The Things I Cannot Disclose Are Many

Next Friday is Max's assessment with a phychologist- the best in the county for children- and it's going to cost us $195.  It turns out that his insurance doesn't cover any outpatient mental health coverage.  Of course.  I mean, this is par for the course for us.  He's the only one insured and I failed to make sure that it covered mental health.  We're simply going to have to scrape up enough money to make it happen.  At the very least we need to find out what his specific issues are.  If we can't afford to send him to therapy at least we can research ways to make his life more comfortable (and ours). 

Meanwhile we're also scraping together money to get caught up on our mortgage.  (Is that the phone ringing again?!  Just let it ring...)

I'm trying to sell my Vespa too.  I keep saying I don't care, it's just a vehicle.  I keep saying it and I know it should be true but it's not.  I do care.  However, I have to keep my eyes on the big picture.

As it turns out, the big picture looks a lot better than the little micro one I'm looking at most of the time.  I keep having to look ahead, see what's coming rather than what is going on right this minute.  Just for a while.

I have finally realized what a Peyton's Place my little town of McMinnville is.  A person like me is going to end up with a reputation, I'm just not sure what kind yet.  I think it will involve me turning into a real reclusive writer with fingers pointing at me every where I go and some legends involving the origin of my bloodshot eyes.  This town is going to have to come up with some way to deal with me and I am finding that I am possibly not the small town girl I always assumed I was.  But I'm here and I'm not going anywhere because I like not hearing gunshots a few blocks over when I'm trying to get to sleep.  Plus- I will never be able to afford to move again even if I wanted to.  Which I don't.

There are a million things I want to talk about, but can't.  Can't because if I do it will make things much worse for me than they are here in my very alert involved community.  Interesting things that I am dying to talk about so that I can let off steam.  My blog used to be a place where I could do that, but I'm finding that one eyeball spying one comment about some anonymous interaction here on my sleepy blog quickly turns out to be a very big headache wherein my opinions have hurt someone's best friend (how could I know that the Timberlakes and the Johnsons have all been best friends for three generations?!).

I'm wondering if I should just write a book.  With different names (obviously),  hash up the characters so they cannot be traced back to their inspirations and get someone to publish it.  Isn't that what most authors do anyway?  They may call it "fiction" but we all know they write about what they know and they know what they know because of the life they've led and the people they've interacted with. 

I made an important discovery about myself this week:  I am a feminist.

I want to tell you all about that discovery but that would land me in hot water.  You know I don't like being a tease.  But you're going to have to wait quite a while for this story.

Maybe, in a couple of months when certain things are cleared up here, I can decide to embrace being public enemy number one in my little town and live my life as I please and write what I want on my own damn blog.  Then it will be like the olden days when I could come here and feel at home.  I won't have any friends left, but there are people who have survived without friends, right?  Writers are loners anyway and often develop queer habits that become legend.  There's no time like NOW to start developing my own.

OR: I could start a new secret blog to which one has to apply to get the secret knock and a thorough background check will be made to exclude anyone connected with anyone who lives here.  I've been excluded from exclusive blogs before, which isn't my favorite thing ever, but a person has to figure out some way to be themselves safely, right?  I can hardly hold it against someone if they don't want me to know all their private stuff.  Maybe they need to let off steam about me and, really, why not?  I can really get people in a huff.

Anyway, I think it's perfectly safe to talk about my CSA shares, right?  I got the most gorgeous head of savoy cabbage this week (pictured above) which reminds me why I love vegetables so much- nature has come up with some pretty terrific designs!

I am going to be making enchilada sauce again and taking lots of notes so I can share the recipe here soon.  I made what Philip called the "BEST" enchiladas he's ever had.  Not bad for my first try!  I'll share the whole darn recipe if anyone wants me to as soon as I make it again.  Today I'm doing a Mexican inspired casserole using enchilada sauce and and instead of corn tortillas I'm using polenta layers. 

Yesterday I was still shaken up from a personal experience I can't talk about to pretty much anyone but Philip and needed very much to air my spirit out so I pruned some of my roses and it reminded me, again, how much I need to spend time in my garden.  It was calming enough that I almost forgot to be outraged.  It was calming enough that I started getting lost in garden planning.  I have very little money for the garden this year but that doesn't have to keep me from planning.  Since I also can't afford to move from this house (ever) I will have many years to fill it with more roses and fruit.

Foremost on my mind right now is the choosing of fruit trees.  I can't plant a ton of them here.  I know for sure I want a sweet cherry and a sour one.  The sour one is easy- if I can only have one sour cherry it must be the English Morello.  But the sweet cherry choice is so much harder.  We like Bing cherries but they have a problem of cracking from rain.  So which Bing-like sweet cherry is best for the home gardener?  I don't like Sweethearts (tried them at the farmer's market this year).  I've kind of narrowed it down between Lapins and Stella.  Any regional garders want to chime in?  Tell me which one you prefer and why.  I really need help deciding.

Aside from feeling lonely (for far away well established comfortable friends), outraged, and a little buried by circumstances involving way too much paperwork (including taxes)... I have to say that keeping my eyes on the big picture has been pretty steadying.  I spent the second half of Tuesday in tears and part of Wednesday too, but when I get beyond the immediate trials, I can see that so much of our life is headed towards good change. 

We are learning (again: slowly) to be much more frugal than we've been in the past few years when we've always had a net to fall back on.  Not using credit cards means no dining out.  We're still buying some beer but less of it.  All of my trips to the grocery store are planned in advance. 

We have been having such a more positive general outlook.  I spent nearly a whole week being pretty darn happy with my life.  It is good.  Not surprisingly, I have had cause to be very happy with all the frozen and canned food I prepared over the last two years.  I've been using more of it on a regular basis which has allowed me to lower our grocery bills.  It also makes me feel rich.  Even though I'm poor.  At least we got caught up with our electric bill at last! 

It was such an emotional gain to tackle this room of mine as well.  I've had my own room before but none that felt this good, that felt this comfortable.  (Now that I'm not tripping over piles of god-knows-what.)  I look forward to coming in here to do my job and then come back in here when I'm done so that I can work on my own stuff.

Now I need to walk the dog in the freezing cold.  I'll put my trusty warm felted scarf on and my walkman and I'll enjoy myself.  Then I'll warm up in the kitchen while cooking dinner.

I've been leaving the heat off at night whenever I can remember to but then it's very cold in the morning.  This morning my toes actually went numb.  I feel a little bit guilty but I took a long hot shower to warm up.  So I'm not sure I did our energy use any favors in the end.  Still, that was a lovely shower.