Occupy Smith Avenue
or
Does my eye twitch bother you?

Hey, it's not easy to type while using one hand to press on my twitching eye lid.  These are times that try our souls.  And set some small facial muscles to twitchin'.  I can beg for the grace of grace under pressure, hoping to take each day as it comes.

I remind myself that what I call pressure is not what much of the world would consider pressure.  I don't risk my life going to work or the store.  There are no lands mines or snipers; no dangerous criminal types (not lately).  Here I am, mewling about what basically feels like death by a thousand pinches. Oh, those pinches.

Envy creeps in here.  I think all the little conflicts at home would be minimized if we lived in one of those MacMansions with a room for everybody and a few rooms to spare.  We do what we have to do.  A close family is a blessing - but at times the apples of my eye start to seem a bit rotten.  Oh, when these apples are packed so closely in the barrel.


I actually started writing this a few weeks ago and my eye was twitching and my head was pulsating too much to continue.  The change of having Martha move home in the wake of her sudden job shake up is pretty much resolved.  Most of my twitching has come from the logistics involved....Martha moved out, Fran moved into Martha's bedroom, Fran's bedroom was made into a library/lounge.  This could not in any reasonable way be undone.  But the negotiations over what to do led to a lot of bickering.  (one desperate conversation ended with me offering Martha my bedroom and I would live....in the garage? the laundry room?  the library?  I just wanted it all to stop.)  And my husband quotes Robert Frost and reminds me that home is where they have to take you in - and as someone who had once been taken in I appreciate the sentiment.  Rick and Frost both offered no insights on the logistics.  I don't think Nate Berkus has done any shows about this dilemma.  We're playing this by ear.

But home is where our hearts are.  And the turkey is already thawing in the fridge.  The eye twitch is in remission and Thanksgiving will find us thankful.