, I smiled when realizing which shirt he was talking about. Just what I’d consider ordinary, although it shows more cleavage than many things I own. It’s always been a particular favorite of  his and so the brown shirt it was.

 You can find my boobs emancipated in the brown shirt here. From RP’s point of view and from mine….

I’ve talked many times about RP and his running abilities. He’ll be the first one to tell you that he runs 50 and 100 mile races because he lacks the common sense to stop after 25.

 As a result of his 20+ years of running, his 40+ marathons, hundreds of local races and dozen of ultra runs, my husband has an incredibly efficient body. It knows just when to sweat to cool itself down, in running and any other ah, activities that require some physicality (:-))

  And yea, he’s very, very skinny. Now I do think, he’s probably still be skinny without the running, given his family and how he is built.  Although without the regular exercise, he might have a flab or two here and there. Now, though, he’s all muscle and bone. He chills easily in water because he has pretty much no body fat and therefore no insulation. It’s amazing to me something that he is as comfortable to cuddle with as he is, but on that vein….he develops some softness. So I can’t complain.

 Below is a picture of my husband from the back. This was taken at the birthday party on Saturday and RP was involved in a rousing game of volleyball with mostly adults. What I love about pictures is how singular they are and how they show only the context of the lens. You can’t tell in the picture that there are 30 other people around, some swimming, some drinking and eating, some ready to catch the ball that RP is about to  launch into the air. You can only see all the action, the muscles engaged in his legs and his back as he moves. You can see that it’s blurry from the action and my limited picture taking abilities

 It’s very rare that  RP does anything without his shirt on…so I felt I had to take advantage and snap a picture….

  Yes, he’s that skinny….

LRP1 and I were in the library yesterday. RP was getting a massage and we were hanging out waiting for both him to be done and lil moonspun to arrive. We were playing a game and because of the rainy day, the children’s section was busy.

  I heard her voice before I saw her. My daughter’s voice speaking the name of her stepsister who she hadn’t seen in six months in an emotionally charged voice that defied her 8 years as she rushed to hug her. I was nearly teary at their embrace as they stood in the library quietly hugging tightly at this, their first meeting for the summer.

  Instantly they were off together to the stacks, reading together. Like sisters.

 Lrp1 and lil moonspun are very much like sisters. They adore each other, make each other laugh, play games inside and outside and team up to badger RP and I into various things they want. Our house was full of energy and giggling last night.

 Inevitably, as sisters will, there will be a sudden screaming sometime soon of “I did NOT!” or I AM TELLING! and the screams for RP or I to help and the inevitable tripping over each other to tell their story first.  Emotions will run high and then lesson learned, feathers smoothed and life will move on. Fights, for siblings are normal and healthy.

  This is all reassuring to have. Knowing that while I have to go home and read more military  history than I want to think about right now. That lil moonspun won’t be pulling on me to do something with her as she sometimes does. She has her sister.

There’s nothing quite like witnessing the first moment that RP and Lrp1 see each other. Both of their faces light up with joy. Lrp1 will run and jump right into her daddy’s arms and they just hug tightly for a second. It’s lovely.

 That started our weekend, late Thursday night at the Providence airport and it was a great way to start.

  We had a wonderful time visting with JB and her family after getting LRP1. On Friday, while JB and her husband worked, RP and I took her two daughters and LRP1 to the Providence Zoo. We had a great time. Zoos are funny things, they are good for education purposes and for some, to help animals who might not survive otherwise. But sometimes, you lose the feeling while looking at the giraffes when behind them you can see traffic going by on I-95.

   Saturday was an opportunity for us to see more family, as JB’s oldest had a birthday party. Their pool got good use during the party by kids and adults alike. It was a perfect summer afternoon party. Good food, good fun, good people. While I miss JB living in Vermont terribly, it’s reassuring to know that we can visit easily and we are still, well, us. I’ll always tease her about the fact that her dishwasher is clean, but not emptied, assure her that she has PLENTY of food for her party, feel at home in her home and at ease with her children, and sneak in at last one game of Skipbo. Not to mention share the talks we have about our lives, husbands, kids, families.

    All too soon it was time to head back north and we arrived in Vermont Saturday night around 8:30. It was good to be home.

    Yesterday we had THE most productive day around the house. I think my brain is still processing all we did! We started first with LRP1’s room, she wanted it rearranged and that was fine. The big issue is that during the time she is not here, her room has to serve as a guest room, so there is a pull out couch in it that she really has no choice but to have. So moving things around requires making sure that can open! It took all three of our brains and much measuring before a plan was finalized and the room moved.

