old men

Not much is happening over here at Reproducing Genius. I’m still taking photos off of the back balcony. The latest are of our old man. Yes, we have an old man. He lives in the building next to ours. He’s cranky and mean. He hates most people under 40. Our old man likes to sit on his back porch in the morning, facing our apartment and the sun. Every morning that the sun is out, he is there, sitting. He sits there for hours. He does nothing but sit and soak up the sun and sleep. Here he is through the slats on our balcony: 

 

This old man often sleeps on his deck during his hours of sun. There have been many days when we have been concerned that he died because he is so still. On these days, we may or may not make large noises on our balcony to wake him.

Our other old man–our cat Pierre–loves to hang out on this man’s porch. It’s as though he knows they have something in common.

Because we have been home so much lately, our cats are a source of both entertainment and frustration. We have mentioned before that in our old home, all of the cats gladly went outside regularly. They loved their yard and their garden. Here, only Pierre–our ten-year-old boy cat–will go out regularly. He does love it. He catches lizards, hangs out on the old man’s porch, makes his rounds at the pool, and greets tenants as they come home. Everyone knows Pierre here. Oftentimes, when we meet a new person at our apartment complex, he or she will know Pierre or that we’re Pierre’s moms. We often hear people getting out of their cars or taking out the trash say, “Hi Pierre!” He’s very popular.

Lately, he has taken to sitting on the railing outside of our kitchen window when he wants in. This is two stories up, so it makes me a little nervous, but it’s funny:

     

His face still makes me melt after all these years.

In the interest of entertaining us all, I challenge you to caption the photo below. I will post the winner(s) tomorrow.

Stay tuned for more crazy cat lady posts.

omg! omg!

This very deserving woman has had some very good news. Congratulations, Cali!

my summer in purgatory

I know, I know. This blog isn’t what it should be right now. If you’ve noticed my tendency to move quickly from drama and emotion to boring as hell, you’re not alone. I see it. I know. The problem comes from nothing new to say about wanting to have a baby. I can say over and over how bad it hurts, how much I want it, how much this break sucks, how insensitive people are, how difficult it is to be an aunt before a mom. You’ve seen me go on and on about any combination of those subjects many a time. But at what point does it just get dull? I’ll tell you when: when I post pictures of the animals I see from my balcony. Sure, they’re beautiful and majestic and all, but damn.

The problem is that I have nothing new to discuss on the subject of trying to build our family. J and I are quite settled into our summer routine of doing nearly nothing. We’re hoping like hell for October to come quickly (October is when we finally begin to get paid for teaching our fall classes) and for that first insemination to be magical and for me to be pregnant. At this point in time, when we’re so far away from it, it’s hard to feel positive about any of this. I mean, how many months will we have to throw money down the toilet once we start paying for sperm? Bleh. But I’m not really in the mood to complain or to go to that hopeless place. It is summer after all.

I feel like my whole life is on hold right now. I feel like I’m waiting to teach, waiting to get pregnant and start our family, waiting for my real life to begin. Fuck, I’m even waiting for my hair to grow to a length that isn’t hideous. My life is a big wait right now. Yet I have no choice but to continue waiting in this weird baby-less, ugly-haired purgatory where I’m tempted to drink too much wine, eat too much food, and indulge my unhealthy side far too much. For that, we have farmer’s market this evening, which I wouldn’t exactly call unhealthy, but it does encourage the consumption of good wine, decadent cheese, and even more decadent chocolate. Considering J and I have been on salads for lunch and dinner all week, I don’t think I need to feel guilty about a little indulgence. And at least it will help pass the time. That’s just the thing, though. I’m tired of just passing time until real life begins. I want now to feel like my real life, but until our baby is at least on its way, I don’t think now is going to feel any more real.

i spy

J went out onto our back balcony today and immediately began tapping like crazy on the glass door. I peaked out and saw this:

Within moments, these two babies joined up with their mom:

