the view from next tuesday

ah, family...

2011-08-30T21:57:00.006-06:00

Every Labor Day weekend since we've been married, my husband's family has gathered for our family reunion. Family reunions are such a funny invention -- totally great, of course, but they often bring out the awkward in someone... usually me.

A few years ago, one such instance happened during mealtime on day two of the reunion. I had brought my usual homemade treat to share with the fam, which, I should mention, I had brought for at least the past 4 years, at the request of several in-laws. They are Grandma Porter's Cinnamon Twists and they are absolutely divine. Really, they are seriously delicious, and while I know each of my sisters and my mom honestly believe that they know how to make them best, I would win in a taste/presentation test, hands down. Sorry girls, it is what it is. Bring it.

Anyhoo, as we were all enjoying my Twists, one member of the family (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) came up to me and proudly announced, "Well, Marianne, I believe you are the most improved cook in the family!"

Oh.

...What's he/she saying? I've been the painfully unaware, but widely undisputed worst cook in the family? What, do I have a reputation as the one most in need of improvement? "Blah, don't let Marianne make anything, have her bring the cups." Is that why they always assign me to bring chips at all the family gatherings? Because they think I can't cook? Well this is a tiny bit awkward. ...Except that it's kinda funny.

Don't worry, while I really wanted to burst out laughing and halfway wanted to get offended and say something snarky, I DO actually adore this person, and the rest of the clan come to think of it, even if they think I can't cook; so the sliver of grace in me rose to the surface. I winked, raised my Twist at the intended complimenter, and said, "Why thank you!" And I've made sure to volunteer to bring the chips at every function ever since. I'll kill them with kindness. Or chips.

Then there was the year of the peaches. A few years back, someone began the tradition of bringing a large box of freshly picked peaches. Mmmm. LOVE peaches. But I believe this was the first year they had been brought, and it seemed like every time I turned around, someone was talking about the peaches. I couldn't get through a meal without four people asking me if I didn't love the peaches. "Oooh, Marianne, don't you LOVE these peaches?" "You better go get some more peaches, Marianne, these are the best peaches EVER!" "Hey, everyone, aren't these the greatest peaches ever harvested in all of creation?!"

Okay, they were good peaches, but come on, can't we talk about something else? Like the weather? Or how to change a tire? Or politics? Yeah, I'd even take politics over peaches. I mean, how many ways can you agree with someone about a tasty peach, for heaven's sake? "Yessirree!" "You bet!" "Mmmm, MMMM, these ARE good!" "I know, I could talk about them all day, too!"

Okay, so I'm sure I was being weird about it. But on the last day, we always gather for a "what we liked and want to repeat next year" meeting. And of course, someone said, "Oooh! I loved the peaches, make sure you bring some next year!" And of course, that brought several more, "Oh, I DID love those peaches!" "Yes, those were the best!" "I'm thinking of trying to marry those blessed peaches, they were so delicious!!" etc. etc. etc.

Well that about did me in. So I leaned over to Dave and whispered something like, "Oh. My. Lands. Are we STILL talking about the peaches? I mean, I know they're good, but my heavens, how long can a person rave about peaches?! Every time there's a lag in the conversation, someone's bringing up the peaches!"

Only it turns out I wasn't really whispering. I was doing that loudish whisper, the kind they teach you to do in theater, so the guy in the back row can hear you, even though you're whispering. So as I turned from his ear, I realized everyone was watching me, and, of course listening to my non-whispering.

So, gracefully, I'm sure, because I'm always graceful if nothing else, I said something along the lines of, "Well, COME ON! They're just PEACHES! How much to we have to talk about it?? They're PEACHES!"

Yep. Awkward. I'm sure everyone was thinking, "Sheesh, Marianne must not like peaches. Write that down: 'Bring peaches, but not enough so that Marianne feels like she needs to eat some.'"

I'm kidding. They all handled my awkwardness well -- which was sporting of them. I think some of them have a little bit more grace than I do.

I have about forty more of those stories, but lest I finish on a note that really seals the deal on my awkwardness, I'll finish with one about my kids instead. This one's from my family reunion. Every year, we go camping at the same spot up Big Cottonwood Canyon. It's a great little campground, with tons of trees and shade, and paved roads, so the kids can bring their bikes and ride around the trails all day. Unfortunately for my kids that year, we hadn't brought our bikes.

The cousins usually want to all sleep together, all the girls in one tent, all the boys in another. This year was Slade's first time sleeping in the boys' tent. There were four or five of them squashed into a little tent probably made for 2 or 3, so they were having a hard time settling down. After two or three times of someone coming out to complain about something or other, I headed over with my brother to see what we could do to help out. As I approached, I could hear one of my nephews trying to explain his hogging of the space. As I squatted down to peer into the tent, my brother said to his son, "If you don't settle down, so help me, you will lose your bike privileges tomorrow."

It was suddenly deathly quiet in the tent. No one moved, no one spoke -- until Slade broke the silence with, "Is it a new bike?"

You could almost see the little wheels turning in his head, imagining himself riding around on his cousin's shiny bike. That's my boy.

It's a bit of a tragedy, really. This year we won't be able to go to more than a day or so of the reunion. I'm not sure that's enough time for my awkwards to show up.

Oh well. There's always Christmas.

on cars and egos...

2011-06-16T17:14:00.004-06:00

Today is not one of those days where I'm feeling very on top of things. I just got home and found myself locked out. I went around the house to let myself in and walked into approximately 11 pairs of shoes in the entry way (how many people live in this house?), 6 loads of laundry in the mudroom (hey, it's CLEAN. It's just, you know, waiting to be folded...), an empty refrigerator (well every time I put food in there, someone eats it!), a bolt of canvas and 16 sheets of poster board awaiting their new lives as 96 trek journals in the dining room, a year's worth of receipts and bills to file on the computer desk, several rooms that could use a little more than a "quick cleaning," two finals to study for, and a doofy looking hairdo to top it all off.

Which is why I'm blogging instead of doing any of those things.

I am so productive.

On the plus side, the trip to the car wash really boosted my ego. I didn't realize how cool I was until I was pulling out. I was feeling pretty good already, what with the vacuumed interior, the sparkling exterior, and that sweet smelling vanillaroma christmas tree air freshener hanging off the emergency brake. Sure, I had just come across 5 months worth of miscellaneous kid fodder (2 Happy Meal toys, 3 Readers Digests, 1 notebook, an olive colored Sharpie, 1 sock, 3 gloves, 2 hairbrushes, 1 comb, a roll of toilet paper, someone's t-shirt, 4 piggies, 5 bobby pins,a hanger, and the old cell phone that no longer has service but has the best version of Tetris on it), all a sad reminder of the things a family can collect if you neglect the car wash too long; and of course, there was the inch of water in one of the cup holders that had leaked from the window in the "Super Spray" portion of the wash (is that not normal?); but hey, I was looking GOOD in that clean thing of mine.

Then I looked around at the other cars on the way out of the vacuum area. There were two really big trucks: a Ram 25,000,000 and a GMC Delani 5 Billion or something. There was a red little Smart Car next to the brand new red Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder (which you KNOW must be cool if they spell a normal word weirdly), and a black 2010 Toyota Sequoia, Shiny Edition.

Then there was me -- me and my 2003 Scooby Van (aka Chevrolet Astro. That's right, people, the AstroVan! It even sounds cool!). Sure, it may have been the oldest vehicle in the lot; sure, everyone probably wondered why I bothered spending money to get it washed (actually, as I was soaking up that inch of water with that handier-than-I-realized roll of toilet paper, I was kinda wondering the same thing); sure, mine was certainly the only car that someone paid under $2500 for; but here was my little Scooby Van, rubbing shoulders with the big guys. We had made it to the big leagues. It was a privilege to be in the same car wash with these vehicles.

Yeah, I may have more laundry to fold than I could ever wear (mostly because it's not mine), shoes that never seem to make it to the shoe bin (also not mine), and doofy-looking hair (mine, but I'm embracing it), but at least I've got the Scooby Van. I don't think it gets much better than this.

Anyone want to go for a drive? I'm thinking of hanging at the car wash, giving the 'ol girl a chance to mingle...

not-so-super-mom... again.

2011-06-08T17:45:00.003-06:00

So it's summer. Really. I think it really is today. I think we might actually stay above 50 degrees until October. Here's crossing my fingers and knocking on OtterPops anyway.

The past two weeks have been filled with several awards ceremonies and other miscellaneous end-of-the-school-year whatzits. Because Dave and I have such goofy schedules, we've been taking turns hitting the different functions in order to ensure the presence of at least one parent for each child's big deal. Sixth grade graduation was the day before the last day of school. Since the twins had a book report they requested their father's attendance at later in the day, I took the graduation.

This was our third 6th grader to graduate, but the first 6th grade graduation I hadn't helped plan and pull off. I felt like this was going to be a vacation since the last two had been a full day of ceremonies, food, and activities for 90 tweens. There had been no time for sweet reflections (sigh, my little girl's growing up...), not a moment for the outfit-check (everything tucked in? Anything hanging out?), not even a second for the camera check (well it's not like they're in caps and gowns, I can get a picture of her with her graduation certificate later...).

Because I have no pictures of my older girls graduating from 6th grade, I felt it was safer to leave the camera at home again this time, thus avoiding awkward questions later ("Mom, why did you take all those pictures of her graduating, and none of me?!"). I didn't realize my blunder until after the graduation speakers had wrapped up their "this isn't the end, it's only the beginning/we are the future/as we go forward, standing on the threshold of tomorrow/oh the places you'll go/follow your dreams!" and other such inspiring thoughts.

Solemnly, the principal walked to the podium to instruct the students on how to properly receive their diplomas. "Students, you'll stand up, walk allllll the way around the back of the auditorium, and wait here until we call your name," she said. "Then you'll come forward, shake all of our hands, get your diploma, and exit the stage right across here."

Right. Got it. Around the back of the auditorium, wait there, names get called (I cheer extra loudly on Ry), they shake hands, they exit the stage.

"But before you leave the stage, you'll stop right here," the principal continued. "Right here, where this 'x' is on the floor, in this spot with all the balloons and the spotlight and the little nook that looks like it'll be just perfect for your graduation photo. Right here you'll stop and hold up your diploma so your moms can get a picture of you, and you'll never forget this special day and how it felt to graduate from the best elementary school on the planet!"

Photo? You mean, like, with a camera? Like the one I left at home sitting on the table with dead batteries? Taken by the mom? I mean, like, me??

