Avi

So, I'm pretty in love with this guy:

Avi Avital, seriously, check him out. He's the most amazing mandolin player, I've decided to mold Royce into this man. Although Royce is not Isreali, and won't look anything like this, he will be a virtuoso mandolin player! I've already looked up teachers in our area. 

Avi came out with a new album in January:

The "Sachidao" from the "Miniatures on Georgian Folk Themes" is my favourite. He truly is an incredible musician, and his new album is a revelation (insert smirk); but in all seriousness, it's not the typical Baroque or folk mandolin, it really does feel soaked in Mediterranean sunshine. And what I love best about the soundfeel (I just coined this term for the instantaneous feelings you get from sound) of Mediterranean sunshine is that it sounds like sunshine that comes from 10,000 moons ago. But alas, I wax poetic, so rock on Avi!

Yesterday Part 2...a new yesterday, not a continuation of yesterday's yesterday.

My sweet boy has a slight meltdown everyday after nap time. It usually consists of me offering him 3-4 different snacks, him turning them all down, me saying that's fine and walking away, him screaming banshee style for 4 minutes; and then on my honor, asking for the first proffered snack every time. It's cool. But yesterday after that, he got hit on the head by something, and instead of my usual 3 second rub, kiss and sugary, "oh, did you get hurt? Mama sorry." I picked him up, set him on the kitchen island where I was standing and cradled him. Little legs wrapped around my waist, arms nestled in our sweet cocoon, and my arms wrapped around him, my hand on his head holding it close to my chest, tucked right under my chin. We were snuggled in, one of those I love being a mom moments, where I take stock, and reality focuses so that it's nice and close. And then things got real. This song came on right as we snuggled in:

Still holding him tight, I started to rock him to the music. Like 1+2 to the right, 1+2 to the left, then to the back, then to the front. Normally kids like that for like 15 seconds then, they look at you, laugh, wiggle. No Royce was locked in. He let me keep that little head attached to my chest as I funkified our little bodies to the beat. I had to learn how to mix it up a little here and there, because Royce let me go on for the entire 4 minutes, and half a Macklemore song. By the end, I had sweat in my elbow creases, and Royce had creases from my shirt on the cheek that was pressed against me. Like I told you, for reals we got down. It was one of those moments that I wanted to sear into my memory, if I could just experience this feeling again. I love those moments that smack of wonderful so hard, that I know right as they're happening that I want this one for the special room in my memory, the one with the silver lined memories. Then I can take it out, see it, feel it, hear it, and know that moment, even when my boy is a man, and he doesn't let me hold him, and he doesn't have the chubbiest, softest peaches and cream cheeks anymore, and his blue eyes aren't only for me. It really is the little moments.

Yesterday part 1

Yesterday I went to Zumba at the gym...don't hate. The teacher is the most beautiful mature black woman. She's probably around 65, with that snap of life that just radiates from her, and she has the most beautiful curly silver bob haircut. I fell in love instantly; and let me tell you, she can shake that boody like nobody's business. I'm talking straight up street.

Then in the front row, front and center, there was a 50 something year old man, gently balding, moustachioed, and sporting a hardcore knee brace. He was very fit and trim, and before he even started dancing, I was like, "you go brotha!" And then, did he dance, dude could have been in Riverdance.

All I know, is that within the first 15 seconds of the music pumping and bodies moving, I had tears in my eyes, especially because of these two. I just had that overwhelming feeling of kinship, and awe at the beauty of all the people around me. I truly believe we are all brothers and sisters, and in that second as I sashayed across the floor, and bit back tears of joy, I was so glad that my Heavenly Father had given these two their beautiful talent, and sweet spirits that I could just feel across the room. They may have been different than everyone else in the room, and I can only pray that they've never felt that sting of being the odd man out; but, I appreciated them, and next time, I'm going to make a point of telling them so.

Tuesdays are the Bomb

My children tried to suck my soul from me today. I have been left tattered, but intact; I shall live to fight another day. I was probably a little bit of a monster too, I yelled a lot, and said some not nice things. I think I was so bad, I made poor Roycie act out, sir tot like a dog. I laid on my bed for one second before nap time, with a ,"just go to bed!" and Royce crawled behind my bed and peed, just peed right below my bed, just sitting there, having a jolly time. He finished on the pot though, good chap.

I spent the morning reading over CNN, and found their article on why the world isn't really paying attention to all those kidnapped little girls, and was like, "yeah, indignation." But then I found their article on what new shows were coming out on Netflix in May, and I was like, "what, season three of Scandal!?" and I was once again ashamed at my love for pop culture over all else. Darn you Gen Y.

I wrote this about my emotionally exhausting day yesterday and couldn't muster the strength to post until today

If you've read a good portion of my blog, you know that I have a multitude of social anxieties: library fines, body image, and other weird crap like asking for refills at fast food restaurants. Seriously, I remember being being five, and having someone tell me I couldn't have a free refill, and my life went downhill from there. I'm sorry, I have a problem, alright? So I thought I'd share this little gem with you. Here's how my day went:

6:45 "Mama, mama!" Royce, wakes up earlier than usual. I find that his sheet is soaked because he's overfilled his pull-up; and he found the lip balm Vida left in his bed and has eaten 95% of it.

Strawberry sorbet for breakfast dude, rock on.

7:30 ate this awesome breakfast as posted on instagram 

9:05 get to the gym 10 minutes before bodypump starts, but daycare is already full. Head to the park for an hour, see turtles and ducks. Head back to gym and blah, blah.

Really, this post has a real point that is approaching,

11:20 picnic at a different park

1-2:00 kids run wild while I book a flight for Brandi to go back to his homeland next week! Bully for you bud!

