There are worse things I could be collecting, is what I tell myself in looking at the layout of pods, leaves, shells, rocks, hair, nuts and other natural accouterments.
Collectively, the items weigh a couple of ounces.
Laid out, they take over about 2 square feet of space.
I could all fit in an empty milk jug.
This is not a mug or T-shirt collection, mind you.
And everything was free.
While short-term memory cells are dipping, I still largely remember where everything was from and 2014 in general was a year with a lot of walking, not much time at the ocean and some painful memories.
Most of the leaves and pods are from within a few blocks of my house. I found my first duck feather this year and I haven't been able to stop looking at it. It was the biggest reminder of how little I really see. One day, I just sat at the pond for a hour and watched the ducks and yes, their feathers are stunningly intricate. Ducks aren't really brown; their feathers are all sizes, colors and patterns. Our brains only pick up "brownish" if we aren't actually watching and thinking and seeing.
I have a feeling that we are supposed to be seeing more in nature, learning more, that it isn't supposed to be zooming by like it does.
The most delicate and intricate items were a tiny bird's egg from a lake in the Kokanee Provincial Park (proving if you want to get something delicate home in a backpack, you can) and a tiny bee's nest. Finding two like this in a year reminded me of what animals construct as their homes and to us, how unstable they are, too thin, not enough substance.
The day after the active shooter incident at my daughters' university, I stumbled around the campus in a daze. All I could really do was walk, pick up leaves and sit in the middle of campus and let the kids come by and pet our dog. Her hair flew off her back and floated into the wind as the dozens of kids came by, just sat down, petted her, smiled, thanked us then left. The cottonwood trees down by the canal, just 50 feet from the building of the shooting, the white cottonwood fluff was all there, just blowing around on the ground, just like the day of the shooting, and the day before that, and the years before that. Soft and free, I couldn't collect enough.
The most surprising would be the blue moss on twigs from Canada; it has the sweetest, lightest smell. I gather quite a bit so when I'm home, I can crush it and just smell it.
The most sneaky would be the three tiny rocks I "borrowed" from a zen garden I visited in a Japanese Garden, in an unnamed park in the PNW. When I need to, I can justify a wide range of suspect behaviors.
A shadowbox for the year may be in the future. For now, here they are.
This is Your (Mid) Life
40 is the new 20.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
You're so vein
Many new things appear in your life once you have a bit of time.
Take your legs for example.
It's possible I haven't spent anytime seriously looking at my legs, and most definitely not for about the last 20 years or so. My legs are quite serviceable and I'm fond of them. We climb mountains and stairs together and we race around on projects and errands and to see people. I guess I have taken them for granted.
Sometimes in my darker moments of self-loathing, I do look at other women's legs. I am amazed at how smooth they look, smooth and soft. It's obvious we are having different leg experiences and theirs most likely involves time and attention.
I have several friends now who have had vein-removal done on their legs. This is called vein stripping or spider vein removal. My friends tell me they have 'tons' of little spider veins but somehow I've never noticed these veins before. Because I don't really have time with my legs, like that kind of time, I have wondered if this had happened to me somehow and I just didn't know it or no one told me.
There are many areas of my life that I am reclaiming, like the reality that I can take longer showers and not think about anything in the shower at all. This is a good leg-study time. So recently, with all that time, I thought, "Let's look at those legs and consider our options."
So I thought about my vein-y friends and gave my legs a once over. It appears that even with considerable neglect and non-attention, I have almost no obvious veins to worry about. This is a miracle! My legs are dry, bumpy and oddly colored but I guess vein stripping at least is still not in my immediate future.
My current theory on veins is that my legs are too busy dealing with massive hair growth everywhere on my legs to worry about veins. Why add more stress to this poor women, my legs are thinking, when she already has to spend all this time shaving?
I bought an electric razor recently to deal w/ the hair that is potentially hiding the veins. I bought it and it sat on the counter for two weeks in it's impenetrable plastic covering. I worked up the time to pry it open without slicing my hand. That took some effort so I waited a few more days, then figured out how to charge it. Now it's charging.
The luxuries that are abounding in my life right now include paying attention to my legs and buying an electric razor that is exactly where I left it. I'm not sure there are many signs that shout more obviously, "There are only two people living in this house and they are both over 40."
That's potentially all I can think of to talk on regarding legs.
Good night.
Take your legs for example.
It's possible I haven't spent anytime seriously looking at my legs, and most definitely not for about the last 20 years or so. My legs are quite serviceable and I'm fond of them. We climb mountains and stairs together and we race around on projects and errands and to see people. I guess I have taken them for granted.