Flashback to those 45 seconds at home when I said to myself, "I'd hate for anyone to think I was playing favorites by bringing my camera to only one child's graduation..." Good call, mom. Flashforward to picturing Ry walking up the stage, shaking hands, receiving her diploma, and then stopping to pause for her glorious graduation photo on the little 'x' in the spotlight and no one steps forward to flash a picture of this most precious moment in all of 6th gradedom.

I could be wrong, but this could be a bad mommy moment. Nothing says "Your mommy doesn't really love you" more than being the only kid not getting her picture taken while the entire 6th grade and their parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, and pets look on. Hey, everybody, look at that kid who isn't getting her picture taken! Doesn't anyone love her??

They called up the first class and I watched, carefully, to see if anyone, anyone else in this blessed room neglected to bring a camera. There! That girl there! Oh, no. No, her mom, dad, grandmother, aunt, and call me crazy, but that looks like a complete stranger, just stepped out from behind the mass of moms waiting with their cameras. Snap, flash, snap, snap. Every single kid had someone taking their picture.

Just as they called Ry's class up, I remembered that every cell phone on the planet is equipped with a camera, and I. Have. A. Cellphone! I'm saved! And then I remembered that I've been trying to milk out my 4-year-old phone and the camera isn't working any more. Flashforward to imagining myself pretending to take her picture with my broken camera, and having some well-meaning woman behind me point out the fact that my phone didn't actually take that picture, I'd better try again.

Curse you, stupid camera phone and overly helpful woman! As Ry's class filed by my row, I frantically tried getting her attention. I stood up and waved my arms like a crazy woman. Luckily, that stealthy move caught her eye, and she beamed and waved at me. Instead of smiling back with the "thumbs up" she was expecting, I made the "cut" motion over and over across my neck and mouthed obviously enough for everyone in the near vicinity to catch what I was saying: "I DON'T HAVE MY CAMERA!!"

Bless that child. She grinned and mouthed, "That's okay," as she shook her head and moved forward in the line. Then, with far more composure than I had exhibited, she waited until they called her name (WOO-HOO RY!), confidently walked up the steps, shook hands, shook hands, shook hands, received her diploma, waited for the kid in front of her to clear the 'x', then gracefully stepped over it on the way to her seat.

She handled it like a pro. Almost as well as I did, I think.

Note to self: Camera at graduation. The end.

btw, idk abt tlwbd...

2011-05-09T08:36:00.011-06:00

Okay, so it's been 45 years since my last post. What can I say? I keep wondering if I should just close this puppy down, but then I fear I'll never write anything at all - well, except maybe papers for school and essays for scholarship applications. Maybe I'll start posting those; at least there'd be something new to read. I'm sure everyone's dying to know why "I Did/Didn't Vote in the Last Election Because..." or "I Am a Conservative/Liberal Because..." Fascinating. Actually, the research paper on the Greene Brothers turned out nice. It even had pictures. I was never allowed to take up space with pictures in high school. But then I didn't really have the internet in high school either, so, you know...

Okay, so I won't post my papers; and I might even start posting something more often than every 9 months. Besides, I DO have four followers. I can't let my loyal fans down. Haha. I'm seriously laughing out loud to myself right now - or should I have said LOL? Blech. ...Which brings me to my reason for posting today.

This morning I was texting one of my friends about the carpool. I have to admit, she is one of the top 5 fun people to text because she always texts funny things. Not necessarily like "I can't stop laughing right now for hilarity in text," although she's had her moments there; but always stuff that at least makes me smile.

I think people roll their eyes when they see they're getting a text from me. That's probably because I'm not the most concise texter (or speaker, or blogger, for that matter). I've had more than one person tell me they always know they're getting a text from me when a text rings in and is immediately followed by another (and often another, and sometimes another more). Okay, so I have a lot to say; or I have a way of saying a little in a lot of words, I don't know which. But on top of my superfluous use of words, I have to say that I'm not really a fan of textese, or textspeak or SMS language or whatever they're calling it, which is certainly going to make my texts longer.

Sure, when I first started texting, I'd say 2 instead of to or too or two. And u instead of you, and r instead of our or are. And I admit it, I used the :) and ;) quite often. But over the past several months I've found myself shifting out of textspeak. And I'm even finding it difficult to use the :). I'll type "(insert smiley here)" instead. THAT could be the reason people get 5-page texts from me. I'm using up like 20 characters, where I could be using two.

I think it was LOL that tipped me overboard. One of our friends told us that his mom always thought that LOL meant Lots of Love. When the family's grandmother passed away, she sent out a text to the everyone that read, "Your grandmother has died. LOL."

I suspect that may have actually been a Readers Digest joke or something. But apparently, according to Wikipedia, LOL can mean Lots of Love too. See? Too confusing.

So I don't use it. I have lots of friends who do, which is fine, but I just can't bring myself to do it. My daughters know this, so they love to send me texts that say, "LOL, I'm going to Ellen's," or to read me people's facebook statuses that have things like, "Just walked into a wall. LOL!" Just not a fan.

But I think the thing that really sealed the deal for me was when I received a totally baffling initialism from my mom. We had been texting back and forth about some challenging thing my family was dealing with at the time, and at the end, my mom said some encouraging words of some sort and then, "And remember, TLWBD."

Um... What??? I admit, I'm not really up on the current terms, except for maybe BTW, JK, GTG and of course, LOL. But TLWBD? What in the world is that one? After trying a few fill-ins myself (To Labor With Bodily Discomfort? That Liars Will Be Damned? Tomorrow's Life Won't Be Death?) I texted her back and said, "Okay, so I know I'm out of it, but I have no idea what TLWBD means."

She texted back and said, "Oh, that's just textspeak for The Lords Will Be Done."

Of course. Silly me. I'm just saying, that wasn't listed in Wikipedia's list of Common Initialisms.

the legend of the legend...

2010-08-13T21:45:00.000-06:00

I don't think I told you that we finally gave up on the Rec Center and moved to the real gym. It will come as no surprise that I was a bit torn about the whole thing, given the fact that we had worked so hard on those non-relationships with all those people we had nicknamed. I find it quite a tragedy that I'll never know what happens to all my Rec-Center-Sorta-Friends... Will Sweaty-John-Jones ever know the impact he had upon my daily punishment at the Rec? (As in, Note to self, and all within a 10-foot radius of the man and his elliptical: Stay back. He lives up to his nickname -- drippingly so.) Will Evan, the 60-year-old twin of Dave's 5-year-old nephew, ever know how I puzzled over his utilitarian choice of working out in his swim trunks? And the Jazz Man: Is he still wearing those shiny, purple shorts?

But I wonder most about The Legend. Have I told you about The Legend? The Legend was a tall, thickset guy who usually arrived at the gym just after Dave and I showed up; but he never went "in" the "Out" to get a treadmill. No, The Legend lived only for the weight room. Every day he showed up in sweats that fit a bit too snugly, accompanied by a weight-lifting novice. The Legend and his protege would commandeer the pads in the corner and occupy that spot for at least 45 minutes, doing what?

Stretching. That's right, stretching. In fact, I think that's all I ever saw him do. I remember him giving his apprentice weight lifting tips, but I'm almost certain that I never saw The Legend himself do more than stretch.

The Legend would regale his adoring audience (i.e. his loyal, beginning weight-lifter friend) with tales of the old football glory days, and how he never missed his ritual stretches before their practices. "I never had an injury," he'd say, "because I always made sure I was really stretched and loose before I played. Those other guys," he'd expound, "they just flew through stretching, but they were always benched with new injuries. No, never had one injury." I suspect that The Legend may have avoided injuries simply because he got too wrapped up in the stretching bit; thus he never actually engaged in the Football Game Proper. Just a guess, though.

The Legend was the ultimate expert on stretching. It was rumored (by himself, of course) that he could still do the splits, although he never showed us. ...Probably not enough room or something. Either that or he needed to stretch for another 2 hours before he was ready to pull off the splits, but none of us had that kind of time.

When he wasn't talking about stretching, he was talking about his promising plans to make millions. "Why, I could write myself a $200,000-a-year job," he said one day. Actually, I could too, I'm just not sure that anyone would actually give me that job...or The Legend, for that matter. "It's all about the business model," he'd often repeat, whatever that meant. He certainly seemed to have a lot of untapped potential. At least he talked like he did.

What was great about The Legend was that even if he didn't really know what he was talking about, he sure made it sound like he did. That's actually how he got his nickname.

We began to call him The Legend when one of the other weight room patrons asked him if he was a personal trainer -- an understandable mistake, what with all the weight-lifting advice he was giving his faithful follower. The fact that he didn't lift the weights himself added to the personal trainer impression, since you rarely see a personal trainer doing more than standing around shouting encouragement. And with his bulky build, he almost could have been a body builder gone soft. ...Extremely soft.

So when asked if he was a personal trainer, he smiled and said, "No," and he paused wistfully. "No," he repeated with a sigh, "I'm just a legend in my own mind, right Gary?" I couldn't believe my luck. A Legend. That day, The Legend bestowed upon himself his own nickname.

So having left the Rec Center, I can't help but wonder about The Legend. Has he made his millions? Did he get his $200,000 self-written job? How's his stretching coming along? And most importantly, can he really do the splits?

Some things we'll never know.

Tragic, isn't it?

a good beginning

2010-07-16T23:26:00.004-06:00

I love a good beginning. It's almost as delicious as a good ending. Take books, for example. You can tell how fantastic a book's going to be by the first paragraph, sometimes even the first sentence. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Classic. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." Okay, so I never read that one, but what a beginning. "In the beginning God created the Heaven and Earth..." Now that's promising.

Contrast those happy examples with a book that was recommended to me several years ago. "You've got to read this book, Marianne, you're going to LOVE it," I was told by my over-enthusiastic and painfully unimaginative friend. I took it hesitantly because it was in a genre I don't particularly care for anyway. But try it, I did.

I can't remember the name of the book, but I'm certain it had a cheesy-looking cover, with a strikingly lovely pioneery-looking woman, gazing out over a wind-swept field. Her bonnet was hanging loosely on her shoulders, leaving her hair, of course, flowing in the wind behind her. Cliche and cheesey. It was paperback, and obviously well-loved by its owner, who, truthfully, I didn't really know very well. This was particularly distressing because I couldn't open it confidently with consoling thoughts of "she's never let me down before..."

Alas.

The first line: "It was a good night for dying."

And that's as far as I got. Without a doubt, it was cheesy, cliche, and over-dramatic. Please. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Now that I think of it, I should have flipped to the last page to see if the ending topped the beginning.