 Unlike my own daughter, LRP1 likes to organize and sort through stuff and get rid of things. So in the midst of moving things around and getting a new desk (well from another part of the house), she took on the task of sorting and purging!

 RP moved on to assemble lil moonspun’s loft bed, which went smoothly. I meanwhile painted a desk chocolate brown that was to be relocated into our mudroom. I also spray painted lil moonspun’s dresser black.

   The mudroom, which I seem to be in a constant battle to find THE ultimate way to organize, is well on it’s way….and the amount of paper and stuff we have to recycle this week is quite impressive.

   In the meantime, my Saturn station wagon which I’d listed Thursday on Craiglist had an interested buyer, and he came over with his son.  He bought it and so now we can get new tires on the new van!

  AND we had someone working on our basement doors replacing a couple to prevent leaks. There was alot of banging around the house yesterday!

   Now I sit in my first morning working from home. It’s rainy and cold today, unlike yesterday. It would appear that our anticpated first Mountaineers game with both girls will be rained out.  But after we get lil moonspun later, our lives will be complete again..and the house full…yea for Home again!

Forget the fact that it’s finally now in the 80’s here in Vermont and that RP and I slept with our windows open, our ceiling fan on and just a sheet covering us. Forget the fact that I am wearing a tank top and skort in my normally cool office.

 The real reason I know it’s really summer is that RP’s oldest daughter is coming tonight for her summer time visit. Lil RP#1 flies into Providence, Rhode Island and we will be staying with JB and her family who live near there.

 Now begins a fun time of the summer, a houseful of kids, baseball games, camps, fires in our backyard and schedule shuffles. All the things that I love to thrive on. RP is teaching a summer class starting Monday and so I’ll work from home in the mornings and he’ll come home at 10:30 so I can come into the office.  On July 20th, Lil  RP#2, who is now 2 1/2 will join us as well.  Thus the reason for the minivan purchase. Three kids in a small car is a lot.

 So once again we are heading south this weekend to pick up LRP1, then hang with my cousin and take the kids to the zoo tomorrow and then be there for JB’s oldest’s birthday party on Saturday. Fun stuff.

   Yea for summer!

It’s been a mixed blessing this week not having school work. We’ve been busy! Monday we drove up to a lovely part of Vermont, Grand Isle, to look at a minivan. The drive was close to an  hour and a half from us. Yesterday, after hearing the report from our mechanic yesterday of the repairs that it  needs, we mulled over our choices. And decided to buy it anyway. It’s nothing fancy, a 2000 Voyager without even power windows or cruise control. But it’s sturdy and more importantly, it’s big enough for us all!

 I’ve been dreading driving to Ohio at the end of July  in our small cars with three kids squished in the back. I explored option after option to convince RP not to drive…and then I found the van on Craiglist. I told him I’d shut up about wanting a new car for a couple years and I’d willing drive the 14 hours if we got this van. And so we are. This afternoon we will make the trek back to the place because in good faith we left my car there and we will get the title and give them the plates and the money. The funny thing about the van? It’s the exact same color and looks nearly identical to my parents car. Life is funny.

  Last night we went to another baseball game and it was scout night, so lil moonspun got to run on the field with a group of other brownies with the second baseman. She was thrilled. It was a great game, too. One of their players had great hits and stole bases like crazy and he scored everytime he was up to bat…5 times!

   After the mental debate of the van and figuring out what sometimes seemed like a zillion too many small details, I was less than thrilled when the alarm went off this morning. Usually RP and I listen to the news for 10 minutes and then get up. He never even moved. I barely heard it and I  shut it off. Close to 7, which is when I am usually done with breakfast and starting to head out the door, I woke up and thought, “I don’t want to go to work today, I want a mental health day.”

  So I got up, left a message for the Great Boss, and climbed back into bed with RP. It felt great. He made me a pancake, which is a usual Saturday morning ritual and I read decorating magazines outside in the warm sun, marveling at how green things are and how alive our garden is becoming. Lil moonsun dragged herself out of bed at 9am and I’ve been puttering ever since. It’s just lovely. I’ve checked work e-mail a couple times, with GB assuring me all was well and voila….good stuff.

   Part of me wants to delve into house projects and the other part just wants to be….mellow. nothing taxing.

  Isn’t that what a mental health day is all about?

We stood in a small room in my parents house, my sister, AJ and I. The room that still had pink and white sponge painted walls. The room that for much of my sister’s  life had been her bedroom.

  We looked at the computer desk, the twin bed that RP and I  had slept in and lil moonspun calls ‘her bed’, and the random piles of clutter and sighed together. “We are screwed,” I said.

“yeah,” she said, hands-on -hip in classic family form, glancing around. “We are.”

