About a week ago, I decided that I should stop being so stinkin’ helpless when it comes to those sorts of he- man household chores, you know, those things which involve tools and nails and plugs. Oh, I can paint, stain and varnish with the best of them, but I wanted to expand my horizons ( read : I got stinkin’ tired of waiting for one of the boys to do the chore for me).

I chose a simple task : while a very simple task, I simply cannot remember the English word for the damn thing , I wanted to put up one of those bars in The Baby’s closet to hang clothes- with hangers, you know- on.

The Father took me to a handy- man store and we bought the fool thing. He showed me how to use this portable drill, complete with a philips head….whatever. He showed me how to set the machine in reverse, should I need to unscrew a misplaced screw.

All went well, until I went to unscrew a screwed screw. I put the drill in reverse and, well, couldn’t get it out of reverse. But I was very determined and said to myself, well, that is why God made normal screw drivers.

Little holders all in, measured carefully, no lopsided bar coming into this closet.

Now, I measured the interior of the closet, it was 101 cm. We bought a 1 meter long bar.

It didn’t fit, it was too long.

Piece of cake, The Father said, I have a metal saw in the shed. Which he could not find. ( Shed , read : his territory)

Today while doing some chores outside, I ambled over into the shed and low and behold, found the metal saw.

Within 15 minutes, I broke it. I hid the evidence- after all, he said that he couldn’t find it, didn’t he ?

And then I took a pair of scissors and some tool and cut the f**king bar to the proper length.

It worked.

It did not work in the proper old boy way, but The Baby now has a thing to hang her dresses on in her closet.

And it actually has made me feel quite proud.

I did it.

I have been spending a lot of time trying to arrange our vacations for next year.

The Father has told me that he wants to plan next year’s trip to the the states. Fine with me.

But the May vacation. Even I, wearing my Shirley Temple, Good Ship Lollipop avatar am about to junk this baby.

Daddy does not want to go to an EC country, as the hotels are too expensive ( read : euro- dollar, bad exchange).

The Father does not want to go to a non- EC country, as the flights cost about 3000 euro in toto.

I am beginning to think that perhaps I shall find a basket weaving class for the children, come May.

I begin to gird my loins to tell Dad that there will be no family May vacation.

This most likely shall take me a very long time indeed.

After all, perhaps we shall win the big bucks at the lottery.

One never knows.

JoAnne asks where I am. Why, I am here every morning, sipping coffee, unhacking the archives. I noticed rather recently, that most of the March, April, May, June, and July of 2004 archives were gone.

Check out the archives following October 2004. Hmmm, I think I see a slight problem there.

Otherwise, I have turned 49, The Baby 7, Oma a cootie’s age, Mr.Jo and The Father have placed double glass in the windows in the front of the house, downstairs.

All during this week.

And tomorrow, the Blue Fairy has prepared a noon ’till the wee hours of the night feest at Casa Kitchen, celebrating both The Baby and Oma’s birthday.

Oh, and I’m trying to fix The Father’s MP3 player.

And that, folks, is where I have been.

Here, all of this time.

And just what does the couch and my little room of my own just have to have?

ANTIQUE Large Victorian Paisley Shawl w Fringe, Label

Very clean. The shawl came from a former ambassadors home and was stored in a closet.

I know. There are small children starving across the face of this planet….

The other evening over dinner, The Father said…. wait, let me back up to that morning.

I get up a half an hour earlier than The Father. For one, I am extremely slow in the morning, and two, I wake up The Boy and The Baby, both also a wee bit slow in the morning. They do enjoy walking the dogs with The Father, though, at about 7.20, and so the early rising gives them a bit of time to eat breakfast, change into their walk the dog clothes and, well, just wake up.

Now, I am blind as a bat. That morning, I told The Father to close his eyes, I had to turn on my light, I had to find my glasses. I was- I am afraid, as usual-of wandering about starkers.

He must have peeked.

So, the other evening over dinner, The Father said that I was too thin. Politely put, all of my more interesting parts had vanished. He asked me what I weighed now, and I said, oh, about 45 kilos. At 5′2, at my age, being about 100 pounds is not that bizarre, at least to me. I have told him in the past that as I approached 50, I had a choice : to be a short little fat Auntie with curly blue hair, or one of those more slender older women. I did not want to be a fat old lady.

