Author: ckent7up

Last week, we had the privilege of hosting exchange students from China.  I really love hosting and hope some day my kids will too.  They don’t quite get the beauty of sharing one’s life with other cultures yet.  And, the communication is limited.  This time, we had a dad and his daughter from Shenxen (I think, the most beautiful city that is very modern according to google translate, translated more than a dozen times this week:).  They enjoyed our walk to the horses, wondered why the kids were eating the bushes, and took many pictures.  I explained that honeysuckles have juice when you pull the stem backwards (the hill alongside my house had a fence lined with them where I grew up in NJ, I’d stand there for hours sharing with my cat…google had trouble with this).  They nodded when I showed and offered such a fragrant treat but then just took them and tossed them down to continue after the others who were furiously running ahead.  At the end, four of my littlest lined up with the little daughter and initiated an official trail race series.  Surprisingly, the winner in the fifth and final race wound up being our dog, Pi.  She most definitely cheated though as she bolted ahead and then went for the winner, my determined seven year old, who she sideswiped into a high flying dive right into the dirt.  He wound up with three medals of honor on his elbow, side and knee.  He held back his winner’s tears quite well and I helped him limp halfway back home where then he was able to bolt back with the others.

At home, we had soup which went over way better than my supposed taco bake the night before.  I was relieved my little guy felt better and that my little shenxen participant was not harmed in any of the normal production activities that her seven new friends have diligently trained for.  Their after dinner stunts, for instance, involve flipping w a twist on the trampoline, one right after the other.  Every day, the dad stared incredulously from the dinner table out the big window as they flew up and over.  I wasn’t sure who would lose the soup, taco, spaghetti, every meal eaten, first!

On their last morning, they were headed to Santa Barbara and San Francisco. I always wish Americans can just take nice days to see all the beauty in their own cities the way foreigners do.  But, I am glad they will get to see such great views and take it all in to remember what a special country they got to see.  As they pack, I throw out the recycling which they had never seen, such big bins for plastic.  Walking back in, I pass my beautiful clover patch that has somehow escaped the lawn mower but, thinking of it, my novice mowers have been doing a great job but it’s not too hard to escape them…wow, our mower works, thank you so much to the extremely busy neighbor with no time and yet time to help. That’s always how it is.  Then, I see, not one, but two four leafers smiling up at me.  What beauty in our own grass.  I excitedly bring them in and present them to our guests.  They nod and go to honeysuckle pass but I grab the word-vape and explain the beauty, intricacies and absolute fortune locked up in these little guys.  Then, I convince them to lock them in a book somewhere and keep them forever.  It’s what you do.  All Americans do that. Yes.

In the end, we have an invitation to the finest city just ten kilometers from Hong Kong.  The buildings stand 60 stories tall very, very clean.  Very clean it is. (Is Yoda behind that translator gadget they hold like a vape?)

So, in my imaginary mom mind, I vision flying all eight of us over.  We join our new friends to race the Great Wall, trek back to their town on river and foot, play an awesome game of elevator tag in their building, then join them for their favorite food (at least here), warm cocoa crispies.  If only so many miles didn’t make it seem so imaginary. Our cultures are very different but the joy in sharing lives is the same.

When you begin Mother’s Day week with court, it’s always a little different than previous celebrations.  You finally realize the father of your children is not the one to trust with your or their lives and it shifts the cards and candies to the backburner.

But, Tuesday and Wednesday come and make things fill up your week so that you forget the grin of the opposing lawyer as he states bankruptcy is being declared that very day, the lonely walk back from court through China Town, and the fact that you’ll be late picking your kids up from school again.  Wednesday even brings an opportunity to attend a stunt meeting that truly inspires and maybe restores your view of putrid mankind.  You know, you love mankind, but there are moments when you can’t handle the smell.  You hand out your resume, the one with the tri swimming, aerial yoga certification, arm wrestling competition, you know, whatever it was that landed you a commercial that could qualify for a stunt.  And, you hope a coordinator will put you in the next MI, or Bourne, yeah, the guy from Bourne was very sweet even if he said I had to choose one or the other.  But, you actually talk to people who have been all over the world and have done amazing things and yet have smaller egos than the incredibly inflated book tables at so called shepherd conferences.  So, you laugh to your more informed self.  They shake your hand and thank you for coming.  Strange, actually nice people who love their business and want others to join them.

Thursday comes and as a true gift from God, you actually get to be a roving substitute for the day and hit three of the classes your kids are in.  As a mom, that has to be the biggest blessing, seeing them in action, teaching them along with all their friends.  Can’t say I didn’t try to embarrass my sixth grader as I went from desk to desk telling them all to put their names on their paper.  When I couldn’t find the name of his potential chick, I just had to resort to pointing at each table to see if he would nod.  He just turned really red but then, he’s a redhead so that’s not too hard.  Friday brings an extended stay at two dentists to try to treat a fouled root canal on your sweet first grader.  Arriving at 10:30, they tell you they can’t treat until 3. Even though the drive was incredible with the great rocks and clouds that filled the 118 over to Simi Valley, you can’t hang out there or make two trips with your mega van.  Knowing you have an appt. for your also semi-sweet third grader at 3:30, you beg them to honor the time.  They send you to another office closer to home.  You rush over there to have to wait two hours and have them tell you they don’t think he can be treated, he’s too uncooperative.  Guess he wasn’t, not when they tried to push the tray in his mouth without any kid talk and just mean faces.  They say we’ll have to see a specialist since it’s infected.  Oh well. So, you rush home but miss picking the kids up in the rain again and manage to get your third grader to her appointment.

Friday begins and it’s a relief.