Sometimes in my darker moments of self-loathing, I do look at other women's legs. I am amazed at how smooth they look, smooth and soft. It's obvious we are having different leg experiences and theirs most likely involves time and attention.
I have several friends now who have had vein-removal done on their legs. This is called vein stripping or spider vein removal. My friends tell me they have 'tons' of little spider veins but somehow I've never noticed these veins before. Because I don't really have time with my legs, like that kind of time, I have wondered if this had happened to me somehow and I just didn't know it or no one told me.
There are many areas of my life that I am reclaiming, like the reality that I can take longer showers and not think about anything in the shower at all. This is a good leg-study time. So recently, with all that time, I thought, "Let's look at those legs and consider our options."
So I thought about my vein-y friends and gave my legs a once over. It appears that even with considerable neglect and non-attention, I have almost no obvious veins to worry about. This is a miracle! My legs are dry, bumpy and oddly colored but I guess vein stripping at least is still not in my immediate future.
My current theory on veins is that my legs are too busy dealing with massive hair growth everywhere on my legs to worry about veins. Why add more stress to this poor women, my legs are thinking, when she already has to spend all this time shaving?
I bought an electric razor recently to deal w/ the hair that is potentially hiding the veins. I bought it and it sat on the counter for two weeks in it's impenetrable plastic covering. I worked up the time to pry it open without slicing my hand. That took some effort so I waited a few more days, then figured out how to charge it. Now it's charging.
The luxuries that are abounding in my life right now include paying attention to my legs and buying an electric razor that is exactly where I left it. I'm not sure there are many signs that shout more obviously, "There are only two people living in this house and they are both over 40."
That's potentially all I can think of to talk on regarding legs.
Good night.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
A Dish of Strawberries, Please
Two stories:
I went to a local farm recently to pick strawberries. We drove about 10 miles outside town up to a plateau called Greenbluff and after some poking around, found a farm with several fields of U-Pick strawberries.
My friends and I went to the small shack by the fields and picked up our flat, white-slatted crates with handles to carry the berries. We elected to walk to our field instead of taking a ride in the rigged-out tractor. I guess people didn't want to walk by the strawberry fields for 300 feet to get to their strawberry patches. Whatever.
We picked merrily for an hour and then decided we'd had our fill and our crates were full of berries, so we decided to call it quits. We walked back (all the way!), retrieved our wallets and went to the shack to pay.
And then standing there, without even thinking, I turned into Obnoxious American.
I began asking the lady questions about the berries. Are they organic? Have they been sprayed? When was the last time they were sprayed? Oh, so you did spray then? Do you remember the type of spray? Was it a light spray? A heavy spray? I couldn't stop.
All of this was transpiring as I was paying for my berries, the most luscious amazing berries I had eaten in over a year. Instead of saying, "THANK YOU! You have given me back the sensation and flavor of eating this most amazing of all fruits!" .... Oh no... no, instead of doing that nice, civil thing, I made her instead feel like an outlaw on her own farm. I can still see her meekly saying, "The plants were in a pre-bud stage so no fruit should have been been actually sprayed..."
Who the hell do I suddenly think I am?
I read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and now suddenly everyone is a suspect in my own personal Food War, including the local farmers? And who am I to talk? I've eaten strawberries from California so electrified with pesticides that the seeds are glowing. And I still ate them, and they still tasted like cardboard. So here I am, grilling a local farmer on why they sprayed once in February?... In the snow?? I was so sick of myself, truly, walking back to my giant car, the irony not lost in the least on me as I spent a few more gallons of gasoline to get back to the city.
Two weeks later, I am at a produce stand. It's a large one up on 40th and Regal, full of amazing fruits and vegetables, much of it organic. I'm standing and selecting things when Annoying American's cousin shows up, Snotty Bratty Blond American.
She began peppering the attendant with questions. Is this local? What do you mean then by local? Is it from here? How far away is the farm? When will you have things here that are really local? Is this pepper I'm pointing at in this fridge - right here, come here - is that local? Are you sure?
I stand holding my lovely organic peaches and sigh. What first-world assholes so many of us have become. We love to have what we want when we want it and how we want it. We read something once and proceed to assault everyone with our flawed, puny knowledge while at the same time, demanding that new thing, instantly.
I wonder sometimes if everyone that has a small business is someday just going to call it quits. That the business owners that have to deal with the general public, someday they might just say, "You know what, screw this." And then, when there are no more stores, in all of our snottiness we can enjoy the One Store. You know, the megastore that has replaced all other stores, located somewhere we'll never go, where you just order everything online and the people on the other end are as rude to us as we are to them.
