Ecstasy in the Pit of Despair

Things are very weird around here.

Stephen is ill again, and I have had this terrible headache that beats in time to my heart and feels like I am wearing a cap of pain for the last two weeks. My mother is not improving, and is, in fact, getting worse. I am stressed to the max, what with papers due and all sorts of other stressors, both ordinary and extraordinary. I'm in the midst of my final teaching placement, in a year group that I am not comfortable nor familiar with. (The only age children that I haven't worked with IN MY LIFE.) I am not sleeping well. Not nightmares, thank goodness, but toss and turn and doze but not sleep, and fall asleep just in time to wake up exhausted. This is the pit of despair.

And in the midst of all of this... my life is tremendously good. I love me. I love being alive and being in my life. I feel young and (most of the time) strong and healthy. Stephen may well be the most wonderful adult male alive (sorry Daddy and Dan - you can come in an extremely close second.) My daughter is the awesomest, as is my son. The world is a beautiful place to live, I am in the midst of extraordinary times, and the sunshine makes me bask in it.

It just struck me today, in the midst of mucking about in the pit of despair, exactly how good my life is, and how much I love it. Yes, I'm tired, I'm worn out, and I'm sad about a lot of things. I feel as though I have this gem, and that I don't deserve it at all. It is like a vein of precious jewels. The dichotomy is stark.

Some examples.

This morning, we overslept. By a lot. I had 30 minutes to get to the bus, which is a 15 minute walk away. My lunch was ready, though not packed. My computer was not packed. I was not going to get it all ready. Stephen offered to help me, and he packed my laptop and my lunch while I got dressed and threw in my contacts. As I was leaving, I moaned about the fact that I wasn't going to have breakfast, in a not serious way, to which he replied that my breakfast was made and in my backpack waiting for me. I love him so much more now than I did when I moved in with him.

Last year this time, we were struggling with Ashley about a myriad of things, including her grades. She had checked out. This year, she keeps up with her studies, works hard, and I am not frightened of going to her parents night next week. I get to let her go out and do things, and trust her. I get to tell her 'yes' to things rather than grounding her. She is doing really well and I am proud of her.

I am a few weeks away from paying off my tuition for the entirety of my bachelor's degree, a few months early. This may not sound that awe-inspiring, but it has been a lot of money and I have been really stressing out about being able to afford it all. I have been ultra-conservative in spending. And it is a huge load off of my back to have it payed off. That means I will be able to graduate, which means I can get a job that will enable me to pay off the rest of the things that I need to. This is a good thing.

There is a position opening up at the school that I am placed at (which I really really love.) I spoke to the administration about it today, and they have given me a timeline, and a really positive response to my inquiry. I had an impromptu pseudo-interview, and was told that Monday I start a "7 week job interview". No pressure there. And I want it. So badly. It is in a reception class (ages 4 to 5, kind of but not really equivalent to kindergarten) and while it is not my dream age group, it is my second choice. I would much rather be in a perfect-for-Amy school. They are inclusive, they work hard to be socially just. And it is in a beautiful tiny town called Reculver. I could easily see us living there, and raising children there. I would be comfortable with my kids going to this school.

I was thinking about how to title this post on the way home. It has been a dark dark time, what with death and illness and stress. I feel as though I am high. Like drugs that make you feel so physically GOOD that you just have to roll in it. Like heroin. It would have been an appropriate title, but I thought that there would be a lot of people who wouldn't understand that. Ecstasy explains it pretty well too, though. My world doesn't have to be perfect to just be that darn good.

Blech.

I am sick. It comes from Stephen being sick. He has been running a fever and has had a cough deep in his chest. Now I have the exact same thing. I feel absolutely terrible. No appetite, nausea, coughing so much I can't sleep. I am lucky, in that he has done a really nice job taking care of me. I almost feel coddled. Then I remember how cruddy I feel.