Saturday brings a mother’s day brunch so you go and the kids refuse even though you signed them up.  But, as you sit there, you wait a half hour at the back table and wish you didn’t feel so guilty, you could be making Saturday pancakes for everyone.  You check out the seat gift, awesome sprays and soaps from True Botanicals.  It will be worth it, even if the violins won’t stop playing and you like them but you just wish they’d stop playing.  Then, a really nice lady sits down next to you.  So pent up with her experience, she blurts it all out…her husband, a local no good politician that has cheated on her for years, finally got out of the house, leaving her with four children, scum a le scum.  I’m amazed at the gall of these husbands who can destroy families and still maintain their innocence in public.  Yikes for their souls.  Then, a lady comes and pulls the chair out to my left, banging my leg, and sits down.  She offers her name and an ice cold hand.  I tell her mine and she then looks away.  Another lady comes up and tells us we have to move, it’s the speakers table.  We get up and I lean over to the new lady to say we have to move.  She murmurs something.  I say, I think they want us to move.  She looks back and says she’s a speaker.  Oh, oops.  I get up but by then all the chairs are filled and after moving left and then right, not being able to go backwards, finding purses on all the chairs, feeling the sack coming, bolted through the door and lost my botanicals.  Oh well, I did get to make pancakes at home and was greeted by the warmest, fuzziest haired, five year old with a big hug.  Maybe that’s all a mom needs, not a song and a banner that says, ‘You are enough,’ but a big hug. A knock came that night at nine, while I was screaming for them to unplug the carpet cleaner we rented from the upstairs so I wouldn’t fall over backwards on the middle ones.  The kids came running saying someone was at the door.  I went and was surprised some moms from my kid’s classes put together a basket and brought some food for us.  It was amazing how generous they were.  Four boxes of cereal (which has a shelf life of 2.3 days in the pantry lately) and paper towels, so much,  and a huge thing of tea tree hand soap that put out the ‘you shouldn’t have left, you needed that hand soap’ guilt fire I carried since walking out of the morning mom’s thing.  They were so kind.  One even ran and got baby Tylenol for us.  I shut the door and the kids came out, seeing everything and said, ‘What?’  I said, I know and broke down, saying “Why were they so nice?”  The kids hugged again and we experienced human kindness and it was amazing.

Oh, then Mother’s Day came.  My twin brother even sent a tea pot with a magic flower blossoming thing that will be great to try with the kids.  Your vow to never touch tea again since the Big British Exile had occurred, may be rescinded.  And, the day was filled with peace and my kids smiling, fighting too throughout the day as they do, but smiling. And, that is enough.

The day sometimes comes when you must sell the ring that symbolized your union with your best friend.  It doesn’t shatter, it didn’t crumble, it is even covered with a lifetime guarantee from Robbins Brothers.  Yet, you cannot keep it.  Your friendship is broken.  The covenant was violated.  And, there’s the mortgage to pay.  Today is that day for us.  After consulting local jewelers, the value has gone down considerably.  The Brothers even verified the retail value is double what the ring is worth.  Things have symbolism or ‘energy’ the manager said.  So, to sell it used, it comes with much less ‘good vibe’ than to buy something new and there is the price difference.  It’s kind of different than buying a used car.  You can buy a nice cheap car and not think about what kind of driver the previous owner was.  Not so when choosing the little symbol that unites a couple and represents their whole new family.  What happened with this princess cut diamond?  Did it lose its shine after seventeen years?  Can it even be passed down?  Not really.  It’s just metal and rock in the long run.  And, it served its purpose beautifully then.  And, now, it will serve its purpose again to keep us sheltered.  That’s not bad.  Here we go to see what the dealer will give now that I’ve found the paperwork….

Returning the tax return…

So, did you know, tax returns will bounce back if your kids come up on someone else’s return?  Guess you’ll never learn weird stuff like that until you go through a divorce.  So, you learn and pay $90 for an amendment so the other person’s file doesn’t show up illegal.  Funny thing is, I’ve always avoided taxes.  Kind of think of them as inevitable but not something to think about and so I always gladly deferred that to my more number oriented husband.  Now I know, don’t avoid things.  Evil, yeah.  Avoid all sorts of that.  But, when it comes to your taxes or fears, or truths you’re afraid may actually wind up true that you hope could never be…just face them.  So, when I filed back in April and was so proud that I could actually figure it all out and rejoiced with all the kids around me bringing me water and explaining to each other that mommy was still doing the taxes and she only had fifteen minutes left, it was a victory.  And, even though that victory was short lived because the next morning, I was notified that it was kicked back, I still felt quite happy for some reason.  And, I figured it out.  Facing a fear brings victory.  And, the victory can’t be taken away.  So, when I got an answer at a brief, monitored visitation, after repeat attempts through silent lawyers and ex, that indeed my husband ‘filed jointly,’ I wondered what that meant.  Turns out, he didn’t file jointly, just married but separate and head of the household.  Then, in court yesterday,  I asked the lawyer if the filed return could then be applied to ordered attorney fees.  He smiled and said it would all go to the bankruptcy court.  Bankruptcy is threatened every month in court.  Guess that’s standard procedure too.  Oh well, you learn.  File.  And, file early.  So, H& R Block will amend with a signature (as indicated by their conversation with other filer on the phone) and we wait upon that signature. Life goes on.  Whether anything comes of a bit of taxes left over, since he already spent the initial filing, will be a nice non-mortgage late fee payment and I hope that is the case.  But, either way, things are clearer and it’s better to know what you’re facing then to stay in a fog of hopeful thinking.  What’s true is true.  Actions reveal motives.  Taxes come and go and many claims are made but it’s what’s left over that counts.