Spring in my Step

Seasonal Affective Disorder
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. The birds are chirping, will you be my friend? and the sun is lighting the canvas behind a pale, light gray/blue sky. I'll take it. January and early February were beyond miserable. All the mountain passes nearby have been closed several times because of avalanche danger.

Holy Son's weekly snowboarding school pilgrimage was great but he claimed there was almost too much snow, although he said he did manage to nail a back grab or whatever it's called. I wouldn't know because I don't speak Snowboard. I just nod my head and pretend I've understood what he's excitedly imparted to me. So apparently they were knee deep in powder and it was too much. What boarder complains of that? Especially on the West Coast where you take the rain and slush with the snow and pretend its a stellar run.

But enough about snow. With the longer days equating to brighter mornings when we drive to school, and the advent of winter and spring breaks upon us, I can't help but think spring.

Even our one superstar Venus Flytrap, John, thinks so. He's been stuck beneath a fluorescent bulb - lucky dog - light is one thing we lack in these parts, artificial and otherwise. So all that warmth and brightness had him sprouting a big tall flower. It will soon be time to move him outside, now that nicer weather is upon us and Holy Son's science experiment is almost over. Feeding John, Jake, Jim and Joe has been interesting though. I've learned mealworms don't fight as much as earthworms. And that you need to squeeze the cricket a bit and then hold it down firmly in the trap before it closes and even then, wait a few more seconds before attempting to extract the tweezers. Crickets are feisty and quick and they'll fight to the bitter end for life and limb, as necessary.

Of course the greatest irony is that all those disgusting giant house and callobious spiders that set up house and home downstairs this fall are nowhere to be found. Who can blame them though ~ I'd be making tracks to the Bahamas to escape gross Seattle winters, too, if I was able.

Yes, thoughts of spring have sprung in the Schmidthouse and so, too, a manic schedule. Let me qualify that - more manic than the already manic schedule.

The Comedy of Errors
Northrup Frye dubbed spring to be the season of comedy. I think he was onto something because running around with my head cut off will be nothing short of comedic to those who will be watching from the wings. Like my poor, long-lost friend, Cor, who is coming to visit the last week of February in what might prove to be the busiest, logistically speaking. I will take her to see Pike Place fish market and ride the Monorail. It will be her own week's version of Planes, Trains, Automobiles ~ because the rest of the week, she'll be riding shotgun while we ferry the kids all over hell's ten and a half acre.

That's because the kids have each been cast in spring community and school plays March/April/May, with rehearsals starting today.

That's a total of three plays, on top of the regularly scheduled weekly programming of Brownies, Scouts, Irish Dance, soccer and ballet. There might even have been two more spring church plays on Sundays had I not schemed to blow the UU-boat and Jonas the whaler up and off the schedule. I don't know much German but I do know how to say das ist verruckt, which sounds similar enough to what I might have said in English to convey the gist of my newfound mania.

The kids are tickled though. Holy Son landed a good size role in Romeo and Juliet as a Shakespeare in the Park sarcastic commentator. It's his biggest role yet - 25+ lines - and I'm tickled because he'll getting his first taste of Shakespeare. Or Marlowe. Or Francis Bacon. Or whoever he was. Or wasn't. That is the question.

Holy Daughter, not to be outdone, nailed a very funny line in her audition so they have decided, rather astutely I believe, to cast her as the punctuation punchline snail in Sleeping Beauty. So she'll get the last laugh in each of her scenes, which is perfect for her....she has a natural sense of comedic timing. She will also be doing a group performance role in her school production of Pinocchio as one of Geppetto's puppets.

So between juggling those three rehearsals, on top of her Irish dancing in prep for the Seattle St. Patrick's Day parade, and ballet and Brownie cookie sales deliveries and spring soccer; and his Scouts and winter/spring camping and cello lessons and soccer and four hours of homework a night, I'm thinking they won't have um....much time to get in trouble. Mind you, neither will Holy Hub and I.