We have the most wonderful time viewing wildlife from our balcony. We essentially live in the suburbs, but the property our apartment is on backs up to a creek complete with trees and shrubs and roaming grounds for our wild turkeys and now a family of deer. I love it.

a slice of sunday

This morning, J and I overslept and missed UU. Although we regretted missing it, the morning has been such a peaceful one. While I sat on the sofa looking at home furnishings catalogs, J read me this weekend’s film reviews, and we laughed. The cats lounged around with us as we drank our coffee and watched the sun begin to filter in as the fog burned away. When I began to munch on watermelon, our cat Cleo became interested in the aroma. She licked at a piece that I held in my hand until she had her fill.

more on not “getting it”

The great thing about you guys is even when no one else seems to get it, you do. It was interesting yesterday when J told me she wanted to write because I had wanted to write that post and couldn’t. Each time I thought about it, I felt sick. The past few days I have been bursting into tears unexpectedly quite often, but the incident at my parents’ house was the most surprising. I’m usually the strong, stoic person in the family. I am the one that everyone can lean on, the one who lets comments and situations roll off her shoulders, so suddenly bursting into tears in front of everyone and running out of the room was pretty out of the norm for me. In fact, I was fairly embarrassed that I had such an outburst, but there was no controlling it. Being called a non-parent in a room full of parents was my tipping point.

I should let you know that my step-dad is not really a monster. He is a man who can say insensitive things because he doesn’t think about them, but had he known how much being called nonparents would hurt us, had he thought about it, he wouldn’t have said it. He apologized multiple times. He does love us, and he’s looking forward to us having kids; he simply is one of those people who blurts things out without thinking. When I was a teenager, this was a bone of contention between us because I was such a sensitive girl.  He’s a complicated and often compassionate guy who helped me recover from the abuse of my mom’s second husband and the neglect of my own father (her first husband). (As you can see, I’ve always had bad luck with men; no wonder I find more comfort with women.) Anyway, my step-dad is not a bad man; he’s just a man, and many men, in my experience, lack the verbal hygiene that we women have. They don’t take the care that we women often do to spare people’s feelings. However, this is not any excuse for what he said. What he said hurt like hell. It sucked.

My mom, on the other hand, was so sweet to us. She came and hugged both of us. She cried and told us she hurt for us, that it wasn’t fair that we didn’t have a baby yet. She told us that we’re going to be amazing moms and that we will have our family. And then she said the funniest thing through her tears: “I would grow a baby on a tree for you if I could.” I’m not sure what that means, but it sure was sweet. My mom knows we’re hurting beyond belief; she knows we want more than anything to be moms, and I know she feels helpless amidst all of this because she can’t do anything about it (hence the baby tree comment).

I think when it comes down to it, none of my family members in that room on that day could really understand how we felt. Each one of them had their families with quite a bit of ease and swiftness. My mom got pregnant  with me shortly after she was married when she was only 21; my step-dad and his first wife had their child pretty quickly after they got married; my sister got pregnant by “accident.” None of them knows that ache that comes with not having a child, and as a result, I think it’s inevitable that insensitive remarks will slip out of their mouths from time to time because they can’t even comprehend what this must be like for us. That doesn’t make it any easier when they do say these things, but it does help us prepare.

Today, I’m feeling a little better. My period started yesterday and with it came the release of the crazies (poor J). We went to see Mama Mia and ate a lot of popcorn and candy. The movie was fun, but Pierce Brosnan is perhaps the worst singer in the world. We came home and finished watching Season 2 of Big Love. Sometimes sitting in front of screens all day and eating unhealthy snacks is the best way to endure the period crazies.

When even the family doesn’t get it

J here for my quarterly post. As T said, we’ve been spending lots of time with her family (our family really), especially her sister and new baby. I must admit that I’ve been having lots of feelings I don’t quite know what to do with regarding her situation. I love sis and new baby, but it’s really, really hard sometimes too–seeing T hold a baby with such ease like its the most natural thing in the world; holding her myself and thinking “yes, this is what it should be like” only to realize this is not my baby and who knows when I’ll get to do this myself. Blah, blah, blah. Yes, I feel sorry for myself and a bit jealous sometimes too. However, I’m learning to deal with those feelings and to enjoy being an aunt.

