I have a lot of balls in the air right now. Other people (my husband included) might say (or snap) that it’s too many, but I can’t quite bring myself to put it in such negative terms. I’m having fun, buzzing from activity to activity, trying to keep up with myself. It feels good.

It feels like a lot, too.

Take today, for example. There was cookie baking in the morning. I mixed up a double batch of peanut butter cookie dough, baked lemon sweetie pies, baked a freaking multitude of gingerbread men (to be decorated later), and started some anise-fig-date swirls that I couldn’t finish because I have no anise in the house—duh. I baked bread and mixed up another batch. I served three little munchkins some lunch. I planned supper (for the curious among you: honey-baked chicken, rice, brussel sprouts, a fennel-cabbage-carrot slaw). Now, the kitchen cleaned up and the kids resting, I’m tapping away at my keyboard, getting some much-craved writing time.

(Large bunny trail: when I type, I pound on my laptop keys, which irks Mr. Handsome to no end. My kids, on the other hand, touch the keys so gently you can hardly even tell they are pressing down. Their approach to the keyboard is so totally different from me and my loud tap-whacks that I’ve come up with a theory: I was trained to attack the bloomin’ keyboard because I learned to type on a manual typewriter. You’re familiar with those old, clunky heirlooms, right? The kind where you have to bear down with your whole upper body to get the keys to go down, and with each strike your finger nearly disappears into the bowels of the machine entirely? [That I attack all areas of my life like they need to be conquered is neither relevant NOR up for discussion.] Does this theory of mine hold any water? O, ye of the manual typewriter era, enlighten me, please. Do you pound your words into life? Or is it just me?)

(And, by the way, I’m looking for one or two of those old typewriters. I think they’d make excellent, and useful, toys.)

Now, after writing this afternoon (and drinking coffee and eating chocolate), I’ll need to do some more cooking (that supper I mentioned won’t just make itself) and perhaps do a little jewelry-making. And then I’m off to town to run errands and go to a belly dance class.

Other things that aren’t as visible but that still take up mind space (and time!):
*a novel I’m itching to dive into
*a friend’s phone call and interview of me and then the subsequent article that made me laugh so hard I about peed myself (she beautifully encapsulated my random energy and blabbermouth ways and still managed to flatter me, bless her)
*belly dance workouts in my kitchen
*emails/correspondence/phone calls
*photography (got some books from the library, gonna teach myself some skeels)
*Christmas decorating (because Sweetsie is fussing that everyone else is having Christmas except for us)

See what I mean? It’s a lot of stuff and all of it fun and I don’t know which way to turn. (Except away from the dust and laundry and sticky floors—I’m pretty good at turning away from those.)

So what do you think I did last night when we finally got the kids trundled off to bed and I had a blissfully free evening stretched out before me? I went from sitting in front of the fire to laying in front of the fire, my reading material, unopened, sitting heavy a-top on my chest. The heat, my sore neck (must have slept on it wrong), the silence, they all conspired against me and shipped me off to la-la land.

Which wasn’t a bad thing, because falling asleep in front of the fire is a perfectly seasonal activity, one that should’ve been on the above list all along.

Signed,
Miss Zippy (who occasionally zonks out)

This same time, years previous: baked corn and play areas, scorpions and ritual cleansings

Last night when I was tucking Miss Beccaboo in for bed, she showed me her newly outfitted Anne of Green Gables doll.

She had altered a Barbie doll dress to fit Little Anne.

She proudly showed me how she hemmed it and how the extra length of dress fabric could be used as a shawl.

This morning I took my camera up to her room to document her seamstress abilities (which already far exceed those of my own). While I was up there, I snapped some pictures of her one-of-a-kind decor. It shows you how her mind works, I think.

Behold! A vandalized night-light house with a Santa atop the roof:

Stickered fish swimming in the Atlantic Ocean:

A bridled porcelain duck:

A plastic spider patrolling the bookshelves:

Someone recently asked me if Miss Beccaboo likes to draw. After thinking about it for a minute, I was mildly surprised to realize the answer was no. A couple days later I found out just how right I was when I happened to ask her to draw something and she burst into tears and loudly expressed her hatred of drawing.

She’s a textile girl all the way, that child is. And she loves her fabric.

Which is too bad for her since I detest sewing as much as she detests drawing. Perhaps it’s time for me to barter some sewing lessons for her.

And then I went into her sister’s room and found this bear staring at me.

My kids are weird.

When I came downstairs from my little photo tour, I found the three youngest playing cards in the bathroom: Miss Beccaboo on the lidded toilet seat, Sweetsie on a kitchen chair, and The Baby Nickel on the floor.

“Why are you playing cards in the bathroom?” I asked.

“Because I had to go to the bathroom,” Miss Beccaboo informed me.

My kids really are weird.

This same time, years previous: the selfish game

I’m still a little shocked at myself. I can’t quite believe that I pulled it off last night.