It's all part of my master plan to have them fall into bed by 8pm each night, meek and spent. This plan will invariably backfire, of course. I'll be the one falling into bed by 8pm - they'll be like revved up thespians who stole the second wind from beneath Aladdin's carpet as they beg for time to 'unwind and relax'. Code word: Wii.

That's right we are now official members of the new millennium. Wii'ved joined the Wiivolution and even video-game phobic Holy Mom (OK, so what if the last game I played was Ms. Pac-man, at least I played that so there) has occasionally been known to get in on the action. Never mind that Holy Daughter kicks my petunias in bowling. She is wickedly good. She maneuvers her aim this way and that and then delivers a throw that would knock even good ole Freddy on his backside. I ended up doing what I think it a superbly-executed release that always turns out to be a backwards throw that hits all the animated Wii spectators. They point and laugh at me, as does Holy Daughter, and the whole thing is rather humiliating, in an cartoony and thus, unreal kind of way.

Even Holy Hub can't touch her score and he can Wii pitch at 90 miles an hour. It's pretty funny ~ this business of eight year olds being far more technologically-proficient than adults.

But that's not the end of the technology story. We also bought a couple of new Samsung flat panel TVs - one for the master bedroom and one for the kitchen/family room, where the hole in the wall has been fairly begging for us to place one. I ended up getting Best Buy to price match Amazon - they claim it's against their store policy nationwide and that Amazon is a dot.com not a store retailer, but Google Best Buy price match Amazon for sport, and you'll see it's happening everywhere. Even here, in Amazon land. That was one of the many arguments I wadded up in my tenacious little straw and spit back out at them. We ended up saving $400 which equates to a free Wii, games and controllers so it was all good.

OK, and since I'm feeling magnanimous today, I'll even admit to our last purchase. Two brand-new Toto toilets to replace our old ones. Is that fascinating blog reading or what? Judging by the kind of Google search queries of my new and unsuspecting visitors, I would have to say yeah - inquiring minds do want to know these things.

Lucky Charms
Anyways, back to the crazy schedule for a moment. If you're a regular lurker on this site or my old site, you may recall me blogging about my new gold parade dreams. Well, guess what, I may not be a Red Hot Mama yet, but I would bet even they had to start somewhere. Check this out - I actually get to be in the St. Patrick's Day parade too ~ showing off my Mighty Quinn roots. Never mind that I'm adopted and so, thus, not technically Irish. I happen to believe Irishness is not so much a nation state as it is a state of mind.

Or so I will be convinced after drinking a couple of pints of beer for courage that day. Speaking of Irish and drinks, there used to be a day and age when I thought people from Ireland were called Iris - I thought the sh was just the Guinness slur that was added for good measure and froth.

Harmless slurs aside, I may rope Holy Son into joining along in the festivities with some of his friends. We could all dress in green and go as Gang Green. Spectators will be green with envy or some other reaction, I'm sure. Holy Daughter will be decked out in her Irish dancing gear in prep for an afternoon dance performance following the parade. And yes, I'll take pictures and post them here for posterity. Actually Holy Hub will take pictures because I know he'll want no part of the parade, save the pre and post Guiness drinking, of course.

So now I need a new dream to add to my Top 10 dreams list. I think it will end up being journey related. I'm always scheming and dreaming about new places to go rather than things to do. Like spring break. We're busy planning a fam damily getaway to Vegas but I haven't officially booked it yet, mostly because I feel like Vegas is been there, done that. I haven't been in 15 years so it's changed wholesale, but still I'm less than enthusiastic. I'd much rather we hooked up our GPS and tent trailer and set our sights due southeastlyish enroute the great American whirlwind road trip. Like to Yosemite or to Zion National Park or Yellowstone or some equally wild, west locale. Not that Vegas isn't the wildest place in the west but it's urban and my brokeback heart is craving rural.

