Amused

It is that exact moment in time when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror and you are neither bewildered nor horrified the least of all satisfied but mainly mostly actually truly amused is the time when you have wholeheartedly welcomed getting old(er).

The one you love.

"The mind has some many pictures, why can't I sleep with my eyes open?" asks Rufus Wainwright in the song, The One You Love. Since the bulk of my literary adventures have been mostly limited to murder mysteries for the past decade or so, song lyrics often screw with my head, in a good way, most of the times.

So what we have been up to?

A month down South, lots of wine, loads of sunshine, weekend sailing, family and friends. Lovely. Exhausting, but absolutely wonderful.

The one I love, the ones I love, cannot leave you down any avenue, promise not to, but could use a few days of my own!

Happy Mama!

There is a pretty good chance that this might sound cheesy and thanksgiving-ish, but I am thankful that both my sons are home with me, healthy, happy, independent, smart, cute and totally completely definitely make me proud: Arda with his sappy sentimentalism, forgetfulness, surprising wit and sheer charm, Tunca with his creativity, sense of humor, mind boggling brain, and a deep love for sleep. You guys helped me belong and are the best gifts ever.

Happy mother's day to me!

Muse oh Muse

There are days when I cannot stop thinking about, arranging and rearranging words in my head, something seems to have inspired me, yet when all the hustle and bustle ends and I finally sit down to write them down (somewhere, this blog, a piece of paper, one of the many journals I have begun and never managed to follow through) and that inspiration morphs into a checklist, a to-do list, an email, or completely disappears, fleeting to the depths of my mind, often to surface at a totally irrelevant and inappropriate place and makes me look totally dumb for pulling over somewhere and writing on a piece of credit card receipt.

Here are a couple that I fished out of my purse:

(can't read the handwriting here, probably written while driving?)
Seems like two ends of a sectional that never quite fit together, always a bit crooked, needy of pushing around...

Those crazy pink flowers have bloomed in the most ridiculously awkward curve, threatening to make me giggle and lose control somehow (ok, this was written in traffic, I remember this from last week)

Drum Roll.

For those of you who called and emailed and commented on my latest post, thank you.

I finally crashed Tuesday night and it actually felt better. Fell asleep in front of the TV and slept thru CSI and all until 5AM.

On a lighter note, we're all packed and ready to leave for Austria on Saturday. This trip is somewhat traditional in the way we visit Vienna and our great friends, Bahar, Bernd and Sima, then go skiing for five days, then drive back to Vienna for some more time with the Rothensteiner family for good food, wine, museums and lots of laughs. I am jut hoping that I won't freak out when I'm there so I can get some decent sleep and get a good taste of the slopes. The boys are very very excited and we're hoping that we'll miss the snow storm approaching Istanbul on Saturday. Will post fun stuff, promise...

Fear

As I lay awake looking yet again at another hour passed without the sweet lull of sleep I feel the blisters forming on my hands, mostly my knuckles, and another wave of utter fear overwhelms me and my heart starts beating maniacally to catch up to that whooshy-fally feeling (for the lack of words, like when your heart jumps to your mouth on that first fall from the top of the bazillion feet tall roller coaster) I curse at the shallow jerks who blame an earthquake on anything but the catastrophic movement of some plates and their tectonic shifts and moves and I get up to check on my sons and try not to look at the clock because I know there will be more of this torture to come.

Darkness of the night (hey that's a song!)

Some nights seem darker than others for some reason. There must be a scientific explanation somewhere that has to do with atmospheric stuff (see, all those freaky cold nights taking astronomy 101 at Mount Holyoke would come in handy if only I could remember a word or two of it) but my interpretation lies somewhere between my own physiological condition at that specific moment and my moodiness.

The darker the night, the better my eyes see. A gloomy sky with no moon (or the new moon? I really should look this stuff up) provides ample opportunities for cat watching, boat surveillance and just marvelous stargazing. The twilight-ish glow from the moon makes everything look hazy thanks to the multitude of stitches in my left eye, and the more the humidity, the moister my eyes are without any requirements of eye drops in good days and quinine related poison/medicine in bad days.