Not knowing the ending, I've kindly come up with a few of my own:

"As she lay the posies upon the freshly turned soil, she allowed herself one last tear for the life lived, and the love lost... 'I will never forget. Never,' she vowed. And the wind blew softly across her brow... The End." I hate endings like that.

What about this one: "'And that, Mary Martha, is why I'll never let you outta my sight agin.' And he never did..." No, that's silly, surely this lovely wind-blown beauty would not be named Mary Martha.

In all likelihood, the ending matched the beginning: "Yes, it was a good night... for living" (sniff).

Blast. I'll never know.

Oh well. It's late, and I can't remember the point of this post. G'nite.

I owe you one.

i do believe in fairies...sorta

2010-05-29T13:01:00.006-06:00

Warning: The following contains information that may well disappoint, if not completely crush Tooth Fairy Believers. Proceed with caution.

I was looking through pictures the other day and came across a pic of one of my older girls, grinning toothlessly at the camera. Actually, she wasn't completely toothless, just the-two-front-teethless. It was taken in the later days of Tooth Fairydom, back when we sort-of still remembered to take the teeth and leave some cash behind.

Who started this whole Tooth Fairy hubbub anyway? Probably some conniving kid, trying to find a way to make some quick cash for having normally developing bicuspids. Maybe it was his dad who secretly wanted to give his kid all his loose change; but alas, his strict upbringing of "you can't get something for nothing" wouldn't allow him to just give it away. So he was thrilled when his little boy lost his first tooth, and dad made up the tooth fairy right there. Well thanks a lot.

My oldest child lost her first tooth right before she went into kindergarten. She was adorably believing as she tucked her tooth in that night, anticipating untold riches under her pillow in the morning. About 30 minutes after she fell asleep, we crept back in, stole her tooth, and stuffed five bucks under her pillow. There. I said it. The truth's out: I am the Tooth Fairy. Well, okay, Dave and I are.

At least at my house.

Tooth number two was as slick as the first had been; got in, got out, one of us ended up a little richer, the other a little poorer, mission accomplished. But the night she lost her third tooth, we forgot Tooth Fairy duty.

She woke up the next morning completely disappointed; I would have been, too, I mean who doesn't like free money? I cleverly covered our blunder by explaining that the Tooth Fairy has a lot of teeth to pick up every night, and she was probably just overbooked. No doubt if we left it under the pillow, she'd be back.

I know, smooth.

I decided a little repentance was in order that night. I wrote a little note to her in sparkly golden ink -- not gold, golden. Tooth Fairies don't write in gold ink. I told her that I got stuck in Boston or something like that, told her she had the best teeth of any kid, ever, and signed it The Tooth Fairy. Then I took a bit of glitter and folded it inside the note -- what's more magical than glitter, after all? And for good measure (or guilt), I gave her a couple extra bucks. There. All better.

Too bad she didn't quit at the third tooth. From then on, every tooth was forgotten, either by a day or two, or once, as long as a week. Late pick-ups no longer included a handwritten, golden-inked, glitter-smattered note. They became unceremonious wads of dollar bills stuffed under the pillow, minutes before she woke up for breakfast. I think I even forgot to take the tooth one night, although Kam was denied trying to get another night's cash out of it. One tooth, one deposit.

By the time Mak lost her first tooth, I was all funned out; and I still had 3 kids to go, not including wrapping up all of Mak's and the rest of Kam's teeth. So the Tooth Fairy made one final pick-up the night Mak's first tooth came out.

When her second tooth fell out a few days later, we sat her down and made a deal. "Mak," I said. "The Tooth Fairy wants to make a bargain." Figuring we'd deposited at least 20 bucks into Kam's hot little hands over the past few years, I said, "The Tooth Fairy" (let's call her "Mom") "wants to give you 20 bucks for this tooth, and call it good for the rest of your teeth." "Twenty bucks now, and nothing for the rest of my teeth?" she asked. "That's the deal," I said. It took her about half a second. 20 bucks to a 3rd grader is the equivalent of a thousand bucks to an adult. "Deal," she said.

And from that day forward, the Tooth Fairy has never been seen or heard from again at our house. When the 3 youngest lost their first teeth, the same deal was made. Twenty bucks for the first tooth, you don't even have to leave it under your pillow, and we're done.

I'm thinking they should have held out for a little more. I just Googled the going rate of teeth these days; most kids are raking in 5 bucks a pop. 100 bucks, just for growing up; my kids should have at least gone for $50.

What can I say? That Tooth Fairy drives a hard bargain.

now that's motherhood...

2010-05-17T15:10:00.002-06:00

So lately when something funny happens at my house, TheBoy will immediately turn to me and say, "You can't put this on your blog." Dang. PS, that gag rule is partly responsible for my lack of posts lately. Actually, some quite amusing things have happened with my girls recently that no one has forbidden me to blog about; but alas, there are some levels of privacy I have to respect, at least until some time has passed and readers wouldn't know immediately who I'm referring to.

Respecting their privacy, that's a good mommy thing, right? I can't help but ask, since we just celebrated another Mother's Day. This year, the little kids at church sang two "Mother" songs, only one of which centered around flowers. That's a good thing. For years primary kids have been honoring their mothers with sappy songs about love and flowers.

Now I love my kids. I adore my kids. I love them with that ache that makes you want to hold them right as they are and never let them grow up. I love them so much that if I think about it, it makes it hard to breathe. I never had a clue what it felt like to really, really, truly, love until I became a mother. So I suppose I get the sappy love bit. But how come Dads get the fun songs? "I'm so glad when daddy comes home," "My dad's the greatest dad," you know, "dads are awesome" kind of songs.

Mothers get cheesy poetry set to music. Seriously. Here are the words to one of the Mother's Day favorites:

"I often go walking in meadows of clover; and I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue. I gather the flowers the whole meadow over. Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you."

Now first of all, how many kids do you know who have ever even seen a meadow of clover, let alone gathered armfuls of blue blossoms there? Then on top of that, why, pray tell, would flowers remind my kids of me? I would rather I get a song that falls more along these lines:

"I often go walking, because you won't drive me; and I make my breakfast, 'cause you're at the gym. I know that you love me because you make me clean my room up. Dear Mother, you're awesome, hey, this song's for you."

or maybe "I often come down to your bedroom on Saturdays. And I squish with my siblings, between you and dad. We all laugh and talk there, and you usually cackle. That loud laugh is the one thing that always reminds me of you..."

Now that's a Mother's Day song.

In addition to songs about flowers, the leadership of our ward likes to give out a small mother's day gift to each woman, age 18 and over. It's a time-honored tradition, passed down from Brigham Young I'd wager, in every ward in the Church. For years, the moms all got a geranium, which is a bit of a bummer if your talent with plants is as inadequate as mine. A few years ago they started branching out from the traditional geranium: a couple years ago I got a pansy.

My mother-in-law laughingly told me of one Mother's Day, when she witnessed the perfect picture of motherhood walking out of church. In the crook of one arm of a frazzled-looking young mother was a car seat, occupied not with a baby, but a large bag; no doubt the bag was her "church bag," filled with various games and activities, and likely a few dry Cheerios, each engineered to get two small children through sacrament meeting quietly. On the end of that arm was an energetic 2-year-old, dragging his mother by the hand, impatient to free himself of his tie and shiny shoes after 3 hours of discomfort. Over the other shoulder of this mom hung a diaper bag, and in that arm squirmed the baby. As she juggled her various burdens, in her free hand she held the trophy of Mothers Day: There was the geranium from the Bishopric, missing about half the dirt, and bent over at an odd angle that signalled the premature demise of the plant. Now that is knock-down, drag-out, motherhood at it's finest.

What's weird about that is the fact that I remember those days, and I remember more experienced moms (usually grandmas), walking by with a smile and saying, "Oh, hold onto it; it all goes by so fast." And I'd be thinking, "Have you completely lost your mind? This so-called 24-hour-day has already lasted 58-hours, and we're only half over. This day will surely never end, and when it does, I'll just have to start over to do it again in the morning."

But it did. It went by too fast. On mother's day, we pulled out the home videos and watched our favorites; being the sap that I am, I cried every time I watched my kids crying in the videos. I'd cry and think, "Someone put down the video camera and get the twins out of their high chair! Then hold them. Just hold them, and stay up too late holding them; let them fall asleep in your arms, and maybe then, you can think about putting them down." Because heaven knows, 9-year-olds don't respond to being held in the same snugly way as 1-year-olds.

Oh, that's the delicious stuff of aches. Deep, painful, beautiful, I am so in love with you, heartaches. That's motherhood. I love it. It's all I've ever wanted to do, and I absolutely love it.

For the record, if our home videos were confiscated and used as evidence, we'd be convicted of

1) Never, ever changing a soggy diaper
2) Rarely clothing our children
3) Never wiping running noses or dirty faces
or
4) Pulling out the video camera only when at least one, but usually two or more of the above applies.

Oh well. Happy Mother's Day anyway.

once upon a casket...

2010-03-06T14:05:00.003-07:00

I just got back from the funeral of my husband's great aunt. At least I think she was his great aunt; she could have been his 2nd cousin, once removed, or something like that. I've always been a little vague on the exact relationship. I didn't ever get to know her, but her husband is a gem, so it was a no brainer that we'd be going to this funeral. Turns out she was a gem, too, so I'm glad we went.

I have a love/hate relationship with funerals. Well wait, I don't think I could ever say that I love funerals, so saying I have a necessary-part-of-the-process/hate relationship with funerals would be more accurate. Actually, I really don't mind funerals themselves, they're just incredibly emotionally draining, what with all the fantastic memories and funny stories, combined with that ache of knowing it's going to be a long ride till you get to see that person again. What I'm really opposed to is the viewing.

Now, I know, psychologists and funeral directors alike would tell me the viewing is a necessary part of the grieving process. People need closure. They need to see the deceased, to help in coming to terms with the death. Blah. All I know is that I really don't want everyone's last memory of me to be lying in a coffin, all waxy looking, with everyone who files by saying things like, "She looks so peaceful," (Hello, dead, how else would you look?) or "Oh, she looks beautiful." Baloney. You and I both know I've already looked WAY better than I'll look in my coffin, so let's remember me that way. Shut the lid and fill the room with pictures of me where I looked fantastic. Then people can say, "Oh, she looks so happy," and you could totally agree with them: "Are you kidding? She was beyond happy, that picture was taken right after Thanksgiving Dinner, 2009. ...Good food..."

