Halloween 2006

Our first Halloween in Cameron. Yeehaw.

We obviously live in the country, what with the horses and turkey (down to one now, the other committed suicide) and chickens, etc. Neighbors cows and donkeys. Smells GOOD out here. Not.

So we drove into the "city" (cough cough) and drove around the area where the schools are. One of the things that stuck me as odd is no one was walking. They were all driving around, pulling up to a house, kids get out, go up, get candy, come back to the car and drive to the next house. Why no, we don't live in a lazy society at ALL. Of course, part of this is because neighborhoods overall don't seem to have consistent amounts of people home handing out treats, so you'd have five dark houses for every lit one. But that's a rant for another time.

We moved here in February, so my kids attended the end of the 2005-2006 school year. Of the 100 graduating students, 10 were pregnant. 10%. Nice. And I think I saw one of those girls Tuesday night. There was a girl walking around in a tight, "sexy" kind of costume with a little baby, maybe 2 months old, in its own costume, going house to house. It struck me as horribly sad. A child with a child - that was her "friend" to go out and about on Halloween night. No one else was with her. No huge group like my oldest went out with. I found it sad. I still do.

Then there were the really weird people. Backs of vans open with massive amounts of legs hanging out, kids jumping down and out of vehicles before they were stopped. I don't know how many accidents I saw almost occur. I was almost in one, because some girl around 16 thought she'd pull over all the sudden, and oh wait, there's MY CAR. She literally got within 3" of hitting me. Other kids were sitting on TOP of the cars. Not the back on the trunks, not the hoods. On the ROOFS. There were flat-bed trailers being pulled with 20-30 kids in the back. And all I could think were "Where are these parents?!" Well, I did see that one parent, but she was a teenager, so I don't think that counts. We went to one neighborhood and it was like inner-city scary. Super nice houses, but the mobs walking around were downright frightening, and no kids in costumes! I wouldn't have handed them out candy if they weren't in a costume. Then again, maybe I would, since they look like they'd shoot up your house if you didn't.

Needless to say, it was an interesting night.

As for our night:

We'd been to a couple of houses and then came upon this one house on a corner that stood kind of by itself since none of the others on the block were lit up. I pulled in front of the house and pointed out lots of things. Kids on the porch handing out candy. The flashing lights. Decorations in the yard - one of which was a coffin. Standing next to the coffin was "Dad". No costume, just standing there, overseeing the action. Good for him.

Too bad I'm going to have to de-ball him someday soon.

Since there weren't any others lit up, Carly (age 12) decided to take Sydney and Cooper by herself and I'd wait in the car. Okay then. They're walking up to the porch when surprise surprise, a teenager comes flying out of the coffin. Carly starts that nervous giggling. Sydney, being Sydney (age 6) does her shrinking thing. She gets super quiet, kind of goes inside herself and you can practically see her size reduce as she visually disappears. Cooper... ~sigh~ (age 5), in his Ninja Turtle Glory, screams a scream to wake the dead and DARTS back down the driveway. Now, what's the one rule about haunted houses and scary places like that? Chase the one who's scared. So the kid does.

Cooper's little dinky legs couldn't go fast enough, and big scary boy rounds on him, getting in front of him, between Cooper and the car where Mighty Mom sits, granted laughing my ass off. I'm getting out of the car because I know he's honestly scared, and I see Cooper screaming, hugely crying with ginormous tears, and swinging his candy bag like a man gone wild. He sees me, darts around the boy and literally skitters up my body, arms and legs like little vices around me.

Ends up it the girls handing out the candy were friends of Carly. Too bad all the kids got too freaked to remember to GET any candy.

About that time, obviously missing his cue, the Grim Reeper comes running around the corner to the front yard. Dude, not only are you late, but there is NOTHING you can do to scare these children more.

What irks me about this is that normally dressed Dad who stood there next to the coffin. There should have been some kind of kick to the coffin to let the teenager know there were little kids, to simply sit up and say BOO, which would have scared them enough. Thus, said Dad must be de-balled as an example to dads everywhere.

