OK, I haven't been over here in forever. This photograph isn't even current; it's definitely from this year but the ink was installed in Roanoke in July, 2015. I was looking through the archives for something to post and it kind of jumped out at me. I'm out here because I was googling the primary Alecto's Ophelia site to see what still pops up since I only keep 19 or 20 current posts live at any given time and only two or three per month from the archives and here's Alecto Alone, a free blog site which really should have gone dormant from lack of use. I suppose if get enough hits by accident which result in the link to the primary typepad site being clicked then it stays. For me, the history is kind of disconcerting because it's got very small chunks of my life going back to one marriage and touching on a signifiant relationship that followed after a four year hiatus from men in general and now there's been nearly two years since that one ended and I've just now asked myself, 'Alecto, if you really WANTED to be in a relationship don't you think you would be by now?' The answer was, of course I would. So maybe you can see why this very basic time line might be disconcerting.

Oddly enough I don't think there's a photograph of the first tattoo I had installed in April of 2009. That one's really cool. Maybe I'll add it later.

So the first two kids are all grown up. They're thirty and approaching twenty-six. One of them is making very loud noises about getting married and the third is finishing her junior year in high school. I've been an active parent for thirty and one half years not counting the first pregnancy and once I deposit that last baby into her dorm in something like sixteen months it's all over.

There was a time when I looked at the last baby with the nine year gap between she and her sister and said to myself and sometimes anyone who would listen... she is NEVER going to leave and this is NEVER going to be over.

I can imagine an awful lot of things but this wasn't one of them.

And also this...

I know it's grainy. The iPhone zoom leaves a lot to be desired. And yet...

(I was on the balcony listening to my knees tell me where to get off because as my boyfriend has mentioned possibly in retaliation for the number of times I mention his plus 7.whatever, I am old.

Posting Remotely

I think there should be some way to upload a video from my phone. So far only pictures so here is one of those:

I think I like the free blog better than the not so free blogs phone app based on editing capabilities (there are some) and actual photo placement. I want to post a video.

Maybe next year. :-(

iPhone app test

Well this is cool. Maybe typepad has one that works too.

Here is Cletus leaving for Europe for 83 days if I can upload the photo. I need a nap.

Hello Blog World!

Hello! This site is currently dormant. Please go here to find Alecto:

http://alectosophelia.typepad.com/

New England

...In Which Nanny Was Nearly Sent Home After Friday Night Dinner

It's been a long week, and let's face it, people, it is almost always a long week. Therefore one would think that anyone living withing the confines of this household would know better than to cop an attitude at 8:30 on a Friday evening thus bringing to an abrupt end my near orgasmic food coma.

Let me back up. It was the end of a long week. I've been working my 50 hour per week job with my 10 hour per week commute and cooking some serious food for my not quite but almost ungrateful brood. On Fridays I do not cook. I am fed. And it needs to be really, really, really good. Tonight it was really, really, really good. It was, as a matter of fact, brilliant and deserving of it's own blog entry. But I digress.

Back up even further. For the last six months my life, along with every other family member in and out of this household has undergone a sea change. Like big time, life-altering, get your shit together or let the top of your head blow off life change. And people, I am tired. I am very, very, very tired. I need to regenerate my emotional batteries or I am going to accidentally eat a Chevy Suburban for lunch because it happens to veer marginally into my lane. Just imagine the indigestion and subsequent constipation, never mind the paperwork.

I am gearing up to have a first class melt-down. And nobody wants to see that, or it's aftermath. You don't even want to read about it. Trust me.

So after much conversation, delay, putting off, masticating and general gnashing of teeth I called my brother in NYC (you know, the one with the rock star life and no kids?) and asked him if he might just be willing to take my currently supremely neurotic sixteen year old daughter who is currently playing emotional chicken with her father who has subsequently contacted an attorney for the weekend so that I might spend my second anniversary alone with my husband at a yet to be determined location preferably across several state lines. That was one sentence. Amazing.

Anyway, Jack said yes and then NoMans told me Cletus was scheduled to take PSATs that Saturday morning and I'd just given her the major guilt trips letting her know just how important this was to her future as a successful something or other with a college degree that I probably can't pay for anyway what with the attorney and therapy and coaching fees to counteract her ridiculously co-dependent and enormously self-destructive relationship with her emotionally and possibly physically abusive non-child support paying father and I. Just. Lost. It. Right. There.

It was terrible and you don't want the details. I am still ashamed.

Finally, after much soothing by the husband and daughter we all decided that PSATs were over-rated in the Sophomore year and that it was far better for Alecto to get the hell out of Dodge the only weekend free for about six straight weeks, which also happens to be said anniversary and possibly the only weekend Jack could be counted on to actually be in town. And it was decided that Nanny would put Cletus on the train on Friday afternoon after Little Girl's gymnastics and we, NoMans and I, would leave town together from Stamford just as soon on Friday as I can get the auditors out of my hair.

So it's all fixed, right? Right. I come home from work, NoMans comes home from work and we make our 6:45 reservations at the very teeny tiny restaurant called The Old Schoolhouse in Cannondale Village (Wilton). They seat a maximum of 38 (I counted the chairs) and were booked solid. They were booked solid because the food, the space, the staff, the chef, the everything were brilliant. And I do mean brilliant. I shoveled the last possible morsel into my mouth nearly 90 minutes ago and I still feel bilious. We drove home peacefully and entered our domain at 8:30.

Nanny's vehicle was still in the driveway. Disturbing, as she's usually out trolling by now, but whatever, we're feeling fat, happy and benign. We can deal with anything.

Anything confronts us in the kitchen.

Nanny: What time are you planning on leaving next Friday?

Me: In the afternoon, from work, why?

Nanny: I want to go out.

Me: Blink.

Nanny: I asked Patrick (Little Girl's Daddy) if he could get here early on Friday.

Me: (OMG - you did NOT!) Well, you must understand that Patrick works in New Jersey. And he's freelance. Which means he's paid hourly. And this is going to really cost him to be here early.

Nanny: Blink. Well, I asked him and he said he'd try to be here by six.

Me: Blink. You're going to need to take Cletus to the train station.

Nanny: What time.

Me: Sometime in the late afternoon or early evening.

NoMans: Doesn't Little Girl have gymnastics?

And it went from there. I escaped into my bedroom and hyperventilated across the bed at NoMans.

Me: She did NOT just do that.

NoMans: Yes she did. And she doesn't come close to working the thirty hours per week she's supposed to.

Me: Blink.

NoMans: I'll talk to her.

Me: When?

NoMans: (taking my twitching, writhing, bugging out eyes fully into consideration) Now.

And out he went. He was back in about three minutes looking like the cat who has consumed half a chicken carcass I forgot to wrap right away.

I think he ate her eyeballs.

NoMans and I are going away next weekend. And THAT is the end of THAT.