spinning versus setting

So, I'm thinking that perhaps the next time it's 5:00 PM and I still have a couple hours of clients to go and I'm getting sleepy, I maybe ought to try the ice water route, instead. Maybe. No reason... (Blink. Blink. Blink. Why am I not asleep yet? Hmmm....)

After an hour spent catching up with emails (after a 12 hour day of clients), an hour spent blog-surfing, and half of an hour spent playing mahjong on my two inch by three inch phone screen, my brain just won't shut off. Or shut up. Which is leaving my husband wondering when I'm going to shut off the light and let him sleep.

It all began with an email from Anne Marie, a very cool and very sweet mom I met this year through my son's class at school. (Interestingly enough, her name is a combination of my and my daughter's middle names. But that's only interesting because it's 1:02 AM and I'm wide awake. But I digress...) After corresponding several times over a project we were working on together for our kiddos' teacher, we'd begun corresponding about blogs and website design, because I'd spent some time poking around her very fun and creative graphic design portfolio.

The topic turned to writing, and that's when this whole mind-spinning-not-sleeping thing began in earnest. Anne Marie told me about a friend of hers, Marla, a local woman who had "authored a few books." My eyebrows raised. I have one of her books. My sister-in-law, who was likewise friends with Marla, had given one to me when she had finished it. Years ago. How ironic was that? I read on, and my eyebrows went up even higher, as Anne Marie recommended to me Ann Voskamp's blog, a holy experience, based on her book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. Which, of course, was the third time this week someone had recommended her blog to me, and guess what? Yep. I already have the book. ?!?!?

What ensued from there was an hour or more of reading and exploring these women's blogs, and the blogs they were linked to, and the blogs those were linked to, and... you get the idea. 1:25 AM, and still not sleeping.

Here's the thing. Normally, that would have frightened me. Discouraged me. Disenheartened me, if that's a word. (At 1:28 AM, it's a word if I say it's a word.) Normally. But things are not normal around here, anymore. Now, I'm thinking things like, Why not me? Why not now? Why not all the way? Which is really, really cool.

Unless, of course, you're trying to go to sleep.

I'm not any different than any of these women. There is no reason I could not do this, short of just choosing not to try. Out of fear. Out of self-consciousness. Out of complacency.

The truth of the matter is that I have done hard, uncomfortable things before. Many of them were not my idea, but I did them nonetheless, and I lived to tell about them. Obviously. Not one but two master's degrees. (Don't ask. Long, annoying story.) Natural childbirth. (After four hours on Pitocin. Nothing natural about it.) Running a half-marathon, having never run more than a mile before in my life. (Ouch. That's all I have to say about that.) I can do hard things. I just have to set my mind to it.

I am setting my mind. I am pulling it off of its spinning, aimless trajectory, and I am setting it on this path, and I am not letting fear "grab me by the tail and shake me," as my friend Kim quoted to me earlier this week. There is no good reason why, in five years, another woman could not be sitting up at 1:37 AM writing about having been on my blog, not able to sleep because of what it stirred up in her. No good reason.

I'm still not ready to turn out the light, but I'm ready to power down for the night. Six hours of editing await me tomorrow, and you'd better believe the beverage of choice will be caffeinated come morning.

I'll be sure to stop by 3:00PM. Or earlier. Or, perhaps, not...

ode to lysol

Gold colored can of foul floral scent,

blast through the air and make your descent—

on pillows, on blankets, on bears and on beds,

cover them all until all germs are dead.

Hover and linger, alive in the air,

gobbling it all until nothing is there.

Ridding my home with your magical power

of this plague that makes everyone puke on the hour.

Scour and scourge until all trace is gone,

restoring our health by the breaking of dawn—

Cleanse us of sickness, we humbly pray,

for I MUST be to work on the very next day.

recipe for a snow day

1. Take two of your mother's good spoons, and hide them under your pillow. (Be sure to forget they are there, so your mother goes insane trying to figure out what happened to all of her spoons.) Take care to use REAL spoons, as plastic spoons "are only good for delays."

2. Put your pajamas on. Inside out. And backwards. Wear them to bed this way, with the collar all scruntched up under your chin so that you get drool all over it.

3. Take one ice cube per person and flush them down the toilet. (Be sure to pick small ones, as rumor has it ice cubes can clog toilets which makes fathers very agitated.)

