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Posts Tagged ‘Stephen King’

Cleaning the fish bowls

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on January 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

If only cleaning my home were as easy as cleaning the fish bowls.  Granted, by writing this post, I’m delaying the cleaning of Captain Jack Sparrow’s bowl and Cretaceous’ bowl, but the point is still valid.  It’s a simple process and the results are immediate and bring happiness to the residents.

The problem remains that we have too much stuff.  We’re not hoarders-yet.  We’re pack rats.  We just hang on to stuff that we do not need.  This Christmas, hubby got a new coffee maker.  He actually wanted to keep the old one…just in case.  We have a lot of just in case items.  Two televisions down in the family room-that no one ever watches.  To be fair, there are other issues with the family room.  Two of our senior (read-lots of accidents) pets live down there so we don’t do much with the room.  The pets are old, they can’t help it.  But I digress…we are the proud owners of only one coffee maker.

Stuff.  How did we get this much stuff?  Why do we keep acquiring more?  I just don’t know.  Broken typewriters…really?  Do we need it?  Why don’t I simply bring it to the drop off place?  Part of it is time.  In the evenings, I want to be with my boys.  The trick would be to do the cleaning with the boys.  It would help them learn to let go of stuff that you don’t need or that is broken.

But even beyond the stuff that should actually be easy to get rid of, we have a lot of stuff.  I can’t decide about all of the stuff, because a lot of it is my hubby’s stuff.  The boys have purged toys, yet they could get rid of even more.  Now some might say I don’t need every Stephen King book in hard cover and paperback, but we can keep some things.  I feel like my Uncle Stevie books balance out the 40+ Concentration games my hubby has in his collection.

Bit by bit…foot by foot…inch by inch…simplicity will be mine.  We just painted the bathroom.  Ironically, that’s the second time since we’ve moved into our home that we’ve decorated the bathroom.  This time we let the boys pick the theme-dinosaurs.  I know, you’re shocked.  It looks good.  I want to repaint most of the house and rip down the paneling in the stairway (yep, house built in the late 60s/early 70s-you should see my golden harvest kitchen appliances!).  I have told myself that I can’t do any of the “fun” stuff till I do the icky stuff-the fun stuff will be my reward.

But tonight I clean fish bowls.

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Fireworks in 2011

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on December 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »

We spent the last day of 2011 hanging around, doing little projects, and simply being together.  McDonald’s for the boys and Lim Fong’s for us.  Friends marathon in the dvd player all day.  Reorganized my Stephen King bookshelves.  Then my favorite part of New Year’s Eve-watching the fireworks from the comfort of our own home.

I love our house.  It’s got a lot of great stuff for a family.  One of the coolest things about our house though is being able to watch the fireworks from any of our front windows.  We sat there saying “ooooh” and “aaah” and for fun, “eew”, “eehh” and other various groaning noises.  The boys sat together watching with my hubby and I next to them.  This is a grand tradition.  As good as the Mummers.  With warmth and a decent bathroom only steps away, for me, it’s even better than the Mummers.  Plus there’s no crowd.

Happy New Year’s to all!  See you in 2012!

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Sounds of chaos

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on October 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

One of the greatest sounds in the world is hearing your son using a walkie-talkie to talk to his friend across the street.  Thanks to the ALCS, Terra Nova is delayed.  The boys are cleaning up the never-ending supply of Legos, but also chatting with their friend across the street.  The conversation is not that interesting (M, is that you?…Yes, it’s me.  Is that you, H?…Yes, are we gonna talk or what?) but that’s not the point.  It’s so very The Body aka Stand by Me.  They could be following the train tracks looking for their first dead body.  It is one of the sounds of chaos in my home.

Another sound tonight is the vacuum.  I love vacuuming.  I simply don’t get to do it as often as I’d like to.  I have an awesome vacuum, lots of attachments.  It does an awesome job on the stairs.  Even sucks up Legos.  A tough lesson for my sons, but one that helps them to learn to pick the bloody things up.  I used to avoid the Legos when I was vacuuming, but it took a lot of extra time.  Plus, there were always more Legos the next time I vacuumed.   I also know there will always be more Legos to be had.

