Thank The Internet

Indeed, the Matron extends a heartfelt (real!) thanks to all of her wonderful readers for the collective Good Will and Good Wishes!

Drum roll . . . . .

Yesterday's tenure review could NOT have gone better! She swears, she felt all that love bubbling up from behind her computer screen and carrying her throughout a day so busy that Grandma was enlisted to shuttle Scarlett.

Not only did the Matron spend the day sweating her employment (she's just nervous that way and has one more probationary year to go so don't stop believin'), she also toured two schools in anticipation of launching two children into two more schools next year. Junior and Senior High! Never mind Merrick, at his rate he'll be fifteen in first grade.

Two school tours, one performance review, one afternoon matinee for Scarlett, one late afternoon photo shoot across town, one evening performance and Parent Night at the elementary school! And the damn foster dog is PEEING IN THE HOUSE. He came from Tennessee and this week's zero degree temps with six inches of snow has peeled off that dog's mask and shown her Snappy's real stripes: he is a winter wuss!

Today? A small bobbing beacon of quiet and calm. The Matron was home, all alone! With broom and vacuum! She knows that others would be reading but she of Incurable Clutter Brain Suck was in desperate need of a fix and fix she did get. This house is gleaming. Her brain? Back on.

This weekend holds bright narrative promise! Picture the Matron and her husband at Cosco. No, they are not holiday browsing or gasping for joy over the price of bananas. In another attempt to prove her complete mental instability to her spouse, the Matron volunteered to purchase, pack and deliver 700 nutritious snacks for the upper division of Scarlett and Merrick's school to take with them on a five day camping trip at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center.

!! Bad idea !!

Knee-deep in protein bar and graham cracker, the Matron must also prepare Scarlett for five days of camping: WINTER CAMPING. In Minnesota. Where it is not even zero degrees. Where there is six feet of snow threatening to kill you.

Anybody remember how well the little prisoner of war reacted to summer camp?

Let's just say things are very exciting around here. She doesn't know about your house, but this one includes fainting spells, dry heaves, stomach aches, aversion to food, red eyes, hair that won't dry completely even though it APPEARS DRY TO YOU MAMA, four loose teeth, a dry tongue, insomnia and a newly developed fear of sleep-walking that can only be soothed by staying awake all night, a convenient twist to the already existing insomnia.

The bus leaves Monday morning at 9 am. God help us, everyone.

48 Hour Marathon

Excuse the Matron.

She is in the midst of a 48 hour Life Marathon so intense that she was required to enlist not one, but two other adults to help tend to her children tomorrow.

Scarlett is now officially in the hands of a full time driver.

Back on Friday.

Oh -- send Employment Vibes. She has a tenure review tomorrow, part of tonight's complete panic.

Truly. Send love on what we call Thursday. Tun in for the full report later.

Neighbor, she has his Permission to Blog about this

Matron: "Stryker? Did you have a nice time at the family potluck on Saturday?"

Stryker: "You mean your friend Cecelia's birthday party? The one you forced us all to go to? That potluck that mostly featured fake food like sushi.? The incredibly boring party where all the women were in the kitchen and the men were by the beer in the family room while the little kids trashed the basement?"

Matron (SO knowing when to pick her battles): "Yes, that one. Did you have a good time?'

Stryker: "Did you see me in the kitchen?"

Matron: "No? You were?"

Stryker: "All those moms! Nobody noticed me!! Every other kid was like, six, trashing the basement, and I was sitting in the kitchen with my iPod, with all the women. By the back hallway!!!!! GOD. Didn't you even notice me?"

Matron: "Uh, why no. You were in the kitchen hallway most of the night?"

Stryker: "MOM. I heard one million birth stories. All those moms in the kitchen for HOURS. (high voices) I was in labor 36 hours! My water broke in K-Mart! The doctor had to stick her hand into the birth canal and PULL. I wanted to f$%^^ kill my husband; sex is not that much fun. -- Can we just sum up the evening as the 13 year old boy hears 14 birth stories and really wishes he had not that much SPECIFIC information about female PROCESSES?

Matron: "Oh no. SO sorry. Wanna hear about how my water broke 40 hours before you were born?"

He didn't.

Sunday, Meditation

Today, the Matron went on her daily four mile run.

Imagine this: cold. Sky pops bright and the ground below, a brittle crunch. Low to the ground, the dogs' breath precedes them, warm gray hollows of air bobbing ahead. The sky is a brittle blue. Even in the city -- early early morning-- there is silence.

She labors up a hill, the cityscape before her, the sun gaining in strength. From nowhere -- grace? -- a memory.

Every morning at sunrise, I'm surprised I am here. I surprised for the sunrise, for my life.

This is Rabbi Habraham Heschel and she is paraphrasing. The gist?

Be surprised by violence. Be surprised by evil and injustice. Never become adjusted to injustice, violence and sorrow. Let this conditions startle and alert, always.

So the Matron gulped in the startling winter air, considered the state of the world and re-evaluated, surprised by the beauty around her and the responsibility we all share to make violence, injustice and selfishness shock and awake to action.