We won't ever have to worry about getting our shoes dusty walking down strawberry rows or wondering if our fruit was lightly sprayed. We can pick out exactly what we want, perfectly, and have it delivered right to our houses, our hermetically-sealed caves of wonderfulness.
It will be what we have been asking for all along, and it will be what we deserve if we can't figure out how to remember to keep loving the people around us more than what new thing we think we need to make our lives more amazing, more perfect, more eternal.
I am so tired of myself and too much thinking... I'm off to eat some strawberries.
I went to a local farm recently to pick strawberries. We drove about 10 miles outside town up to a plateau called Greenbluff and after some poking around, found a farm with several fields of U-Pick strawberries.
My friends and I went to the small shack by the fields and picked up our flat, white-slatted crates with handles to carry the berries. We elected to walk to our field instead of taking a ride in the rigged-out tractor. I guess people didn't want to walk by the strawberry fields for 300 feet to get to their strawberry patches. Whatever.
We picked merrily for an hour and then decided we'd had our fill and our crates were full of berries, so we decided to call it quits. We walked back (all the way!), retrieved our wallets and went to the shack to pay.
And then standing there, without even thinking, I turned into Obnoxious American.
I began asking the lady questions about the berries. Are they organic? Have they been sprayed? When was the last time they were sprayed? Oh, so you did spray then? Do you remember the type of spray? Was it a light spray? A heavy spray? I couldn't stop.
All of this was transpiring as I was paying for my berries, the most luscious amazing berries I had eaten in over a year. Instead of saying, "THANK YOU! You have given me back the sensation and flavor of eating this most amazing of all fruits!" .... Oh no... no, instead of doing that nice, civil thing, I made her instead feel like an outlaw on her own farm. I can still see her meekly saying, "The plants were in a pre-bud stage so no fruit should have been been actually sprayed..."
Who the hell do I suddenly think I am?
I read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and now suddenly everyone is a suspect in my own personal Food War, including the local farmers? And who am I to talk? I've eaten strawberries from California so electrified with pesticides that the seeds are glowing. And I still ate them, and they still tasted like cardboard. So here I am, grilling a local farmer on why they sprayed once in February?... In the snow?? I was so sick of myself, truly, walking back to my giant car, the irony not lost in the least on me as I spent a few more gallons of gasoline to get back to the city.
Two weeks later, I am at a produce stand. It's a large one up on 40th and Regal, full of amazing fruits and vegetables, much of it organic. I'm standing and selecting things when Annoying American's cousin shows up, Snotty Bratty Blond American.
She began peppering the attendant with questions. Is this local? What do you mean then by local? Is it from here? How far away is the farm? When will you have things here that are really local? Is this pepper I'm pointing at in this fridge - right here, come here - is that local? Are you sure?
I stand holding my lovely organic peaches and sigh. What first-world assholes so many of us have become. We love to have what we want when we want it and how we want it. We read something once and proceed to assault everyone with our flawed, puny knowledge while at the same time, demanding that new thing, instantly.
I wonder sometimes if everyone that has a small business is someday just going to call it quits. That the business owners that have to deal with the general public, someday they might just say, "You know what, screw this." And then, when there are no more stores, in all of our snottiness we can enjoy the One Store. You know, the megastore that has replaced all other stores, located somewhere we'll never go, where you just order everything online and the people on the other end are as rude to us as we are to them.
We won't ever have to worry about getting our shoes dusty walking down strawberry rows or wondering if our fruit was lightly sprayed. We can pick out exactly what we want, perfectly, and have it delivered right to our houses, our hermetically-sealed caves of wonderfulness.
It will be what we have been asking for all along, and it will be what we deserve if we can't figure out how to remember to keep loving the people around us more than what new thing we think we need to make our lives more amazing, more perfect, more eternal.
I am so tired of myself and too much thinking... I'm off to eat some strawberries.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Fly, fly away
In a random series of events that demonstrated the occasional value of forgetfulness, I had an insightful and engaging conversation today with the pilot that flew our plane from Portland back to Spokane.
Unused to having a piece of carry-on luggage, I walked past the ala carte cart on the way into the terminal at PDX, without my bag. Once inside, J asked, "Where's your carry on?" Yikes! I usually only have a purse and laptop bag; a long stop-over in San Francisco with my generous aunt - "Take these sweaters! And boots! And here's a suitcase for it all!"- disrupted my normal travel flow, allowing me to zone out and walk right by my new carry-on.
I went back out onto the concourse - this was a small plane with tarmac deplaning- and there it was, all alone on the cart. As I pulled it down, the pilot exited the plane and we ended up walking back inside together.
As we were walking in step together, I started a conversation by thanking him for the flight. "It was a wonderful flight; thanks again," I said, or something along those lines.
