Buffet (of life)

MmmmMmmMmMmm. I miss you, buffet.

BUFFET noun

A meal at which guests serve themselves from various dishes displayed on a table or sideboard.

The Maven wishes there was a local gluten-free buffet, because she misses them. 

There is so much going on right now that I don't even know how I'm finding the time to blog. I must adore you all immensely to whore out what little energy I have left unto you and your reading pleasure. You're welcome. You can pay me back in coffee.

There are big things afoot for The Maven. Monetary things. Job-like things. I have a fairly large contract I'm working on right now, plus another one looming (and not official until I sign on the dotted line in virgin blood, of course). And I use "looming" in the most positive way possible, because I'm actually quite excited about the whole thing. I like the idea of working part-time because it keeps my mind busy. 

The Maven's mind is a very scary place, indeed.

I also like the money. I like being able to pay bills without feeling sick to my stomach. I like not always having to say "no" to my kids when they ask for something. Turning my children into spoiled brats who get everything they want is an important part of being a Generation Now parent.  I especially like not having to tell myself "no" all the time. I want to say "Yes, Maven, you may have that beautiful pair of boots," and "Yes, Maven, you can buy a latte at Fourbucks today and not shed a single tear of guilt as you enjoy it." I'm a simple woman, but even simple women have needs, yo. 

What I'm not ready for, I've realized, is full-time work. I think that would be a huge shock to my system and to my family after being home for so long. I want to ease back in slowly, and wait until all three gremlins are in school full-time before I explore that option. The contracts that found me are perfect; And they have found me, which is the really cool thing. 

I'm not a God person (no offence, God people), but I do believe that when I put energy into the universe, it often listens. Between the moment I had the realization that I was ready to move from casual work into something more regular and the time when I was about to start telling people I was looking for just that, these contracts found me. Both were from amazing people who I admire and respect. Both are very suited to yours truly. Both are exactly what I was looking for right now, and what I need to get my professional groove back. I've been out of the game a long time, folks. This is some scary stuff.

I have worries about being able to balance it all. Can I really add more stuff on to my already full buffet plate? Can I still maintain my mothering mediocrity and pay some bills at the same time? Having worked out logistics with my husband and talked it over with the Gremlins Three, I've come to the conclusion that I can. I'm The freaking Maven, Mr. Bigglesworth. I can juggle a machete and a couple of vials of tiger's blood, no problem. I can figure this out.  I'll still see my kids off to school, I'll see them after school, I'll spend time with Spawnling on days when he's home. But I'll also be making room for something I want to personally, professionally, and financially. 

So what if my plate is already full? Life is a buffet: a delicious, Chinese buffet. And my plate is full of yummy, MSG-filled food, but it's missing something: chicken balls. 

You can't go to a Chinese buffet and not eat chicken balls, because that's like reading Playboy for the articles. Nobody does that, even if they say they do. 

I've realized through a lot of soul-searching that, my serving of chicken balls is important to me. It's the missing side dish on my plate of life. It's not that I don't enjoy my family beef and broccoli, or friends shanghai noodles, it's just that I didn't have work chicken balls on my last four plates of food and I need to have some before I leave. So I'm going to cram them onto this plate. Eventually, the rest of the food will settle around the chicken balls, and everything will be as it should. And I will be happy, because I will have a decent work-life balance balls in my mouth.

Life analogies are awesome, aren't they?

So give me some love and support while I make this terrifying/awesome/overwhelming/exciting trip to the Chinese buffet, ok? I promise to save you some balls.

Not Feeling So New Year's

It's January 5th. It's the last day of holidays before two-thirds of the Gremlins Three make their way back into the public education system. It's been several days since New Year's, and even longer since I last blogged.

I've been feeling a little stuck; writer's block, if you will. It's something that happens to writers for various reasons, including being completely mentally and emotionally drained - due, say, to the great doses of fatigue and chaos that happen when you have little horned ones underfoot for two weeks. But there's more than that. I've been trying to come up with some resolutions for 2011 and having a hell of a time doing so. Every time I think about writing them out here, I come up with absolute butkus.

I had the best Christmas in a very, very long time. I enjoyed every minute with my boys, had good family and friends over, and I swear I did not squeal like a little girl when I opened season 1 of Glee (thanks, honey).

It was just a really nice time. I loved it, I felt it, and I embraced the season as the proud agnostic I am. Jesus and I get along just fine over Christmas. When we can, we like to have brunch with Santa and Buddha on Boxing Day. Planning the whole thing over TweetUp works best, because Santa gets the notification on his Blackberry no matter where he is.