4. Pray. "Dear God. Let's hope we have a snow day tomorrow. Amen."

5. Go to sleep (as if) and let the effects marinate for a full eight hours.

6. Wake up at 1:17, 2:30, 3:46, 4:15, 5:37, and 6:54 to see if it's snowing.

7. Awaken your mother (if she's managed to sleep through all the snow-checking) to see if there is a message from the school.

8. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

big as a barn

One and a half weeks into this diet and I feel as big as a barn. One of those big red ones. Someone could paint "Ohio: The Heart of it All" across my backside and put me along I-71 north and someone would come and take my picture with some very nice cows and a split rail fence and put it in Midwest Living or something...

More at More...

burnin' down the house

My hubby and the kiddos decided to implement a new post-Christmas tradition this year. Behold The Annual Torching of the Gingerbread Houses.

cats can't write...

...and they don't want you to, either.

i'm pretty sure kittens are a form of resistance.

a brief but important memo

To: Zipper

RE: Please note that despite its pronunciation, toilet paper is NOT a toy.

We ask that you would please refrain, therefore, from shredding the roll every time the door to the bathroom gets left open.

And in case there be any doubt, attacking smaller wads of toilet paper in the midst of being prepared for use is strictly verboten.

Thank you.

The Management

just "venting"

With a full day of no kids ahead of me, and a sinus infection that persuades me not to go to the gym this morning, I sit down to the computer with a cup of Vanilla Chai with cream (real cream, because I'm not losing weight anyway) and anticipate a full day of writing and, quite possibly, napping. As my tea steeps, I bustle about getting things in place, so as to be undisturbed for the rest of my morning. I pull up pandora.com, "tune" it to my George Winston station, and settle in.

As I boot up the computer, I hear a metal clanking outside my kitchen window that sounds as if it's coming from my driveway. There should not be metal noises coming from my driveway. I stop and listen for a second or two, conclude our neighbor must be home and getting ready to mow his yard, and go ahead and pull up my email. Then I hear it again.

It really sounds like it's closer than his yard, I think. But it has to be the lawn mower. Can't think of what else it could be. I go on reading. I hear it again. Finally curiosity gets the best of me, and I get up to look out the kitchen window. Nothing. I look out the back door. Nothing. I look out the kitchen window again. Nothing. Then, I hear it again. And I realize it's not coming from the kitchen window, it's coming from the kitchen.

I turn toward to noise, coming from above my refrigerator, to find a tiny beaked head sticking out from my kitchen vent into my kitchen. Then a little foot. Then a wing. Then the noise, again, and all appendages disappear. I freeze in shock, then, as its head appears again, realize I need to do something before I have a freaked out sparrow flying around my house, freaking out both myself and the cat.

But what do I do? As much as I like birds, I certainly don't like them that much that I want one flipping out and flapping in my face! I start to dial my husband at work, then realize he probably is not going to come back home at 9 AM to deal with this. I know that Beth, though on her way to the grocery, has just dropped her kids off at school near my house and I may be able to catch her before she's too far north to come back. I breathe a prayer, something like Dear God please let her answer her phone and come help me even though she is going to be even more freaked out than I am, and hit the button for her cell phone. God is merciful, as is Beth. Help is on the way.

But help to do WHAT? I don't know how to open the vent, nor do I want to open the vent. It is becoming apparent I need to call my husband. I speed dial the office and the new receptionist answers. "Good morning, Lorie! How are you today?"

"Um, I'm good, all except for this BIRD in my KITCHEN--is my husband there?"

She transfers me with an "Oh my!" and puts my husband on the line, who is less than enthusiastic about the issue. Of course, he's not the one watching the bird try to escape into the kitchen, where it's going to freak out and flap all over and, let's be honest, likely POOP all over everything. He says he can come home at lunch. That's not working for me. He instructs me to pull apart a cereal box and tape it up around the vent until he can come home. That, I can do.

Beth arrives, questioning what, exactly, the cat that sits at the front door to greet her is good for, if he can't deal with the bird in the vent. She reminds me she's terrified of animals. I remind her I'm aware of that, and assign her the task of handing me the tape.

I climb up on the chair, just seconds after the last escape attempt, and the bird goes still out of survival instinct. Yes, that's right, I soothe, you just be real still and I'll pretend I don't see you, okay? I manage, despite my height deficit, to finally get the box secured around the vent, and Beth goes on her merry grocery-shopping way.