He replied with an apology. "I'm sorry it was a little bumpy." (It wasn't. Pilots must be sensitive about these things). He continued, "The autopilot wasn't working (!!) so we weren't able to climb up to 35,000 feet like we normally do. We had to keep it lower at 20,000 feet."
I tried processing this information as quickly as possible and then try not to say something in reply that was stupid-sounding. I came out with a series of stuttered replies, "So then, okay, so, the auto pilot, it was off, that means then... that means you were flying, by your instruments?" I ended with a question at the end which I didn't want but was battling my complete and utter lack of pilot and plane knowledge with the desire not to sound stupid.
"No you're right," he replied graciously. "And amazingly, yes, we were asleep."
I thought this was incredibly hilarious and laughed quite hard. Asleep! Because the autopilot wasn't working! A pilot with humor!
So I continued, "I thought the flight was fantastic. I didn't feel anything at all and I really meant it when I said thank you." Now warming to the conversation with someone that liked to poke fun at themselves, I expanded and said, "Really, anyone that has a problem with a flight like that just shouldn't be flying."
On this, he smiled and shook his head. "Oh, you would not believe it, really. You would not believe what people get picky about. Thankfully this was an Alaska flight. (It was a SkyWest plane). If this had been a United flight, we would have had all kinds of complaints. You wouldn't believe what United customers are like."
"Seriously!?" I said, sort of shocked.
"Really," he replied.
By now, we were inside the concourse and past our gate, crowds starting to emerge. As our ways were obviously parting, I said, "Have you heard of Louie CK? He's a comedian?"
"No, no I haven't," he replied.
"Well," I began, "He has this great comedy routine based around this idea that we have lost all perspective on what is truly amazing in life, and that every time we sit down in a plane, instead of nitpicking and complaining, we should be saying, "Ohmygosh!! I am about to partake in the miracle of human flight! I'm going to be... flying! It’s amazing! I'm sitting…in a chair…in the sky!”
He actually thought this was quite funny and he definitely got the joke. As we finally parted ways and I found John, I said thanks again and wished him a good afternoon.
So I guess in closing, a couple thoughts. 1. United Airlines customers: Chill out. 2. Pilots do more than fly planes. 3. I am grateful for the fact that air travel is the safest form of travel still in the US (When did you hear of a major airline crash in the US? A car crash? See...) 4. Louie CK, thanks for the laughs. Wish I could post a link to the video but the original clip w/ Conan has been taken down by NBC.
Cheers!
Unused to having a piece of carry-on luggage, I walked past the ala carte cart on the way into the terminal at PDX, without my bag. Once inside, J asked, "Where's your carry on?" Yikes! I usually only have a purse and laptop bag; a long stop-over in San Francisco with my generous aunt - "Take these sweaters! And boots! And here's a suitcase for it all!"- disrupted my normal travel flow, allowing me to zone out and walk right by my new carry-on.
I went back out onto the concourse - this was a small plane with tarmac deplaning- and there it was, all alone on the cart. As I pulled it down, the pilot exited the plane and we ended up walking back inside together.
As we were walking in step together, I started a conversation by thanking him for the flight. "It was a wonderful flight; thanks again," I said, or something along those lines.
He replied with an apology. "I'm sorry it was a little bumpy." (It wasn't. Pilots must be sensitive about these things). He continued, "The autopilot wasn't working (!!) so we weren't able to climb up to 35,000 feet like we normally do. We had to keep it lower at 20,000 feet."
I tried processing this information as quickly as possible and then try not to say something in reply that was stupid-sounding. I came out with a series of stuttered replies, "So then, okay, so, the auto pilot, it was off, that means then... that means you were flying, by your instruments?" I ended with a question at the end which I didn't want but was battling my complete and utter lack of pilot and plane knowledge with the desire not to sound stupid.
"No you're right," he replied graciously. "And amazingly, yes, we were asleep."
I thought this was incredibly hilarious and laughed quite hard. Asleep! Because the autopilot wasn't working! A pilot with humor!
So I continued, "I thought the flight was fantastic. I didn't feel anything at all and I really meant it when I said thank you." Now warming to the conversation with someone that liked to poke fun at themselves, I expanded and said, "Really, anyone that has a problem with a flight like that just shouldn't be flying."
On this, he smiled and shook his head. "Oh, you would not believe it, really. You would not believe what people get picky about. Thankfully this was an Alaska flight. (It was a SkyWest plane). If this had been a United flight, we would have had all kinds of complaints. You wouldn't believe what United customers are like."
"Seriously!?" I said, sort of shocked.
"Really," he replied.
