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I hate combined words like Palmstravaganza

I couldn't stop taking photos of palm trees when we were in San Diego. Maybe because at home in Seattle I knew the temperatures had dipped and snow was on its way. Maybe because winter has seemed so so long this year. Maybe it's just because palms are fantastically enticing, like a firework that shoots straight up and lets loose with an explosion of spiky green fronds.

I just know that, to me, palm trees are exotic and mean vacation. As much as you can vacation while staying in an old folks home with two kids and a bottle of red wine hidden in your dresser. Yeah. But there was a pool!

More 25-word fiction

Just don't count.

***

She was the married one. Yet she took what little he gave her.

Scraps of conversation here, a look there. It wasn't enough.

But it had to do.

*

Her eyes flashed with dark excitement whenever she thought of it. The new twist.

She knew it would be the end of her.

*

He spooned the chocolate mint ice cream into her mouth.

"Mmm."

"I know."

"Can I have more?" she said.

"If you promise to live through the night," he said.

Alone in the dark

Claire does this thing where she genuflects kisses on my face. Minus the religion. It's a ritual for her most days when I drop her off at school. She kisses my forehead, cheek, cheek, chin. (Though I know that if this were truly genuflection, it would be forehead, chin, cheek, cheek. Whatever.)

I've realized something about her. She's just like me. Not in every way. But in her need to stay occupied until the moment she falls asleep, lest disturbing thoughts swirl around her brain in an endless helix.

I finally caught on last night, our first bedtime in San Diego, where we're spending the kids' winter break. She muttered from her sleeping bag that she needed something to do. That a dark room next to a slumbering brother would not stand. She whimpered for a while, then started to cry in earnest. At first I was annoyed. After a day of traveling, I just wanted to lie there in a stupor. But it soon become clear she was seriously distressed. I brought her into bed with me and tucked her under my arm. We slept that way for a few hours, until she inevitably turned into the thrashing octopus that emerges around 1 or 2 a.m.

I woke J. to move her to her sleeping bag.

At home, Claire is always up late, rearranging her bedroom, tucking dolls under blankets, playing until she's so exhausted she conks out. I didn't understand until last night, though, that she needs to. That her rearranging and playing is tantamount to my reading before sleep. It's a defense mechanism to ward off the figurative monsters. Or, as she puts it, the "bad thinkings".

She's so open and lively and imaginative during the day that I sometimes forget what those same qualities can do to a person alone with their thoughts in the dark. A small, unmedicated person to whom everything seems wondrous, but also big and scary.

Cotton headed but not stupid

Heyyyy.

I've lost 10 pounds! Yes. All it took was one virus/infection that made me want to jam a knitting needle into my eardrum for a little relief. Seriously, every day this week I've been whispering prayers to the god of otitis media, saying "Rupture, rupture, rupture." But he's paid me no never mind. The recuperating is going way too slowly for my taste.

Especially considering there are children to raise and webinars to host and synopses to finish.

The 10 pound loss, though, was less because of sickness and more due to my morphing eating habits. Want to know what I'm doing differently? Okay, here are my secrets (And this is going to sound like pious bullshit. I'm sorry.):

1. Two pieces of Dave's powerseed toast for breakfast instead of slurping leftovers off Max's and Claire's plates.

2. Red meat no more than once a week. Preferably less.

3. Lunch usually = quinoa with or without skinless chicken breast, sliced almonds, olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Fresh baby spinach makes an awesome addition.

4. My big treat of the day is a few squares of dark chocolate in the afternoon.

5. Very few chips or crackers.

6. No dessert after dinner. I usually, but not always, succeed.

7. Less wine.

8. One extra serving of veggies at dinner. So, at least two servings total. Maybe three.

9. Fish once a week (or more).

10. 2 to 3 cups of green tea a day.

This is my ideal menu. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't. But I've been much more mindful of what I'm consuming. I didn't set out to lose poundage, it's just a happy outcome of trying to eat more healthfully, a philosophy I've adopted after watching my friend struggle through colon cancer. It truly looks like hell. HELL I do not ever want. Hell I will do everything in my power to prevent.

I'm pretty sure J. would put the kibosh on all my organic produce buying if he could. But I'm the grocery shopper in this family, so he can't. Only the most expensive eggs, milk, and carrots for us!

Other things I've gleaned from the last week:

• I text way too much. Over my AT&T limit. I blame the shiny iPhone.

• Do not hold a girl scout meeting off-site, somewhere that is not a classroom. Chaos will ensue. And the cotton-in-your-ears feeling from all the bacteria-ridden fluid will not muffle 12 Kindergarten girl voices.

• Leaves are starting to bud here. In mid-February. Coming from Michigan, this is still a novelty! And every year, it's a happy surprise to see the baby green orbs popping from gray branches. Like glistening coins rolling off the ends of skeletal, old fingers.

Except that I actually kind of like it

I'm in query hell right now.

Except that I kind of like querying. I think I'm good at it. Also, it means the project is squared away for the moment and ready to be seen.

While I'm busy, please enjoy this photo I took of Max.

And if you want to see more of my photographic fumbling around, I'm doing Project 365 on Flickr. A photo a day for a year. Love it!