Come to think of it, I've just found a flaw in my great picture plan. I'm usually the one taking pictures. I'm in about 2% of the pictures taken at our house, and half of those are the family pictures we take where no one looks good, so we send out a goofy one of all of us. (We didn't even bother last Christmas, despite the fact that I went to the bother of ordering them and everything. I just couldn't bring myself to send out a picture that included our dogs in it. ...Maybe I'll work up the guts by July, and send them out then. I think they even say, "Merry Christmas, 2009." I like it. Watch your mailbox.) Anyhoo, the other 1% of pictures of me are "self-portraits," where I've held out the camera at arm's length and taken a blurred, over-exposed, or goofy-expressioned picture of myself. Looks like everyone's last memory of me will be horrible either way.

Funerals always get me thinking about my own funeral (and viewing, but I won't get into that again), and what kinds of things will be said of me ("Man, that girl could talk." "I'd never heard anyone actually use 'blah blah blah' in a sentence until I met her." "Sad, really. She never really learned to appreciate Johnny Cash..." -- that'll be Dave).

I also wander in my mind to other funerals I've been to, remembering the funniest parts of each. My grandma's funeral (my dad's mom) is probably my favorite up to this point, for two reasons: I had been asked to accompany all of the grandkids in a musical number. This, of course, required a quick run-through before the funeral. My sister contributed a lovely obbligato on the violin, and the rehearsal went swimmingly. Everyone knew how it sounded, knew where to come in, it was perfect.

...Until you threw in the Marianne factor. In my defense, let me just remind you that funerals are truly emotionally draining. I've also been known to sort of go on automatic pilot at times in my life, particularly in emotionally draining times, alright? So I sat down at the piano, all of the grandkids were gathered up on the stand, we checked the violin for tune, and I began the introduction. Alas, I forgot I was doing an introduction, and proceeded to play the song in it's entirety. This wouldn't have mattered, except that half of the grandkids came in where they should have, but no, watch it, Marianne's decided to do a solo or something, so stop singing! And of course, my sister's watching exactly what I'm doing, so we both start giggling, which is not very conducive to the somber mood of a funeral, or to playing the piano and violin, for that matter. Leave it to me to mess up the lovely musical tribute to my grandmother.

But better than that was the viewing. I know, that's a bit of a shock, considering how I feel about viewings. The twins were about 2 and 1/2 when my grandma died. This was their first funeral, and unsure of how a viewing would go over for 2-year-olds, we decided we should arrive just before the viewing ended. When we first got there, I took a seat, and asked my kids if they'd like to go look at grandma before they closed the casket. Bravely, Morgs and Slade ran right over there and peeked their heads up over the edge to see her. After a few seconds, they came running back, all adorable and happy. That went surprisingly well, I thought. Then the funeral director announced that they would be closing the casket, so if anyone wanted one last moment with her, now was the time. "Slade," I said. "If you'd like to go see her once more, you can." Off he ran, stood on tip-toes and stared for a minute, then came running back, and broke the silent somberness with "YUP! She's DEAD alright!"

Well said, my boy. Now that's a kid you want to have around at a viewing. When people are weeping and begging my family to just open the casket, so they can at least say goodbye to me, I hope my family will just shake the casket enough so you can tell I'm in there, and then have Slade announce, "Yup! She's DEAD alright!"

a thanksgiving miracle..

2010-02-21T17:42:00.005-07:00

Hello? Is this thing on? Testing, testing. That reminds me. Last summer at the family reunion (the annual 3-day camping trip with Dave's entire family), my brother-in-law was setting up for our morning flag raising -- yes, we do that, every morning; and we take it down every night. It's a little like Scout Camp, I suppose, but cuter, with little boys running around in footy pajamas, and half the kids' (and sadly, adults') attention drawn away by someone's new puppy. Really. I think someone has a new puppy every year.

Anyway, so my brother-in-law is setting up the sound system (aka the "You Can Be A Star" Karaoke machine), and plugs in the mic and says, "Testing, testing... Testing, 1...2...3.." For reals. Now, I know that this doesn't come across as very funny. But even as I type, I'm smiling, because he said, "Testing, 1, 2, 3." Why do people say that? It's a lovely cliche, testing the sound by saying, "Testing, 1, 2, 3." You know you did it as a kid. When you got your hands on a microphone, you'd hold it up right by your mouth and say, "Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3." It seems like real sound guys say things like, "Check, Check," nowadays, but there was my brother-in-law, testing "1, 2, 3." If I get my hands on a mic, I usually go for silly-game-show-host voice, never "Testing, 1, 2, 3." But I suppose that's just a personality difference. All I know is it was awesome.

Ahhh, so this is working. Nothing like a pointless memory to start a post after what, 3 months? My friend told me that my blog is collecting cobwebs, so I had to see for myself. Sure enough, I barely found it underneath all the dust collected over months of no usage.

So even though I have lots of things I plan to write about, including such hits as "The Great Shoe Disaster of December 2008," or "Local Idiots Shut Down Alpine Loop with Jack-knifed Trailer," or of course, my personal fave, "Did I Tell You They're Publishing One of My Children's Songs in the Friend Magazine in September?", I thought I'd pick back up right about where I left off. Somewhere in November.

One dark Sunday evening (it was darker than usual that night, since we'd just "fallen back" with the time; so really, it was like 4:30 but it seemed later. Okay, it was later than 4:30, maybe 5:30 or 6:00... Vital details...), we all gathered into the dining room. Dave had just finished preparations on another spectacular Sunday dinner -- he's kind of taken over Sunday dinners now, and he's brilliant, of course.

Anyway, we had just sat down, and everyone was oohing and ahhing over the spread -- he's really good -- when I caught a glimpse of a large something moving across the street. It was quite a large something or other, clearly an animal, and I thought, "Hey, it's one of those horse-dogs!" (which is actually a Great Dane, but I can never remember Great Dane when I'm trying to talk about them. Really, I had to Google it just now so I could tell you what I mean). Luckily I didn't actually announce that I'd spotted a horse-dog, although, what came out was only marginally better: "Um there's a really big do--" (and then I saw more clearly) "a DEER!"

That's right. A deer -- a 4-point buck, strolling down the middle of our street. Well you can imagine how quickly the entire family had their noses squashed up against the window to get a better look. I mean, it's not like we live in the foothills; we don't have a mountain in our backyard or anything, so really, I can count the number of times I've seen a deer strolling down our street on no fingers. Sure, it's just a deer, but it's a deer walking down our street, out for an evening stroll, enjoying the sound of his hooves on the asphalt. Now that's something. ...Do deer have hooves?

We watched him until he rounded the corner, and then we jumped into action; we couldn't just stand there and watch it walk out of our lives without at least trying to see where in the world he was headed, or more importantly, if he was meeting friends. So we ran out the door, all seven of us shoeless, and half of us sockless as well, and jogged after the deer. I only mention the shoeless bit because I admit, I displayed a small slide in parental wisdom. I mean, it was November, just a few weeks before the first snow, and it was cold. What kind of mother allows her kids to run outside after a wandering deer, in the dark, in 40-ish degree weather, in bare feet? The one who does it with them, I suppose.

Anyway, we were as stealthy as 7 people chasing a random deer down the road could possibly be. We didn't want to spook him, so we kept him about 15 feet in front of us, and paced him. If he slowed up, we did too. When he paused and turned to look at us, we all froze in place. Those years of Freeze-Tag had finally paid off -- he hardly realized we were following him. Either that or he didn't care. I admit, we started getting a bit giggly after about 20 feet. I think it was the absurdity of the moment hitting us; that, and the cold feet.

And just as I thought we'd tire of running after a deer at dinner time, our hearts stopped: Dead ahead was a car. You know the scenario -- ever heard the term "Deer in the headlights?" We had to do something, we couldn't let him just become hypnotized by the dreaded lights and be plowed down right in front of us. So we did what any normal, deer-in-your-neighborhood-loving people would do: We ran out in front of the car to stop it.

Again, a lapse in motherly instincts. Usually you try to get your kids out of the line of oncoming traffic.

Dave held up his arms as the rest of us waved ridiculously. The car slowed down and rolled down the window. "You okay?" the driver asked.

Hmmm. A family of seven, out in the dark, with no shoes on, flagging down a random car. I'm going with probably not.

"There's a deer!" we all said. Not together. I'm sure he heard something more like, "Look over- DEER!- there's a- can you believe- DEER!- What a- DEER!" Right about now, a car came from the other direction, and our little friend Bambi turned the corner and ran down the street.

Gone.

Forever.

At least from our neighborhood.

And that was our Thanksgiving Miracle. The night the random deer took a walk down our street. What makes it a miracle? Hello, deer in Suburbia. What's Thanksgiving-ish about a deer? Hello, November.

I'm sure it all makes sense now.

All I know is that ridiculous 15 minutes is among my top 5 favorite 15 minutes ever spent with my fam.

SO love that.

Happy Thanksgiving. Or St. Patrick's Day. Whatever.

cubicles and financial tests...

2009-10-30T10:18:00.000-06:00

I remember, about a year ago, writing about motherhood and the fact that I'm really only good at that job. I mentioned how amazed I was by women who can pull off a career and motherhood, because I was crazy busy with the mom bit, and was fairly certain it was all I could do. Funny, how when you say things like that out loud (or in print, as the case may be), you find yourself walking into the very thing you thought you couldn't do.

Oddly enough, now I find myself in the market for a job. Dave has enrolled in school full-time (YAY!) and I have been officially looking for a job for the past two months. I've spent several hours -- many several hours -- writing resumes, cover letters, and applying online for I don't know how many positions. That's okay, it's all part of the process, right?

Part of the process for businesses apparently sometimes includes a measure of weeding out the "lesser" applicants, in the form of a test. In my case, I've been searching for a receptionist/secretarial position, and for one position, was required to take a financial test. Okay, I thought. How bad could it be? I've been running payroll and doing the taxes for the last 2 and a half years. There's probably just a few little math problems, maybe a pretend payroll sheet, and we're good.

Silly me. I arrived at the testing site (which was also my potential workplace) and entered a sea of cubicles. Cubicles. Could I work in a cubicle? The place was deadly silent: No elevator music overhead, no happy chatting around the water cooler, no water cooler, come to think of it. I was greeted with blank stares from the 4 women in their glass cubicles nearest the door. "Hello?" I ventured. Usually hello doesn't require a question mark, unless one is answering a phone, or one is met with mindless gazing from people who, you would think, should be friendly and encouraging. "I'm here to take the financial test?" A question again, met with expressionless gaping. Is there a CubicleLand language I'm unfamiliar with? Perhaps some breach of conduct I've committed? If the financial test doesn't weed me out, my lack of cubicle-etiquette certainly will.

