Meet the New Member of My Family

When I was a kid, and I behaved in that erratic way that kids often do, I acquired the nickname "Schizoid Mary", for some reason, which we charmingly went on to apply to any among us -- Shirl, Jack, the Sibs, or me -- when our behavior warranted it. (Although I might point out that we were kind enough not to use it when Shirl was actually having a bipolar episode, because even the black humor family has its limits.)

So Schizoid Mary has made a comeback, and may be with us for a couple of weeks. When I got home from school this afternoon, K greeted me with an impossibly cheery "HI MOMMEEE!" Uh ... hi. Then we went out to do our errands. At the Gap, I held up a scarf I liked to my jacket and asked her what she thought, and she rolled her eyes and snarled "You can't wear a scarf with a red jacket unless there's red in the scarf!" Uh ... okay. She was also extremely put out by the way I swiped my card through the machine.

Back in the car. It's raining now, so I'm a little tense, because I hate driving in the rain in the dark. So I hesitantly ask what she'd like for dinner. I suggest that I would be willing to go to a sit-down restaurant, and she says "Great!" with a real brightness in her voice. Followed seconds later by a despondent "Let's just go home."

Have I mentioned that my darling daughter has stopped smoking? Today? Was that not clear?

We're looking at a pretty strange month or so coming up here. You know, I have always been surrounded by smokers, and have smoked myself on and off all my adult life (although I've been very good for some time now.) My father and grandfather both stopped smoking when I was still little, a miracle, since my father was the heaviest smoker in the American Army's European Theater of Operations during the war. My mother stopped smoking because, basically, she died, because there was probably no other way she was going to. My sister stopped a few years ago, and this is also a miracle of the parting-of-the-red-seas caliber. Older daughter R is a smoker like I used to be; she can take it or leave it, and these days mostly leaves it, and she is on the verge of quitting for good.

But starting now, K and her father are both quitting. The Hubs has cut down over the last couple of weeks to only three or four a day, and since the man has willpower, he will stop completely when he's ready. The kid is taking the not-smoking pills, as is Wonderful Niece. (Oh yeah, she's quitting too.)

This is all a wonderful turn of events, of course, and I am very happy and proud of them all. But we are a damn moody batch of people here.

Pray for me.

WATCHING LAW AND ORDER :: ENTRY #1634