There were days when I wondered whether I would miss the sounds of the boats in the fog (I can hear them loud and clear from this new house) or the familiarity of the street I grew up in. I do, sometimes. But I can see shooting stars here. And that is exactly what I needed to see a few minutes ago. So I could make a wish.

Moving onto the next issue: gotta get lights for the house cuz if I were to trip up on one more thing (and we have “things” on the floors of our new place – toys, crayons, books, very dangerous cars, clothes, I am looking around right now and see scissors for gods sake! just like we did in our last place, and the one before that, because I hate picking after myself, or the children, or anyone else for that matter, and the children seem not have fallen far from the tree in terms of neatness) I know I will break something – most of the “things” don’t matter that much, but a hip replacement at the age of 35 is unacceptable). At least until I get some plastic surgery done. Yeah. There.

And I cannot believe I just wrote an 8-line sentence. Eat your heart out Orhan Pamuk here I come.

After the rain

The boxes are opened, the clutter is somewhat organized, and I as type, stuck in the realm of insomnia once again, again and again, sleepless as usual though my eyes are hurting from the exertion, I feel nauseous yet calm. Composed. Tranquil.

Tunca starts 1st grade on Thursday. He seems at ease. We'll see how that goes. My baby, riding the school service bus, every day. That came a bit quicker than I imagined, I guess.

Reposts. Because I am lazy like that

Some rambling from the past month, edited & posted simply because I don't have anything else to write since Arda is away at camp and Tunca's summer school plans went down the drain and I desperately need a few hours to myself just to get my head together and write about a few things in my mind starting with the utter devastation the Morgan family has faced this past week with the passing of Ryan and his mom, Missy the same week, from neuroblastoma and breast cancer.

--

You know how you always want to do the best for your kids and keep wondering every freaking step of the way whether you are doing the right thing or saying the right thing or even thinking straight? I am so tired of second guessing myself that I am, at 2Am in the morning, unable to sleep (surprise surprise) thinking over and over about stuff. Yeah, for lack of a more sophisticated word that covers this manic schedule and over thinking and all, and for all I care, it's "stuff."

The whole "I have it all together" act is wearing me down.

Please someone smack me in the face and tell me to pull it together or get over whatever this slum is so I can just go to sleep.

Domesticide Pesticide

The comfort in every day domestic duties lull me. Not to sleep. Mostly. I do need a nap often but that is more related to the fact that I love sleeping, anytime, but mostly during the day. I hate making the beds. Filling the dishwasher. Sorting the colors and whites. Washing stuff. Emptying the dishwasher. Emptying the washing machine. Hanging stuff up to dry. And on and on and on... Yet all this stuff, no matter how miserable I feel during the actual action, make me feel somewhat fulfilled. That's how exciting life is. My life.

On a side note, I am damn lucky to have some help to do all this stuff and I only have to do them when they're off. One of the best presents I got ever was my husband giving the news that he had found a cleaning lady back when we were living in NYC. That turned out to be disastrous experience that we only realized when we were moving. That is a whole new post.

signed: vain and lazy.

The never-ending program.

I am constantly haunted by my children's demands for programs on the weekends. And on holidays. And in the afternoons. Every day. Day after day.

To an extent, I am happy to oblige - many of our "outings" as a family end up being wonderful days and we all feel fulfilled, happy to have spent the day together, with family and sometimes friends.

The programs mostly include a meal outside, meeting friends, inviting friends, walks, bike rides, kite sessions, museums and parks and such. And according to the weather, and the fullness of the weekend schedule, they are more or less the same.

Add, however, the finicky basketball schedule of Arda's, a birthday party, someone (mostly myself) ill or miserable (with sun allergies), the terrible awful horrible no good senseless traffic for no good reason but the sun shining, the result is chaos and me screaming off the top of my lungs to just let me stay home. And sleep. Or watch TV. Preferably with a soccer game on.