A second later, the cubicles seemed to part like the Red Sea as a woman walked through them with a stack of tests in hand. She handed me a stapled, 5-page test, and told me to take it to room 314 when I had completed it. I pulled out my pencil and calculator (don't worry, that was allowed) and prepared to amaze the world... Or at least the person correcting my test.

"Page 1," I read. "Using the principles of Accounting, please answer the following true/false questions. 20 points."

Hello. Principles of accounting? I can tell you that cash is an asset, does that count for anything? To my horror, the entire 1st page was filled with accounting terms and odd things like, "True or False: If you make a payment on a loan account, it will be reconciled as a deposit." What? I'd just call it a payment on a loan, why do we have to give it a name? So I flubbed my way through page one, thinking, hey, it's a 50-50 chance on all of these, how bad could this turn out?

Ha. "Page Two. Using the Principles of Accounting" (those keep turning up!), "determine which category each of the following fall into: Asset, Liability, or Owner's Equity. For example: Cash on hand -- Asset" (told you). "20 Points."

Great, they used the one I knew for sure as the example. Down the page I went, assuming that anything that was a loan was a liability, and anything that was paid for was an asset. But then I came across "Office buildings." Office buildings? I don't know, do we own them? Suddenly I pictured myself sitting in one of the cubicles, looking through the glass at the back of the brown-haired woman in the next cubicle and wishing there was a dang radio in this place, when my supervisor (in my mind, a friendly, balding, somewhat harried man) rushes to my cubicle and says, "Quick! Marianne! Are our office buildings an asset or a liability??" I could see how this part of the test would be extremely relevant at work. Apparently I don't know anything about accounting.

Page 3 brought the easy math questions, at least until number 32: "Compound Interest. On December 1, so and so deposits $500 into an account that is compounded annually at 5% interest. How much will be in the account on July 1? November 31?Blah blah blah and such and such..."

Okay, let's be honest. This is how the question should have read: "Compound Interest. Do you know how to search the Internet for equations or websites that could provide you information on compound interest, and likely even allow you to punch in the appropriate numbers, whereupon you will receive the correct answers and provide them to your friendly, balding, somewhat harried supervisor?"

Alas, what should have been was not, so I did my best (which I'm certain was wrong anyway), and flipped to the last two pages. "Using the following balance worksheet, reconcile this account." Finally. Easy. But irrelevant. If this company is still reconciling their accounts by hand and hasn't joined the rest of the world in utilizing financial software, I don't want to work here. Plus they don't have a water cooler.

I was one of the first ones done (probably because I aced all the accounting terms), turned my test in and thought, "Well that was interesting." A cute, blond girl turned her test in right after me, and we were asked to sit down and wait while they were corrected. I complimented the cute girl on her on her fantastic pedicure, which you could see because of her smart-yet-stylish shoes. She heaved a little sigh of relief and said, "Well that was easier than I thought." Sure, if you're an accountant. I smiled. Weakly.

After a few minutes, the woman correcting the tests called Fantastic Pedicure's name and they huddled in front of me. In order to be considered for the job, you had to get at least 75 on the test. They would be administering the test the next day as well, just in case anyone wanted to retake it. I heard the testing lady tell Fantastic Pedicure, "Okay, you got an 85, so put that on your application." She handed Pedicure her test and called my name. "So you got a 55," she began, and looked as if she were going to continue. "Okay," I said as I turned tail and tried to look dignified as I walked out. I walked down the long hallway, smiling to myself --smiling, I suppose because that was a total flop. Sure, I could take the test again, but could my dignity handle it? And if I passed it the next time, would I pass the Cubicle Etiquette Test?

I caught up to Pedicure on the way out. "Howdja do?" she asked.

"Oh, I got a 55," I said, hoping I sounded like I was talking about something clever.

"Psh," she snorted. "Sure."

Awkward.

"Uh, no, I really got a 55, they held onto my test and everything."

"Oh," she said. It's what I'd have said. I wished her luck with the job and climbed into my car, grateful to have had a glimpse of CubicleLand, at least to see that I didn't really want it. Sure, I could say I failed on purpose, but we'd all know how true that was.

PS. The formula for compound interest is M = P(1 + i) to the nth power, by the way. You know, in case you're ever stuck in a financial test in CubicleLand.

A House Called Awful End

2009-09-16T21:37:00.002-06:00

Ok, so this is not like my usual posting, although I've been laughing to myself over 2 things I plan to blog about soon...I just have to wait til enough time has passed...

But I had to tell you: I grabbed this book at the library the other day, along with its 2 sequels. TheBoy was like, "I don't know what to read!" and I was in the 8-12ish section, and the cover looked like fun, so I was like, "Here, try this one." Well today when I was going to blow dry my hair, I wanted something to read for the 4 minutes that it takes; so since TheBoy has yet to pick it up, I grabbed it and started. It took me about as long to read the first chapter as it did to dry my hair, and I LOVE IT!! Already! It is hilarious!! It was compared to Lemony Snicket, which was fun, but different. Philip Ardagh (the brilliant writer) has yet to take himself seriously. For example: Eddie took a seat across from his aunt. "Put that back!" she said, so he did, and sat down across from her. That's not a direct quote, you get the gist. It's so fun already! I wish I had a coupla hours to just read it all, it's delightful! I'll letcha know how it ends...

More life stuff later...

the idiot in delivery room 303

2009-08-12T15:15:00.002-06:00

No, I'm not pregnant. I have some friends who are, and that topic always makes me blush for some reason. Okay, it's not that pregnancy in and of itself makes me blush. It's the fact that I'm always reminded of the deliveries of my kids, and that makes me blush. With the exception of one -- RyBread, bless her -- I have plenty to blush about.

Never fear, I won't shock you with all the gory details. I'll just fill you in on the least embarrassing, the twins' delivery. While it's the one that makes me blush the least, it's the one that makes me laugh the most.

One terribly early morning in February, I was awakened by the alarming feeling of my water breaking...actually, I guess it would be more accurate to say that one of my waters was breaking. ...Never mind, let's move on.

Whenever I start this story with my kids, they always say, "What does that feel like?" How do you answer that? ...Uh...wet?

Anyhoo, I remember just kind of yelling, "Oh, oh, oh!"

Dave, who is never actually ready for an emergency in the middle of the night, outdid himself and jumped out of bed, yelling, "WHAT? WHAT?! What's wrong?!"

"My water just broke all over the place," I said, and he let out a burst of air and sighed, "...Finally!"

My thoughts exactly. People like to say a rather absurd thing to a woman carrying twins: "Wow, twins! Two for the price of one!" No. It is not two for the price of one, it is every bit, two for the price of two; and while every pregnancy is difficult in its own right, take each typical difficulty and multiply it by two. In many cases, you could add on doctor-prescribed bed-rest for who knows how long, non-stress tests, twice a week, for at least the last 8 weeks, a constant feeling that your body is being slowly ripped in two, and in my case, extreme itching of the palms of the hands and bottoms of the feet (go figure. But have you ever tried to satisfy an itch on the palm of your hand? It's physically impossible. I seriously thought I might go completely crazy some nights). Now you're getting the gist of carrying twins. So the idea that we were finally actually going through with this whole thing was, indeed, quite a relief.

We called my friend, who came to babysit (or really, just sleep out the rest of the night on my couch, as the bed was no longer an inviting idea to anyone), called my mom to let her get all excited about the next few hours, and headed off to the hospital.

Truthfully, I don't remember most of the details once we got to the hospital. It seemed like checking in took about 72 years, but that can't possibly be right, since their birthday has been recorded on the hospital and state records as the same date my water broke... I do remember how freezing cold I was as they prepped me for a C-section and gave me an IV. Not until I was shivering uncontrollably did someone get me one of those delicious blankets from the warming bins, and stuck a new, warm IV in. I also remember being a little nervous about the spinal anesthesia -- my first 3 kids were delivered without any meds, so that needle going into my back, while I was supposed to be calm and exhaling, was a bit unnerving. I know, Chicken.

I remember that as I was being wheeled into the delivery room, my little silly surgery hat fell down over my eyes. I laid there on the bed helplessly, since, of course, I couldn't move, and said, "Could someone fix my hat?" One of the nurses glanced down at me, and just kept on pushing my little bed. "Ok," I thought. "It's probably not important that I can see right now anyway." A few seconds later, someone pulled my hat back up to my forehead.

Of the actual C-Section, I remember 3 things: Dave almost got kicked out for crossing over the doctor's imaginary (but apparently very real to her) "do not cross" line -- he needed a better view. That was bad, but when he watched them stretch my skin apart with the those metal claws of pain and told me I was going to hurt in the morning, that really ticked them off. Please. if I didn't know I was going to hurt in morning, something was seriously wrong with me.

I remember when they brought Morgs around to show her to me (oh sure, they can cross the little line), I just couldn't believe how skinny she was. SO skinny. "Here's your baby girl!" they said. "Man, she's skinny," I thought. Tender, wasn't I?

Then two minutes later, they pulled out The Boy, and brought him around for me to see. He was obviously shorter than Morgs and was screaming the most pathetic little wide-mouthed sound I'd ever heard. More sentimentality from my groggy brain: "I had a frog," I thought.

And that was it. The next several hours were a blur of half-awake, groggy sleep; the kind where you don't really feel like you're sleeping, and when you are sleeping, you keep dreaming that you can't stay awake. I remember being so tired, but feeling a terrible need to stay awake because...what was it? I'm sure someone brought some sort of food or something in and left it by my bed...at least it seems like that could have happened. A very helpful nurse came in to check on me every so often, and finally told me I needed to remember to breathe. Really? Don't most people just do that automatically? I remember Dave coming in and telling me that The Boy had been having a hard time breathing. Huh. Me, too, apparently.

The days passed; the twins cried; we slipped into a weird new reality of life with five children, ages 5 and under; the twins still cried, I got used to missing twice as much sleep (two for the price of one -- Please!); and did I mention the twins cried? But it was good. We were a big little family, and happy in our sleepy, cry-ey new life.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. That's no big deal, what's there to blush about in that story? It is this: One day, several weeks after I had brought them home, I sat remembering the morning of their birth. I remembered Dave, and The Frog, and the Skinny Thing, and that stupid hat that someone had to push back up for me because my arms were... my arms... they...

There was nothing wrong with my stupid arms! They weren't numb, I could still move them around, even with the IV, they weren't pinned down to the bed or anything! I totally could have pushed up my stupid little hat! No wonder the nurse just kind of blew me off. She was probably thinking, "Push up your own hat, I'm pushing a bed here!"