I get the kids loaded back up, snuggling Cooper next to me in the front seat while Syd and Carly go to the next house. (He decided to take a small break - imagine that.) I said, "Dude! You were scared and you were crying, but you were still kicking serious butt by swinging that bag at him!"

Ya know, build up that self-confidence!

Cooper: "Yeah, I did good, Mom, and I was aimin' for his WINKER!"

Just not much left to say after that, ya know?

Happy Winkin' Halloween!

The Wrath of God and Birthday Cake

There were the Twelve Plagues...

There was Noah and the ark...

(We have an animal theme in common, that Noah and me!)

And then, 37 years ago today, God perked on His heavenly throne. "AHA! I have it! A new torture for civilization that shall forever confuse scores of humanity and leave them scratching their heads in wonder! There shall be a face to go with the chaos!"

Poof! I was born.

Thirty-seven candles - that's obnoxious.

A Piece of... Work

Shan, the oldest, is in 11th grade, but two o fher courses are taken at the local college, one of them being advanced English. It's called dual-credit: she gets her high school credits plus college credits. Way cool.

Her first assignment for English was to write a paper - autobiographical.

On February 19th, in the year 1990, I was born to Jon and Brenda Fontenot in San Franciso, California. My first birth certificate read that my name was Martha Jane Fontenot, weighing in at five pounds, three ounces, and measuring fifteen inches long. It wasn't until my father flew back home from an art convention three days after my birth that the mistake was noticed. My older sister's name is Martha Jane; my mother had named me after her other daughter while she was high on the anesthetics. When I was born, Martha was nine and Paulson, my older brother, was seven. My grandparents came to visit me the day after my father did, but, unfortunately, got in a fatal car wreck on the way back to San Jose. They both died instantly. My mother, an only child, received all of the inheritance. Our family is very fortunate, despite the great loss that I'm positive my grandparents were.

My childhood was very auspicious. My father was, and still is, a world renowned sculptor, and my mother sang in jazz clubs during the night. I began attending a vocational, arts-based elementary school in uptown San Francisco called Randolf Primary Academy when I was five years old until I turned ten. I took many classes that are often not taught in standard elemenatry schools, such as art history, vocal, theatre, and dance. I picked up on all of it instantaneously. Dance was my main passion; I devoted all of my spare time to perfecting myself under the training of Ms. Judie Forrester. After five years of intense training, I took part in the Bazmark National Dance Competition. I took second place, defeating people years older than myself and landing a position in an international tournament. The next year, two weeks after my twelfth birthday, I danced at the Mostiko Nuto International Dance Tournament in Japan. Against two-hundred competitors. Celia Mathis approached me and invited me to join the Mathis Dance tutors, but then quit right before the start of seventh grade. I wanted to be a normal girl.

I began grade seven at Salizar Junior High in Ft. Worth, Texas. We moved to Texas during the summer to try to settle down and get away from the big city. Ft. Worth was big, but not as big as my hometown. I attended that school until the first semester of eighth grade, when I was expelled after being caught smoking in the girls' restroom. My parents, under the assumption that the influence of the public school system caused my downfall, immediately registered me in Brooley's Reform School or Young Ladies. I stayed in the boarding school for two years, visiting my parents on holidays only. We relocated to Copperas Cove, Texas, before my freshman year of high school. I became pregnant and delivered my beautiful daughter, Fiona Calecia, on July 2th, 2004. We stayed in Copperas Cove for one more year before moving once more to Cameron, Texas, where my mother started a horse ranch and I acquired the nickname Dinaes. I am now a junior at C.H. Yoe High School.

