tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12221961970852561852024-03-13T00:30:27.492-04:00Post Picket Fence<b>What Happens After Suburbia Happens <br> To a Girl Who Thought <br> It Would Never Happen to Her</b>MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.comBlogger471125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-72577117055661229202020-05-31T00:25:00.002-04:002020-05-31T00:51:00.739-04:00The Thing About The DishesWe're cleaning our house more aggressively than ever, or maybe I am. The Three Short Drunk People have yet to master toothpaste clearing of the sink, but The Kid, when he has time, is using the rake more often.
Me? Detailed cars. Washed windows. Disinfected the garage. Googled "squeegee" a bunch.
I have learned that shop towels are far superior to Bounty. And cheaper.
You need me to clean MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-61563267678697732092020-05-27T00:31:00.000-04:002020-05-27T00:31:32.326-04:00Crying in the MarketI saw her, even masked, by the chicken.
"There you are!" we said, grateful to recognize our eyes.
We chatted, masked, distant, sad.
Her daughter would graduate the next day in all the weird ways.
Did she see my tears?
What does empathy look like now?
Can I show my love when I can't hug?
Her daughter, this graduation.
It breaks all our hearts.
Let me say this as loud as I can from my quiet MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-79767834386775154802020-05-19T22:26:00.000-04:002020-05-19T23:10:17.564-04:00MASK YOUWe fight over the "good mask" we have. It's easy to breathe in and fits well.
We stock our cars with the homemade ones my sister so generously made out of old sheets and shipped to us. Double ply cotton, super cute, with little girl underwear waste band used for elastic.
She is the sewing hero we all need.
I'm disgusted that wearing a mask has become a new flag to wave, to stake in the ground.
MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-53213323480951639962020-05-18T00:22:00.000-04:002020-05-18T00:22:06.420-04:00WHEN THE BOAT IS TOO TINYWe're gonna need a bigger boat...
We're like many -- suddenly unemployed.
Gratefully, we are healthy but the Vids has ripples, and it did for the Kid.
We can't wash our hands enough to stop this, to help him.
We can't mask up enough for him.
So here we are, middle aged, two Drunk Short People in college, the GYSO...
And this girl just trying her lousy best to keep the ship upright.
MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-66345345691681414622020-05-08T23:10:00.000-04:002020-05-08T23:16:37.156-04:00CH-CH-CHANGESLike a dog to a whistle, I alert to sirens. I think I inherited that from my grandmother and my mom. We are drama chasers and perhaps, wannabe savers of the world. Lately, I hear them a lot and so I'd run to the porch, maybe with some binoculars, wanting so badly to be a part of the emergency. Once I took a soccer carpool on a misadventure like this and we got stuck watching a house burn down.
I MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-59480600151743892692020-05-02T00:53:00.001-04:002020-05-02T00:53:11.302-04:00The UpSideI have been lucky: I have connected with all kinds of people during this weird moment.
I have learned how to prop the laptop so my double chin doesn't show so much and I have learned how to wear my hair in a way that hides the grays. I know now how to mute the dog barking.
I know this is now what we do.
Turns out a lot of you do this too: connecting in weird and awkward ways is what we do.
MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-31825360369646912822020-04-29T23:02:00.000-04:002020-04-29T23:02:20.275-04:00Another Story About MusicWe all have good days, and really shitty ones. I've decided that most of us take turns: it's your bad day, or it's mine, or it's hers. Each turn sucks.
Recently, it's B's turn.
I suppose grief happens in waves and now, it's washed over her.
Chatty kid, suddenly silent.
She had some set backs when college started two years ago, but she quickly figured it out. She became so MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-52792039171259039372020-04-25T21:36:00.001-04:002020-04-25T22:17:49.390-04:00THE GFYOHe was four when this began. Then he was five.