All is eerily quiet now, with an occasional flutter or clank from above the fridge. (Why is "fridge" spelled with a "d" and "refrigerator" is not?) It is 9:45, and it will be a few hours before my husband comes to free the little critter, hopefully without my help, but most likely with. I regard the poor creature--stuck in a deep, dark place, unable to get help, light and open space on the other side, just out of reach. I know how this little bird feels. I want out, too.

But freedom is coming. Help is on the way.

As long as my attempt to keep it from escaping doesn't suffocate it in the meantime.

Sure is quiet up there now...

the state fair: a photo essay

top ten things i love about the fair:

1. for one whole day, i don't feel fat, frumpy, out of style, or underdressed.

2. i leave with a newfound appreciation for my own children. i get to watch my daughter be my daughter...

...and my son be my son.

3. the sky lift. the best three bucks ever spent after ten hours on your feet. (with the exception of the 25 cent massage chair...)

4. fried dough with sugar on it. 'nuff said.



5. the ferris wheel. what's not to love?

6. more food on a stick than you can shake a stick at.



7. the state fair youth choir. summer of 1986. ah, the memories...

8. baby cows. can you get any cuter?

9. bright, colored, twinkly lights. lots of 'em.

10. cows made out of butter. only in america.

hope you enjoyed! we sure did!

writing date number two

(Wrote this last week, but couldn't post it because we were at Spend-Bucks and I was NOT about to pay for an internet connection.)

My mind won’t get quiet. Neither will my daughter. Writing date number two begins. One hot Tazo Passion tea and an iced decaf white chocolate mocha. “I’m cold,” she tells me, hanging tight to her iced coffee. My tea is still too hot to drink, her cup is nearly drained.

She scrunches up her nose at my computer/reading glasses. “You look better without glasses,” she tells me with a consoling tone. “No offense.” A smile to ease the blow. Personally, I think they’re cute. But I’m three days away from turning 39. What do I know?

“Only three days?” she asks.

“You gonna write or what?”

I struggle to tune out—the Big Band tunes over the loudspeaker blend with the trio of men talking business at the next table, and my earbuds don’t block out either, but at least make it impossible to discern what they’re saying, helping me to concentrate on writing rather than eavesdropping.

“Hey! It’s all gone!” She slurps what’s left clinging to the ice in her cup. I’m about to make her move to the other side of the table so she stops reading what’s on my computer screen. She giggles. But she’s still reading.

And talking.

And I’m still trying to write. Trying to focus. Trying to clear my mind and shake off the tension of the day that lingers like the smell of cigarette smoke after a night out. I can’t get rid of it. Stubborn, this feeling in my insides. It will not be coaxed away.

“I like that,” she says. “It will not be coaxed away.” She hates that I keep quoting her. But it hasn’t caused her to be quiet and write yet. So I’ll keep at it.

“Good idea.” Pencil to paper, her side pressed against mine, we begin, finally, to write something.

parenting pop quiz

When your six-year-old falls into the fountain at Whetstone, completely submerged, which is the appropriate response?

A. Give him a stern lecture on not running off and climbing on things. Oh, wait, you've done that already. Twice. Just tonight.

B. Roll on the grass laughing at him as he stands there with his hair plastered to his head and water running down his legs. Try to pretend to be upset with him when you walk past the parents that saw him fall in. Ignore the fact they thought HE was a SHE.

C. Make him sit in the shade. In the breeze.

D. Your response?

oh yes, i remember this...

It is 11:20 PM. After working for roughly twelve hours today, I am finally parked in front of my computer with my scribbles from the past several days. The kids weren't in bed until after 9:30. (After spouting some selfish notion about wanting to actually spend time with me after I've been gone all day.) Then the hubby called. (Ditto.) After that, I was going to do yoga to undo the knots from yesterday's aerobics class and try to work some of this fanny off. That was the plan, at least.

But I have 60 messages in my inbox to respond to. Dishes in the dishwasher to put away. Bills that need paid tonight. Laundry screaming both to be done and to be put away. My bedroom is dismantled, still. And what do I really want to do?

I want to write. I want to write.

Ah, yes. Summer vacation. This is what I couldn't wait for.

quote of the day, take two

From my son, in exasperation, as he explains to me the necessity of sleeping in the basement tonight because Hope, a six-year-old meteorological expert, informed him there will be tornadoes tonight:

"Momma, you don't know everything."

quote of the day

"Momma, Miracle Whip is not really a miracle."