By now, we were inside the concourse and past our gate, crowds starting to emerge. As our ways were obviously parting, I said, "Have you heard of Louie CK? He's a comedian?"
"No, no I haven't," he replied.
"Well," I began, "He has this great comedy routine based around this idea that we have lost all perspective on what is truly amazing in life, and that every time we sit down in a plane, instead of nitpicking and complaining, we should be saying, "Ohmygosh!! I am about to partake in the miracle of human flight! I'm going to be... flying! It’s amazing! I'm sitting…in a chair…in the sky!”
He actually thought this was quite funny and he definitely got the joke. As we finally parted ways and I found John, I said thanks again and wished him a good afternoon.
So I guess in closing, a couple thoughts. 1. United Airlines customers: Chill out. 2. Pilots do more than fly planes. 3. I am grateful for the fact that air travel is the safest form of travel still in the US (When did you hear of a major airline crash in the US? A car crash? See...) 4. Louie CK, thanks for the laughs. Wish I could post a link to the video but the original clip w/ Conan has been taken down by NBC.
Cheers!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Skunk Patrol
Apparently God in all of his or her humor was concerned I might be
lacking material, what with the girls in college and my uterus
gone.
Last Sunday night, we arrived home from a weekend in Seattle. It was dark and drizzly and we began unloading the car in the driveway in front of our house. Hazel, our dog, went on the trip so she was thrilled to be back frolicking freely in familiar territory. In her earnest sniffing explorations she discovered a skunk hiding by the side of a house.
Skunks are stealthy and unnatural-looking when they move. They sort of float and are very fast and direct when challenged. There it was, a black, motor-controlled wig, jerking its way across our lawn, charging Hazel and doing the spray-down.
Literally one second I have luggage in my hands and I'm walking to the house, and the next I freeze while my brain is registering, "Is what I think happening, happening?" The air is filling with very potent, acrid skunk spray and Hazel is doing a doggie flip-out.
When dogs are sprayed by skunks, they sort of reel back, hop around a bit, then frantically slide their face across anything nearby; the lawn, the shrubs, a porch mat, or maybe - before you realize what is happening - your nice Michael Kors raincoat. They might also bolt back into the car they just exited ten minutes ago and wipe their face across the back seat.
As chaos erupted on the front lawn, I kept walking into the house, closed the door, and stood in the living room. I stood there for a minute, looking around at our furniture, humming. That didn't just happen, I told myself. It's 9:00 pm on a Sunday night at the end of a long weekend. That didn't just happen.
I opened the door and came back out. Yes in fact, it really did happen. There she still is, whining and sliding her face across the lawn, and luggage is everywhere. The air and my coat, everything smells wretched. Even John, lacking in a sense of smell since a nose injury at the age of two, comments, "I think I smell burning rubber." Yes that, mixed with rotten eggs, sulfur and a strange splash of gasoline.
John at least is mobilizing, trying to get the dog into the backyard. In solidarity, I decide after maybe the whole three minutes this has taken to transpire, to mentally change gears, stop unpacking and get the home-remedy ingredients rounded up.
Now more engaged, I search frantically online for the skunk-remedy recipes, then jump into the car to get to the store, but oh wait, I forgot. It's like the skunk is still in the car, spraying with gusto. And the stinky raincoat, yeah, still wearing that too. At the store in the check-out line, it didn't take a rocket scientist of a cashier to figure out what my life was all about right then with my skunky-self, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and soap. And beer. I was checked-out with amazing speed and thoroughness.
Back at home, we mixed our home remedy and gave Hazel a bath. There was a lot of grunting involved, a whining dog and frantic energy expanded in many directions. The bathroom became a watery disaster zone of black dog hair, dog slobber, towels, wet clothes, rags and buckets, all covered by a wet skunk smell.
Finally, the ordeal was over. Hazel found every place not already wet or stinky in the house to shake her fur and spray skunk water everywhere. We cleaned up slowly, went back to where we left off two hours ago and brought in the rest of the luggage. She slept on the porch and we collapsed into bed.
This burst of chaos actually got me thinking quite a bit about the difference between my life now and when our kids were toddlers, when chaos was the daily hum. I used to live with predictable unpredictability every hour. A skunk spray here and there? That's for rookies. Living a more chaotic reality for years, day in day out, changed me and changed me in good ways that I don't want to forget.
More on that later but for now, grateful Hazel is mostly skunk-smell free, the luggage is unpacked and life is back to normal, which I was told once, is just a setting on a dryer.