Over dinner, though ( and this was a very serious conversation), he told me that I looked like someone who had just been liberated from Dachau. Was I now an anorexic, he asked ?

I said no, I wasn’t. Most of the weight loss has been because I was boozing it up quite a bit since- oh lord, how long ago was it ?- that last miscarriage perhaps, and had gotten that under control once more.

The other thing is simply this : I’m never really hungry. I don’t know why this has happened , age perhaps ? And I am very, very fussy about what I do eat now : I only eat something that I really, really enjoy. I no longer eat to be polite. Why, tonight, I am going to rip into a bag of Engelse Drop, an item I usually loathe but have the most intense craving for at the moment.

I heard about my bony face ( most likely a polite way to say that I am looking haggard), the skin sagging on my arms, the good parts having taken off for Bora Bora and all that I could say to Han was that-well, I’ll get the rubber tits next year.

He insisted that I gain 10 kilos.

Sure thing, kiddo.

I asked him if he had noticed that I wasn’t hiding under sweatshirts and baggy clothes any longer, in fact, I was actually buying clothes. Me, buying new clothes.

I also suggested that he take me out for a fancy dinner.

Just a thought.

Waking up yesterday morning to find everything hacked- yet again- was not really my idea of a fine morning.

Things are rather patched together once more and seem to work.

But in the evening, they brought my couch ( we don’t use the phrase Chaise Lounge here, that is French, dontcha know, and quite frankly, even The Father does not know how to pronounce the phrase).

It is lovely, but about 15cm longer than I was told and so I rather oh-me, oh-my about whether or not it will fit into the chosen spot.

Now, the arrival of the couch means that the formal dining room table ( re : where we drop mail, keys and assorted junk)moves up to The Boy’s room. The Father has known of this plan for weeks. Really.

And yet last night- in his best D.P. voice- he said, that means I won’t have a place to work, doesn’t it ?

Little room of my own means just that.

Plus- I pointed out to him- we planned on buying one of those gate leg tables that he could pull out on weekends.

And today ?

I spent 7 hours trying to set up an Eheim filter for the tank downstairs. There is air trapped in it some where. Many hours, buckets and towels later, I gave up, saying, well, of course, tomorrow is another day.

Lucky me.

Since Cecile was diagnosed with death last November and did indeed die last Spring, it sometimes seems that everything in my head has changed.

The effect of her death upon me has been a shattering event, or, perhaps, has simply led me closer to being an adult ( although, at odd times, I wonder if there is any such animal as an adult. If you ask anyone who is old, how old they feel deep within their souls, they never seem to feel older than 30).

If you saw me now, the one thing that you would immediately notice, is that I have lost a lot of weight. From hovering around 57 kilos, I now weigh 44, 45, depending- perhaps- upon the weather.

I want to stop the work- work that I do.

And I want our house organized.

Every two weeks, they pick up our non- green garbage, and in the shelter of the darkness, we haul out bag after bag of rubbish that Mummy Dearest has evaluated and said “good by, you ugly thing” to. My little room of my own is the War Office, where all meet their fate.

Today, I started on The Boy’s room ( life can be so complicated, in dull ways, at times. The arrival of the chaise means the formal dining room table – usual function : throw junk on it- goes up to The Boy’s room. Spread out to it’s full two meters, it will provide a place for his keyboard and computer). I cleared out the little attic above the girl’s bathroom and linen closet and that shall be transformed into The Boy’s Lego Room.

Yes, Mr. Jo is coming soon.

Six bags of rubbish were tossed out of The Boy’s room today, those Komo bags with white wire ties.

And, to use a much overused phrase, his room ain’t seen nothing yet.

Is it death or is it nearing 50 that brings these changes ?

Haven’t a clue, but I am weary unto death of the phrase “it is up in one of the attics” meaning “and shall never be seen again.”

I want to be rid of the dross in our home, in my life.

Sometimes, The Boy has a very sad look in his eyes. I have learned over time not to ask him what is up, what is wrong. I know that he won’t tell me.

I just glance over to whatever he is looking at and I know the story.