Still, there’s this hollowness that permeates my soul, this space carved out for our baby and no little one there to fill it. We’re childless mothers, and boy does it hurt to the core of my being. T has been so good about it, though I know she feels that emptiness in her as well.  We talk a lot about being mothers and what kind of mothers we want to be. There’s an acquaintance of ours that has a new baby and a five year old son. This woman, while very nice, seems to yell at her son a lot. I mean a lot, and about everything. It makes me cringe. Anyway, she wants us to go camping with her and her family, but we’re reticent because we really don’t like the yelling. Anyway, when T’s parents came home, we found ourselves discussing this issue. We know that parents don’t like advice or criticism from others about their parenting. In fact, it seems uniquely American to defend one’s parenting skills while requiring no help from anyone, not family, friends, or experts. But what Americans really hate is anyone offering advice who is not or has never been a parent. HOW DARE WE!

I guess then what happened the other night shouldn’t have come as any surprise. Not long after we discussed the yelling mom issue, T’s step dad made an off-handed comment that pierced a very sore spot. He was doing this weird thing with the baby where he would put her pacifier in her mouth, and as soon as she would start to calm down and fall asleep, he’d pull it out, and sure enough, the baby would start howling. He did this several times even though the baby was fussy and cranky. Then he turned to us and said, “See, this is where non-parents like you would accuse me of being abusive.”

Thud.

The only thing I could think to say was “I don’t think you should refer to us as “non parents.” But before I could even get that lame statement out of my mouth, T was off the couch and running out of the room in tears.

Non parents. Wow. That’s what we are to those in the parenting club. Not “aspiring parents” or “parents-to-be”, but non-parents, non-entities who have no right to even talk about child rearing. God, that sucked.

So, I went after T, and we had a good cry. Her mom came in the room and she cried too because she was reminded in all of her bliss over being a grandma that there was one of her children who was miserable and needed some understanding. The step dad apologized, though I’m not sure he understood why his statement was so hurtful. We went to bed that night and cried for a good hour. You know, that kind of crying that has no bottom and doesn’t make you feel good afterwards? Yeah, sometimes even the people you love the most just don’t get it.

We are not “non” anythings. We’re childless mothers walking around with big fucking holes in our lives–gaping empty vortices that ache and throb every second of every day. I ended the night with a plea:  “Please God, give us our baby.”

mess

We’re home, and I’m a PMS monster. I am an emotional mess. Ugh. Where oh where is that cabin of mine?

a list of updates

I can’t think cohesively (or coherently) today, so here’s a list:

• J came in from watering our container garden moments ago and handed me three beautiful ripe cherry tomatoes. They are sweet and juicy and wonderful, and we grew them here! In our old hometown, no tomatoes could be grown outside of a greenhouse because it took months for the fruit to come on, and by the time they were almost ripe, the hard freezes came. I can’t count the number of times we were stupid enough to try to grow tomatoes, but now we can. It’s lovely. One day, we’ll have a garden, and we’ll be able to plant lots of them.
• I am trying to fight a urinary tract infection. I’m in the very beginning stages of it, and through copious amounts of water consumption, I may be winning, but I’m afraid it might be time for me to take some antibiotics. Luckily, we have a surplus of antibiotics for this very ailment.
• We’re taking yet another trip to my parents’ house today. They’ve been on this amazing Alaska adventure which combined a cruise and a land tour. We’ll pick them up from the airport tomorrow, and we’ll likely see our niece again. Hopefully we won’t have to see the manchild. I am, however, not looking forward to the mess manchild may have left in my parents’ house while he and my sister stayed there over the past couple of days. Last time, there were beer cans and cigarette butts everywhere outside. He is such trash.
• I have been getting surges of anxiety when I think about school. We’re just over a month away from the beginning of the school year. We’re both teaching at new colleges. I have a class I’m teaching at 7am. I will have to leave the house by 6am each morning. Holy shit. It’s too soon. I need to think summery thoughts again to distract myself.
• It is mid-July, and we have not gone camping. Not once. We need to go camping. Soon.
• I fucked up my NaBloPoJuly attempts this past weekend, but spending time with friends was more important than just about anything else, so I forgive myself.