After speaking to the boys about the limits of programs and my limits of sanity yesterday (ok, there was yelling involved, I admit) they were quietly playing with their toys and drawing today. Never even once asked for a program. My husband must have felt guilty that after basketball practice, he took them grocery shopping and bought the most unneeded yet essential items ever: almonds, ice cream cones, chocolate, a watermelon, 3 green apples and cocoa puffs.

We are determined to go to the beach or the forest next weekend close to the city. It's a 3 day weekend, May 1st is finally a legal holiday!

It's sad, I would have loved to take my children along to the protests, show them that the righteousness and purity of labor is something to celebrate, not frown upon or worse, look down on. No way. Never in İstanbul.

Hateful.

I don't know what to write. This is just a vent.

I am sick and tired of putting on 50+ sunscreen every day.. day after day after day.

I am sick and tired of having to wear long sleeved and/or UV filtered clothing.

I am sick and tired of the blistered hands and neck and legs and feet and toes and ears - yea! ears!!

I am sick and tired of not being able to play with my kids in the summer. Of hiding under umbrellas and shadows.

None of this would have mattered if I could avoid having the dreadful blisters. I hate polymorphic light eruption with a passion. I hate sun allergies.

On a lighter note: check out Arda & Tunca golfing:

Nostalgia.

The Engineer's Building, where we lived for over five years, is one of greatest memories I have of NYC. I often look at it on Google maps and am amazed by how the area has changed over the past decade. Here's a glimpse:


View Larger Map

Peter Pan and I

Call me shallow, but amongst all the great movies I have seen (and believe me, I have seen many) the one that always, always moves me so is Peter Pan. Yes, that version of Peter Pan.

The whole "never is an awfully long time" thing moves me. So does the destitute in Hook's (and Tink's!) face when he realizes that Peter "has found himself a... Wendy. And Hook is all alone." And lines like "you... are a codfish" make me giggle. And Mr. Darling's reference to bravery about how he put away many of his dreams as he locked them in a drawer which gets harder and harder to close after he secretly admires them late at night... yet he still does close the damn thing.

Anyways, I just came across the movie while zapping through channels tonight, and after a dull Turkish Cup soccer game between Galatasaray and Altay, it felt just right.

We have the DVD and every chance I get, I tell the boys that I would like to watch it. Sometimes they agree, more often we end up cracking up at Spongebob or ScoobyDoo. They both do know that I would pick Peter Pan if it was up to me. They make fun of me when I cry at certain scenes, yet I sometimes catch a glimpse of a tear on their faces here and there as well. I want them to know that love is captivating (both in terms of imprisonment and amazement) and liberating at the same time. And I hope, really, truly hope that they are fine with feeling that way.

Our trip was great. A few friends cancelled at the last minute and we were worried about the road conditions for a while, but we made it safe and sound and had a wonderful time with dear friends.

Here are some photos:

Adatepe

Arda hanging out with goats on the way back from the Zeus Altar.

Tunca & Z hiking. Sorta.

Gang of boys @ Zeytinbağı.

Food @ Zeytinbağı.

New Year's Eve @ Zeytinbağı.

Cool ladies.

Cool ladies v.2

The meltdown.

Turkish holidays are grand. After a 9 day holiday in November, we braced ourselves for the celebration of Eid, a Muslim holiday, for another 9 days, packed with activities. Most people go on a vacation of some sort, some overseas, some south to the Mediterranean, but we make do with short getaways during Easter, winter break and spring break since Burak works with an European schedule.