There. That's my little blusher moment with the Twins. It's really nothing, I know, but I have a strong suspicion that the nurses were calling me "the idiot in room 3" for duration of my stay.

Oh well. I was ticked that they wanted to kick Dave out. They were ticked that they had to push my hat up. We'll call it even and move on.

internet snobbery and other such nonsense...

2009-07-07T14:44:00.000-06:00

I have a confession. I do not play nice on the Internet. Well okay, not to be misunderstood, I always give positive feedback on eBay (well at least I did the two times I used it); I almost never type in all-caps in my emails, lest someone mistake happy yelling with angry-e-yelling; I never make people feel dumb when they pass along a billionth-forwarded email with a "Snopes Verified! story about someone's pet giraffe that ate an entire house, and here's the pictures to prove it," and it turns out to be completely bogus on snopes. I never do any of that stuff.

For the record, I rarely leave comments on people's blogs, or play "tag" games of any form online, and certainly never bother with the applications on facebook. Internet snobbery? Probably. But really, I certainly don't expect everyone who reads this flapdoodle to comment on it. Who's really got time to comment on every blog they read?

Where was I?

Oh. The Internet. You should know then, that, at least according to the emails I've received, I don't really love my country, I really don't care about protecting my children, I've cursed myself with tons of bad omens, I have no heart, I've lost my one chance with my big crush, I've offended slews of veterans because I didn't boycott Target, I'm a lame friend, I'm likely responsible for most of the bad things that have happened to my friends, and I've broken at least 27 chain-emails that some kid was supposedly doing for his 4th grade science project.

And all because I don't forward emails. Oh sure, I used to, way back when the Internet was new and it was the first time I'd received some touching story about a lost child and (sniff) knew that I had to forward this one, because what if I was his mother?!!

But then time happened. And I kept getting the same emails about someone trying to outlaw God in schools or some tragic story about someone who desperately needed a miracle and sending this email on would somehow provide that, or someone else who, while putting on lipstick and facing east while standing on one foot, was attacked by a crazed lunatic, just two feet away from her vehicle.

Have I turned into a cynic? I can't say, but who wouldn't become at least a little cynical when their inbox is being flooded with countless messages about how the world is coming to an end because the guy they didn't like was voted in as President; or how a bazillion germs are on my toothbrush because I don't keep it 100 feet away from the nearest toilet; or how lemons in my ice water are covered in e-coli and I should never order "with lemon" again. Come on, life is too short to be pestered with this kind of stuff. Sheesh, we've made it this long, haven't we? Even with the lemons in our ice water or toothbrushes in the cabinet right next to the toilet, and heaven forbid, a Democrat in office.

I got a good one yesterday. It had a link to some guy on YouTube, but the details on that don't really matter. The introduction before the link told the thirsty email masses that the very President of the United States had viewed this video, and had been so disturbed that he called the guy and asked him to a secret meeting at the White House to discuss it. The President "told the White House staff to handle the press and not to talk about the video or the visit."

"That's interesting," the email said.

You're telling me. Anyone else wondering who told about the "secret meeting?"

Help me.

Okay, so I'm a cynic. At least email-ly speaking.

But I've got one word for you: Delete.

It's a beautiful thing.

Pass it on.

a few words on my long absence...

2009-07-07T14:29:00.001-06:00

Okay, so was it wrong to miss an entire month and a half without some sort of mention of what in the world was going on at my house?

Here it is, in a couple of deliciously long, run-on sentences.

Long about the beginning of May, my husband's masonry work finally dried up, causing a few dark weeks, made darker by hopeless thoughts, of blah and oh dear and what in the world are we going to do; by June we began survival mode, in the form of selling anything that could be liquidated, buying new, used-paid-for vehicles, and trying to come up with a general plan of what in the world are we going to do next; in the midst of all that, I was called as the Young Women President in our ward (do you ever wonder if the Heavens snicker a bit behind discrete hands?).

Let me be honest. I couldn't even think as far as next Tuesday to get my perspective straight. I had to just wait until next Tuesday came, and come it did, long about mid-June. The darkness left, even though no great, substantial things happened to push it out. It was just hope. Delicious, lovely, hopeful, Hope. We are certainly not out of the woods yet, but we are definitely not alone in the woods, and because of that, life keeps going, and we keep living it. Not just surviving, but living.

Thank goodness for Next Tuesday.

on being sick...

2009-05-25T08:45:00.002-06:00

A coupla weeks ago, at the close of our morning rush to get everyone out the door on time, RyBread stumbled to the couch, curled up in mortified pain, and moaned, "I think I'm gonna throw up..."

Twenty minutes later, she did.

Dang. The Barfs. I would change 2897 diapers 17 times each if I never had to deal with throw-up again. Luckily I don't have a particularly sensitive gag reflex, but the Barfs are the one thing to truly try that part of me.

Okay, so really it wasn't so bad; she made the bucket every time. I played my part well, I thought, present for all but one of the barfs, holding her hair back, rubbing her back, and handing her a clean, warm wash cloth when she was all done to clean up the yucks dribbling off her chin. That's a nice mommy, right?

It reminded me, though, of a time when I didn't really make the nice mommy. Shocker. Poor Morgs was the victim this time, and it had been a long day. She had felt terrible all day, with a fever and everything, but she hadn't actually thrown up.

She had languished most of the day up in my room so I could check on her, but I moved her down to the TV at dinner so I could make something for the rest of us to eat. See? I make dinner sometimes.

I assumed, of course, that I was safe sending her down to the brand new couch and the brand new carpet, since she just had a fever and felt yucky in general, right? Silly me. I was minutes from placing dinner on the table when I heard the 5 words that can strike fear into the heart of any mother: "Mom! I'm gonna throw up!!"

What do I do in these brief moments before the inevitable mess? Rush down with a bucket and warm wash cloth in hand, ready to assist and calm the sick child? Pause for a split-second to sympathize with the poor little pre-schooler on the verge of experiencing the yuckiest thing about mortal life? No. Not me.

"Run for the tile, Morgs! Run for the tile!!"

That's right. Save the carpet. Save the couch.

Forget the kid.

All's fair in love and barf.

not-quite mother-of-the-year... okay, not even close...

2009-05-06T10:09:00.002-06:00

Mothers Day is fast approaching. I've spent the last several days putting together my ideas that will further cement me into the mortar of sibling rivalry as Mom's Favorite. Despite what my brothers and sisters would tell you, I'm certain I achieved that title years ago, and everything I do now just solidifies that position. Really. Don't bother asking them. What do they know?

I have an incredibly wonderful, beautiful mother. I don't think I realized it half as much when I was still under her constant care as I do now. It's the ironic thing about motherhood: By the time you figure out how completely amazing your mom is, you've moved out and started your own family.

That's what did it of course -- the starting my own family bit. I never really saw the noble character of my mother until I became a mother myself; and one day in the midst of changing diapers, driving carpool, this morning's cocoa pebbles still floating in the soup bowls I need for dinner right now, the endless piles of laundry that never seem to go away no matter how many loads I manage to push through in an hour, the science project gone bad in the dining room, and forgetting to put the tooth fairy money under the pillow -- again, I see clearly the incredible ability, talent, and moxie my mom has. ...WAY more incredible than anything I possess.

Last year for Mother's Day, the graduating high school seniors were asked to stand up in church and give tributes to their mothers. Those were good mothers. We were regaled with wonderful tales of these women; one who never made her child wake up to the sound of an alarm clock, but instead quietly (and I'm sure drippingly lovingly) whispered into her son's ear to bring him into wakefulness each morning. (At my house my kids have a choice of "buzzer" or "shock beep.") Another mother always let her daughter have the last piece of cake. (For my children, that would go something more along the lines of "Mom, can I..?" "BACK OFF! This piece is MINE! I MADE this cake, and so help me, I will EAT the LAST PIECE if I want!") The queen bee of mothers spent hours staying up late waiting for her daughter to come home from a night out, whereupon they would stay up for hours longer talking and laughing together. (My kids, quite frankly, aren't allowed out of the house past 7:30 pm, since I'm lucky if I can keep my eyes open past 8:12. Forget hours of talking and laughing. I'm already LONG gone.)

I can sum up my feelings at the end of that meeting with one word: Huh.

Imagine that. In one hour I realized my place in the Mother's Day Tributes of the future will be somewhere in the "My mom let us eat all the cold cereal we wanted" realm. I'll be forever immortalized as the one who, if nothing else, made dinner two of every seven evenings. I'm not so sure my children will rise up and call me blessed so much as loud. Don't believe me?

Recently Morgs was asked to give a talk in Primary. Her topic? Mothers. Golden. I wrote down several fill-in-the-blank statements for her that, read in succession, would make a beautiful tribute to a glorious mother. They were statements such as, "I love my mom because..." and "My mom teaches me..."

Really, she filled in all the blanks as if I'd coached her. It was perfect. Until she read aloud her answer to "When I'm hungry, my mom..."

Obviously I'm going for "makes me my favorite dinner, with healthy, fresh food from each of the food groups, and sometimes even a heavenly dessert."

Instead, I got, "When I'm hungry, my mom tells me a list of what I can make myself to eat."

...Now that's a good mom.

Looks like the jig's up. I'll never make Mother of the Year now.

Whatever.

Happy Mother's Day anyway.

kids these days...

2009-04-26T17:00:00.002-06:00

Several weeks ago Morgs came home from school asking me something like this: "Mom, if you could do anything, or go anywhere, or meet anyone, what would it be?" Even though it was not the most grammatically correct question, I gave her my answer (which she didn't like much, but we'll get to that at a later post), and then asked why she was asking. Turns out the Make-a-Wish folks had been to school getting the kids all excited about the fun-run they were sponsoring to raise money for a girl in our area.

I had to wonder a bit at some of the answers I was told the kids shared. For example, apparently the woman began by asking, "If you could meet anyone in the entire world, who would it be?"

Boy #1: "...Um... X-Box 360?"

Make-a-Wish lady: "No, who would you meet?"

Boy #1: "...Uh..."

Make-a-Wish lady: "Anyone in the world."

Boy #1: "...Umm..."

Make-a-Wish lady: "We'll come back to you. How about you, little girl, who would you choose?"

Girl: "Neil Diamond."

Neil Diamond? How does she even know who that is, and what second grader, pray tell, wants to meet him?! I mean, come on, this guy was cool like 25 years before she was born. He's like a grandpa now. A Jazz-Singer Grandpa.

Whatever.

Back to school:

Make-a-Wish lady: (to boy #1) "Ok, did you decide on someone you'd like to meet?"

Boy #1: "Lord Vader."