Speaking of brokeback and hearts, I had a quasi-interview with a pharmaceutical company a couple of weeks ago. Long story on how the hell I, hater of drug dealers, ended up making nice with them, but what I realized in that fatefully-aborted job prospect moment was that I really do not need to sell my integrity to become gainfully employed. And I certainly don't need to get dressed up to schmooze a pharma suit dudes when I should be working on the big kahuna headhunter instead. I've decided I'm going to scheme my dream part-time, lucrative, summer and school holidays off job and paste it on a four leaf clover on my bulletin board, or I'll put it in my universe in-box and then see what shows up. God only knows what will happen, right?

I do have a couple of prospects in my industry - fingers crossed, but both would entail a ton of work and probably too much travel. To say nothing of the kids' after school schedules.

If nothing materializes right away, so be it. I suspect 'll be too busy living and volunteering at the local theatre and lamenting, oh, home-o, home-o, wherefore art my home-o....to notice anyways.

Hot Time, Summer in the City

Summer is here in full swing.

We've gone through our round of graduation parties, including but not limited to my son's 5th grade graduation. No one warned me 5th grade grads were such a big deal. I'm guessing that means I should start saving for tuxes and limos now, because in 7 years time, I can only fathom how huge a deal it's going to be. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing at all the pomp and circumstance attached to his ceremony last week. I'm surprised they didn't choose a class valedictorian.

Anyways, with that grad party and the obligatory PTA after-grad finished, it was on to my own Advancement of Excellence grad a couple of days later. Some of you may recall that I have been attending a seminar series these past several weeks/months and last Saturday was about celebrating our successes (whilst minimizing or eradicating our failures) and/or accomplished goals and tasks we set out to achieve all those many weeks ago.

Mine was about vitality, given that I've been feeling very sluggish (there's that word again) about my/our lot in life south of the border. Anyways, I decided to practice a little law of attraction stuff by changing the radio station from the country twang station (I can't get a job, I need to start getting pedicures with flowers to fit in, it's expensive here, and there ain't nothing on the home market available) to a more upbeat tune (God Bless America). OK, so maybe it wasn't so upbeat (I was actually singing God Bless My Underwear), but that's elementary, dear Watson. You sing America, I sing my underwear - potate toe, potat toe. My tune had changed and that was the important shift. And then I started saying a little affirmation statement to myself in the mirror. Check it out - I'm slim and trim and love the gym, je m'adore from core to limb.

I heart affirmation statements. It's like looking in the mirror and telling yourself that which is so not true but when delivering in such a way that you feel good believing the audacious lie, it brings a smile to one's face. So anyways, I started doing that because well, because I've never said nice things to myself before. I've never been narcissistic that way ~ admiring myself and murmuring, whoo, you are SOME hot...you should go out! So anyways, that's been fun. And I've been getting little notes from "The Universe" in my daily e-mail. On average, I get about 10 to 15 e-mails show up overnight but without fail, when I see that lone note from "The Universe" each morning, I feel compelled to click it open first. I mean, it's from the Universe. Universe trumps Target e-flyers and all the other junk that comes in. Just a tad. So that's been uber fun too...

Anything to keep my vibe away from radio goo goo, Radio ga ga, and tuned in, instead, to a more positive vibe like say Electric Avenue. I could have chosen REO Speedwagon but Beast Mom beat me to it.

Anyhoo, so back to my grad party. We all gathered in our small support groups and were ushered to the front of the room, group by group, to present our schtuff. Our group was introduced with Born to Be Wild blaring, because we were the RiCH Renegades (a team of individuals investing in Relationships, Career & Health), and our team action was a motorcycle rev. So here's a pic of us acting out a little silly dance choreography I orchestrated and somehow managed to talk everyone into following my lead to. Picture doing the hokey pokey in front of a crowd of perplexed and confused onlookers.

That's me - the shy, introvert, front and centre stage there.
















Thank God for red wine on an empty stomach, that's all I can say.

