One

Ever have one of those days when every song on the radio rips your guts out as you drive to work inside the weird little bubble-world of your car, and then you park and walk into the office trying to act normal even though the lyrics are still bouncing around in your head?

FREE TO ANYONE WHO WANTS THEM

Thankful Friday

At 8 a.m. the bay is like glass, and those little finches, they look like happy little thumb-smudges of yellow paint, and the sun at 45 degrees shines through the scattered clouds in distinct rays of light that almost make you think, “shoot, maybe there is a god up there.” It’s completely silent except for the far-off hum of the freeway until suddenly a half-dozen birds break into a spirited call and response, and then it’s quiet again and the bay's still shining glassy silver-blue, but it’s time to walk through those tall doors and up the stairs and down the hall past the nappy green and grey fabric of cubicles, cubicles, cubicles and into my office for eight hours of meaningless work and so the question is… what happens to those three perfect minutes out by the water? how can they not be corroded away into nothingness by eight hours of tedium? the only answer I can come up with is that you have to pass them on to someone else, and so i'm giving them away to anyone who wants them, hoping they end up in a good home.

so picture them there on the curb for the taking -- i can't believe how many people walk by without noticing them, because they're really fucking beautiful -- and if they speak to you and you have room, scoop them up before it's too late.

(Originally posted on Facebook. And then I felt like a total traitor to PGD.)

Let the games begin!

I'm trying to make Thankful Friday a regular habit again. I really am. Thanks to all of you who've encouraged me to do so. It means a lot, and it's working, I swear, slowly but surely.

BeanBoozled

So someone at Jelly Belly came up with an idea to sell more boxes of Jelly Bellies: a game called BeanBoozled. The rules, basically, are that you spin the spinner and it tells you what color jelly bean you get to (or have to) eat -- only you don't know whether it's going to be yummy or disgusting.

Jelly Belly BeanBoozled jelly beans are a collection of 20 lookalike flavors, some so crazy you can’t believe it, while others are the delicious Jelly Belly beans you love. New this year are Canned Dog Food and Centipede flavors. They join a delicious Top Banana Jelly Belly bean--or is it Pencil Shavings flavor? Is the black jelly been Licorice, or is it Skunk Spray? Perhaps the blue bean is Toothpaste flavor, or maybe it's delicious Berry Blue.

Marketing FAIL, you say? Well, my sister bought a box and presented it to the kids, and they couldn't stop playing, even though they spent half the time gagging, eyes watering, and spitting jelly bean goo into napkins. Pretty gross, I know, but with television and computer games threatening to eat my children's brains, I'm gonna have to say that games without screens are very dear to me. A few favorites, lately:

Twister

Good old Twister! I bought it for Taavi for his birthday, kind of as a filler gift. But guess what? AWESOME. Pictures tell the story best:

Chess

We'd had a late night, and there were a few drinks involved, so I was drifting in and out of sleep trying to grab a few extra Z's when I heard Kai and Taavi coming up the stairs. They were having a measured conversation, sounding more like colleagues than young siblings.

Stomp, stomp, stomp up the stairs.

"I'm going to wake Mummy up," Taavi said matter of factly. And I didn't mind; in fact I sort of ached to have their shiny little faces appear in the doorway.

But Hugh shooed them away dutifully. "Let Mummy sleep," he told them.

They didn't protest as I expected they would, just did an about face and headed stomp, stomp, stomp down the stairs. I imagined their fallen faces, their broken little hearts. But there were no sounds of distress, no mournful wails. In fact, I didn't hear a peep from them.

They were quiet.

Too quiet.

I couldn't resist; I had to see what they were up to. I slipped out of bed and padded down the stairs after them.

And there they were marching out of the kitchen to the living room. Kai was holding the small wicker basket we keep the chess pieces in, and Taavi was carrying the heavy wooden chess board, which is chin to shin high on him and the width of his arm span.

"We're going to play chess," they chirped, and off they went, and I thought my heart was going to burst with what great companions they are to each other, and how fast they're growing up, and how very much I love them.

Bingo

And now, right now, in fact, I've got to go pick Kai and Taavi up from their afterschool program. I have to pick them up precisely at 6:00, because if I come a minute before the program shuts down for the night Kai will be very, very sad.

Why, you ask? How could she possibly be sad to see her mom a bit earlier than usual after a long day at school?

Because it's BINGO night.

So... gotta run. But tell me about your favorite games, and if we have a games night sometime, you're invited!

Swirling

---skipping the part about where I've been and why, just saying my soul is somehow better when I'm honoring Thankful Friday, and that I'll get back into the swing of things soon but not today. Today, contemplating how to get back my Pretty Good Day mojo, my head is swirling with all the things I've been thinking about without writing about them, from year-end reflections to New Year's resolutions; from Haiti to Afghanistan to Berkeley, CA.

Shocker, right, I've been thinking a lot about life and living / death and dying (been reading The Book Thief and watching Six Feet Under); and then today, of course, there's J.D. Salinger.

Writing and thinking about writing, indoor soccer and Fight Club and wanting to kick some ass.

From Taavi's lost tooth to Caiman's learner's permit; Eli's tween-ness to Kai's sunshine; from family drama to the reliable certainty that I will have an absolute blast just going to Target with my mom.

Yeah, still swirling. Been thinking a lot about relationships of all types: older than old ones and almost forgotten ones and the ones that spring out of nowhere and surprise you. The tenuous ones and the forever ones, the casual and the soul-deep, and everything in between.

(What is this connection I have to a woman who was my best friend when I was eight, and who I haven't seen since then, and who's my polar opposite politically? It's odd but real; when she says something on Facebook that I was just thinking, it makes me feel the world's alright.)

Writing and thinking about writing -- yep, said that already but I guess that's been weighing more heavily than a lot of things -- dredging up old stuff and fumbling with new ideas and words and words and words. Offering up some of them, and oh lord the burning vulnerability that kicks the swirling into high gear.

Is this a Thankful Friday post?

It is, I promise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RIP J.D. Salinger, and thank you for Catcher in the Rye and also Franny and Zooey and -- there it is on my bookshelf -- Nine Stories.