Another sound of chaos is the whining and barking of our 12-year-old lab.  He’s a good dog.  He’s simply old.  He’s got issues.

Ah, the grand slam ended the game (don’t ask me which teams were playing, I didn’t notice).  I did notice that my sons used the time to be kids.  One talking on the walkie-talkie and the other starting a new book about the Jersey Devil.  I hope they are enjoying their childhoods.  They grow out of them too quickly.  You have to have the great childhood adventures while you’re a child.  Soon enough, you start having real life butting its ugly head into the picture and the fun and freedom of childhood disappears in a puff of smoke.

That’s why I’m making a clown costume and a Headless Horseman costume.  That’s why they dig holes in the backyard looking for dinosaur fossils.  That’s why they listen to stories about the Jersey Devil.

I love watching Terra Nova with them.  I love that it’s on the same time Little House on the Prairie was on when I was a kid.  Yes, it’s a different frontier and the wild beasts are a bit more dramatic, but it is sort of like Little House meets Land of the Lost.  Only there aren’t any sleestak. 

The house of chaos continues to thrive.

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It’s the most macabre time of the year!

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

Ah, the days are growing shorter.  The leaves are falling and creating wonderful foley sound effects under our feet.  We’re almost done our annual battle with our lawn.  Yes, it’s autumn.  Time to decorate our home to resemble the Addams Family house and show our creepiness and kookiness a bit more freely.  Halloween costume choices have been finalized and it’s time to start sewing.

This year we’ll have a clown with really deep pockets that can store all of the clown’s fun toys.  Our oldest wants to stock the pockets with a rubber chicken, a horn, a water-squirting flower, the whole classic repertoire of clown classics.  My hubby will dress as the Ring Master of the circus and introduce the clown’s act.  The only thing that will be missing is a tiny car.

For the more macabre child, we will be creating a Headless Horseman, complete with horse (made out of a wagon) and covered bridge that he never quite crosses.  I will be the covered bridge, pulling the horse-wagon, and he will ride atop it in all his headless glory.  At least he’ll have a mode of transportation for when he gets tired after the fourth house.

I love Halloween.  Probably because my birthday is close to it and I always had Halloween themed birthday parties.  People at work threw me a lovely surprise party last year for my 40th-complete with macabre theme, telling me 40 isn’t so scary!  I love the creepiness that oozes its way in to the every day come autumn.  Perhaps it is because the leaves are dying, the earth is shutting down for the long winter.  The animals hibernate, having stocked up for the cold, and the nights are no longer filled with the sound of the summer symphony but rather the eerie stillness of nothing.

The fog we’ve had the past few mornings has been lovely, except for the impact it is having on my bloody commute.  It’s only fog, people, keep driving.  Last week was Uncle Stevie’s birthday and Jersey celebrated with fog in the morning and a gray, drizzly afternoon.  Perfect weather for his special day.

Scary movies get pulled out of the vaults to scare the masses.  Michael Jackson’s Thriller will be played in heavy rotation.  And Charlie Brown will tell us once again that he got a rock.  Ah, tradition.  One year, our sons got to meet the Great Pumpkin.  We went to a pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins and one of the boys sat down on a pumpkin, with a thoughtful look on his face.  I asked what he was thinking and he told me this was a very sincere pumpkin patch and that the Great Pumpkin was sure to visit it.  We were invited back for Halloween to see if he showed up, and sure enough, the Great Pumpkin visited that very sincere pumpkin patch.  How cool is that?

Another great thing for our sons is that our neighborhood is old-school.  The boys get to trick or treat at a good number of houses and I don’t have to worry about the people giving them candy.  We know them.  The town has a curfew at 8:00pm that night (and on Tic Tac Night, too…though most call it Mischief Night nowadays).  Once the boys are a little older, not much, probably next year, I’ll let them soap up our windows and toilet paper our tree.  Ah, tradition.

