Category — Maternal Ramblings

In J’s class there’s a case of head lice, and she came home itching.  I went and got some kill-the-bugs shampoo. We kept reassuring her that this was “just in case”, or, as W likes to call it, a “prophylactic measure”.  Every time he said it I’d start to giggle because it sounds dirty.  Am I a 12-year-old boy or what?

I’d gotten J to strip down for the treatment, but the shampoo was surprisingly inoffensive.  Once I put it in her hair (it stays there for a few minutes pre-shampoo), it gave her some fabulous body.  So it was funny:  she was all “nakey” with wild hair, dancing and flaunting like a model.  Anyway, I put something about lice in my Facebook status (because I’m shameless) and various friends have been sharing advice.  And they’re just being helpful, but really?  Reading the advice just makes me want to curl up into the fetal position.

And all of this grooming was going on while we were listening to the gubernatorial debate.  Dude, I’m so glad that they let everybody participate.  I mean, it seriously upped the entertainment value, am I right?  And yet, it was sort of like the lice wash:  entertaining,  interesting poses, a few giggles.  But deep down, it just feels dirty.

Oh, also, Fin is hiding quietly.   Which, according to Google, is not a good sign.  I changed the water up, but who knows.  I fear a reprise of the
Ant Farm Debacle.  I’ve said before that two kids and a cat pretty much takes me to my personal limit.  But, truly,  I’m trying.

And I just figured out (she slid it into the class newsletter, about two paragraphs after I stopped paying attention the first time) that J’s teacher is pregnant, due in April.  Couldn’t she wait and have a life after J gets through this crucial first year?  Ack.

But, how ’bout this cute scary Halloween craft by J?  I thought that it was such a good idea to draw with white chalk on black construction paper.   This is left over from a previous year at nursery school, but it was so fun that it’s in my annual decoration box.   I’m feeling really nostalgic about nursery school right now. . . .

It wasn’t the best day.  Just prior to bedtime, M couldn’t understand why J and I were so angry about how she’d just picked up a piece of J’s ceramic tea set and threw it up and down until it hit the ceiling and shattered.  Like, what’s the big deal?  Sorry.

Prior to that, we had a tragic dinner of Stouffer’s Macaroni & Cheese.  Now, I usually cook.  And it has a shocking amount of fat and sodium.  But so shocking, really, that I figured that we’d like it.  I actually put the plates down in front of the girls while I was still chatting with my sister on the phone, and by the time I’d hung up and sat down, they were moving on to dessert.

“Wow,” I said, “It wasn’t a hit, huh?”

M yelled from the kitchen, where she was rummaging in the freezer:  “It wasn’t as good as Annie’s!”

Well, yeah, okay, that was their favorite.  Maybe they were just anti-homemade style?  “Was it as good as [my anonymous friend]‘s?”

“NO!!!”

“Was it as good as. . .”

“Probably not!”

“Huh,”  I mutter, “Sounds like it’s really not as good as anything. . . .”

“Oh, no,” M calls.  And I really think that she was trying to cheer me up with this one, “It’s way better than puke!”  And so I couldn’t help myself:  I had to stop laughing before I could reprimand her on language.   We appear to be entering a rudeness phase.  Super-awesome.

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Whatever possessed me to purchase a frozen mac ‘n’ cheese dinner in the first place, you might wonder?  Well, you already knew from my whining yesterday that Cute W will be out of town all week.  So here’s what happens today:  When I wake up, M has a fever (along with some serious stuffiness).  Which means no school, plus a cancellation for J’s first piano lesson and an eye appointment for me, and oh, by the way, do I really want to schlep the sick kid to the grocery store for the weekly trip?  Cute W needed to leave in about an hour.  I run for the car.

Okay, first of all, seriously, when is the Children’s Motrin coming back?  I love that stuff.  My kids love that stuff.  Seriously, it makes them well again.  Sometimes I have to withhold it just so they’ll settle down and act sick already.  For some reason they’re okay with the taste, too.  I spent quite a bit of time hemming and hawing in the medicine aisle and finally picked up a Price Chopper generic of Motrin (incidentally, it seemed to fool her, in terms of both flavor and fever reduction, so that‘s good).

I continue stocking up with tools of desperation, although my progress is slow because it’s not my usual trip-for-the-week store, so I’m disoriented.  Plus, I wake up hungry every morning, and I haven’t had my breakfast, so I’m beginning to get grouchy.