He was giant then, and he is still now. The GSYO is a full foot bigger than me: sometimes I wonder if I willed this to happen, if my imagination made it real. Then I remember genetics, and the Kid who is super tall and I think, oh yeah... There's that.
He hasn't changed in other ways too: he's very nice.
The first time he had a physical MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-52532056565513898662020-04-19T22:42:00.000-04:002020-04-19T22:42:20.698-04:00Small TownI called this place the Small Town because it was a good blind term, and also, it is small... sort of. Small is a subjective measure; your small might be different from mine. So, here's the truth of this Small Town: we are 19,000 people with two roads in and out who exist on a small spit of land with water all around us. Many of us don't have driveways. Most of us consider an 1/8 of acre to be a MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-34269869971824522052020-04-16T00:43:00.002-04:002020-04-16T01:06:55.570-04:00ENDURING FRIENDSHIPIf the news is bad, or getting worse, adjust.
If the days get long, help someone.
If the news is dark, dance.
If you feel hungry, ask.
If you can, help.
https://onbeing.org/programs/a-poem-for-how-friendship-endures/
MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-19356296653460735872020-04-14T21:37:00.000-04:002020-04-14T21:37:34.215-04:00The View From The WindowI've laughed the way I am sure a million others have at the vids of the moms in the cars venting, the toddler debris all over the floor of the tiny apartment, the creative ways parents are making birthday parties for 16 year olds or 21 year olds. I've laughed with them because it feels so human to connect about those things: a need to escape, a mess, a birthday, a milestone -- who can't relate toMsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-1359618186722885322020-04-12T21:28:00.000-04:002020-04-12T21:32:12.264-04:00THE FACE OF THE MOONBack in the old days, when we'd get buried in snow, I remember thinking that all the familiar places of my small town looked, overnight, like the surface of the moon. Everything was unsure, and unboundaried and new: where were the sidewalks, or the entrances, or the yellow lines on the road? Who was the masked man shoveling my driveway? I never doubted there was bread or milk or flour (flour?), MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-89508737245146819402020-04-08T23:04:00.000-04:002020-04-08T23:06:53.269-04:00A Nose, Cameras, Love in LockdownI have seen my face more than a woman should ever see her face.
I have become the opposite of the dude in Dorian Gray: everyone I see looks so lovely.
I have to see myself when these new weird moments happen and I look so much older -- than I feel? Than my mirror tells me?
FaceTime and Zoom and OneWay interviews are weird -- do you look at yourself first?
Or do you look at all the people you MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-4766606145853697092020-04-01T23:31:00.003-04:002020-04-01T23:31:58.998-04:00Empathy in the Time of Corona"It was inevitable. The scent of rancid socks and cereal bowls always reminded her of the fact of being a mom. She noticed it as soon as she ventured downstairs, the smell of the refugees, distanced, undone, former leaders of the packs of newcomers or the defender of the back line or the hardworking clown in the room. They had been booted from their worlds: their remains lay in their wake."
OK. MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-18232297927225031192020-03-30T22:48:00.002-04:002020-03-30T22:48:44.069-04:00ALARMSRemember alarms?
Remember the coffee routine before the day started?
Remember making school lunch or planning a dinner that was "regular'?
I miss getting the automated call from the High School telling me my kid was a few minutes late.
I miss picking him up at school and talking/not talking in the way you do with a teenage boy.
I miss yelling at him to get up! I miss being bossy in that way MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-76139379385206573122020-03-26T21:27:00.001-04:002020-03-26T21:27:29.021-04:00PIN BALL WIZARDLet's be honest up front: I have weaved in and out of looking for a "job" for two legit reasons.
1) After a "career" in the music biz, some publicity self employment, three kids, badass volunteer work, a blog (omg) (is that even a word used anymore?), some minimal success writing for actual money, and a TV Show for kids (back to that volunteer thing).... my resume isn't exactly hopping. And no, MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-15821771008474466432020-03-23T01:22:00.000-04:002020-03-23T01:26:26.320-04:00B(You can read back and see what I wrote about Her then...)