And then today, in the midst of thinking that perhaps I would feel a bit better if someone were to actually shoot me and put me out of my misery, my glasses broke in half. I took them off of my face to wipe them off, and the split apart in my hands. I have put off getting new glasses. These are the ones I think I got in 2005. I kept telling myself that, even though I was pretty sure that my prescription had changed, I could hold out just until I had finished paying off my tuition. Well, that is not happening. My old glasses are not repairable.

I have an appointment for an eye exam in the morning. This afternoon Kelley and Stephen went out and about, but I chose to stay home in bed for feeling so bad. While they were gone, Stephen took my old glasses into the place that I have the appointment, and secretly had them transfer my old lenses into a temporary frame. I have to give them back tomorrow, but it means that I have glasses to see with until then.

He really is sweet.

And now for something a bit different...

As I have been tired, busy, and promising someone a chance to be a published blog author for almost a year now, I am very happy to finally offer the chance for a guest writer (as opposed to a GHOST writer, and I am glad for that, let me tell you, as I would never sleep well again after being so well-haunted...) to take over for a bit. Kelley and I have been friends since we were small, and my sister Kelli introduced us. She is here on a visit, and I am happy to put our family blog in her so-very capable hands. (Or so she says, though we haven't actually experienced that massage magic as of yet. hint hint.)

Hi there! Kelley here. Amy thought it might be nice for a small change, so you are to temporarily to be exposed to my version of a little thing we like to call "return to the motherland." Just teasing, I have never actually called it that before, but since this is my second visit to Amy and Ashley in England, and Amy promised a blog from us last time (she lied, naughty girl) I promised that I would write this time. (She just thinks it will be once. I intend to milk her for every word.)

After a long flight from Dallas/Fort Worth airport to London Heathrow (9 hours) and then a trip on the tube to the train station (1 hour) and then a train trip down to Canterbury (1.5 hours) I arrived here on Friday the 2nd. Note that if you should visit from America, these sleep Nazis will NOT allow you to escape your exhaustion and jet lag until what they consider an appropriate evening hour. It gets dark here at four. Tor-ture. (In the infamous words of Sir Stephen: no pain, no gain, so deal with it. Or something like that.)

On Saturday, the 3rd, we visited some friends of Amy and Stephen's for dinner. Here are Stephen and the Transplants (that's actually the name of their band):


By the way, he doesn't always smile like a serial killer in photos. Andy and b00 (the friends) made us a lovely meal, (involving eating anglerfish for the first time, and blood, gore, and medical-grade superglue, but not on any of us) and we played a few rounds of a new game called Bausack. It is a really challenging game where you make a tower of these odd-shaped wooden blocks. The catch is that other players choose your pieces for you. The last tower standing is the winner. The rookie (that's me) won the first round with this creation:


Ashley had a lovely 2nd place masterpiece with this one:


We stayed quite late past dinner, and walked home in the dark (very dark) and cold (really, really cold) and snuggled into beds with hot water bottles and many blankets.

Today, Amy and I went down to the High Street (yes I said down, then high), which is a short, quite scenic walk from their flat. (She says short and quite scenic NOW, but when we were actually walking it she sang quite a different song involving lots of 'Are we there yet'esque statements.) This is a school field nearby.


See the little black hills of dirt? Mole holes. Stephen says to call them mole hills, but I will let you decide. (Kelley and I both called them mole-holes until Stephen corrected us. I suppose I know that they should be called mole hills, and I don't know why my instinct is to call them mole-holes, but it is.) As you stroll down the path alongside the river, the Canterbury cathedral pops up in between the trees and over rooftops like a creepy stalking historical monument.


(Just look at those creepy stalker-building spires. You can't miss those, it's how you differentiate between a regular historic monument and a creepy-stalking one.) I kid. It is really quite stunning, but for some reason never fails to surprise me when I'm walking down the road surrounded by buildings and all of a sudden, Bam! No, it doesn't mow you down. It's more like, Boo! Here I am! Again! This is the creepy wooded path that Amy will not go down in the dark unaccompanied. Can't say I blame her:


(That picture may well be the favourite one that Kelley took today. I love the muted colours and it actually looks just like a creepy pathway should. Well done, Kel.) Here are a couple of buildings within town. This is a synagogue on one of the side streets (Story: This building used to be a synagogue, and it has since been bought out by The King's School, a swanky private institution that charges more in tuition for the boarding children than my tuition does. It is now a recital space used for music performances.):


This is an official Canterbury Historical Building (according to the sign)--there are quite a few of these in town. (In the midst of a variety of small shops, this house is actually residential. I almost feel sorry for the people who live there, as every tourist in the area has to stop and take a picture of this house. One time I actually saw someone taking a picture of the residents as they went in.)