Eventually, I make it to the check out, and since it is still not yet 8 am, they have one cashier available in the whole dang store.  And then, lined up behind me, there are three different men, each with one item that is in no way necessary for their survival.  Think, like, crappy danish.  The guy directly behind me asks to cut in front of me and I say yes, because I am polite a wimp kind a doormat.  I don’t know why, I just let him because.  And then, I passive-aggressively walk up to the customer service managers who are just standing around and say, “You really need to open a new register, because I’ve got people behind me with one thing but I really need to check out.”  W’s got to leave any minute , M is languishing on the couch, J barely got a hello this morning, and I am getting the hunger-shakes.  But I am ignored, and as I turn back to my place, the second guy has already scooted forward ahead of me.  And by the time the third guy asks me if I mind if he goes ahead, I’m so speechless that three adults in a row could  walk by the multiple medicine bottles, gallons of juice, & frozen dinners in my cart and not sense that I was on an Emergency Mission.  And so I start to cry right there in the check out line.

How’s that for an awesome start to the day?

Anyway, as I was trying to decide whether or not to share this story, it occurred to me that someone who knew me, or–let’s face it–any other mom who peeked into my cart with these items would have realized that I was having a bad day and needed a little additional consideration.  And then I started thinking about what else could be in a cart that would indicate that this person is having a bad day and could use some extra kindness?   So I started to think about my personal Grocery Cart From Hell.  For me, I think that, along with the medicine, juice, and crappy frozen food, it might be:

• Three gallons of ice cream (1 gallon is excellent; 3 gallons indicates A Problem)
• Tampons (although I am a loyal Diva)
• Lansinoh cream
• Poster board (the kind required for kid’s school projects)
• Mouse traps
• Yeast infection cream
• Pullups size XXL

Gosh, when I think in terms of how bad it could have been, I’m feeling quite happy with my life of ease.  Anyone have anything else that they’d throw in the cart?

If you’re interested in library programs, now’s the time to check into them, since some libraries require that you register the kids for a whole series.  This is also a good time to check into classes in general.  Music studios, gyms, and schools of all kinds will often let you attend a sample class or they’ll invite you to an open house at this time of year.  If you’ve got really little kids and you’re looking to kill some time, keep in mind that you don’t have to be seriously considering enrolling in order to take advantage of some free entertainment.  If you’re a new reader and you don’t know where to begin, check out the Big Ol’ List of Links, or parents of teensy  babies can do a search on “Teensy Baby”.

Here’s that famous “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” commercial.  I couldn’t figure out how to embed the video.  I still can’t figure it out.  It seems like I am doing exactly what all of the documentation tells me to do.  Whatever:  I give up.

Staples Commercial

The girls and I spent the entire morning sorting through our cool-weather clothes.   We have vast boxes of hand-me-downs for the girls to pillage, although I do try to complete a private viewing before I allow them access.  That’s because, I swear, if there is one hand-me-down that I don’t like, I can guarantee that it will become one of my daughter’s most prized and oft-worn item of the year.  I’ve learned this through bitter experience.  Now every piece of clothing goes through a quick review, which is:  will it drive me crazy if someone’s wearing this four or five times a week?  This doesn’t weed out too much:  I have a pretty high tolerance for poor fashion choices (as the women who work at my husband’s office will tell you–wait!! oh, crap!  did I say that?).

Anyway, sorting is always a scene of drama and pageantry.  The most suspenseful moments in the Clothes Sorting Process are when both girls covet an item that M’s been wearing, and we’re not sure if it still fits.  Then M’s straining to pull some too small item onto her increasingly gangly big-girl limbs while J clutches herself and holds her breath in anticipation.  And J starts smiling more and M is grimly struggling and then. . .  well, it depends.  Sometimes I realize that the adjustable waist band can be adjusted and M is granted a reprieve.  More often, J is triumphant, and I have to remind her not to gloat.  For particularly well-loved clothes, I even place a moratorium on wearing an item until a proper mourning period has been observed.