Last Sunday night, we arrived home from a weekend in Seattle. It was dark and drizzly and we began unloading the car in the driveway in front of our house. Hazel, our dog, went on the trip so she was thrilled to be back frolicking freely in familiar territory. In her earnest sniffing explorations she discovered a skunk hiding by the side of a house.
Skunks are stealthy and unnatural-looking when they move. They sort of float and are very fast and direct when challenged. There it was, a black, motor-controlled wig, jerking its way across our lawn, charging Hazel and doing the spray-down.
Literally one second I have luggage in my hands and I'm walking to the house, and the next I freeze while my brain is registering, "Is what I think happening, happening?" The air is filling with very potent, acrid skunk spray and Hazel is doing a doggie flip-out.
When dogs are sprayed by skunks, they sort of reel back, hop around a bit, then frantically slide their face across anything nearby; the lawn, the shrubs, a porch mat, or maybe - before you realize what is happening - your nice Michael Kors raincoat. They might also bolt back into the car they just exited ten minutes ago and wipe their face across the back seat.
As chaos erupted on the front lawn, I kept walking into the house, closed the door, and stood in the living room. I stood there for a minute, looking around at our furniture, humming. That didn't just happen, I told myself. It's 9:00 pm on a Sunday night at the end of a long weekend. That didn't just happen.
I opened the door and came back out. Yes in fact, it really did happen. There she still is, whining and sliding her face across the lawn, and luggage is everywhere. The air and my coat, everything smells wretched. Even John, lacking in a sense of smell since a nose injury at the age of two, comments, "I think I smell burning rubber." Yes that, mixed with rotten eggs, sulfur and a strange splash of gasoline.
John at least is mobilizing, trying to get the dog into the backyard. In solidarity, I decide after maybe the whole three minutes this has taken to transpire, to mentally change gears, stop unpacking and get the home-remedy ingredients rounded up.
Now more engaged, I search frantically online for the skunk-remedy recipes, then jump into the car to get to the store, but oh wait, I forgot. It's like the skunk is still in the car, spraying with gusto. And the stinky raincoat, yeah, still wearing that too. At the store in the check-out line, it didn't take a rocket scientist of a cashier to figure out what my life was all about right then with my skunky-self, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and soap. And beer. I was checked-out with amazing speed and thoroughness.
Back at home, we mixed our home remedy and gave Hazel a bath. There was a lot of grunting involved, a whining dog and frantic energy expanded in many directions. The bathroom became a watery disaster zone of black dog hair, dog slobber, towels, wet clothes, rags and buckets, all covered by a wet skunk smell.
Finally, the ordeal was over. Hazel found every place not already wet or stinky in the house to shake her fur and spray skunk water everywhere. We cleaned up slowly, went back to where we left off two hours ago and brought in the rest of the luggage. She slept on the porch and we collapsed into bed.
This burst of chaos actually got me thinking quite a bit about the difference between my life now and when our kids were toddlers, when chaos was the daily hum. I used to live with predictable unpredictability every hour. A skunk spray here and there? That's for rookies. Living a more chaotic reality for years, day in day out, changed me and changed me in good ways that I don't want to forget.
More on that later but for now, grateful Hazel is mostly skunk-smell free, the luggage is unpacked and life is back to normal, which I was told once, is just a setting on a dryer.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Laundromat Barbie
Odd things happen when your kids get
ready to leave home.
You might be experiencing just the tiniest bit of emotional fragility, but there is too much going on to be reflective. Your house is getting turned upside down by kids who are main-lining frenetic energy as they pack and sort stuff scattered in every room of the house.
In some ways, it's almost like reverting back fifteen years to when they were toddlers and you would get sick and want to lay down but couldn't, because in the twenty minutes of nap-time you desperately needed, they would find the shampoo or the yogurt or honey and use it all like art supplies. It would only take about five minutes but they could ruin your house in just that short of amount of time. I remember.
You'd like the universe to slow down as everyone lurches toward this new season of life but it isn't happening. Instead, you are deep in conversations about all the stuff, new and old; what to buy, keep, sell or toss. There are questions about budgets and the year ahead. Everyone is trying hard to be mature and deferring but it's tiring so when things are a little too tense or teary, thankfully you're still a crazy family and comedy relief is around the corner.
You might be experiencing just the tiniest bit of emotional fragility, but there is too much going on to be reflective. Your house is getting turned upside down by kids who are main-lining frenetic energy as they pack and sort stuff scattered in every room of the house.
In some ways, it's almost like reverting back fifteen years to when they were toddlers and you would get sick and want to lay down but couldn't, because in the twenty minutes of nap-time you desperately needed, they would find the shampoo or the yogurt or honey and use it all like art supplies. It would only take about five minutes but they could ruin your house in just that short of amount of time. I remember.