The first few days we managed fine, with lots of crafts and restaurants and family visits. Burak's birthday allowed us to keep them busy making lots and lots of cards and origami ("here mom, I made an elephant for dad but it turned out to be a boat") and sporadic food experiments (yes, we did the mentos & diet coke experiment in our backyard and dudes, it's awesome!) Then we went to a basketball game (well, we first took the kids to Asmalımescit and Pera area and walked around a bit), and the anticipation of that kept them excited and busy. Then we tricked them into staying at home for a few hours with the promise of a movie - at night and 7+ rating (they really did get a kick out of all the swearing in AROG, a Turkish comedy of some sort). But today, after all our plans fell thru and their cousin was late for a playdate and all my efforts (puzzles, more crafts, a 2 liter diet coke bottle and two packs of mentos, the computer games, 7 songs on Guitar Hero, cookies, more cookies, decorating the cookies, letting them clean up the mess from the cookies by licking the freaking table and giggling endlessly, then burning the cookies and letting them experiment with the burnt cookies) failed at keeping them entertained, I gave up.

I yelled at them after they started screaming into each others ears with makeshift loudspeakers, and they were very loud. I asked them over and over and over and over again to stop screaming, then they started to wrestle and screamed again and I had my first official meltdown of the holiday season.

So I decided to get my hair colored again, this time, back to its original brown. So there. I am the mother of two little boys, who seem to be having a great time screaming and giggling and doing silly stuf, just like they're supposed to be doing, and I just could not handle it anymore. So I want my hair back to its original color. That should do the trick.

Istanbul, on a good day

Istanbul can be heaven.

When I get a cab just as I step outside, and catch the boat to Eminönü without waiting, and it's mellow and cool at the same time... When dolphins swim along the boat and everyone just forgets about the looming economic doom and their general state of dispair for just a few moments. When I chat with strangers about cookie recipes while looking at baking supplies and Christmas decorations (right before a Muslim holiday, too). When I dance without noticing to some Turkish pop tune and noone stares at me as though I am crazy (people usually do, especially when I dance when I'm driving and stuck in traffic) and some even smile.

When I miss the boat on the way back, and just when I am about to complain and wait for the next boat, I realize that the usual blue green waters of the Bosphorus has turned purple and the sky is both blue and grey and pink and burgundy and an old man squeals with delight when a seagull grabs his sandwich on the boat.,

Istanbul can be heaven.

Orchids

What is up with putting orchids in bathrooms? I have been seeing this "design" idea of orchids in bathrooms for a while now. They are everywhere. Well, no they're not everywhere. But they're probably in every newly renovated bathroom I've been in for the past few years. Cafes had them first, and apparently someone thought, "orchids will do great in bathrooms" and voila! Now they're in houses' bathrooms. Guest bathrooms mostly.

They don't really smell either or maybe the stink of months and years of poop and piss have overwhelmed them into oblivion and they have just given up. I do remember orchids smelling really nice when I first saw them at a fair in San Diego, but bathrooms? Who was that comedian talking about why people put citrusy candles and air fresheners in bathrooms? (The whole orange and butt smell joke??) See I'm getting distracted again.

As I surf (yeah, I know, I hate that term as well) thru design websites, I come across only a few that truly make me say, "well, if I had a house, and buckets full of money, that's the designer I'd go with."

James Mohn is one of those designers who makes me want to buy a (real) house. I love his lofts and the airy and relaxed yet very very comfortable looking houses (yeah, Hamptons baby). So imagine my surprise when I came across this photo:
Copyright by James Mohn Design Studio, you know that...

I would love to post a photo of my bathroom counter space as well, but it is too late and for those of who know me, it is just way too messy to reveal to the public. Even if I did have such a sleek bathroom counter, I would do my best to keep it uncluttered, but the orchid, James?

OK - I understand the need for humidity for orchids, but guest bathrooms do not have baths or showers. They must be missing the point. Besides, even if they were in presence of actual baths, the constant change in humidity would suck the life out of them, right?

Don't tell me, "Z, get a life, who cares?"

You're right. I have these bamboo sticks in my living for the past three years as well. In case we get a panda to come by or something.

ps: coming soon, foliage, in a bathroom near you.