As for the pageantry, there’s often a couple of gorgeously fabulous skirts or dresses which must be modeled, flaunted, and danced in.  Unfortunately, it’s impossible to predict which items will actually appear in their daily life.  The girls are famous for professing great love for an article of clothing that is then placed in the drawer, never to see the light of day again, except perhaps when I pull it out and ask plaintively:  “What about this cute skirt?  Didn’t you say that you liked it?  You know, you could wear this to school any day that’s not a gym day, right?”

Anyway, after all of that clothing sorting, the girls changed into swimsuits for the pool.  J camp tripping down the stairs wearing her suit and, over it, a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of thick velour pants.  She couldn’t help herself:  they were simply too fabulous.

Yeah, this is whiny.  You might just want to skip it.  I can’t be, you know, relentlessly fun.

I don’t know how everyone else is doing, but I’ve had it up to here with this weather.   I always dislike this time of year, anyway:  all the summer programs finish up (like my beloved town camp), and school is looming, with the bustle of supplies and over-the-summer homework and PTO jobs, but without the actual, you know, kids leaving the house for a while.

J with rainbow at Craig Elementary School playground.

Seriously, we just all do better when we have a little time to ourselves.  My workout time takes a precipitous dive when the kids are with me all day, because I simply cannot wake up any earlier than I already do.  Don’t even ask.  When the kids were away for a week I even tried to reset my body clock extra-early, and it just didn’t happen.  I’d lose track of time and it would be 2 am and I’d be feeling super.  I’m better at night.  I’m barely functional in the morning.  So Unworked-out Mommy is a teensy bit less patient.

The girls have been playing together pretty well in the mornings.  I do the dullest chores ever and they play until I suddenly realize that I’ve devoted two hours to cleaning the fridge and now they’re sick of each other and starving.  So then I make lunch and attempt to get us out of the house and results vary.  One day it was a playground (wild success), another day errands (really poor: I pulled the car to a screeching halt twice to turn around and chastise them), and today I attempted the pool when a brief glimmer of sunlight filled me with unwarranted optimism.   I believe that it was our most dismal trip to the pool ever.

Really, I’ve just been in a shame spiral lately. M’s been extra obnoxious, including pushing her most effective button the other day, about how Mommy doesn’t work or, you know, do anything.  Which, I’d have to say, makes me angry for a good 48 hours, at least.  Then today she got herself sent to her room for 35 minutes.  This after I started at ten minutes.  Meanwhile, J has developed an unidentified rash that may or may not be clearing up.  Her legs are also a freaking mess of bug bites from when she was away on vacation last week without Mommy to nag about bug spray.  There was also some slacking in the pierced ear care, leading to some infected yuckiness.  She kept claiming that it didn’t hurt, and I had no idea if the redness might be rash- or bug-related.  And then an earring fell out in bed, which I didn’t notice until it had already begun to close.  So last night there was a painful, pussy and emotionally draining re-piercing ceremony at bedtime.  I feel like I’ve really earned my Crappy Mother of the Week badge.

In short, it’s not all about the weather.  But I can’t help thinking that a little warmth and sunshine will buck us all up a bit.  It’s supposed to be coming.  It better be.

J’s been wanting her ears pierced since M got them done last fall.  Now, I’m not one of those mothers who feels strongly that their daughter’s virgin ears have to reach a specific age (Does anyone know that Eddie from Ohio song, One Thousand Sarahs?  Sarah’s  got pierced ears and “all the mothers said her mother was a slut and we couldn’t pierce our ears ’til we turned 12 no matter what”).  Slutty or not, I’m okay with early ear piercing.  But I’m not about to squander extraordinarily valuable parenting capital.  So when M started asking, she had to “prove herself” by showing that she could brush & floss & shower and remember other various hygiene tasks each day.  It was a snap for her, and she was ready within a couple of weeks.  I lowered the bar for J (since she started asking two years younger), and all she had to do was stay in her own bed.  Still, it’s been a struggle.

Remember the Feel My Thirst post about J climbing into bed with me?   Yep, it was waaaay back in February.  The princess sofa solution helped, but we’ve had a long-standing challenge that if J could spend a series of consecutive nights staying in her own bed, she could get earrings.  For the first month or two after this offer was put on the table, she didn’t even try it.  But she’s been working in earnest for several weeks now, even falling off the wagon once when she had only two more nights left on her special “J’s Earring Chart”.   Oh, that was a sad morning.  But at last,  she’s finally made it!