You'd like the universe to slow down as everyone lurches toward this new season of life but it isn't happening. Instead, you are deep in conversations about all the stuff, new and old; what to buy, keep, sell or toss. There are questions about budgets and the year ahead. Everyone is trying hard to be mature and deferring but it's tiring so when things are a little too tense or teary, thankfully you're still a crazy family and comedy relief is around the corner.
In September we had a garage sale. We spent the better part of the summer preparing for it,
going through old stuff. We started cleaning the garage and a lot
of stuff from the house had somehow made it out there including a
Rubbermaid chest of drawers we'd used to hold toys. The chest was covered in dust and inside were mostly
Lincoln Logs, action figures and Barbies (Yes, Barbies, all you
judgmental pre-parents. They're insidious. Just wait and see).
We decided to sort all the toys, so we drug the chest into the basement and got to work. Upon opening the bottom
drawer, we all shrieked and groaned in unison; a truly distinct and familiar odor wafted out. Somehow a
random, rangy cat had wiggled into our garage, found the bottom
drawer of Barbies and confidently whizzed a few dozen times on all
the dolls and their outfits. It was positively, stupendously
filled with cat pee, a giant litter box lined with tiny sequined prom
dresses.
This created some emotion and a discussion. Do we go ahead and try to save the Barbies? Just chuck them all? Save only a few?? We delicately poked around the drawer, trying to decide. We finally settled on the fact that a few needed to be
saved for posterity so a plan was formed.
We threw everything into the washing machine: Barbies, bleach,
detergent, more bleach, hot water, all the ridiculously tiny Barbie shoes and some random rags for cushion. Then we just stood there, staring in.
The whole scene seemed ridiculous in a
way only Americans can appreciate with our boxes and drawers
of excess stuff. But I wasn't really in the mood for consumerism angst; I
was saving memories.
In the process of getting everything
into the washer, I noticed we had a Ken doll. Up until that moment, I had no idea we
had a Ken doll. I held him up, sort of surprised he'd snuck into
the line-up a decade or so ago.
I also had no idea he liked pink
pajamas. It appeared someone in our house, in the last ten years, had
decided the Barbie storyline needed some variety, had brought in a Ken doll,
then decorated him with a nice jammie outfit. Oh, how my day was
improving!
So Fem-Ken of the orange skin and
rippled abs joined the Barbies for what could only be some version of
a very happy dream for a male doll. (Insert whatever
Barbie/Ken, baby-making-washer joke you have in your head
right now, enjoy that for a minute and now we can continue.)
As the washer chugged away, I stood
staring at the only toy in the drawer that didn't stink or need to be
washed, which, in an odd twist, was a cat.
It had kind of a prissy/hissy expression, all
mean-girls like. Cats as a species had pretty much fallen out of my good graces, so I just threw it away, out of spite.
Bad cat.
It took four washings but the Barbies
and Ken were finally rid of all cat-pee. They came out
smelling assaultingly clean, as in, I would be suspicious if I bought a doll at a garage sale with that range of clean odors. It is sort of a tell, that maybe there was a reason for the lack of even basic smells, like the doll had been drug around the house by a toddler and doused with shampoo, yogurt and honey, then a cat peed on it.
Regardless, we kept the few the kids wanted and put the rest in the garage sale. Mission accomplished.
The kids are now in school, clean Barbies are tucked away and things have finally slowed down. I don't know what's next, but for today, I have a cold, which means I'm going to take a nap, with both eyes closed, for a very long time. Because I can.
Regardless, we kept the few the kids wanted and put the rest in the garage sale. Mission accomplished.
The kids are now in school, clean Barbies are tucked away and things have finally slowed down. I don't know what's next, but for today, I have a cold, which means I'm going to take a nap, with both eyes closed, for a very long time. Because I can.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Weekend Update: Cooking, Ahoy!
I'm not sure how, when or where the
imparting of food knowledge is traditionally supposed to transpire
between a mother and daughter. In our family, having the oldest child
move into an apartment was a nice trigger event for everyone and why
not Aisle 7 at Fred Meyers for the location?
I decided a long time ago I wasn't
particularly concerned that our daughters weren't that interested in
cooking. I did all I could to avoid it as a kid and started sharing cooking duties with my husband out of necessity. I figured if
I could learn in my 20's, so could
they.
We definitely did our fair share of
cooking together as a family; cookies, scrambled eggs,
pancakes, burritos, salads, etc. (The youngest daughter actually cooks quite a bit and makes killer grilled cheese and crepes.) Mostly these were basic staples that you could live on
for months but without much excitement or variation. It appeared E.
wanted to get serious about veggies, meat and crock pots so off to
the store we went.