I bragged to everyone in the room about the amazing things I attracted - an amazing group of fellow Renegades for one. A 30-year all-time high exchange rate (or low, depending on which way you're transferring your dollars), a house I shall easily call home, and the biggie of all biggies, the final frontier of our green cards. So it would seem that my course focus - which was vitality - is now coming to me in droves because I live now on pure adrenaline, barely getting through the list of daunting tasks in front of me each day.

Blah blah, goo goo ga ga, it was a fun night in what has otherwise been a rather un-fun time.

I know, I know. I'm supposed to be excited (and I will soon, I promise) about house purchase, green cards, and this business of finally setting in - I've been blogging and lamenting about straddling the border for so long, a balancing act that has been relatively easy up til now, but wait until B&C Inc. put up the Great Barbed Wire Wall of America between the Canadian & US borders. Then you want to hear Electric Avenue. That's a brand of vitality I never wish to experience. Like the dudes coming across from Tijuana who were hiding out under the engine hood. Now that's a Darwin Award waiting to happen.

But back to vitality. My friend, Rahul, the lean, mean, trading machine featured in the above images, stage right, presented me with the coolest gift as part of a little gift exchange we did. He's a self-professed Holy Schmidt blog lurker but I don't mind because he has the good grace to admit he lurks. And so he combined elements of what I consider my blueprint for success - things like vitality, passion, pride & joy, and he attached them to images that speak to those (my) success elements, including one of my fave pics of my kids walking down a mountain 4 or 5 years back, and he made a t-shirt out of it. How. Cool. Is. That?! Rahul, you rock. Thank you again!
So anyways, that's about it. Busy finalizing the house deal still. The bank is now in a flurry because they can't decipher my Canadian social insurance number (SIN) from my fake SSN (I now have the IRS on my ass, don't I?) ~ which is a a temporary number called an ITIN which doesn't have credit info linked~ and thus, they may not be able to attach my name to the loan. I gave her a quick lesson in SIN vs. SSN but it was all Greek to her and frustrating as hell for me.

I will be glad to finally get a SSN this fall because the hoopla of trying to be taken seriously in this country without one is staggering. Fighting to have a bank account and in fact, I still can't have a picture on my debit card because I don't have a SSN. Thank God for Safeway and Blockbuster and Starbucks cards, otherwise I wouldn't have any credible ID in this nation. :)

Changing the subject ~ (I know, that's so not like me) ~ we're going to the Mariners vs. Blue Jays game tonight with some friends who are coming down from Canada to catch the game.

I'm hoping to be able to stand up and sing the Canadian national anthem. If you've been reading my blogs for the past couple years (if so, God bless you, you're tenacious and perhaps slightly twisted and clearly have the patience of Job to endure my run-on sentences and nonsensical ramblings - there will be a spot reserved for you in Holy Heaven) - you know that one of the first things that struck me as odd when I moved here is that no one sings the national anthem at games here. (Hey, I'm from hockey territory, remember?) They stand with hands upon hearts and look up to the sky (wth? - looking for God, perhaps?). Whereas we Canadians take great karaokean pride in bumbling like drunken idiots at sporting events through our changed-lyrics anthem. So if you're watched the game on TV tonight, look for us way up in the nosebleeds, alternating between waving our Mariners fingers and root, root, rooting for the home team, and half-ass cheering on our primordial national home team. I'm not a Blue Jays fan - I'm from the west - 'nuff said, but this is Canada Day weekend, after all, so it will be any excuse to show my national pride.

On that note, I'm off to get ready for a Canadiana weekend with all things red & white - drinking red and white wine, bbq'ing both red & white meat, eating red & white potato salad, and enjoying desserts of raspberries & cream and even saskatoon pie (had to get some blue in there somewhere). We will honour Canada's 140th b-day on Sunday but we'll be celebrating a day early with our friends in town and our son off to boy scout camp on the Sunday.

So if you hear national news reports of people shooting off fireworks nauseatingly early (ie. Saturday), don't be alarmed - it's just us crazy Canucks, making up for the fact that fireworks are illegal where we come from.

And heh, don't go blaming me for my oppressed pyromaniac tendencies - blame Canada.