Before

Today we went to the Piercing Pagoda at Colonie Center to get her ears pierced.  Yeah, I know:  I’m anti-mall.  But the girls only have one set of ears each, so I want someone who’s got an abundance of experience.  J happily chose little gold flowers with coral-colored centers,  and then. . . actually, she didn’t breeze through it like M did.  I’d told her that it would hurt, but M had argued that it was more surprising than painful, and I guess J had believed her sister more than me.  So, when it actually did hurt, she was a little stunned.  She cried.  It didn’t help that we happened to have an audience–a family wanted to watch, which didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.  Umm, yeah, that was stupid.  It clearly hurt, and J took a walk to try to compose herself, and one of the little girls followed her, wanting the scoop on the entire experience.  On the other hand, if the other mom’s goal was to postpone the ear piercing process a little longer, well . . . mission accomplished!

After (I know; it's blurry, I am not a skilled photographer, and my subject became impatient)

Part of my own willingness to pierce young is because my ears were pierced in kindergarten.  This was a result of a Traumatic Event.  I was with my big sisters at our local community center watching The Shaggy D.A. when I went to the bathroom.  Two nasty teenage girls refused to allow me in because they were convinced that I was a boy.  Or, because they were nasty and decided to pretend that they were convinced that I was a boy.  But, really, I did look boyish:

Exhibit A: Katie in the mid-70s

It’s quite possible that most people who saw me were confused.  So when I went straight home, in tears, bladder bursting, my mom decided then and there to take me to get my ears pierced the next day.  Because in the quaint 70s, boys just never had pierced ears.  Later, even with the earrings, I was still mistaken for a boy, but with less frequency and vehemence.  After playing the title role in our 6th-grade musical, Tom Sawyer, an elderly couple asked me my gender.  Perhaps their eyes weren’t good enough to read the program?  Couldn’t they just have asked me my name and made a wild guess based on “Katie”?  Seriously, at what point do adults forget adolescence enough to think that such a question is a good idea?  You know, they make button-down shirts difficult, but I’ve been grateful for my breasts from the start just because they cleared up confusion the way earrings never could.

Anyway, after the piercing, it took J a good ten minutes to fully recover.  M & I started to walk into Claire’s, and J refused to enter, on the grounds that all of the earrings reminded her of the Recent Horrifying Piercing Incident.  By the time we walked out of the mall, though, she was gravitating to each & every mirror to catch glimpses of her sophisticated self.

Approximate total number of hours en route:  13.

Number of minutes on road before a Starbucks stop:  approximately 25.

Number of wrong turns: only 1!  My fault.

Number of movies watched:  4 (Charlotte’s Web, Scooby Doo Pirates Ahoy, Mary Poppins, The Incredibles).

Number of times M asked for the definition of a name that W called another driver: 1.

Number of times one of the adults had to stop for the bathroom even though both children had just finally fallen asleep simultaneously:  1.

Number of hours the other adult continued to “hold it” after spouse’s pit stop (even though she had to go all along, but was too concerned about additional door slamming causing children to wake up):  1.5.  And I should have said “s/he” to keep it anonymous.  But really, don’t we all know who’s who in this scenario?

Number of pieces of gum consumed by all family members:  at least 11.

Number of items spilled by me: 4 (dried cherries, lettuce from my Subway sandwich, water, and margarita salt–and no, we weren’t drinking en route, I just had an unloading issue).

Speaking of which, reason why you shouldn’t go to that Subway that we visited in Delaware:  because they believe that it is impossible for turkey and salami to coexist on the same sandwich.

Reason why you should go, anyway:  5 different varieties of peppers.

Number of times traffic came to a halt because a car was burning to a crisp right there on the side of the road: 1.

Number of times J couldn’t find her water bottle even though it was within 18 inches of her body:  7.

Number of times M threw up:  4.  Poor thing.  She arrived home, collapsed, and could not be roused for dinner.

Good thing that we have two days to recover.  But it’s good to be home!

More free summer stuff!

But first, as a public service announcement, I’m issuing a parental advisory.