I plan on following in both my mother's and father's footsteps. I have my own art room and I also have coaches who continue to train me. After I graduate, I hope to attend the San Francisco Art Academy to double major in the dance and art studies, during which time I will enroll my daughter in a full-time boarding school. I do not want a husband, nor do I desire more children. In this class, I don't aim to get a specific grade. I will do what I want when I want, and whatever grade that leaves me with is the one that I will ultimately be satisied with. Although I believe in reincarnation, I also believe in living for myself like I will never live again: No regrets, no would-haves, could haves, or should-haves. This is also why I have no problem with exceeding the word count limit; you asked for my childhood and I gave it to you. Leaving things out would cheat you out of a great story.

When it comes to literature, I'm a not picky woman. I read studies on mental disorders and novels about people like myself. I enjoyed the book FARENHEIT 451 because it was easy for me to pull apart, and I loved THE GOOD EARTH by Pearl S. Buck. I like books that I can find the symbolism in. Likewise, I enjoy over-the-top works of fiction that make one wonder about whether something like that could really happen. I dislike boring, superficial books that do not have any meaning behind them, that leave me with nothing more than a headache.

Want to take a wild guess on how much of that is true? I'll tell you. Out of ALL of that, "1990" and "Jon and Brenda Fontenot" is it. AND - she got a 93! The professor made all kinds of notes, like "I'm so sorry!" for her grandparents dying!

Gah. So apparently I'm not the only storyteller in this family.

Big Shoulders and Tight Butts.

It's kind of odd - I've been married twice, and neither of them are/were (one's dead, after all) big on watching sports on TV. For some unknown reason, B's watching the Cowboys tonight (and c'mon, if you have to watch football, at least make it the Cowboys, right? Right.) I sat here checking email and spun around in my chair to oogle men with unnaturally broad shoulders and tight, spandex-ed butts and realized football really IS the ultimate in men being MEN.

Over the last few decades, we've taken the men out of men. We want them to be more sensitive. We want them to understand us. We want them to carry equal weight around the house (yeah - right. Never happen, and don't write me telling me you're the exception, because dollars to donuts your wife would tell me the TRUTH. Your delusion is cute though.) We want them to be interested in our lives. Why? Why would they care about a sale on clothes or what happened on Desperate Housewives? Do we REALLY want men like that? We are so busy blending and blurring the lines that distiguish men from women that there's a freakin' term for it: Metrosexual.

Which is weird in general, I think. Don't label EVERYthing. That's a rant for another time though.

I miss MEN. Dominant, this is my way men. Cavemen mentality. I hunt. I protect. I drag my woman by the hair at night and have my way with her.

Purr. Yum.

What's so bad about a woman wanting this anyway? I can't see a single thing. I want my guy to provide for me, to protect me. I want him to hold me and know I'm safe, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too, and I can go "all girlie" on him while watching a chick-flick or after reading a book or being all stupid because the shoes I wanted went on sale. I want him to think it's cute - I don't want him to UNDERSTAND it. If I wanted that, I'd call up my girlfriends instead. I don't want to think, "Oh goodie, if someone breaks in, my guy can teach him how to wax the backhair off - or hose him down with his hair gel." Oh yeah, that gives me goosebumps.

Ya know how girls complain because her guy is always trying to "fix it" and all she wanted to do was vent? Guess what? That's what guys DO. It's part of protecting us. If we're complaining about something, we're unhappy. If we're unhappy, they want us happy again - thus they try to fix it. I LOVE this about men. I think I should have been a woman in the 50s or something. I don't know.

Women are always told we should celebrate being women. Yeah, well, I think we should celebrate men being manly men. Give me an alpha-male and I'm a happy girl. I want him because he knows I look pretty, not because he knows I use the same hair products as Carmen Electra. That's flat-out weird.

Which brings me back to football. How great are these guys? They get PAID (overly paid, but not the point) to do what men want to do: Kick-ass without getting hurt like in a bar fight. Slap each other on the butt without being called gay. Scream profanities at the other team's line. Watch cheerleaders bounce around in skimpy outfits, because what guy doesn't love that? They have this energy and anger and driven purpose and they go at it 100%. They ooze testosterone, and I think that's a really fabulous thing.

