A loving family moment in my home this evening

Amanda: Didn't you hear me? I just called you an ass.

Me: I heard you, and I choose to love you anyway.

That Boy comes to see his mama

Since Tony moved out in January, I don't get to see him every day anymore. This is a healthy thing, but the mommy part of me misses my boy. I was giving him a ride to work a couple of times a week, but 20 minutes in the car is not the same.

But this last weekend, he finally got a car (a 1989 Lincoln Town Car ~ it's a land barge), and he's come by 3 times to see me since then. Today I pointed the camera at him to document the occasion. After all, his sister and the cats show up regularly, but I don't think Tony's been pictured on the blog since Thanksgiving, although I could be wrong.

Anyway, that's him up there. Wearing his standard Boston Red Sox hat. It's not always the same hat, but it is pretty much always a Red Sox hat. Sometimes I think I might buy him some Mariners gear to change it up, but then I think that I'd rather not spend $40 on something he'll never wear.

The Laundry in the Dryer

So for about a week and half or so now, That Boy and I seem to have been having a battle of wills. I entered into it unknowingly and unwillingly, but I am not afraid. I will emerge victorious.

Recently, Tony did a load of laundry. This is not surprising, because in my house, everybody does their own laundry. Including sheets, towels, etc. And, yes, we all have our own towels; we're happier that way. Tony's been doing his own laundry since he was 11 or 12, something like that. And I will give credit where it's due, that was at his father's insistence, not mine.

Anyway, Tony washed a load of clothes and put them in the dryer. He ran the dryer but did not empty it. For approximately 10 days now. I encountered the clothes in the dryer last week when I was doing my own laundry. I removed them to a clothes basket until I was finished with the dryer, and then I put them back. I've done this at least twice more since then, most recently right now. My sheets and towels are in the dryer, and Tony's clean but very wrinkled clothes are in a basket in the hallway. When I pull my stuff out of the dryer, his will go back in, and my clothes basket will go back into my closet.

I've told him a couple of times that he has a load of clothes in the dryer. The first time, his response was that he knew he was missing some clothes but couldn't figure out where they were. My response, as a girl is "Huh? You don't know where some of your clothes are and you're this calm?" Anyway, he actually turned the dryer back on for a few minutes to dry to get some of the wrinkles out; when the dryer finished, I told him that it was done. He told me that he knew and he'd get the clothes.

That was last week.

Last night, he opened the dryer, because he was sure he had a pair of jeans in there. He found them, pulled them out, put them on, closed the dryer, closed the door to the laundry closet, and walked away. I wanted to scream.

I'm at best an indifferent housekeeper, but I do have one quirky housekeeping thing. The instant that the dryer stops running, I must empty it. I'll stop whatever I'm doing (even reading in the middle of a sentence or writing in the middle of a blog) and empty the dryer and immediately fold the clothes. No massive piles of laundry to be folded and put away for this girl. It's washed, it's dried, and it's folded instantly. Piles of folded clothes may sit on my bed for a few hours, but they are put away the same day, usually as soon as the last load is done, but sometimes right before I go to bed.

That my children (Amanda too, to a certain extent) are OK with loads of clothes in the dryer for days and/or only folding them after all the laundry is done makes me crazy. It's literally causing me almost physical pain to put Tony's clothes back in the dryer time and again, but I'm going to make myself keep on doing it because I think it's good for me, and good for him too.

Perhaps I need a 12-step plan for my laundry issues?

Missing my kid

So on Tuesday morning, we get up early. Way early. Butt-crack of dawn early, Oh-Dark-Fuck early. I'm sure you get the picture. Me, lately I'm up almost that early naturally; Amanda and Tony, not so much. But we have to be dressed, out the door, and on the road by 6:15 because we have to have Amanda at the Greyhound Station in Tacoma (30 miles north on I-5, past 2 military installations and the accompanying traffic) by 7 a.m. The ticket information tells us that she has to be at the terminal an hour before the bus leaves, which is scheduled for 8 a.m. What the ticket information doesn't tell us is that the bus terminal does not open until 7:30 a.m. We discovered that on arrival, but I'll get there.

As I was saying, we're up and roaming the earth early on Tuesday morning. I'm drinking lots of coffee, which is normal for me, and freaking out a little. And the freaking out I feel is understandable. My oldest child is leaving today, and this is basically the first step toward her being on her own permanently. I thought I was prepared, but I found out that I wasn't. I don't think it's possible to be fully prepared for the chicks leaving the nest, but anyway. Part of why I'm freaking out, besides Amanda leaving me, is that she has to take a Greyhound bus over a mountain pass to Eastern Washington. And on Monday night while we're watching Studio 60, the news teaser guys are out at Snoqualmie Pass showing how bad the conditions are because it's snowing really a lot up there. Generally, I'm a pretty "tra-la-la" kind of person, assuming that things will work out as they're supposed to, but when it comes to one of my babies traveling, I want dry safe roadways. So I'm drinking my coffee and freaking out a bit, but I'm under control.