But then New Year's came. I mean, it was suddenly just there. I didn't feel it coming on like I did Christmas. There was no major preparation other than a bit of a grocery shop. We planned nothing, we had nobody over. The youngest two were asleep by 10:30 and Intrepid was upstairs chatting with other bored teens on Facebook. We decided to play some World of Warcraft, because what the hell else were we going to do? No excitement means no interest in watching the ball drop as we shove h'ors d'oeuvres down our gullets and reminisce over the year gone by. My blood elf paladin could use some company as the clock struck midnight, anyway.

I guess maybe our lack of excitement was due to a difficult year that followed an even more challenging one. They were a little sucktastic, those two. We had fires, financial issues, a stressed child, a sick child - and, eventually, a sick me. For a lot of 2010, we gritted our teeth and braved a storm. It could have been worse, but it could have been a heck of a lot better, too. So, one would think that perhaps we'd be excited to see a shiny new year, but that wasn't the case, either. I can't speak for Geekster, but I walked into it kind of indifferent. No feeling of new promise, new hope. No feeling of ominous scary stuff either, mind you. Just... indifference.

It took me a few days to figure it out, but now I know why: I already feel like I had my New Year. In October, when I changed my diet, I changed everything. Finally, I'm losing weight I've been trying to take off for years. Finally, I have the calmness and clarity to handle situations that I was too anxious to deal with before (like fighting children - all day every day). Finally, I have the energy to keep my house clean(ish - three boys, remember?) and de-cluttered. Finally, I have clarity of thought to write and not be tripping all over my words. As a writer, that's kind of important.

Finally. I have my life back. Changing calendars couldn't possibly top that. And I have no plans to change my life any further than I have in the last little while, because there's no need. Everything is starting to fall into place on its own. I'll eventually add in some exercise, I'll likely cut back on sugar, but those are progressions of the path I'm already on.

So, it's not like I'm unhappy about 2011. It's not as if I'm not excited to be starting fresh. It's just that the timing was about two months late. The Maven, as always, is a trendsetter.

At 11:45, Intrepid came downstairs and asked if we could watch the ball drop. The three of us sat on the couch and had a look at the controlled chaos in Times Square. And I felt happy to be with them - as I always am on New Year's Eve - and that's good enough.

Buddha sent me a text wishing me a happy 2011. So nice of him, but Jesus sent an edible gift basket, so he might want to step up his game if he wants to pick the brunch venue next year.

Mistress Chaos Likes me Too Much

Hello. My name is The Maven and I'm addicted to mayhem (hence the blog name). Or, perhaps, mistress Mayhem is addicted to me. For, try as I might to make life as smooth a ride as possible for my home of little hatchlings, we seem to be hitting a lot of potholes lately.

This year alone, we barely kept afloat with Geekster's reduced work hours and salary, my three-year-old was struck by a rare auto-immune disease, we had a dryer fire (say that three times fast - it sounds cool: dryer fire, dryer fire, dryer fire!), our middle gremlin struggled through some serious anxiety and depression, and - oh, yes - my van caught on fire.

What? I haven't told the van on fire story yet? That's because it only happened two days ago. I've been trying to write it out for the last 24 hours but my horned wonders have been too busy butting heads for me to compose more than one interrupted paragraph at a time. Still, it's story worth telling in all its chaotic glory. Come sit next to me on my pity potty and I'll tell you all about it.

Sunday night, Spawnling was running around the house wildly, launching projectiles at his older brothers and laughing evilly in the process. I don't know who helped him sneak into the food dye factory, but the kid was hyper. It was apparent he would not get to sleep without some kind of intervention. After chasing him down with a toothbrush, wrestling some pyjamas on him, and trying to read him stories in bed as he giggled and did somersaults beside me, I decided an evening drive was an absolute necessity. I do this more often than I'd like to admit. But to be honest, grabbing a coffee at the drive-thru and cruising around town for a few minutes with Coldplay to keep us company isn't such a bad deal. It's way better than being kicked by a flaying foot as I'm tucking him in.

The drive started nice enough, and Spawnling drifted off to sleep within ten minutes. I was just turning onto a highway onramp when I smelled something funky - brakes, perhaps? Meh. Must have been the dude behind me. My van just had brake work done three weeks ago. The Maven takes care of her metal baby.

I had managed to get maybe a kilometre down the road before I realized I couldn't get above 80. And that smell got worse, and I was just thinking I might want to pull over and check things out when a truck that had been behind me merges into the lane beside me and starts flagging me over, honking his horn and flashing his lights.

I pull over. He pulls in behind me, runs over and says "You need to get out of your vehicle right now. Your back wheel is on fire."

Say what, now?