  You see, my mother has too much stuff. I’d say my parents, because they both live there, but it’s not my dad. He couldn’t care less about any of it. If he lived alone, there’d hardly be anything in the house.

   My mom always has projects going and she is an incorrigible bargain shopper. So there are piles of plastic bags full of clothes from the thrift shop she volunteers at. My former childhood bedroom, which is the biggest bedroom in the house is her sewing room. It is, I kid you not, piled sky high with ribbons, buttons and material. My mom does work in there, she and a friend have a pocket book business. But the sheer amount of things is quite amazing.

   My sister and I realized we are screwed because someday (and these are the things you think about when your parents are 65 and 70) the mess will be ours to clean up. As I told AJ, if god forbid, something happens to my mom, my dad will be completely paralyzed by taking care of any of the stuff. If god forbid, anything happent to my dad, my mom will probably just get worse. And if god forbid, something happens to them at the same time….well there you go. We are screwed.

    My parents moved to Florida in 1990 and they rented out their house. They left a few things in the attic and a couple boxes in the basement. They moved twice while in Florida and back to Mass in 1998. You’d never know.

  I thought, as RP alluded to in his comment yesterday, that it would be a good idea for my sister and I to get the rest of the stuff in the attic out. I was pretty sure, and I was right that it was all stuff of AJ and mine from childhood, although mostly hers as I’d been up in the attic when lil moonspun was young.

  It had been more than four years since my sister and I had been together at my parents house and never before with our kids. So why not get it down? Now to get to the attic, you have to go into that small bedroom I mentioned, take most of the stuff out of the closet and haul yourself up a small hole in the ceiling. My parents house was built in 1920 and apparently that’s how you did things. When we were young, we stored our holiday decorations up there and it was a big deal every winter to go up. My dad would crawl up and hand stuff down. Then one at a time, he’d lift AJ and I up through the hold for a peek. You’d find yourself pulled by strong arms from the warmth of a house into a dark, cold attic that had just insulation and boards for storage. My dad would hand us the flashlight and we’d spread light into the corners of the house, and up at the pitched roof. It was like a secret world that we visited just a couple times a year.

    So Sunday’s project involved us emptying the closet and me hauling myself up the hole and passing things down. Until I couldn’t reach anymore and I knew that with  my weight and my foot crawling on the boards was not my best bet. So my skinny husband took his turn at a family ritual and the rest of the boxes of toys, dolls, and barbie campers came down.

    I wish AJ and I had had enough time to sit together and go through the boxes of books or more in general. But at least we know now that our Trixie Belden book collection is still around, and that we both had more dolls than we realized. Anything we couldn’t go through we put down in my parents basement with promises to come back this summer and take the rest. And while we may have added to the clutter in the basement, which is just as overwhelming as the rest of the house, at least the attic is completely empty.

    I know that when we go to my parents, RP is glad that I am not like my mother. I could be, I proably was for a while. But living with too many piles of stuff makes me cranky. I like the clutter-free life that RP and I are trying to live.

 But still, my sister and I? yea, we are screwed with all that stuff in my parent’s house.

The Life is Good festival in Boston was great! It was a great time to see some family and for lil moonspun to have good cousin time (and me, too) But it was also really well done. There were an amazing amount of kids games that were fun and creative. Of course as a parent, you spend time at those things often holding balloons and drinks for the kids while you watch, but that’s ok. It’s a rite of passage I think.

  JB and I stood next to the human bowling ball game watching our kids first dress up as the bowling ball and dramatically fall over, then RP don an outift (at first backwards), give the “na na na” taunt to JB’s oldest and get smacked in the face with the ball, and wonder how we could recreate the game for our  upcoming birthday parties. Good stuff.

   We also spent some good time with my parents, my sister and her two kids. Although sleeping in a twin bed together always wrecks RP and I. We got up earlier than everyone else and walked the half mile downtown to the local bakery and cafe. We ate chocolate croissants and watched a bike tour leave the common and had some alone time. We figured that was our anniversary part of the day.

  It is hard to believe it’s been a year.

  We all had a nice lunch out with my dad at a local seafood restaurant and he got his fried clams. My sister didn’t do a good job of smacking the check out of my dad’s hand and so he insisted on treating us because “we’d come all the way to see him”. Seriously. It was unnecessary and you’d think when you  have daughters who are 38 and 42 years old for once you’d let them treat. But no. Ah well, I really enjoyed my shrimp and scallops over salad!

 It seemed all too soon we were on our way back to Vermont with lil moonspun crashed out in the backseat.  Such is life….and life is good.

  Here is my favorite picture of lil moonspun from the festival….she still has the painting on her arm right now as she is sitting next to me at work coloring, but the face is faded now.  Which of course means I am a bad parent and she has not showered, but if your kid can’t be dirty in summer…

  Balloon hat, anyone?