Buddy

six more words

another set of six-word autobiographies:

one foot in, one foot out.

not who you think i am.

not to do, but to be.

loud. quiet. bold. timid. internally conflicted.

threatens selling her children to gypsies.

they told me there'd be chocolate...

salivating

Three words. Chocolate. Covered. Bacon.

Day four on my diet and my husband climbs in bed with his magazine. I look over and there it is. "Two equally obsessive foods come together in one perfectly balanced bite of savory, smoky, and sweet." Oh. My. Gosh.

I can't sleep.

You can order it for me here, if you're so inclined...

correction

Yesterday's post should have been titled
"Let the Eye-Rolling Begin"

an unlikely turn of events

They were not exactly fast friends. Already five when she was first introduced into his home, Max’s first response was barely short of indifference. To him, she was basically another, albeit hairless, lap cat. But then she started moving. And life for poor Max has never been quite the same.

“Relax, Max,” we have gently intoned ever since. But despite the fact cats sleep twenty-two hours out of a day, Max is not exactly a relaxed creature. When our daughter became mobile, it finally sent him over the edge into full-fledged neurosis. A living, breathing, moving stuffed animal is intensely interesting to an eighteen-month old. And our eighteen-month old was already intense to begin with.

So began Max’s love/hate relationship with my daughter. My daughter loved him dearly, he hated her with a terrified passion. The more she tried to win him over, the more skittish and slinky he became. She’d corner him, carry him, croon over him, and he, in turn, would cower and crawl away, crying for help. To his credit, he was incredibly patient—only turning his canines on her once, maybe twice, when she forgot to give heed to the twitching tail and pinned-back ears. But those were important lessons to learn, and I let her learn them on her own.

They lived in this manner of approach-avoidance for a good seven or eight years with very little changing. But then, one fall, his littermate, Ruthie, became ill and died, and life changed dramatically once again.

An affectionate cat to begin with, Max suddenly became downright needy. It wasn’t enough to sit contentedly on your lap. Oh, no. You had to be petting the kitty. And you couldn’t just gently stroke the kitty’s soft, vibrating back. No way. You had to rub the kitty’s nose. Again. And again. And again… And if you didn’t pet the kitty, over and over, the kitty would paw at you and nip at you until you either gave in or banished him permanently from the room. Which, of course, was only possible if you were in a room with a door.

This has been life with Max for the last three years. Scared to death of small hands and feet with big, loud voices yet desperate for the attention of anyone who will give it to him, something had to change. And slowly, without our noticing it, something did.

Sometime within the last year, either the cat changed, or the daughter changed, or both. Whatever the equation, I do not know who this cat is. The-cat-formerly-known-as-Max now allows my daughter to cart him all over creation, without so much as a sigh. He has even been known to follow her—the same cat that scampered away if she got within a ten-foot radius is now following the feet that threatened to trample him. He begged last night, for the second night in a row, to be let into her room to sleep with her. Begged. He sits with her—SITS WITH HER—completely still, for hours on end as she reads, curled up in her lap in a ball. ONLY WITH HER.

How is this possible? How can it be that the child who couldn’t be still enough to lure the cat who couldn’t stand movement is now the one that the cat who won’t lay still for anyone lays quietly upon? Huh??? Who is this child? And who is this cat?

falling

“We’re all going to fall in this life,” he intones in his trying-not-to-sound-like-a-Brooklyn accent. “When you fall, fall with awareness and acceptance.” I am standing on one foot, my other foot perched on my inner thigh. My clasped hands stretch up above my head into “tree pose” and I try not to notice my ankle wobbling ever so slightly. I gaze across the living room, my eyes focused on an object across the way, and I stand firm. This time.

I have had my share of falls. Balance is not one of my strong suites, literally or figuratively. I have gracefully entered a pose only to end up galumphed on my fanny with the beautiful, resounding type of thud you only get from hard wood floors. I have landed spread eagle center stage in front of hundreds of people, which, coincidentally, creates this same resonant thud, only louder. I have sopped up ice rinks, wiped up flights of stairs, and taken home large chunks of muddy trail all over my tail end. I have tripped, I have careened. I have wobbled, I have walloped. I have, indeed, fallen in this life.