Good Medicine

Our dear friends stayed with us until about 5pm yesterday, when we had to send them on their way. We’re lucky right now in that they are working just two and a half hours north of us for the entire summer, so the trip wasn’t difficult, and we got a bonus day with them yesterday out of it.

These are our oldest friends. J has known our friend, Mr. H, for longer than she’s known me. Once J and I got together, Mr. H was heartbroken. He had been in love with J, and he was so jealous of us. After a short period of mourning, he dealt with it, and he and I became great friends. He and I can talk about the craziest things; we bond over fixing things. He’s just great, and for years, he was almost always present in our lives. For years, he was even going to be our sperm donor (obviously, this changed later on). In 2000, he met the soon-to-be Mrs. H, and she turned out to be the most fabulous person in the world for him–and for our friendship. She just fit right in with our wacky conversations and ability to laugh for hours. Mr. H performed our commitment ceremony in 2001, and Mrs. H helped me cater it. A year later, I was their wedding photographer.

After they got married, things did change for awhile, as friendships do. They had straight married friends to whom they were growing closer, so we didn’t see them very often. They also came into quite a bit of money, and that changed them. We had some rocky times. However, each summer, we’d go camping and find ourselves again and laugh until we cried and our bellies ached the next day. As things continued to change, Mrs. H became an integral member of our ladies’ poker club. Mr. H would bring us fresh salmon anytime he caught it. We weren’t as close, but we still had fun. When we moved, these friends took some time to realize it was actually happening, and when they did realize it, they were stunned and sad. They were there with us in the last days a few times, and when we went back to clean, they insisted we stay with them. They take care of us.

We hadn’t seen them since that night when we stayed at their house, so this weekend, was a great treat. Mrs. H was recently diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, but she’s found this great holistic nurse/accupuncturist to help her through it (her doctors just wanted to keep her on hard core steroids and antibiotics), so she’s got this crazy diet, but we had fun  making our way through that this weekend. She was so excited that we were able to make her dinner without altering our own too much (incidentally, it was skewered grilled shrimp and chicken breast marinated with lots of our own fresh basil; a grilled medley of farmer’s market squash–later baked to make it super soft for her–with a couple of drops of sesame oil and some tamari; and white rice). Food was actually a great focus all weekend. We all ate too much.

The greatest thing about this weekend was the laughter. We had so many amazing moments. We sat in the park on Saturday and had a picnic while we told stories. Mrs. H told us about a time when she was a teenager when her dad decided she and her brother needed to wear helmets when in the car with him. We laughed and laughed. Later, we sat around our house and our cat, Pierre brought us all a live lizard. Much chaos ensued, as did more laughter.  We spent the majority of the weekend laughing and laughing while holding our bellies and letting the tears stream down our faces. This is what we do.

J and I needed this, and we could tell that they needed it too. We used to live just a few blocks away from each other, so when we had the itch to see one another, we’d call up or drop by, and we’d suddenly be having a barbecue and a bonfire. It’s hard not to be able to do that with them. They told us they drive by our old house all the time wishing they could stop in.

I think this weekend confirmed for us all that we’ll be the sort of friends who will last forever, who will get together in twenty years and still laugh as hard and still love each other as much. I didn’t know if I’d ever have that because I’ve never been great at keeping friends. In some ways, too, this was permission for J and I to move on with some new friendships as well. We don’t have to forget the old to bring in the new; we just have to be open to it all.

J and I are left feeling somehow revived this week. Our friends brought a little piece of us back, and they helped us bless our new home with love and laughter. Oh, how we’ve needed this.