She curses as she gardens...loudly

September 3, 1987

The woman at the bus stop in a lavender dress has a peculiar lump in her middle. I know not whether this lump is stomach or breasts. She rubs the front of the lump meditatively as she looks up the street for the bus. She is anticipating it...it comes. The bus from the other direction comes. Off comes Mary, the hunch backed old woman from three houses down. She curses as she gardens...loudly...but otherwise is a pleasant sort. ianthe follows her down the block and must be called back.

September 6, 1987

Today was ianthe's birthday. She is two years old now. Last night we stayed in Bayport and came home today in time for her nap. While she slept Aja and I baked her a birthday cake - a steel blue cat with orange eyes and a striped tail. ianthe loved the cat cake.

We had pizza for supper and then she opened her presents. Harris picked out a doll (a cabbage patch preemie) and Aja had picked out some My Pretty Pony newborn twins. ianthe loved them both. The doll was named Trista - so this is once again a sign of Harris as being psychic. I just can't believe it.

In Response to Writing Prompt in Class...

When I was a child my mother and father always read to me (and the rest of the kids). The Bumper Book was such a favorite, my grandmother (dad? mom?) taped it on reel to reel with the numbers appropriate to the story listed. My mother read A.A. Milne books to me - all Pooh stories and "When We Were Very Young" and "Now We Are Six". My father read us "I Met a Man" and other scarier books by John Ciardi. Those scary books - the worst was "The Monsters Den" - it haunted me. It wasn't the verses, now that I am old enough to understand them, but the illustrations which were done by Edward Gorey. I sometimes wonder if I also am scaring my children with Gorey's Alphabet book...A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil molested by bears...Probably, but that is what poetry is all about - something parents instill a love for while we are very young and wean us and gently guide us into greater heights.

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I am amused by a couple of things in this short entry. I have a short description of Ianthe's birthday - the parts that were "ceremony", e.g. food, cake, presents. Ianthe was only 2 years old. I write that she "liked" the food, cake and presents. I describe the presents. I described the order of the day, the schedule. I left out a horrifying incident. I always leave out the horrors. Maybe I think if I don't write them down, they won't be true - they will fade in my mind. They don't. They never leave me.

When I was making the cake for Ianthe, I got out the hand mixer. When I plugged it in and started mixing the batter - roaches, lots of roaches, fled the inside of the mixer. They ran on my hands, up my arms and fell to the table and floor. I was horrified. They kept coming. I put the mixer in a plastic bag and ran it out to the trash outside. I tried to kill the escaping roaches. I can't get the memory out of my head. The roaches - how they felt on my wrist, my arm. So disgusting. Happy Birthday - Yuck! 

There were no roaches in the cake. I would have thrown it out. I say I made the cake with Aja, I wonder if she helped me frost it after I baked it. I hope she has no memory of it. /shiver

Next amusing thing is my need in my diary to brag about how literate I was. How we had books, books of poetry. I was cool. My parents read me poetry - bet yours didn't. I read poetry to my children - I am so cool. I am much more sensitive to my bragging now than I was a decade ago. I am very uncomfortable about bragging these days - even though I am sure I brag plenty. 

I have to stop. I am embarrassed about admitting about the roaches. That is enough confession for a day. Sorry to have put the visual into your mind...