I think it’s another random Friday post for me.

 I just got back from having an nice lunch at the local diner with Pecquea and her fiance. I had a BLT and fries. Yum! Pec is moving away and leaving her job soon and I am very sad about that. So much so, that I’ve yet to contemplate it truly…she’s my one and only true office friend. She walks with me to get the mail, we talk, lil moonspun loves her, and she’s a hoot to be around. Ah well, she and her fiance are getting an amazing farm house an hour and half south of here and will be very happy. They both deserve it.

 I had my annual boob squishing mammogram this morning. I’ve got very large breasts and so it’s uncomfortable for just a couple of seconds. It’s amazing to me how gently that women picks up my big mounds of flesh that hang off the front of my body and lays it just so before she squishes the shit out of it pushes down the machine to lay it flat. I can’t imagine having small boobs and doing it. Sorry if you do.

   We are leaving tomorrow for Mass and are going to the Boston Life is Good Festival . The hope is that we will meet up with some cousins. If not, we will still have a good time before we head to my parents house.

   I’ve got a paper proposal to finish for my class before we leave. I’ve done some work on it. But it might be a late night!

    Lil moonspun’s loft bed arrived last night. We found a wooden one instead of trying to pick one up at Ikea. We ordered this on Sunday night and it came yesterday. Isn’t the internet amazing? We will be painting it her aqua color and putting it all together next week. It will be very cool.

  And speaking of boobs, if you have not checked out Miss Grace and friends, Boob Emancipation site. do so now. It’s really and truly awesome!

On Sunday we will celebrate Father’s Day, our first wedding anniversary, and my dad’s 70th birthday.

My dad is a very quiet man. He’s polite, shy and hard-working. He wouldn’t let us have any kind of party for him, nor would my mother really entertain the possibility of surprising him.  They went to a family graduation party last weekend with a request from my dad not to even mention he had a milestone birthday coming up. And even last year when RP and I got married on his birthday, he asked us not to make a big deal of it. We did get a mention in, because at our dinner we decided to mention everyone who had anniversaries and birthdays in June and there were plenty, including my dad to include on that list!

   Tomorrow my parents will celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary, too. Now as much as I love my mother, I don’t quite know how my dad has lived with her in ‘wedded bliss’ for more than four decades. He deserves sainthood for that in my humble opinion.

   The world which my father came into, back in 1939 sure was a different one than it is today. He has lived an unremarkable life and I think that he likes it that way. His parents divorced when he was 12, back when it very very uncommon to get a divorce. His mom remarried a man with four kids he had custody of and suddenly my dad had five siblings instead of one.

  When I was growing up my dad worked in a liquor store. He worked 50+ hours a week that included 12 hour Saturdays every single week. He also worked nights. Mondays were my favorite day of school because when I came home, my dad was there and we’d play cards or just hang out.

  A few years ago for Father’s Day I wrote my dad a letter telling him  how much I appreciated all of his hard work and what he quietly did for our family. I wasn’t sure if he knew and it seemed time to tell him after nearly 40  years of him being my parent.

    Since my parents moved to Florida  in 1990 and back to Mass in 1998, my dad has been a bank teller. He’s had a chance to be head teller. He doesn’t want it. Instead he’s the friendly man behind the counter who people will wait for. He’ll remember that your daughter is going to college, or something you told him your last time in. He is often showered with goodies from customers at holiday times. My dad is the quiet pillar the world so often relies on to keep it going.

  In the past 42 years since he’s been a father, he’s worked  hard to provide for my sister, my mom and I. He’s weathered both of his daughters attempting suicides and all the drama of your kids not quite finding their place in life. Both daughters at one time or another have been married to women. He walked me down the aisle in my first wedding without flinching. And now with my sister, he’s got two step-grandkids. He and lil moonspun have a very special relationship and that always makes me smile and even as I type this, a little teary to think about.  Since we have moved to Vermont, he has taken a week of vacation to have lil moonspun visit and spend time with her. I know she’ll always remember and treasure that.

  My dad is a regular guy who has made a quiet but lasting influence on my life. He’s been a role model for living life by being honest and just working hard. He loves his family and is loyal to his wife. He’s not perfect. He smoked for 50+ years and now he has COPD and can’t walk far. He quit a few years ago, but those thousands of cigarettes he smoked have their lasting effects.

 So as much as I’d love to have thrown him a big party, we’ll honor his completion of seven decades of life by doing what he wants. Lil moonspun and I will make him cookies, we will find some place for him to eat kickass fried clams and we will just all be together.

 Happy Birthday, Dad!