Moms, you must not, under any circumstances, take speaking children with you into the dressing room when trying on swimsuits.  I know:  it’s such an unpleasant task anyway that it’s tough to use precious “me time” for this, However, it’s important for your self-esteem that you do not bring anyone else into the room with you, especially, for example, a five-year-old who might offer all sorts of kindly-meant comments* such as:

• Oh!  Not that one!  Because did you look at the back?  It looks like your back is saying, “It’s too squishy in here!  I’m too tight!”
• Mommy?  Is that underwear comfortable?  Because it looks like it might be too small.
• Oh!  I like that one!  Except not this part. . . or here. . . or that. . . or the color.  Uh, never mind.
• That one is not a really good idea because your breasts look all flat and squashed down.
• I like this one better than all the other ones, but I still don’t think you should buy it because the other ones were really terrible and this one is mostly good but also a tiny bit terrible.

Ummmm, no.  I didn’t buy anything.

On to the  Summer Events:

At Canal Square in Cohoes, there are Friday night concerts in July and August from 6:30-8:30 pm.

In July and August, there’s the Music Haven Concert Series at Central Park, generally at 7 pm on Sundays.  There’s food there if you don’t have the chance to pack a picnic.

The Grand Street Kids Club is a free summer camp for inner-city Albany kids aged 4 to 12.

This week kicks off the Tuesday night concerts in Cook Park at 6:30 pm.  They run through July and August.

At Clifton Commons Park, there’s music or theater on Sunday evenings at 7 pm, and family-oriented entertainment on Wednesday evenings at 7 pm. (The link for this is a huge booklet, so for the concert info., check out pp. 26-27, aka “inside 24-25″)

*Yes, these were all actual comments, alas, and not hyperbole for the cheap laugh. Although I didn’t take notes right then and there, so the quotes  may not be exact.

Is it ever going to stop raining?  Because I’m just so done with it.  I was looking at the many, many events that got completely washed out today.  For ourselves, we engaged in  delightful activities:

Disassembling the food processor for sport. This was W’s idea:  he comes from a family of handy people, and apparently one way that you learn how things work is by actually looking at the different pieces and how they interact with each other.  Huh. M stood there with her eyeballs rolled waaay up into the back of her head, but J was quite engaged.  And, yes, some irreplaceable element had broken last week.  So I was glad to finally get it off the counter.

J and I spent some kitchen time together. She thought it would be a good idea to combine the pink, turquoise, and yellow play-dohs, while I thought it would be a good idea to toss together quinoa, cashews, and chopped broccoli.  Sadly, our results were not nearly as delightful as we’d expected when we began our projects.   So much for creative vision.

Play Doh flower. Because it's too rainy to pick them.

Shopping for today’s birthday party for M’s friend. Because I am a procrastinator.  And then, we carpooled, and in the middle of the party the host called to warn me that when I came to pick up the three children for which I was responsible, they’d all be soaking wet.  And, you know:  sorry.   And I responded, “Three?!?” Because I was only aware of two, and with my cute husband away, this would require some youngster to ride shotgun in our smallish car.  Plus, I’d have to navigate to another unknown house.  So, I spent about ten minutes processing this, and then I had to call back because it occurred to me that perhaps their phone call had been a passive-aggressive attempt to get me to bring dry clothes right this minute?  And that all of the other parents cared more about their children and had sped over to bring dry clothes and warming blankets immediately?  Because, otherwise, it seemed sort of silly to give me an hour of lead time.  Although, come to think of it, I pretty much used it.  After Googlemapping, rearranging boosters, and laying out towels, I arrived at the party to learn that the third child was going home with grandma and my two charges were just a little damp to the touch.  I was profoundly relieved and J was brutally disappointed when we learned that she would not be airbag bait in the front seat.

And then, finally, I snapped. But quietly at least.  You have to understand that, with nursery school over, I’ve lost about six seven quality hours of me time throughout the week.  And my cute husband was gone on Wednesday & Thursday night.  And then he was at a friend’s house watching the World Cup today, and I knew that tomorrow he’d be gone all morning.  So late this afternoon, shortly after J had stalked me into my room one time too many, and at about the same time that both girls were literally climbing all over my body, I decided that I’d go out to dinner.  Alone.   So I left the house, purchased a glossy magazine, and read it while eating Thai food and drinking a beer.  When I arrived home in time to kiss the girls goodnight, M said, “Nobody just eats dinner for that long!!”  But actually, I do.

As you know, I had an off day yesterday.   Really, I generally put together my weekend list, and then I feel pretty good, because as I hear about events from various sources, I can put them into two categories:  1) not family friendly or cheap or fun enough to be considered “fun” by me, or 2) already on my list.