Not sure if this sign is old, but it was on a historical building and I just liked it.


And this lovely old building houses...the Gap.


Here is a shot of the high street (also called the Parade) (Or at least 1/3rd is. There is St. Peters, The Parade, and then the High street all as names on this one straight, 1/2 mile stretch of pedestrianised road.):


And just around the corner, this sign wishes you a Happy Christmas. (On January 4):


And here is the cathedral again. I think it's following me.


Before we left town to head home, we made a couple of stops, one of them at Tesco, which is one of the groceries.


Now, the grocery stores amuse me, because one of the first things my mother said to me when I told her I was visiting England was "Yuck. You'll hate the food." (She doesn't yet hate the food, because no one here eats English food. We all eat Thai and Indian and American food, and French and Chinese and Spanish food. England is all about World food, anymore.) And it's not that it's just different, but they have odd names for things. For a complete mental perv like me, it is a joyous place.

For instance, there is an entire aisle dedicated to biscuits. Don't care that they are covered in chocolate or cinnamon flavored, they call them biscuits. Check out my picture of the cookie aisle. (I love biscuits. And cakes. Darn them. And this picture looks as bright and colourful and makes me want to bring them all to a much better home: namely mine.)


And this is the pickled portion of the store. Never seen so many pickled things in my life. And guess what wasn't in this section. Pickles. (Though there are pickled eggs, and onions and beets and garlic and sauerkraut, and lemons and shallots. English people like their pickled foods.)


And here is mince. Supposed to be ground lamb or beef or pork or whichever, but tell me truly. Doesn't this look like the bits in 'Kibbles n Bits'?


(If you don't think that looks like kibble, go HERE and look. I have thought that it does ever since I saw it for the first time, and I was so glad when Kelley said she thought so too.) For those of you curious about the edible porn, there are cans of things like this:


The can says things like "Everyone loves a pair of bangers!" and "Size isn't everything!" and "Hide the sausage!" These will henceforth be referred to as "Porn and Beans." And this:


Now, I saw the movie "The Full Monty", and I think that its funny that this is a can of sausage and beans. I'll let you run with that one. For those of you that haven't seen the film, and this joke is doing a complete flyby at the moment, go HERE. You'll see what I mean. (The Full Monty, in this case,refers to the full English breakfast, which the English have held onto tooth and nail despite being a culture of world foods. The full English breakfast consists of as many of the following items as possible: Eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, toast, mushrooms, black pudding, hashbrowns, fried bread, and tomatoes. The Full Monty=coronary heart disease. In a can.)

And after the Tesco, we stopped by the candy shoppe, called the The Sugar Boy, where you can see these:


Ahhh...Uncle Joe's Mint Balls. They keep you all aglow. You say immature, I say nevertheless amusing. Our last stop was to get kebabs, which are lovely pitas stuffed with meat shaved off these huge roasters, like this lamb one:


They are really yummy, I totally recommend them (mom's advice be darned). Afterwards we headed home and had dinner, including a yummy custard desert, which is like pudding, but a bit thinner, and served hot. We are now all huddled in Amy and Stephen's bed as Amy reads aloud, and I will shortly have to haul myself from the warmth to my own bed and hot water bottle (Best. Invention. Ever.) Thanks for letting me hijack your favorite blog, and I hope you will let me share again. Cheers.

No, Kelley, thank YOU. We all hope that you will hijack this blog again in the near future. Even Stephen is happy. Ill and delirious with fever (no Dearest, I am not a reindeer and I don't need to eat another carrot...) but happy nonetheless.