As for the awareness and acceptance piece, the verdict is still out. I would like to think I am less mortified than I used to be—more able to laugh at myself, less worried about what an idiot I must have looked like. I’ve come to accept that this is just part of who I am—I am the girl who has to hold the railing every time she goes down the steps. The girl who must always look where she is going when she’s walking. Or driving. Or moving at all. The girl who should stick to sledding and never try skiing, since she’s bound to end up on her fanny anyway, so why not start there. So, I guess I could say that the acceptance piece is coming right along.

My daughter got a taste of this lesson—falling with acceptance—over the weekend. It was a hard one to watch. Coming off of her last gymnastics extravaganza, she went into this past weekend’s meet with great expectations. An expert at expectations, both met and unmet, I encouraged her to just do her best and enjoy herself. Nothing like an unmet expectation to spoil a perfectly good evening. Or week. Or life. But I digress.

Warm ups went swimmingly, and I tried once again to be content with sitting in the chairs and not being the coach. So many words of wisdom to impart, if only there were someone there to listen. Would those words have made the difference? Who knows.

They lined up along the floor for their first event, the uneven bars. One of her favorite events, this was usually a high score for her. She should be off to a good start. She told me later that as she watched the other girls go through their routines, she began to get nervous because the judge seemed “really strict.” When her turn finally came, she ponied up to the bar and began to swing. “I told myself I was gonna do my best, Momma. I told myself I was gonna get a 9.” She went at her routine in earnest, and probably a little too fast. She ended up falling out of two important elements, and walked away with a 6.9. She wouldn’t even look at me, or her yellow ribbon.

My heart ached for her—I knew the feeling of coming off a huge success only to have a failure meet you where another happy, shining moment was supposed to be. I also knew how hard it would be to refocus for the remaining three events, if she were to try to redeem the rest of the day. I wanted desperately to talk to her. I had to hope past conversations would resound in her head instead. She moved on to the beam, and managed to pull off a nearly flawless routine. Red ribbon this time—though many parents around us thought her score should have been higher, I was just relieved she had pulled it together. But I still wanted to talk to her.

As luck would have it, this particular meet was held in two separate but connected gymnasiums, which meant a huge shifting of crowds and athletes was necessary half way through the event. I took advantage of this mass exodus to snag her and her ribbons. I looked down at the yellow ribbon, where she had written “I sucked” on the back of it. On the front she had crossed out “Achievement” and had scribbled in the word “Failure.” I gave her a “what is this about” look. “I SUCKED,” she verbalized, burying her head in my chest and receiving my embrace. I pulled back from her and took her face in my hands.

“You’ve got to shake it off, Bub. Everybody falls. You’ve got to shake it off and keep going. Thinking that way isn’t going to help you.”

“But Momma…”

“No buts, Bub. You remember Momma’s yoga video? What does he say about falling? We ALL fall, don’t we? We have to fall with what?”

She looked at me blankly.

“We have to fall with awareness and acceptance. Acceptance. You fell. So what. Shake it off, and go do your best.”

She grinned, slightly embarrassed. “Okay, Momma…” And off she bounced.

Wouldn’t you know, she pulled herself together, and pulled off a 9.1 on floor and a 9.05 on vault. Two blue ribbons. The day had been redeemed.

In the car on the way home, she lamented that she had hoped for four blue ribbons, like the perfectly tall and proportioned Amanda from one of the lower levels had gotten. “Acceptance, Bub. It’s about acceptance. You pulled it together after a rough start and got two of the highest scores of the day—I think that’s pretty huge. Don’t you?”

She wouldn’t answer me, but I didn’t push it. We pulled into the Cracker Barrel parking lot and I simply announced that we are going to celebrate. The night had been a huge success, and we were going to acknowledge it. She ordered the biggest breakfast she could find on the menu, ate it all in one sitting, and together, with smiles and laughter all around, we celebrated falling and getting back up again.

irony

Because home base is 45 minutes from the beach, we spend a fair amount of our time in Florida in the car. In the past, I have felt this was wasted time, because all we've done is sit and listen to the radio, all zoned out and in our own private worlds. SO, when I found Food For Talk on Amazon this fall, I decided the travel addition would be the perfect thing for our trips to Fort Myers. A box full of fun games and conversation starters to fill our time in the car and keep us engaged with one another. What could be better?

"Santa" brought the cards for Christmas, and we broke them out once we arrived. We've had a blast playing the games and answering the questions, and the first words I hear when we get in the car are, "Momma, can we read another card?" Which is great, right? Right. Unless, of course, one wants to listen to the radio...

Sigh...