Green, Gooey Glop

There's nothing quite as disgusting, much less disappointing, as bad guacamole.

Comforting

I think one of the neatest things is what we find comfort in. We feel bad, and we want Mom's soup. For me, it was her potato soup. She makes the BESTEST. I've tried to make it myself, but it's just not the same. Gotta have that MOM aspect to it, I suppose.

But it's not just food we find comfort in. Songs do that for me too. Some songs just soothe me. Some wrap themselves around me and simply associate it with what I'm feeling at any given moment. Movies especially. Like a song, they can bring back a memory - how old you were the first time you saw it, what was going on in your life, the feelings it gave you when you saw it, and if those are happy memories, it brings those back to you. Like THE PRINCESS BRIDE, for example. The first time I saw it was in a huge auditorm, my first semester at Harding University in my first week there. I was on this high, I guess. First time away from my family, on my own (although in a "dorm" at a university with strict rules, but still...) It was a happy time, and even now, when I watch it, that good feeling comes back.

I collect quilts. My quilts are a comfort. Some are never used though. My grandmother made a couple of them. One was on my bed growing up - that old "Amish doll" style. I don't use it anymore - it's on a quilt rack - because I don't want it "worn" anymore than I did to it as a child. I don't want it to give out and have to get rid of it. I have two others she made - and when I say made, I mean MADE. When I was little, we'd go out to visit Granny and Papa and Gran had this HUGE rack that suspended from the ceiling that she'd lower to work on it, all hand stitched, from the piecing all the way to the actual quilting, matching the batting and the backing. The talent is awesome. The uniform stitching is a true talent. Another one of my quilts was made from my great-grandmother. Heirloom to the extreme.

But other times, I pick up some up at garage sales. I love the softness of them. I love the idea that someone made such a difficult thing out of a need to express herself. And now it's mine. And it's soft. Not too heavy, not too light. Perfect to wrap up in. Even though it wasn't made specifically for me, it brings me comfort anyway, and I like to think that the original creator knows it goes on, bringing peace and warmth to even a stranger.

Right now, my comfort item is a couch. I LOVE this couch. It's so comfortable, and the memories of it are ... well there are no words for the memories this couch holds for me. We just rearranged the entire living room to accomodate this, making it the center of our living room. The last couple of days have been super bad ones for me, and wrapped in a quilt, watching some of my favorite movies, resting on The Couch has been one of the best things ever.

Now if only had my mother's soup.

Update, Bren! Update!

Bossy people!

I had planned on updating after Nationals and uploading some pics to here at the same time. I don't have the photos yet, thus the delay. I actually DO have lots to share, but I really wanted to add the visuals with it, so those things will have to wait for now. So for an update on Nationals, hold up awhile longer.

In the meantime, I've actually been writing. I finally got the laptop working on all fronts, and now it's back to acting stupid again, so I'm trying to write here on the PC. And now my keyboard is going out, hating the E and J keys and refusing to type them until my fingers finally force it out. J isn't that bad, but the E - well, we use E a LOT, in case you didn't realize that. I used to use a split keyboard, which I LOVE. This one is a regular one. Since it's going out, I thought I'd get a new split one, right? Yeah. $70! I couldn't believe the price difference, and places like Walmart and Target don't even carry them now. So looks like I'm going with the $10 plain one from Walmart. Yeehaw.

School has started up here again. Last year, for those that remember, my plan was to write while they were in school, since my youngest would finally be attending fulltime. I kept anticipating the first day in 2005 and then that day came and went and nothing happened. This year, I refuse to lose that time and so I'm working on what I can do to make it easier.

When I started out, the plan was to write romantic suspense. That got shifted over to romantic comedy as I learned about this thing called "voice". Now I'm shifting again - to be announced later - but taking some real life knowledge and applying it to fiction. Should be interesting to see where that goes. Either way, my plan is to take babysteps. I get overloaded on the "big picture" and freeze up. I have this "all or nothing" mentality and it's making me nuts, along with others close to me who witness it. Just like blogging - I put it off until I could do what I'd planned, rather than ANYTHING - which, of course, is better than nothing. Frustrating to be me.

