Paul took this video from the sun roof of our car while I was driving down a hill from a client’s house in Carmel Valley. The house is a gorgeous rustic ranch on 146 acres on top of an expansive hill over looking the valley. On the ride up Paul said, “We gotta capture this view on the way down.” It was just breathtaking. Watch out for the Spanish moss. It is like an enchanted forest.

Paul took this video from his cell phone last week to show me the beautiful ride he took up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco.

First signs of spring. The wisteria on the side of our house is starting to bloom. Yeah!

]]> http://www.shwanda.com/2010/03/wisteria/feed/ 0 http://www.shwanda.com/2010/03/wisteria/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/carolshwanda/~3/b7A1pJEDDME/ http://www.shwanda.com/2010/03/rock-concert-tonight/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:48:46 +0000 Carol http://www.shwanda.com/?p=2824

Johnny Prynce, our rock star tenant, has been traveling on tour all month and is breezin’ back into town today for a concert in downtown Santa Cruz at the Catalyst. Woo hoo!! We’re all going. The opening act is a band called Radid Fire whom I have mentioned before. Rapid Fire consists of three teenage boys around 13 years old, two of whom are the twin sons of my friend Kathryn, who is a frequent commenter here. I just talked to Kathryn and we plan to meet up and agreed to wear our ear plugs and to keep our phones on vibrate. The video above is of Johnny’s band, Dirty Penny singing “Vendetta”. Enjoy.

It was a pleasant evening. We each had assigned jobs to order various courses, ( mine was appetizers) but desert was the usual fortune cookie. Sam went first to read aloud his fortune, but before he did he said, “I think I got Dad and Carol”s.” (Carol is me, those of you who don’t know.) It said: “You will be very happy with your spouse.”

“What a nice thing to say”, I thought, not only because he could recognize that his father and I are happy, but because he acknowledged my existence in the first place. You see, Sam and I have a very turbulent past, so to speak. There are times when he looks at me with such disdain I swear he hates me. If I had to list all the mistakes I made as a step mother,  most would  begin with Sam.

When I first entered Sam’s life he was coasting along just fine without me. Both of his parents worked outside the home and there I was working from home and therefore able to observe him not doing his homework, eating crap and playing too many video games. I felt it was my role to correct his behavior and made it my mission to do so. In hindsight, this was not such a great idea. It not only back fired in my face, it bred resentment. I hope someday Sam will look back on my “interference” as caring rather than an annoyance. Only time will tell. If I had to do it all over again I would simply leave his parenting up to his parents and stay out of it. I set myself up to be the bad guy, even though I was well intentioned. Perhaps Sam’s acknowledgement that I was  good for his father was the first nod in my favor. Maybe I am making way too much of this, but sometimes I just have to take what I can get.

Zip and Kyle snoozing on the hot tub

My cat Kyle and Paul’s cat Zippy were resting peacefully today on the hot tub and Paul commented on the metaphorical significance of it. The first few months of our combining families and living together they hissed at each other. Now they are very comfortable buddies. They are not exactly next to each other, but close enough.  What a relief.

I did marry a lovely man. That part is true. But he did not come to me in isolation. He had three children and the blending with my two has not been an easy task. It was the hardest on me, truthfully, because I am a clean freak neat nick  as in, it bothers me if the butter knives in the silverware drawer are not facing all the same direction. Or the bath towels aren’t folded a certain way. And I cannot for the life of me understand why no one seems to do things the way I want them done. So you can see my challenges here. These days with grad school and all, my standards of cleanliness have gone lower than I ever thought they could go. But I have my blinders on. One must in order to survive. I’ve had a lot of practice. When I lived in NYC in my early 20’s the view from my apartment was a brick wall. I made it a point to never look out that window. My motto now is, “Don’t look under the couch.”

View from the esplanade

I finished my second class in graduate school yesterday and to celebrate Paul and I headed down to the beach to watch the surfers and then had dinner in Capitola Village. I have been working so hard it was really nice to get a brief respite. What a wonderful husband I have, I must say. He has been so unbelievably supportive, helpful and encouraging with my academic endeavors. I could not have gone back to school and have done so well as I have without him. He’s the best and I am soooooo lucky to have him.

Sophia stayed at her dad’s for three nights. Just enough time for her to cool off and realize just how childishly behaved, and long enough for me to collect my thoughts and examine my own feelings, which I later conveyed to my daughter. I decided it was time for me to let go of my guilt. I had to stand firm and stick up not only for myself, but for my husband too. Paul is a great step father and while Sophia was gone he told me how often times he is hurt by her moodiness, aloofness and lack of appreciation for all that he does for our family. I listened openly to him and realized my own complicity in enabling my daughter to behave like a brat. So…. I had a long talk with Sophia on the phone. I knew she wanted to come home and that she was sorry. But that wasn’t enough. She had to understand why she behaved the way she did. At 16 she is not mature enough to articulate her feelings so without putting thoughts or ideas into her head, I guided her to coming to an understanding for the causes of her behavior. Here is what I told her.

I said, “Sophia, I know what you are feeling. I know you must be remembering the days when it was just the three of us, you, me and your sister, Eva, living in our old house.  We watched whatever we wanted on TV and no one ever objected. But you can’t turn back time. Things have changed. Now you live in a different house with 7 people and there is often conflict. Sooner or later, you are going to have conflict in your life. You will go away to college and have room mates, jobs with bosses and coworkers and some day, a family of your own. You just happened to have the conflict sooner rather than later, and learning how to negotiate relationships in a large family is good practice for your future.   Are you going to scream and throw tantrums at your boss or college professors? I don’t think so. I know you feel bad. I know you know you were wrong and now you have to say you are sorry. Admitting wrong doing and making restitution takes courage and maturity and I know you have it in you. Come home. I miss you.”

Sophia, to her credit, did just that. She came home and gave Paul a big hug. She told him she was sorry and he told her that he loved her, wanted her to be happy and would always be there for her.  That was Saturday afternoon and we had a great rest of the weekend. It was raining so Paul lit a fire in the study and all the kids sat around  listening to their iPods, reading or doing homework. Pop Pop came over for dinner on Sunday and we watched the Olympics and it was peaceful, quiet and relaxing. Wonderful.

We all gained something from this. I learned to let go of my guilt. Sophia learned to let go of her resentment and Paul got some things off his chest. It was definitely a turning point for all of us.

One post script I would like to add  is that Sophia’s  father, my ex-husband, remained neutral throughout all of this. He was there for Sophia to blow off steam and support her without taking sides. He did not, however, condone her behavior, nor did he at any time undermine mine or Paul’s authority. That is supportive co-parenting  and for that I applaud him.

Image of pastel sketch of snow scene by Nina.

Here is another photo of my talented sister Nina’s art work. This is the view of a grove of trees at our sister Pam’s house in New Jersey. I am so happy to know that my sister has something to do when she is snowed in. Keep up the great work!