Watching her get serious about cooking
made me reflect back on what is it about this part of domestic life
that is so interesting and often freighted
in some way. For women, it can be a loaded topic if
you are married or sharing domestic life with someone. Is this a
shared responsibility or something that just comes along with being a
woman? What do you do if neither of you like to cook? Shop? Do dishes? Especially for a daily chore that takes so much time,
expectations abound but hard to
define.
I also grew up reading
all of the books in the Little House on the Prairie series. I read
the parts about their Thanksgiving and harvest dinners over and over and over. It seemed
like Gilligan's Island to me, with the impossible exoticness of
how they made food and where the ingredients came from. How could
they have made bread, cakes and cookies without electric stoves? Did
they really use a butter churn to make butter? What could possibly replace a fridge? And who makes egg-nog mid-summer with their own eggs and winter
ice kept cold in the barn?
In addition to pressure from the 19th
century Ingalls and Wilder families, I also grew up in a family
with amazing cooks who made everything from scratch: my mom, grandmothers, aunts and later my
mother-in-law. Our holiday dinners contained a quality and variety of dishes I realize now was a reflection of their collective talent.
Regardless of my historical or existential baggage, the bottom-line is there has always been
something about cooking that forces me to slow down more than I
prefer and takes way, way too many steps for an outcome that can be gone in minutes. Case in point:
How to Make a Meal! Analyze what food you have in your kitchen, make lists, go to the store, buy food, take it home and put it all away. (If you garden, do about 100 other mysterious soil and seed-related tasks.) A few days later, take some of that food back out again (or go to your amazing garden where things never turn brown or die), organize it, start making it, set the table, and finally, eat. About ten minutes later, clear the table, compost the scraps, put leftovers away, and have a small argument about who does dishes. Repeat in four hours.
How to Make a Meal! Analyze what food you have in your kitchen, make lists, go to the store, buy food, take it home and put it all away. (If you garden, do about 100 other mysterious soil and seed-related tasks.) A few days later, take some of that food back out again (or go to your amazing garden where things never turn brown or die), organize it, start making it, set the table, and finally, eat. About ten minutes later, clear the table, compost the scraps, put leftovers away, and have a small argument about who does dishes. Repeat in four hours.
Most of my friends that find cooking
relaxing enjoy some of the steps besides the eating part.
They love looking through cook books and they like grocery shopping.
Many of them also just like the process of cooking; they find it
relaxing, with or without wine to sip along the way. Gardening literally makes some people I know radiate with excitement, especially going through seed catalogs in February.
I would say over the years, the positive experiences I associate with food and cooking has warmed my heart to this daily chore. I experience food-love on occasion in grocery stores, still try new recipes and exotic imports. I've found my own style, what I like to cook and eat, and stopped comparing myself. The biggest draw of it all for me is I love eating good food and I like doing it around a table with friends and
family. Cooking for a family, while full of challenges, is a wonderfully gratifying experience. There is nothing quite like that and often, those moments
make it all worthwhile.
Truth be told, however, what would help the most with my attitude toward cooking was if I cooked about once a week. If I cooked only once a week, I could get very, very excited about cooking.
Truth be told, however, what would help the most with my attitude toward cooking was if I cooked about once a week. If I cooked only once a week, I could get very, very excited about cooking.
So back to the task at hand: Here we are with only a moderately
prepared 21-year old about to move into an apartment. As a result of
having a child now out on her own, I decided it was time for some brief tips. Since they were going to be brief tips, it
didn't make much sense to waste time writing them down before we left
for the store. Aisle 7 seemed quite
appropriate:
- Buy healthy, simple ingredients and until you get your own stocked kitchen, supplement spices with packets and sauces
- Get a crock pot and throw stuff in
- Canned soup and grilled cheese
- Always have eggs around
- Cook meat in volume then freeze in Ziplocs for later
- Chocolate
- Buy organic when possible
That's it! That's all I could think of. We were so thrilled with all we accomplished. The two of us zipped around with younger sister K who was dorm-room shopping, bumping into other families who appeared to be doing the same thing with their
college-age children. In fact, it would have been interesting to stop
a few families and get a sampling of all the cooking tips and
suggestions that were being thrown out as kids moved into apartments
for the first time.
In the end, it was a choppy, slightly inelegant way to transfer a bit of experience to a younger child. That is how much of our family has been however so it seemed comfortable and familiar. I know E ended up with several dinners
and a decent supply of breakfast and lunch food. I took an
interesting trip down memory lane and was happy to eat dinner out on
the way back home. Hurray for cooking, for the fun times and work that goes into it too.
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