Yesterday, Syd Vicious, age 6, came up with a song. The words are, "I didn't know who you were when you walked into my door, but in a week you changed my life forevah!"

I stared at her for a moment then asked, "How old ARE you?!"

She grinned. "Sixty-seven."

Why am I telling you this? 1) It's cute and my kids are rockin' cool. (By the way, those wondering about Shan's blog - blogger problem and she's going to be redoing it.) 2) Part of my new writing exercise is to blog SOMETHING daily. So those little things like what one of the kids say may be all I have to share. Gotta get you used to it now.

Because I'm sadistic like that.

A Vacation from Vacation

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to DFW for a week. It wore me out. Between constantly running around and constantly being with my parents and my mother's need for constantly eating, I was draggin' big time. I haven't even unpacked yet. I thought this week would be my resting, recovering from the "vacation".

Then my husband's appendix exploded.

Thankfully, he was in surgery when it happened. It was all really fast, actually. Well, as fast as hospitals EVER are, right? But when they went to do it the easy, fast way (laporoscopy), he started bleeding out. He'd had a heart attack like two months ago, and the blood thinners were messing it up. Thankfully, the surgery had been delayed for a couple of hours while they had platelets brought in from Austin, so they'd planned for this possibility and handled it. Then the surgeon went to remove the appendix, and "it fell apart in his hands". To quote him, "It was the nastiest thing I've ever seen." Coming from a SURGEON, I figure that's pretty gross, and did not allow my brain to visualize. So now his recovery will be longer.

That gives me another week. I have a week before I head back to DFW to ditch the kids --- errr --- drop off the kids at my parents. I'll get to DFW on Friday or Saturday, then Tuesday, I'm heading for Atlanta for RWA's National Conference. Shari and I will be having fun, but it's a big time, hectic, fast-paced kind of fun. Getting up early (that means before noon - yikes) and getting to bed around midnight (if we decide to crash early) with constant events in the meantime. Seminars, the bar, classes, the bar, editor/agent appointments and panels, networking, the bar. See what I mean? It's crazy, but in a super fun way!

I'll return from there on August 1st. And I'll need a vacation. Recharge and all that. Because for the next two weeks afterward will be all about BACK TO SCHOOL. For four kids. That's a lot of shopping. I figure coming August 16th, I'll be ready for a day of nothingness in the worse way - the first day of school, and once again, my house will be nothing but QUIET!

Now, if only I can survive til then...

The Sweetest Thing

I've been gone to Dallas/Ft. Worth for the last eight days or so. I take the kids up there to their Vacation Bible School. And my mom got the date for her cornea transplant while I was there. I knew she was going to have one - I knew her eyes were bad, but what I didn't realize was HOW bad they are.

Until church Sunday morning.

Something caught my eye, but when I looked over at my parents, nothing was there. Then I caught it after the next song. My dad quietly slipping the open song book onto my mom's lap, while she passed him her closed song book. After each song, the same thing happened.

My dad was turning it to the page number for her, then silently slipping it onto her lap before he took the one she handed him and turned his own pages. Never in my life have I seen such a sweet thing.

So small, and yet so incredibly significant.

I sat there, blinking repeatedly, vowing not to cry and being so happy for them to have that kind of devotion, that kind of love.

She's back - Be Afraid

For those who have read the blog for a long time, you may remember my teen daughter who was linked from this blog. She took the site down (sniff - sob - sniff) but she's back up and running. The mentality of a 16 yr old is kind of scary sometimes, but it's neat to look back and remember how it was then, the emotions and chaos and everything else, through her writing. I know she'd love for anyone and everyone to drop by and please feel free to leave a note (YES! Even you, Dwight!)

Check it out HERE