Lord Vader? Neil Diamond? What year is it? Where's Ironman or Hannah Montana?

And Lord Vader? This kid obviously has a healthy respect for the Dark Side. Most kids would probably just call him Darth Vader. You know, me and Darth, we go way back. Not this kid. He knows you don't mess with Darth; oh no, it's Lord Vader.

I'm sorry to say, this sort of random oddity has not escaped my own family. The other day I came home from running errands to find the kids playing house. Ah, house. I spent hours and hours of my childhood pretending to be the mom, take care of the baby, talk to my neighbors, go grocery shopping, evade burglars, and pick up the shattered pieces of my life after our house mysteriously burned down.

Come on, you gotta have a conflict or there's no story.

Anyway, when it came time for the kids to clean up, I asked if they'd had any fun. "Yes," Ry said. "I'm a dermatologist."

"No," Mak said. "A dermatologist takes care of people's skin. You're a germaphobe."

"You're a germaphobe?" I asked.

"Yes, it's hilarious," she said. True. Hilarious. But weird.

But there's more. Then The Boy piped in with "I'm OCD."

OCD?! Come on! Whatever happened to just being the police man and the lady next door?

Oh well, what did you expect from the offspring of a woman who once used to be petrified of plug sockets and their uncanny ability to chase you around the house?

True story.

the glory of the casserole

2009-02-25T13:35:00.008-07:00

Do you know what the definition of casserole is? It is (#1)"a large, deep dish in which food can be cooked and served," or (#2)"food prepared in such a dish." That means, of course, that if I were to prepare, say, Roast Turkey in a casserole, used as in the first definition, I would not have made Roast Turkey, but Roast Turkey Casserole, because, of course, it is now definition #2, food prepared in such a dish. Mashed potatoes prepared in a casserole dish would not be mashed potatoes, which my children would devour happily and greedily, but Mashed Potato Casserole, which my children would likely not touch. The word casserole rarely bodes well.

When I was growing up casserole usually meant "plug your nose and eat it" because it was usually preceded by "Corn." Ugh. Corn Casserole: Hands down, the least favorite food ever made on a consistent basis at the home I grew up in. Ask any of my 6 siblings, and my father, ps. Bless my angel mother, I believe she liked it, and she made it ALL THE TIME, at least according to my childhood memories -- although I've learned through my own children's childhood memories that those things aren't always accurate. But that's another post. It wasn't until my dad quietly admitted (after another night of gagging and nose-plugging) that it wasn't among his favorite dishes, that we were released from the sentence of yuck-for-dinner.

I have to admit, I now can relate to my mom and her loved-that-casserole-that-everyone-else-hated. Mine was Chicken Broccoli casserole. I loved that stuff so much that it was all I asked for for dinner, every birthday. It was one of about 2 recipes I brought with me into marriage (by no fault of my mom's, by the way. It didn't actually occur to me that I was the mom, and therefore, could make dinner every night until my own blessed mother came and stayed with us after the birth of our first baby. She made dinner for us every night and froze a whole bunch more so we had dinner for like a month. And after we had eaten our way through them all, I thought slowly, "...I guess maybe I could make something for us to eat for dinner...Maybe..." Who knows what we ate before she stopped by. But I digress. Shocker).

Chicken Broccoli casserole. What's not to love? A little chicken, some broccoli, some cheese, and of course the main part of any casserole, some cream-of-something-or-other soup. Toss in a few other miscellaneous ingredients and Voi la! Dinner. I probably made that stuff every two weeks, once I discovered that I could cook, of course. Mmmm! Yum! Chicken Broccoli casserole again!! And everyone else is eating it with a sorta-smile on their faces (okay, that's Dave, everyone else-else is plugging their noses and gagging all the way). Never fear, at least Dave likes it! The kids will learn to like it! It'll come!

...That's what I thought, anyway, until one evening as we rinsed the last of the broccoli-bits off the plates, Dave quietly admitted that he really doesn't care for Chicken Broccoli casserole.

At all.

What?

I...

What?!

You...

Really? You don't like it?

I was devastated.

Devastated, because, of course, I'm not making a whole dang casserole for one person, especially if it's just for me. And of course, there's no such thing as a casserole-for-one, unless it's a frozen meal-for-one and if I'm cooking dinner for everyone, why would I make a frozen meal-for-one?

I paused for a bit, there by the kitchen sink, and savored the last memory of my last dinner of my favorite dish ever. Never again would I happily eat that lovely mixture of a bunch of stuff thrown altogether into a rather fetching one-dish meal. Never again would I watch as my 5-year-old methodically plugs, chews, swallows, and gulps a drink of water as fast as she possibly can to get the awful thing over with. Never would I see my little 4-year-old wrestle her way through that gag reflex as she dutifully eats all of her 4 bites. Never would I...

Ah, it wasn't really worth all that, now was it? I mean, sure, it was good, but once I got over the initial shock of being the lone member of the family who liked it, I realized that the stuff just wasn't that good. I mean, really, of all the dumb battles to choose, I'm going for the "Forcing-You-To-Like-Chicken-Broccoli-Casserole" one? Please. I'm an idiot.

And then I thought of my mom. And I wondered if she ever missed eating Corn Casserole. And then I pictured all 7 of her children gathered around the table in various stages of gagging and plugging, and I knew she hadn't missed it for a second.

I'm with you, mom. How 'bout Olive Garden tonight instead?

Mmmmm. Breadsticks.

And not a casserole dish in sight.

monday at the gym... again.

2009-02-23T05:47:00.001-07:00

We went in the "out" today. Just thought you should know.

flapdoodle and bosh

2009-02-20T15:55:00.000-07:00

I love words. Obviously. I have a habit of using too many of them all at once and far to rapidly to be understood well. I love really great sounding words, like rigamarole or triskaidekaphobia, although the latter is a little difficult to throw into everyday conversation. I suppose I could use it if one of the kids came running into my room with a bad dream on Friday the 13th. I could say, "What is it, triskaidekaphobia?!" Or if I went to stay at a high rise hotel and the front desk guy asked if I minded being on the 13th floor; I could say, "Of course not, I don't have triskaidekaphobia."

Flapdoodle and bosh are two of my absolute favorites ever, which you may have realized if you've read many of my blogs. I stumbled upon flapdoodle while listening to one of the audio books from the Amelia Peabody series, thank you very much, Emerson. And I found bosh while looking up the definition of flapdoodle. They mean the same thing - nonsense. Someday I'm going to open a store and call it Flapdoodle & Bosh. Those two words just go together so beautifully. I don't know what I'll sell but I have no doubt it will be nonsensical and delightful.

I'd like to get the job of the guy who names everything so I could spend all day in a thesaurus. I know I wouldn't do as smashing a job as the people who already have that job. I mean, seriously, it's gotta be pretty tough coming up with 154 different names for pink. But wouldn't that be a great job? I'd be the lady holding the clipboard, with the two pencils in my hair, and goofy-looking glasses going, Let's see, how bout Blushing Rose Petal? No, no, we used that 78 shades ago. Tickled Pink? Used that one, too. Bloody knuckles. ...Sounds too red.

I actually have a friend who re-names all of her nail polish. That little piece of information reflects her personality well. She's the kind of gal that you could picture throwing open the windows to call in the local small animal population to help with the housework while she supervises in a poofy dress and tiara. And I mean that as a compliment.

Contrast that to myself: I'm the one you'd find in holey sweats and a nasty-looking shirt with yesterday's makeup and a pony on the top of my head, trying to exterminate the local small animal population. Forget about housework.

Her nail polish names would be magical names, like "Shimmering Biscotti Day Dream," or "Sparkling Bittersweet Fairy Dust" Mine would fall more along the lines of "Dries too slow" or "Way purpler-looking when applied." I suppose my prospects for Nail Polish Namer are not very promising. Who's going to buy something called "Only good for nylon-repair?"

Despite my completely unmagical naming techniques, I've been reclassifying things for years. Ponytail holders have been called Hair Doinkers since before any of my children were born. Quaking Aspens were promptly named "Western Flutter Leafs" (not Leaves) soon after my arrival in Utah. The mountain range closest to my house has been dubbed "The Big Blue Mountains to the East," mostly because I don't know if they have a name. I suppose they are probably just the tail-end of the Wasatch Mountain range or something. Now that's a dumb name. Big Blue Mountains to the East: Better name. Okay, not much better, but they are a delicious color of blue during most of the year. They kind of take on a brownish color in the fall but I refuse to change the name for one season of the year.

Most of the objects in my house are never called by their given names any more. At some point or other, almost everything ends up being called something like, "That big black thinger in the living room," or "That chest thingy next to the couch." Now that's really gotta be improving my kids' vocabularies.

Oh well, I'll get them each their own thesaurus and they can read it for 10 minutes a day. Then they'll have enough gibberish and gobbledygook to last a lifetime. And yes, that's really a word. Look it up, bookworm.

thoughts on a monday morning at the gym...

2009-01-26T08:53:00.007-07:00

My day today started out as it usually does on a Monday morning. As if to mock the early hour, I was awakened by the absurd radio station Dave has set the alarm to. In protest of the talk-radio station I had set it to a few days ago, he found some dumb station that plays not "the best hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s," but "the lamest songs no one listened to during the 60s and 70s, and now you know why." Dave's not bothered by stupid music in the morning. He's just out of it enough that he's kept in a sort of stupor until he stumbles into the light of the bathroom. I told him he had to change the station because I cannot bear another second of whatever that music is supposed to be and he goes, "That wasn't NPR?" So like it or not, my day starts all too early to the tune of stupidness. I don't care who you are, that's a great start to any day.

We wake up at 4:30. It's an obscenely early hour to be doing anything besides sleeping, but in order to be one of the lucky winners of a treadmill at the gym (I use that term loosely -- It's actually the community rec center, and I think there are about 9 treadmills there), and to be done using it in time to get home and get the kids up for school, we have to arrive at the gym no later than 5:02. I discovered this last year, when I first started coming. After about a week of trying to get a treadmill before 6 and ending up on an elliptical instead, I showed up at the crack of 5 and secured one.

Already you have a good indication of my stupid level. I wake up every weekday morning at 4:30 to 70s guitar rock (I guess) in order to fight 15 other people for one of the 9 treadmills. That's pretty high on the stupid list, isn't it?

Even stupider is the insane need to comply with posted signs that keeps me and Dave from doing what every other rec center member does with no conscience: They all enter through the "exit only" door to get to the treadmills more quickly. But not me and Dave. No, some stubborn streak in us makes us walk all the way around the entrance area, because we will certainly not stoop to the level of going "in" the "out!" I'm sorry to say, we have lost the last treadmills for this hardheaded display of pride.

