Someone once said that when you look back at things that occur in your life you tend to only remember the happy or the good parts. I guess that might be logical because it is much nicer to block out the bad and only remember the happy parts. Guess I tend to look back on the bad parts and make good use of them so that I don't repeat them. Can't say I was always successful with that attitude as old patterns of behavior are hard to change.
By the time the second year rolled around after the divorce I was slowly beginning to realize that it was much easier to create good times and good memories. It was so much more fun to wake up every morning and think what a great day it was going to be rather than waking up with a sense of dread. When things did go wrong I was slowly learning how to get over them and go on. Besides there was no one else to blame and the best thing to do was to laugh and go on.
After the first parent-teacher conference at Wally's middle school I was not extremely happy. First of all, every teacher conference that I ever attended I got scheduled right after some mother with a straight A student. I could overhear what a wonderful student Johnny or Susie was and wonder why this parent had to even attend except to gloat over what a wonderful child they had. When it became my turn I got to hear what a nice boy Wally was but that he never turned in his homework. How they knew he was smart and did well on tests but since home work was a big part of his grade he could do so much better.
I knew Wally did his homework but somehow it just never got turned in. He would carry it to school but somehow did not remember to turn it in. So we started a Movie Night. Every Tuesday night we would go to the dollar movie in Royal Oak and I put a list on the refrigerator of things I would not let him do every time I got a bad report from school. I think there were about four or five things on the list with the last one being no more Movie Nights. In the course of the semester with more conferences and notes from the teachers he lost all but the last one. My great idea did not work so well so before we lost Movie Night I tore the list up and decided that Wally was really a great kid and he was doing great in band. Besides I rather enjoyed Movie Night and maybe having an A student was not all that important. Having a fun child was much more important.
The first costume check for the upcoming ice show was interesting. The eight guys I was in charge of for the most part did very well. One of the guys could actually sew better than I could and I discovered that one of them was actually a male stripper. The best though was Kevin and Michael. Michael and Kevin met in France while touring with Holiday on Ice. Kevin had been a junior champion in Men's Singles several years before and Detroit was his home. Both always appeared in full make-up complete with false eyelashes and it took some getting used to on my part. Costumes with pants required an inseam zipper so that it was easy to change costumes without taking your skates off. Kevin got creative and hot glued his zippers in. Zippers, hot glue and orange satin are not a good combination and the pants had an interesting rippled look to the inseams. This required two more yards of orange satin and me making Kevin's pants. Actually I ended up making all of Kevin's costume as I did not trust him and it was a good thing I liked him.
My two costumes passed the test and I got two huge bags of trim to be applied to them. Looking at the instructions for the Starfish costume all I could think was "you've got to be kidding". It required a hundred little pieces of green felt to be cut out and decorated with green sequins.Then there were yards of green toille (net) that was to be made into a shirt to go around my feet. Then there was the bag for the Japanese cape that was to take 52 hours to put on the sequins. I seriously thought about putting a hex on that costume chairman.
I should have known better than to put a For Rent sign in front of the house I bought in Dearborn. Between a booming interior design business, the up coming ice show and all those costumes and trying to be a decent mother to both Wally and Wes, since he seemed to have decided I was not so horrid, there were not enough hours in the day. Perfect timing for a gal to call very interested in seeing the downstairs apartment at the Dearborn house.
I explained to her that I had some painting to do but she was anxious to see it anyway. So I figured that was perhaps the best thing to do. Maybe their is a reason why I can't remember her name so I am going to call her Opal. Opal was about my same age and said she was a Therapeutic Masseuse. I had not heard about that occupation before but I did decide not to ask. She did love the apartment and asked if I could paint a couple of rooms in particular colors. Being in a benevolent mood I agreed. Interesting that she wanted the kitchen in a pale peach which was supposed to be good for digestion and the bedroom in sky blue with clouds painted on the ceiling. Nothing like a challenge and I knew some people put mirrors on the ceiling but clouds was a whole new thing. We settled on a date, she paid the deposit and the first months rent and I went shopping for paint.
By the end of February I had the apartment painted and had to have the city code person come out to give me a Certificate of Occupancy. I did notice he stared at the bedroom ceiling for a long time but did not say anything. The downstairs passed so I asked if he would check the upstairs apartment while he was there. That was where the bad news came in. Seems like the kitchen sink flunked due to no garbage disposer.
He wasn't impressed when I pointed out it was a vintage sink. Then he said the back stairs were no longer legal and I needed to remove them. I made no comment after his terse answer about the kitchen sink but I did wonder what would happen if Opal set the downstairs on fire and the upstairs person could not make it down the front stairs. There were times a year or so later when I would remember that thought.
So I was rather caught up on everything but my costumes and Charles suggested we go skiing before rehearsals started and snow melted.
Wally and I both had skis and boots but Charles had to rent some. We went off to Traverse City and spent the weekend flying down the slopes. Charles was worried about Wally, which was nice, but I worried about him. Let's just say his skiing posture was a little different than most. But he always managed to get down the hill in one piece and it was really a fun weekend.
I caught myself liking Michigan and Detroit more everyday. I am a winter person so it was fine with me if there was snow from November to Easter. The kids have always joked about the fact that there was never a snow day in Michigan. The roads were cleared by seven in the morning and if you had a sidewalk in front of your house it had to also be cleared of snow by the time children walked to school.
There was so much history in Detroit from automobiles to music, fantastic architecture, the Henry Ford Museum and a great art museum. Detroit is an amazing city in the fact that hardships befall it but it always manages to make a comeback. The news has always loved to tell all the bad aspects such as crime and poverty but you find that in every city, large or small.
It was really beginning to feel like everyday was fun. Spring meant the ice show for me and some special things for Wally. It was kinda of nice that Wes was showing up a lot since he now had a driver's license. Hopefully life will stay this way.
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