Here comes the real stuff: I then head out for a consult at a purveyor of laser hair removal. Body hair is a big conversation point in our house. I'm half Mexican, excuse me, my family prefers Hispanic, so I'm a prime candidate for space age lasers melting my hair off. I heard on the radio that for Fiesta, which is this strange 18 day holiday here in San Antonio, that's about drinking, parades, and collector pins of this variety: 

(back to the radio ad) "hey we're offering 50% off all hair removal!" and I was like, "Hey, I could do that!" But the deal ended today, and so I had to take my kids to the consult. 

Mistake number one. 

This was a high roller place, up in the WASPy part of town; I'm the type of person who should only be having this done out the back of a van, by a women named Juanita. This place even had candy out in bowls, so I bribed the kids with two pieces of bite size candy each. I set them on my chair and Royce preceded to ask for the next 10 minutes, every minute, if it was time to eat the candy yet.

Mistake two.

Mistake three boils down to this, I signed up for $4700 something of laser hair removal. For two areas on the body. I blame it on the fact that Royce drew on the carpet with a crayon, spilled a mini water bottle on the carpet and played in it like a puddle with Vida...although it did clean up the crayon; and smeared some peanut butter cup on the chairs. Also I am very dyslexic with numbers, like for reals, I always switch the middle two numbers. The chick was so nice, and she just drew so many numbers on the page. It was $140 a month for three years. I'm telling you I'm the biggest sucker. She left the room so I could call Brandon as traded our savings for baby smooth skin, he said if I thought it was a good deal, and thought I had done my research (which usually I do) then it was ok. It was not ok! Oh, and she told me it was like braces, I couldn't just pay some and then cancel. I signed a deal with the devil. I know what you're thinking, seriously, it sounds like the worst deal ever, and like I'm the biggest dolt alive. I drove home as my stomach started to hurt, I was running out of gas, and I was on one of those stretches with no gas station. I now have serious pains running from right under my heart down through my stomach. I kept the panic going even as I thought how pathetic it was that people are worried about starving to death and I'm having a panic attack over LASER HAIR REMOVAL and running out of gas.

Got home, Brandon very nicely explained to me that there was no way that anyone ever goes in there and pays $9000 (because remember, I got 50% off! $4000 was 50% off, kill me) for two relatively small areas of laser hair removal, no matter how high tech their lasers are. I agreed, cried a little, because there's nothing more shameful than being an idiot, and being a wrong idiot is the worst of sins in my mind. I begged him to call them for me and tell them; guys, I wish I could explain to you the type of panic I was in, I literally writhed on the couch, cried some more, and offered Brandon any barter under the sun, to make the call for me. He said that as an adult I had to fix this myself, and face my fears. Now, even in my wildest moments of deepest irrational despair, I always know that there's no reason it shouldn't be fine to call and cancel something, return some library books, ask for a refill. But, and it's a big but for me, there's that 1 in 100 chance that they say no, and start giving me their rigamaroll and I cave; or you know, I rack up $100 in library fees, or they refuse me a refill.

It took me an hour to make the call, the chick said fine, because I hadn't had the first treatement, and kept $100 of my first payment. My jaw hurt for hours with leftover tension. 

The moral of the story is: I used four or five colons in this post, don't ever purchase laser hair removal unsupervised, and don't ever read one of my posts that looks longer that 14 long run ons. 

It's pretty obvious I have some serious hangups. 

rollin' around

1) It's NBA Playoffs season, so I have a lot of husband free nights right now. Took the weekend to watch awesome films. 

Ralph Fiennes (at all things) but especially directing, is really starting to get me (looking at you Coriolanus). This films not perfect, but beautiful and intriguing, and about Dickens' secret life, I mean come on. Do you ever have a problem with really great historical figures leading crappy personal lives? Like every man alive having trouble keeping their pants zipped? (I'm looking especially at you Thomas Jefferson)...

and I watched Inside Llewyn Davis; also meandering,and all internal like. Solid, beautiful music, a few brilliant moments.

2) There was a threat letter sent out in San Antonio about some potential violence happening at an unidentified school here tomorrow, so let's pray for safety, and hope nothing goes down; glad I don't have any kids in school yet, or that I don't have to be a teacher on a day like tomorrow.

3) Bought these beauts on Ebay, so excited.

4) I threw a very informal seder for YW mutual activity last night. Made some rockin' charoset, it was awesome. I love the house of Judah, wish I was an LDS Jew. I like the idea of remembering our heritage a little bit more; and I love the haunting beauty, and heaviness of the memories and ritual that the Jewish faith carries. Shalom.

5) Brandon's growing a sweet mullet for the summer, I'm sure a full unveiling won't be until July. 

6) Shout out to all my homies reading in far flung places. It always makes me happy that after America, my blog has the most hits from Russia (haha, winning). And sometimes I have obscure hits; so hello to my lone reader in Azerbaijan. I hope you didn't have to pay like 10 manat at some internet cafe to read this crap post. 

XOXO,

O.

Lalalalalala

Oh Dear Me!!! I just found out about a little site called documentary heaven, I'm gunna go put on a new pair of pants now (that's how excited I am)!!! There was one doc I was looking for in particular, one that I saw when I was 16, and have never been able to forget. Years later, it was on Netflix, but was taken off before I watched it again. It's called THe Realms of the Unreal. It's about Henry Darger who wrote and illustrated, a 15,000 something page book about some crazy stuff. It's about a group of girls, and they find in these children armies against evil, etc. No one knew he had written them at all, he just kept to himself his whole life, and his neighbors found them right before he died. I would highly recommend it, stuff like this makes reality seem all the better.

Here's the trailer....dream on.