Mom is joining us on our trip to Tacoma to see Amanda off onto this adventure, which is nice. So she arrives, everybody makes one last pit stop in the bathroom, we get the bags in the car, and we're on the road at approximately 6:18. Traffic up past Fort Lewis and McChord AFB wasn't all that bad, so we made decent time getting to the point where we leave the freeway and head into Tacoma. We get slightly lost because the directions weren't great, but we make it to the bus depot at 7:05, get a prime parking spot, and then, naturally, discover that she can't even go in for another 25 minutes because they don't open until 7:30. By this time, I need to go to the bathroom in the worst way, and Tony's starving because he rolled off the couch at 6:10 and didn't eat breakfast. It's chilly so we troop back to the car and wait.

Finally the lights inside go on, and from where I'm sitting we can see the employees unlock the door. We regather the bags and head on in. First things first, I get the bathroom key and make my pit stop. Much better. Amanda checks in and gets the baggage tickets for her bags and we go into the waiting area. Like the airport, it says it's for ticketed passengers only, but unlike the airport, there's no security to go through, so we go and sit and wait. A Greyhoud station is a fascinating place. This one was clean, which is always nice, but it's interesting to see who's taking the bus, and trying to figure out where they're headed. At this station, the buses go either north toward Seattle or south toward Portland, and then they go to points east if that where you're headed, and realistically, we live in Western Washington, there aren't a lot of points west that you can get to on a bus.

Turns out that the southbound bus is late by about an hour, but the northbound bus shows up on time. That's the one Amanda is getting on. The bus driver comes in and tells us he's going north to Seattle and then from there further north to Everett and then turning and heading east toward Wenatchee and then to Moses Lake, which is where Amanda's heading. So we know that she doesn't have to changes buses, which is kind of nice. But we find out that she's not going over Snoqualmie pass which is I-90; she's going over Stevens pass, which is US-2. A smaller, less-traveled route that is closed slightly more often in the winter. I begin to worry a bit more.We get Amanda on the bus, and Tony and I manage not to cry. I'm sure it's because mom is there, silently reminding us of our British heritage (stiff upper lip and all). The three of us get back into the car and start to head back home. I turn on the radio, and what do I hear but that Stevens pass has been closed since 7 a.m. for avalanche control (the intentional triggering of avalanches and then subsequent clean-up) and they "hope" to have it open again by 10 a.m. I'm a silent wreck by now with a very stiff upper lip.

Tony's hungry, and I decide to get a bit further down the road to avoid all the early day Tacoma traffic. We head for Lakewood which is a bit south of Tacoma. In my heart of hearts, I know we'll find a McDonald's there, and since that's what he wants, that's where I point the car. Unfortunately for me, my memory of Bridgeport Way through Lakewood isn't great, because we pass all the way through Lakewood well into University Place before we see a McDonald's. Which is in the same shopping center as the closest Trader Joe's to me, but I can't make a TJ's run because it's too early in the day for them to be open (plus I need to wait until payday). So I sit and eat my sausage burritos in the McDonald's parking lot, looking at Trader Joe's and thinking of all the good things that are inside that I can't have. I finish eating first, and since I'm driving, we get back on the road while mom and Tony finish up their breakfast.

The drive home was uneventful. We'd all been fed, and mom was recaffeinated with more coffee. Tony napped in the back seat, and I wished to myself that I knew of a way to get from Lakewood to Steilacoom or DuPont without being on the freeway. I know a way exists, and I'm going to find it. That part of I-5 near the military stuff is so depressing; strip malls full of dry cleaners, nail salons, check cashing places, tattoo parlors (not that there's anything wrong with that) and the like. If you've ever been on the closest highway to an military base, you'd recognize the kinds of businesses that thrive near the gates, and sometimes it's nice to get away from the sameness of it all.

After arriving home, I, like the good worker that I am, sat down to work. Of course, being me, I found out that the WSDOT (Washington state department of transportation) has a live camera at the summit of Stevens pass, so I hit the old ALT-tab a lot to go back and forth between work and looking at the pass. Bad idea. It was not pretty up there. Finally, Amanda called me just before 2 p.m. She'd been due to get to Wenatchee at 12:55, but I had a feeling they'd be late. When she called, they were over the pass and just outside Wenatchee. I was so relieved she'd made it over the pass that it was kind of like someone left the air out of me. I was deflated and essentially useless. Which is what I told my supervisor, and I actually ended up needing the rest of the day off.

Later on, I had a margarita with dinner and a glass of wine when I got home, and I felt MUCH better. But alcohol is not the solution. It's just a small part of it.

CURRENTLY READING: Portrait in Death by J. D. Robb