"What Happened to Me on My Holiday"

This is a short story by Martin Amis. I read a Turkish translation of it in a literary magazine back in 2004 and actually have been looking for the story for the past few weeks.

Tunca and I found a dead fish in the water back in Bodrum. Actually Arda saw it first, swam by it, then went surfing with friends while Tunca begged me to go and get the dead fish. So I did. I assumed he just wanted to see what it looked like. He examined it. It was missing an eye, but other than that, there were no apparent injuries (I did watch enough CSI and Bones to determine "no apparent cause of death") so I told him that the fish probably got sick and died and another fish ate his eye. Tunca thought another way - the fish had an eye injury and because he couldn't see, he couldn't eat, so that's why he died. From hunger.

We ended up taking the fish back home, so he could show it to his dad.

At home, he said, "I will keep this as a pet" just like Pablo said in Amis' story. I told him the fish stank, that he was dead, and that he could show it to his dad and then we could "free" him back to the seas where he would be happy. "Other fish will eat him," said Tunca. "They will eat his other eye as well. He'll be more hurt than he is now."
He is dead, Tunca. He is not hurt anymore.

Tunca cried. Cried and cried and cried some more. Then we made a deal. He could keep the fish until after his nap. Then he could either toss it back to the sea, bury it, or feed it to the stray kittens in the yard. So he cried some more. Like Pablo, he said he could stop the fish from smelling. He would clean it every day and put perfume on it and stop it from smelling.

I did not understand. Similar to Pablo's cries of "I'm a lion costume" Tunca has a different sense of reality from me most of the times. Probably all children do at some age. It is when I realize that I have lost that special sense of reality that I feel old.

The kittens loved the fish by the way.

The Chair Issue

I have this chair. A simple, burgundy office chair that Başak, my sister in law gave me as a birthday gift back in 1995 when I was a Senior in college. I spent thousands of hours writing on this chair. Probably more playing solitaire. A few hundred just spinning it with my sons. It has an suspension system with a lever that allows you to adjust its height with adjustable lumbar support- but that broke back in 2001 when we were moving from NYC to İstanbul so its just a wiggly back now. Still, it is the most comfortable chair I have. My beloved chair. Looks like this:

Tunca was watching a movie on my computer yesterday while Arda and I watched a basketball game on TV and he somehow broke the suspension system while trying to make the chair higher. So everytime I sit on the chair, I have to adjust it and the moment I get up, the chair moves, by itself, to the top position. Then I sit on the darn thing and it slowly lowers itself down to the bottom. It is just annoying. And weird.

Somewhere and sometime along the hazy days and nights when I was devouring baby and toddler books, I read that as a parent, you have to pick your fights. One of those fights, for me, is the "breaking stuff" issue. Kids break things, by accident, it's a given. That's why I don't have expensive furniture or vases or mirrors or plates or glasses and such at home and never make it an issue when they do accidentally break things. So Tunca thought it was very strange that I was upset because neither him nor his brother have seen me upset over something that was broken. I explained to him that I really liked the chair, that the suspension could be fixed quite easily, but that he was not a baby anymore and should stop messing with the furniture (he has a thing for jimmying locks and clocks and washers and vacuums and writing on tables and what have you).

It really was not a fight worth picking. It just made him sad and he really did not do it intentionally. So even though I knew deep inside that I should not have made a big deal out of it, I couldn't stop yapping about it.

When I realize that I have done something wrong with my children, I feel totally helpless. I know I can't be a perfect mom, there is no such thing and my children will always have a memory of me doing something wrong, no matter how hard I try. The point is, I try my best. But I do fail at times.

But come on, my beloved office chair?

Magic Words

My friend, Ahu, seems to be having a tough day.

I sure wish ViaLetter had ultra mega super fast express service so she could decorate her snazzy new apartment like this:
And then use ViaLetter to send whomever pissed her off a nice little package that contains the letters, K, R, E, and J. Figure it out.