There is a tree in the middle of an intersection in the town my husband grew up in and every year for as long as he’s known, the tree gets covered with toilet paper on either Tic Tac or Halloween night (I can’t recall which).  It blows in the wind and we see it the next Sunday on our way to church.  It’s a grand tradition, one that I hope never ends.  It doesn’t harm anything, TP is biodegradable.  A tradition that recently ended was the mystery visitor at Edgar Allan Poe’s grave.  The current theory is that the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009 was the last time, as the mystery visitor was a no-show in 2010 and 2011.  I wish that tradition could have lived on.  I had never attended it, but I know there were regulars who witnessed it each year.  The person would sneak in, place the roses in the pattern and drink the cognac toast, a fitting tribute for one of the masters of macabre.

There are several other events I hope to experience that are traditional at this time of year.  There’s the fun over at Eastern State Penitentiary, but my boys are still underage.  Then there are the festivities in Tarrytown, home of the Headless Horseman.  Those both can be enjoyed on various days leading up to Halloween because until my sons tell me they don’t want to trick or treat, I will happily make their costumes.  One of my happiest jobs as a mother.  Even when they stop dressing up, I probably still will.  It’s just too much fun.  And a little creepy.

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Summer Cicada Symphony

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on July 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The sounds of the cicada were so loud on the way home tonight.  As I drove through campus toward the main exit, their noise filled my car, coming in through the open windows faster than the warm, muggy air could go out of them.  Even as I drove home on the six lane interstate highway, the chirping filled my car.  Their pulsating rhythmic sounds created an eerie mood for the sultry night.  In my mind’s eye I could see them swarming, about to attack my car and me, although they are not truly locusts.  Their song bounced back and forth between the trees lining the highway, a sound man’s dream for background noise in a movie by Uncle Stevie.

I thought of how many exoskeletons were in the trees surrounding my path home and how my sons would love to collect the hundreds that must be there.  Our yard only yields a humble crop of them, this year even fewer because of the many trips up and down the Japanese Maple tree during the boys’ summer adventures.  My sons enjoy collecting the discarded skins and creating little habitats for them, just as I did when I was young.

The saddest part of the cicada’s song is that it trumpets the passage of time.  They are singing even as I write this filling my ears with the hypnotic blast announcing the arrival of the dog days of summer.  Summer session is halfway over and back-to-school fliers are arriving in the mail.  Soon I’ll have the annual urge to buy school supplies for myself…just because through my work I’ve never stopped following the school calendar.  I’ll crave a new notebook and binder, a fun folder, and cool pencils.  I’ll want a new backpack, even though I have never used a backpack (messenger bags and the like are more my style).  I’ll start humming the old song, “School days, school days, dear old Golden Rule days….”

But tonight I’ll embrace the song of the cicada.  I’ll crack open my bedroom window, ignoring the muggy heat of this July night, and listen to the symphony of nature until it lulls me to sleep.

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Chopped Liver

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on July 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I don’t know how it happened.  I do know when it happened.  This is the summer of my discontent.  My sons have taken the first step to independence and I have become chopped liver.  Their world was parent-centric.  Now it’s play-outside-all-day-and-what-do-you-mean-I-have-to-come-in-centric.

Yes, I’m happy for them.  Yes, it’s means they’re growing up just like we want them to, with independence and confidence.  Yes, it means so many wonderful things.

But, first I’m going to have myself a bit of a pity party.

Where are my babies?

Okay, pity party’s over.  What an exciting time.  Yeah, yeah, for them, but I mean for me and my hubby.  We could pick up our hobbies again.  Heck, I’ve already been cast in a show.  I’m going to rehearsal tomorrow and the boys have to come with me, instead of me going with them.  My husband and I have had actual conversations in the recent weeks.  Conversation that were uninterrupted by “Mom, he’s touching me.”  I’ve been completing whole thoughts all at once.  I’ve been working on house projects, including catching up on Hugh Laurie and House.  I’ve done, dare I write it, reading for FUN and the book was a grown-up book with no pictures.  I’m current in the grading for my summer class.

While it is hard to think that the early childhood years have almost passed, it is invigorating to know that the early work took hold.  Our sons are getting it.  No, not perfectly-we really need to work on that talking back to your mother thing-but they are problem solving, compromising, sharing, thinking of others, and having fun with their friends.  They have entered that time of their life when they have secrets that mean the world that they forget the following week.  They make secret clubs and handshakes.  They can do anything, be anything.  It’s the time of youth when everyday objects hold magical powers, the days are never long enough, and the plans they make will really happen.   This summer marks the beginning of one of the best times of their lives and, oh my sweet sons, I am so happy for you.