I feel the shock wash over me. Sadly, when my body gets flooded with adrenaline, I get stone cold dumb. Like in a bad dream, everything feels like it's going in slow motion. Taking a sleeping Spawnling out of the van probably took seconds, but it felt like minutes. Meanwhile, all I can hear is good samaritan behind me saying "Do you have a fire extinguisher? You don't? I don't, either. Damn. Do you have water?" Not even coffee, I tell him like that's a complete irregularity. I hadn't had a chance to pick one up yet. Probably a good thing, since it would have met its untimely end being splashed on the driver's side rear wheel.

It doesn't get more tragic than that.

"Stand way, way back and call 911," says the good samaritan. "The fire is near the gas tank. You don't want to be close right now."

So I run back several feet and call 911. First, I talk to someone from the national 911 dispatch. I tell her I'm in Gatineau, but she transfers me to Ottawa emergency services, likely because my cell's area code falls on the Ottawa side. Fine. I tell them I have a car fire in Gatineau and they transfer me to - *drumroll* - Ottawa fire dispatch. Because that makes sense! Meanwhile the flames are getting bigger and the good samaritan is trying to find something in his truck to put it out with. I tell Ottawa fire what's going on and they say they'll relay the information to Gatineau. Swell. Nothing like a middleman to speed things up. In the time it took me to talk to all these people, I probably could have run across the field and adjesent Wal-Mart to the fire station behind it and just knocked on the bloody glass myself.

Watching the fire and smoke from a relatively safe distance, holding a now sobbing and terrified three-year-old, I imagined what life would be like without my van. I've never been one to get emotionally attached to material things (exclusions: our house, my grandma's antique china, and anything that has an apple on it and begins with the letter 'i'), but a very real fear hit me that the van I had lovingly handpicked all shiny and new off the lot five years ago might go up in flames at any minute.

Mistress Mayhem strikes again.

The samaritan who's name I regret never asking dug two water bottles out of the back of his truck and splashed my tire. "The fire looks like it's out," he said to me. "I really have to get going, but wait for the firetruck and do NOT drive this van. It's not safe until you've had it looked at, ok?"

No duh. Like, as if I'm getting within 50 feet of that thing until getting the mechanical "all clear." The Maven may be gorgeous, but not at the exclusion of brains. I like breathing.

He left, two more people stopped to make sure we were okay, the rest of the cars whizzed passed us at 100km/hr as Spawnling cried and I waited for a vehicular explosion. The firetruck did eventually come and confirmed that the flames were out. The biggest tragedy of this event was that I had spent most of the day makeup-less in a pool and looked like absolute ass with my sunburn, chlorine-fried hair food-stained shirt in front of three gorgeous firemen.

I've met hot firemen twice this year. The last time, about as close as I got to presentable was that I managed to throw a bra on under my shirt and sport some less-than-sexy yoga pants before leaving my smoke-filled house (yes, the kids were all outside at this point - my vanity takes a backseat to child safety, but not much else, I'm afraid). I always look like I'm stepping out of an episode of "Cops" when I meet the firemen. Just once I'd like to look a little more "meow" and a little less "woof." Just once.

I tried several times to call my husband, but he was outside and couldn't hear the phone. I managed to get him on the fifth or sixth try and he came just as the flatbed tow truck was getting there. We had it towed, we went home, we stressed over what happened and whether or not it would cost us a great deal of money to fix it. Scared little Spawnling fell asleep on the couch holding the fire chief badge hot fireman #1 gave him. I brought him into our bed and held him all night. He still remembers the last fire and is still freaked out by the earthquake we had a couple of weeks ago. He did not need this, too. Poor kiddo.

Mayhem loves me and just won't leave me alone. She runs just slightly ahead of me, upsetting the order of my life and leaving just enough mess for me to begrudgingly clean up once I get there. Thankfully, Mayhem is not an entirely cruel mistress. As far as this year goes, Spawnling is no longer sick, Geekster's full pay is being reinstated, Gutsy is in therapy and much happier, and the drier works just fine after a little cleanup.

What I've learned as the wise woman I am, is that road of life goes on despite the potholes. My van did not go up in flames and is once again drivable. As it turns out, the cause was faulty brake pads. I was ready to drop the words "lawyer" and "it's in your best interest to fix this at no expense to me" and "we could have died leaving my millions of blog readers without new posts" had we needed to, but the garage took full responsibility and had my van back to me a few hours later, free of charge. Like most of the potholes we've hit lately, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

The good news is that, after much searching of last year's posts, I've finally found something worthy of reading at this year's Blog Out Loud Ottawa. And all it took was potentially getting engulfed in flames while driving on the highway.

I need a coffee.