Alas, today’s All Over Albany weekend post kicked my ass.  Oh, sure.  You can try to make me feel better, tell me about how they’re actual journalists who do this as their real job with income and you know, tons of readers, or remind me that they probably were not listening to play-act whining and jumping up from the computer to practice cartwheels and handstands or provide snacks like I was.   But, it still made me feel like a pathetic slacker.  So, I added various updates to the weekend post, and you should check it out again to make sure that you don’t miss anything good.

Here’s what we’ve been doing this afternoon:  water sliding!

Action shot: M loses the boogie board.

M chose this (with a gift card from Grandma) to be the centerpiece of her gala upcoming birthday party, so today we took it for a test run.  It was $25 at Target.  The girls loved it.  I think that I’m going to try to keep put it away until the party to keep it intact.

Okay.  M, who’s never shown any interest in the blog in the past, just came up over my shoulder and read “ass”, then announced triumphantly to her sister, “Mommy wrote a bad word!”  Awesome.  Speaking of body parts, J referred to the lower feminine region today as “vajulva”.  Thus ensued twenty minutes crouched on the floor discussing anatomy, elimination, and reproduction.  You know, I bet nobody from All Over Albany did that today, either!

First:  the bug update.  I’m pretty sure that it was black flies and mosquitoes all along.  Yesterday J and her BFF went into the woods and when they emerged, BFF was covered with bites and J had a few bites on the bottoms of her feet and one along her hairline behind her ear–some of the few spots not covered by the Skin So Soft.  So this morning I was working it into her hair and her ears and between her toes.  Yuck.

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Today was J’s last day of nursery school.  Yes, I cried.

Saying goodbye to nursery school.

Tonight at bedtime I asked J how she felt about being done.  “Sad,” she said.  “I’ll miss my teacher and my friends and the snack.”  But, really, she spent the whole day elated, telling everyone that she had “graduated” from nursery school.  She’s excited for kindergarten.

At the beginning of the school year, the kids were measured, and today, they all got measured again.  So as they were leaving, each child was wearing a little name tag that showed how much they’d literally grown while at school that year.  J was 3 inches taller.  I hadn’t noticed.  W didn’t even believe us when we told him.

Skipping toward kindergarten.

After M came home from school, we trekked over to Mohawk Commons in search of  bathing suits, summer pjs, and sneakers. As the girls tried on shoes and suits, I felt as if I kept having to rummage for bigger sizes than I’d expected.  Then  M convinced me to let her walk all the way across Target to try on her bathing suit while J & I were still shopping.  J settled on a swimsuit while I fretted, and we were turning the cart to rush over to the dressing rooms when M trotted back to us, glowing with grown-up-girl self-sufficiency.

After the clothes, M begged and begged to be allowed to buy ice cream at the grocery store by herself.  Apparently W had let her run back into the store when he’d forgotten something, and the thrill of this independent venture left her hungry for more.  Also, she was just hungry for ice cream.    And since we’d had a nursery school lunch-and-ice-cream outing without her, I was feeling generous, and her incident-free dressing room visit made me feel (somewhat) brave.  So we stopped at Hannaford, and I handed her a ten and she ran into the store alone while J and I waited in the car out front.

We were driving  home, the girls singing along with Taylor Swift, and I was just overwhelmed by how old they’d become.  I’m not really a mommy to little girls anymore, but a mother of daughters.

As we sat at a red light, a breeze brought a flurry of those white fluffs–I think they’re cottonwood seeds?–that fall every year at this time.  They always remind me of waiting for M to be born, because they’d land in great heaps all around the hotel where we were staying when I was 9 months pregnant and taking walks to bring on labor.

Cottonwood Seeds falling.

The cottonwood puffs–come on!  It was a total Sunrise, Sunset moment.  So I’m feeling proudly melancholy tonight.

Cottonwood fluff and Buttercups

I wasn’t sure, in the bright sunlight, if I’d be able to see the white in any of the pictures I took, but it’s easier to see among the buttercups.  Plus, J was picking them–she is always picking wildflowers–and she asked me to take a picture.   The two of them together almost feels like a family portrait to me–my little girls blossoming and floating away. . . uh-oh, getting maudlin.  I think I need a glass of wine!