It’s like the summer in It when the six of them first battle It.  Okay, I don’t hope that my sons end up in the bowels of the sewers battling a monster so hideous one can only call it It, but this is like that summer.  The summer of innocence when a child can still believe in monsters and the tooth fairy.  This won’t be their only summer like this, they’ll have four or five more, but this is the first one for them.  One of the boys they play with (an older boy, he’s 11) is in his last summer of innocence.  You can see it changing for him.  Some days he can completely suspend disbelief, other days he struggles and usually goes home.  The summers of suspension of disbelief.  They’re awesome.

My job now is to let them have their grand adventures.  To let them believe.  To quickly bandage their scrapes so they can back out there.  To hug them when their feelings are hurt and they’re never going to talk to so-and-so again (at least till they’re back outside talking to so-and-so again).  I’ve got to say, it hurts just a wee bit to let them have the space and time away from the “safety” of home.  But only until one of them runs in to get a toy, and pauses to come to me, wrap his arms around me, and say, “I love you, Mom.”  Then the hurt is not so bad.

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What about Bob?

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , on June 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

OCD can be a blessing and a curse.  My talent for alphabetizing is truly neat and I catch little mistakes that probably wouldn’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things, but in my line of work these two things do come in handy.  Catching the little mistakes more so, but if I do ever decide to pursue the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” path and become a librarian, both will be truly purposeful.  I am glad that my boss really appreciates my ability to catch most errors (not all, I’m not perfect).  When I do miss one, I actually question myself-how could I have missed that? It was so obvious!

It’s a curse when you live with the three stooges who do not possess the same affection for order or organization.  But on my journey for self-improvement, I try to remember it is me stuck on this need.  It does get in the way at times because sometimes you simply cannot be ritualistic about order, which is my natural desire.  A place for everything and everything in its place.  I also like to keep to the schedule I set forth each day.  Obviously with two young boys, I’ve had to adapt.  I have a few new things I do that I can control and they help.

I get an everything bagel four days a week at work.  I don’t get the bagel on Friday because it’s early closing at the moment (so very nice) but also I prefer things in even numbers.  Messiest bagel out there, but I always check for poppy seeds after I finish and I’m mindful not to get seeds and such on my desk.  I put the cream cheese on it the same way each time and cut each half in half the same way.  It sets the day to a pleasant tone.  The nice ladies in the cafeteria set one aside for me now Monday through Thursday in case I can’t down till a little later in the morning.  I also found the bagel balances my blood sugar nicely throughout the day.

I’m following a regular bedtime.  It’s really early for me…11:30…and it’s starting to feel like that’s late!  It helps me to let go at night.  I’m no longer staying up randomly trying to finish one more thing.  It’s helped with simplicity-setting simple goals for each day and accepting that they may not all be achieved.  It also helps me to enjoy my time after I get home from work more.  It relaxes me knowing that the day will in fact end and I’ll be able to rest.

Another ritual that has returned is reading Stephen King again before I go to sleep.  The old friends are nice to reconnect with and a reader always brings something new to the text, so many are like brand new stories.  I’ve also been reading at work.  It’s been a goal to read research articles and such and I’ve actually been doing it.  Today, my head was simply swimming with wonderful information, but I then had to follow it to some kind of end, which there wasn’t a neat and tidy ending to get to and this created frustration.

The newest obsession is developing my personal philosophy, theology, understanding of my place in this world, and the calling put out for me.  It’s stalled at the moment, or it feels stalled.  I’ve plateaued and I’m not sure where to go next.  I’m in the zone of proximal development and I need the More Knowledgeable Other to scaffold me to the next level (yes, my inner geek comes out!).  So I will read the good book and see what I can discover in the Word.  Then I will read Uncle Stevie and fall asleep around 11:30.  Compulsive rituals are not always a bad thing.