She is who I saw back when she was little.
Not a lot has changed: she is vulnerable but also so brave and strong.
She takes too much of me, all of us, on her shoulders.
She is resilient, despite me.
We sat on the bus together traveling through Italy with her soccer team. We saw so many beautiful things and laughed so many times. We MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-15150341140514996932020-03-22T22:39:00.001-04:002020-03-22T22:57:06.315-04:00THIS IS HOW IT ISIf you want to read some lame boring quarantine crap with ideas and strategies and Pintersty ideas that mostly make a girl feel like shit, google on. This isn't that.
We are the people who have run out of toilet paper. We are the people who have yelled at each other more often than we have played all those games you might have seen people playing. We are the people who wonder what the limit is MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-23200319404726554012020-03-21T00:45:00.002-04:002020-03-21T00:51:25.752-04:00So Anyway 2How do you say hello again to an old lover?
Do you whisper it, do you slap a noisy kiss on the cheek?
Do you sheepishly wander around the perimeter and hope you are seen?
None of these seems like a good idea. No idea seems good.
So anyway...
The wind is howling outside a new fence, less picket than the old one, but still, here we are. Me and the Kid, and the Three Drunk People, who actually MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-37133437652875318722015-01-19T03:40:00.002-05:002015-01-19T04:13:00.404-05:00Better to DanceDeath should not look like this. It should be solemn and serious. It should be awkwardly hugging and deep and sad: it should not look like the way we made it.
Death, two deaths actually... this family took the word "celebration of lives" to heart. We took that celebration and decided to mean it, to live it, to have it for sure. My brother in law -- his parents died, both of them and just three MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-88363612460644286652014-10-04T00:10:00.000-04:002014-10-04T00:42:43.865-04:00So AnywayHow many years ago did I stop speaking here?
And why?
It's been a while and for a lot of solid reasons. Kids getting older, the world of bloggers getting closer (and weirder), and then there was the whole thing of writing for other people. Anyway, anyhow, I missed this. Well, I miss at least the way that this was meant to be: a daily tell, a therapeutic wee story, just that. Nothing more.
I MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-80576000226741735912011-11-14T00:05:00.016-05:002012-11-01T02:07:14.107-04:00Grown Up Now\\\
MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-71687036165874268672011-11-08T19:54:00.001-05:002011-11-08T21:15:49.087-05:00Take the Ride?Let me begin by saying that this was a roller coaster kind of a day -- well, if a roller coaster only went downhill. For miles. For endless screaming miles. Into wet rain and then lava. And mud. Today was like a roller coaster into mud, very muddy, grumpy, bitchy, horrible muddy mud.
It started out with me finally scoring the new Iphone because I must tell that girl Siri to do my bidding. I'm MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-16923378334465649202011-10-31T20:36:00.010-04:002011-11-01T01:37:52.593-04:00Overheard on HalloweenI have an axe in my candy bowl and play spooky music out the window.
I wear a mask and hide in wait. With beer.
(Beer's for me, duh.) (Or anyone brave enough to ask.) ( Holla Beth!)
Anyhoo, here's a snippet of Halloween in Small Town, which is perhaps one of the few in MA that enjoyed it without snow:
"I am a grown-up dressed up to look like a kid because I am a grown up who wants candy but MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1222196197085256185.post-5356574118107571352011-10-24T21:41:00.004-04:002011-10-24T22:28:04.391-04:00An Open Letter To Toilet PaperDear Toilet Paper,It is obvious you despise me. You are never around when I need you! But when my kids do, or my husband?Good god, man, I coming running with you. We race off together and shove you through the crack in the door.I always felt like we were a team.Lately, not so much.I think you are saving your succulent tissue for other bathrooms, because hell bells! You are never in mine. I call MsPicketToYouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12304288663203185972noreply@blogger.com1