That I went through with it.

That I was able to smile in the face of bright lights and with a whole crowd of people smashed up around my feet.

Gulp.

I think I’m having an identity crisis.

I mean, I had eyebrows for the first time in my eyebrow-less history, for crying out loud! (For all you eyebrow-endowed people who don’t know of what I’m talking—some of us blondies have only invisible fuzz where our eyebrows ought to be. We have eyebrow envy, so getting to sport a set of eyebrows for an evening is wicked awesome. I kept popping my eyes open real wide just for kicks.)

My hair appointment was at five that night—

But wait. I should back up a little and tell you that before the evening even started, I was completely whupped. We had had a dress rehearsal in the morning and when I got home, I was so exhausted, so hungry, and so sore (heels, jutting hips, and stress don’t mix), that I scarfed down a plate of eggs and toast and crashed on the sofa for three hours. When Mr. Handsome came home from work, he took one look at me and ordered me to go soak in a tub of hot, Epsom-salted water. I obeyed.

But maybe I should back up even farther. Do you have any idea what all this talk of hips and heels and stress is about? Have I actually told you the what and why of what I was doing?

Our belly dance group (otherwise known as Wahad Tani, which means “one more”) was asked to perform at a fundraiser for Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. After we danced, there was to be a fashion show (all items made by some super-gifted local-yocals) followed by a silent auction. I was to dance in an outfit that had been designed and made by Rose and then model it in the show.

The event was spear-headed by the best therapist that Yo-Yo ever had, a young woman (who gave me this recipe, and this, and oh, this one, too) who is adamantly opposed to the death penalty. Her father and stepmother were killed by her stepbrother and his friends (you can read one of her statements here—it makes me cry), so she knows firsthand of what she preaches. I adore her. She’s awesome and kind and spunky and wise.

And she assigned me two more outfits to model. It’s a good thing I love her.

So anyhow. That’s how it came to be that at five o’clock last night I was getting my hair spritzed and curled to high heaven.

And that at six I was at a beauty spa getting a set of eyebrows and bright red lips.

We were outrageous. There was tousled hair.

There were ringlets.

There were little braids.

There were half up-dos (or whatever you call them).

And then there was this: the Rod Stewart look.

I don’t know who Rod Stewart is, but everyone else does so I assume you do too and thus can understand the comparison. In any case, she seriously rocked.

We waited downstairs in the restaurant lounge until our 9 o’clock dance time. People kept coming in. The place was filling up before our very (anxious) eyes. At 8:30 we received word that they were no longer letting people in. Suddenly the room was very short on oxygen.

We finally got the call to come upstairs and then—boom—we were on stage.

We danced, we did, did we.

Four whole minutes later, it was over and I was back in the changing room (one posh room, one toilet, forty-plus outfits, 10-plus models, shoes, safety pins, water glasses, adult drinks, and big hair—wow)—belt off, shirt off, snaps and pins undone, leggings on, black cami on, magenta shawl (with a safety pin for good measure), black boots, and then I was standing in the hallway, peeking out around the corner.

What I saw made my heart thud to my feet and all my blood rush to my head. Every inch of the runway was surrounded. And it wasn’t just a nice orderly row of people. No sir. Those people were pressed up against the 14-foot-long, 4-foot-wide black catwalk. They were three, four, five, ten deep, laughing, talking, cheering, whooping.

I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect that. Terror threatening to overwhelm, I did the only thing I knew to do. I marched myself straight up those stairs, stared straight ahead into the lights, smiled, and started walking.

Ho-boy people! Let me tell you, modeling is NOT as easy as it looks. I proceeded to put my hands on the wrong hips at the wrong times, not pause long enough, repeat pivots too many times, and go blind from all the bright flashing lights.

It was an .. an … An Experience. Totally surreal. Wild. Bizarre.

And then—boom—I was back in the changing room, putting on the belly dance costume again and then—boom—out on the runway doing snake arms. Another switcheroo, this time into a green tango/mermaid dress and those black heels—above the announcer’s voice, the music, the crowd, I heard my honey’s catcall.

And then we were all out on the runway in our anti-death penalty t-shirts, grinning and waving and so, so glad it was over.

I joined Mr. Handsome and the other husbands at their table. Mr. Handsome brought me a margarita. I took one long sip, felt my eyes cross, and announced, “I need food.” A hamburger soon followed, but I was too exhausted and it was too loud (a band had taken over the stage) for me to do any recovering.

Not until the wee hours of Saturday morning, though, did I finally laid my still-painted and curly head down upon my pillow. Upon waking, the kids would see the traces of the wild woman their mother had been.

Or, “has become?”

Or, “is becoming?”

Only time will tell which verb fits best.

The end.

P.S. If you haven’t already done so, watch Kinky Boots. Do it in honor of me and my walk on the wild side, okay?

This same time, years previous: raisin-filled cookies and chocolate truffle cake