Something I have noticed as I tweak my use time from fungible to epochal (yeah, go look ’em like I had to) is that I share so much more with my family.  My youngest was out in the back yard the other day, using nothing but pure imagination.  It was one of the most beautiful things I have been blessed to watch.  He was talking away to the trees, the dirt, or himself.  I don’t know who he was talking to, but he was having a grand time.  It was pure childhood joy not being interrupted or interfered with.  In letting go of the human constructs of time, I saw these moments he was having in discovering himself within the world.

I am finally finding a balance and a positive way to use the OCD.  Like Bob in What About Bob?, it’s baby steps.  Baby steps every day.

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My Lunch with Uncle Stevie

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , on February 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Picture the classic Jersey diner. Not one of the ones that tries to make an impression but one of the greasy spoon mom and pop joints. You know the menu-every breakfast item comes with hash browns. Lots of open-faced sandwiches smothered in gravy. Homemade soups.  Now imagine the corner booth with the duct tape covering the cracks in the vinyl. That’s where Uncle Stevie and I will be sitting while we discuss various observations from life. My hope is that we’ll start with comparing stories about our children. This will lead to why I can no longer read Pet Sematary. While all of his stories can give one the heebie-jeebies, what happens to the little boy could happen in real life (not being brought back to life in an Indian burial ground gone bad but being run over by an 18 wheeler) which makes it unreadable now that I am the mother of two small boys. Meanwhile, Cujo is fine. I’m not likely to be trapped by a rabid Saint Bernard at my mechanic’s place of business. He doesn’t even have a dog there. One of the mechanics we used to use always left me with an unsettled feeling. It wasn’t until recently that I realized why…it matched the setting in Cujo. They might have had a Saint Bernard.

After we catch up on the kids, I’d have to do the thank you. Thank you for It. “One for the Road.” Cell. The wonderful short stories. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

The scariest book in my opinion is the novella Apt Pupil. This one haunts me and I can only read it every few years. Each time I read it there are new things to be afraid of. Why? The Reader, the Text and the Poem. I bring new life experiences to it and the world keeps adding new experiences of hate, evil incarnate, to bring to this terrifying tale of the all American boy.  Uncle Stevie is wonderfully talented at creating characters the reader cares about and becomes emotionally invested in. He weaves a story with detail that is real enough to see in the mind’s eye. He captures the creepy nature of the human experience so vividly that one can explore the dark underbelly of existence from a safe distance. Apt Pupil shines a bright light on that underbelly.

Most of his stories also contain hope. None so beautifully as Shawshank (“I hope…”) but readers hope things turn out all right for the characters because they grow to care about them.

I remember seeing Misery at a movie theater while living in Philly. After going through the metal detectors, I bought my goodies and found a seat toward the back in the middle section. I settled in, knowing I was safe enough because the security guard who checked my purse said I could keep my pepper spray, and watched in darkness as Kathy Bates worked her creepiness. As the movie was nearing the end, the audience had really become invested and we were all screaming for James Caan to beat her with the pig (sorry, Kathy, but you were just that good at being bad). You won’t shout at the screen unless you care about the characters.

There are two things about my relationship with Uncle Stevie that some folks think are odd. First, when I can’t sleep, I read from one of the short story collections and it calms me so I can fall asleep. People tell me that when they read Uncle Stevie they can’t fall asleep. I think his stories, particularly his short stories, help me to sleep because I have read them so many times they are like old friends. My copies of Night Shift and Skeleton Crew are well worn and bring me comfort, with the newer collections quickly becoming worn as well. “One for the Road,” “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French,” “I Know What You Need,” “The Jaunt,”and “The Mangler” bring warmth to me, make me feel cozy all snuggled up in my bed. Clearly my life is going way better than the characters’ lives so I relax and fall asleep. The only thing that has surprised me is that “Quitters, Inc.” never made me quit. You would think that it would have worked…

The second thing some people don’t understand is why there are a select number of his books on the top of my Uncle Stevie shrine. These are the books I’ve banked. One day he will really retire. One day he won’t write another story. One day he won’t write another word for the public. The books on the top of the shelf are for that day. Then I’ll ration them so I will still have about ten years of discovering new stories and new friends. It could be a sickness…we’re not sure yet.

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