I used to go to a gym; you know, the real gym, with like 150 treadmills and 70 tvs, a weight room the size of wal-mart, and a women's weight room on top of that. The gym commands a different slice of humanity than the rec center. At 5:00 in the morning, at least half of the people showing up at the rec center are over the age of 65. This is good for me, because that means I'm still nimble enough to beat them to the treadmills -- or I would be if I didn't have to keep the rules. The gym, on the other hand, seemed always to be filled with far too beautiful people, looking far too beautiful to be working out, with far too coordinated outfits (think fantastic fitting yoga pants with some cute halter thinger and a great headband thing wrapped around amazing hair that looks like the wearer truly doesn't care how she looks, even though she looks completely fantastic, and I couldn't hope to look that good if I spent hours getting ready to go to the gym).

I fit better at the rec center than the gym. And I've become rather oddly attached to so many of the people there. After a year, I know two of them by their given names. The others, who we always smile and say hello to, have all been affectionately named by Dave and myself. There's Sweaty-John-Jones, who runs like crazy on the elliptical and sweats all over the place; there's The Man with One Red Arm, who actually has two arms, but who is always wearing a red, noisy warm-up suit and does all the "both-arms-at-a-time" exercises with just one of his arms. There's Margaret, who, though I'm fairly certain is not really named Margaret, reminds us of Margaret Houlihan from M*A*S*H; I wonder why we don't call her Hot Lips. There's Evan, who runs on the elliptical in his swim trunks and has an uncanny resemblance to Dave's 3-year-old nephew, Evan. There's the PPSSHH Guy, who grabs really heavy weights and curls them about 2 inches, exhaling with a PPSSHH sound on every rep. There are the Raucous Laughter Duo, the two big guys who often show up in camos and beanies and spend a lot of time sitting at the curl machine... well, laughing raucously. Then there's the new guy I call the Jazz Man. He wears shiny purple shorts to work out in every day. He only started coming at the first of the year, but the first time I saw him, I thought, Wow, someone actually picked out shiny purple shorts for himself. On purpose. Purple. Must like the Jazz. Go figure. I worry about him because the man puts his whole body into everything. When he walks in, he takes up a lot of space, despite his somewhat lanky appearance, because he swings his arms wide, and takes a wide stance as he walks. But most striking about this man is his active use of his head while exercising. He swings his head backward and forward with every repetition. Not just a little, but enough that I can't help wondering if he's gonna hit his head on the butterfly machine someday soon.

I wonder what someone would affectionately name me and Dave... Red-faced Girl and Baldy? Wimpy-Thing and Strong-Man-Muscle-Shirt-Guy? I'm good with that. I mean, at least I'm there, having braved the stupid music on the radio, the terrible hour of the morning, and Sweaty-John-Jones'...well, sweat. It's a brave thing I do every morning. Can't wait til tomorrow.

Course, I can't wait til Saturday even more. Saturdays know no 4:30 am.

ushering out the holidays

2009-01-09T11:46:00.011-07:00

Well the Thanksgiving turkey was fantastic (but the stuffing was king), the fall colors - gorgeous, the first snowstorm - delicious, the tree - so cute, the decorations in general - brilliant, the Christmas trip to Island Park - hilarious, the New Year - new. And there you have the last month or two in a nut shell.

Life moves so fast. Too fast recently. I had to take a break from my blog in November so I could help design a brochure for the business that really ended up being re-designed in full by a far more talented person than I. But once the design had shifted to someone else, I was in the midst of all the yummy things I love about the holidays, so there was just no time for mindless flapdoodle and bosh and suddenly it's two months later and I can finally take an hour or so to sit and write long run-on sentences and use too many commas. Oh, but, they're, lovely, aren't, they?

I thought I'd just tell you about one of my favorite things that happened all season, and it's up there not because it's centered around my kids or family or any of the other things I love so much about Christmas. It's more because it was a night just jam-packed with people's delightful absurdities. In fact, as far as holiday absurdities go, it's second only to the Ruin of the Spectacular Shoes of 2007's holiday. But that's likely another post. And it'll be a good one.

So this year, I ended up "volunteering" as an usher at my 7th-grader's Christmas chorus concert. I use the quotation marks because I really kind of had to volunteer -- her chorus teacher required parental involvement in order for the student to be eligible for an A, as I remember it. I can't possibly be the reason for a B, for heaven's sake, so I signed up to usher at one of the two performances. No big deal, right? How hard could it be, after all, since I'll be there to hear her sing anyway; I can certainly stand at the door and tell people where to go. Ha ha.

I was contacted by a cheery-sounding woman a day or two before the performance. She assigned me my door, and told me my only job really, was to keep the door closed if the hallways became a little too noisy, and to not allow people in and out during the songs. Easy.

Little did I know that the chorus teacher had each one of his music ensembles performing that evening. That included the beginning chorus, his advanced chorus, some other chorus (maybe they're the in-between-chorus), his guitar ensemble, some mixed chorus, and it seems like a violin group or something. Really I can't remember, the night was a blur of hot, angry, over-crowded people.

So that each class can appreciate the talents of the others, the teacher requires all of the performers to sit in their ensembles with the audience. That takes up a good 1/4 to 1/3 of the seats. Then he asks the students (with the threat of lower grades, I think) to make sure they bring 5 people to the concert. Five people for every kid in the ensembles! You've got to be kidding me, even if there are two shows, there's not a chance we can all fit in that auditorium with a bunch of the seats already taken by his choirs. Of course, I didn't truly know this until after the concert began.

I arrived a little before call time, you know, so I could make sure my "Usher" badge was straight and in full view (it was actually a sticky label with a hastily-scratched "usher" in Sharpie black), and find my "specially marked" seat by my assigned door. Well imagine my surprise when I walked in to find a full-house already, with 5 minutes until show time, and someone sitting in my usher seat! Well I'll tell you what, I'm not going to stand for 2 hours while I have this sticky label on my chest guaranteeing me a seat. My first order of business was to remove the seat-stealer from my chair.

"Excuse me," I said -- politely, I might add. "Are you an usher?"

He looked at me blankly.

I pointed at my tag. "I believe you're in my seat. They reserved this seat for the usher."

Nothing.

"I'm sorry," I tried again. "I think you'll need to find a seat somewhere else, this seat is reserved for the usher." Now I pointed pointedly (which is really the best way to point, isn't it?) at the sticker on my chest.

He looked at me for another second and said, "Oh. Do you need a seat?"

Well yes, but it's not like I'd ask you to move if I just needed a seat. You're in MY seat, man. I'M the usher! I get the seat by the door! I've got the sticky label, I've got dibs. "I'm the usher," I said, hoping he might somehow make the connection between me and the seat he was in.

He stood up a little confusedly, and looked at the chair. Sure enough, on the back of the chair was a sticky label almost identical to the one I was brandishing on my chest.

Understanding washed over his face. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in your seat." Oh really?

By now, some representative of the school had begun to welcome everyone, etc and blah blah, and now let's begin. Well unfortunately, only the really smart parents who have had other children come through the ranks of the chorus ensembles knew to show up an hour early to secure an actual seat. The other half of the parents were still streaming in. And I mean streaming, none of this one-or-two people here and there. They were lined up outside my door, and waiting for their moment of horrible realization that there is no where left to sit in this auditorium, and at some point, we're going to have to stop walking in and try to start walking out. Couldn't that vice principal take a little longer in his intro? Now here goes the piano intro on the first song, and oh dear, it's not a little noisy out in the hall it's full of giddy teenagers yelling and shouting and laughing and meeting up at the big Christmas chorus concert, and my door's still open. But there's like 50 people standing in it and there's no way in a million years I can close the dang thing, and there's also no way in a million years that anyone in the back of the auditorium could hear that song. 8th graders.

By the end of the song, people had started back out the door and I managed to get it closed as the 2nd song began. It locks on the outside when closed, of course, so that's when the brilliant people who hadn't yet made it inside to witness for themselves that there's fire-code-violating standing room only began to knock on the door. Knocking. On a door. During a concert. ...Who raised these people?

I opened the door after the 2nd song to let in another flood of people who stopped short upon their first view of the place -- every seat and most of the isles, filled. But of course, the people at the back of the flood can't figure out what in the world could possibly be stopping the idiots at the front of this mass. So they're grumbling, and I'm smiling and apologizing (I'm not sure why, I'm just the dummy with a sticker on my chest. I have no real authority.), and mumbling non-sentences like, "No where to sit," or "so many people," and "no where to go." One particularly grumbly woman with a pierced tongue glared at me as she said, "Well if they'd just move up, I could at least hear my kid sing!" I nodded with a frozen smile and just barely squeezed the door shut as the next song began.

And here's where it started getting ugly. I've just squashed about 20 more people into a space that comfortably holds 3-and-a-half. There is no where to move forward, and a closed door is behind us. I am the only thing standing between them and freedom, yet I am forbidden to open the doors during a song. I now have 20 people with no where to go. A few move to leave and I stand with my arms protecting the door and whisper as quickly as possible, "I'm sorry, you'll have to wait til the end of the song to leave!"

Miraculously that sticky label carried more authority than I thought. They all nodded at me, like they were accepting their death sentence, and waited for the song to end.

It went on like this for a song or two, with people knocking on the door, and others trying to leave during the middle of the songs (and most of these are adults, mind you, not irresponsible teenagers who don't know better), and almost everyone getting grouchier the more crowded and hot it became.

Part way through the second or third group, the woman with the pierced tongue returned. Apparently she had heard her "kid" sing, and was ready to go. She was followed by a scraggly-looking young man, and a taller, back-woodsy-looking man, who I assume, was her husband. Up they come, squishing through people in quite a rush, until they get to me, The Keeper of the Door.

I guarded the door again, amid knocks from the outside and whispered (probably too loudly) "I'm sorry, I can't open the door until the end of this song."

She was mad.

And bigger than me.

"We were supposed to be on the road two hours ago!" she said.

Well what difference will another 3 minutes make?!

I didn't say that. I only thought of it later. ...Probably better that way.

"I'm sorry, I can't open the door until the song is over," I repeated with that obnoxious frozen smile of mine. No, I'm not nervous. Not at all. I mean, sure, she could take me in a bar-room brawl in a second. And then take me and squash me again if she wanted. But no, no, I'm not nervous.

Did I mention she was mad?

Then her husband says something to her that I thankfully, couldn't hear, to which she responded (unfortunately I could hear this one), "What do you want me to do -- knock her out of the way?"

Um. Does anyone else want to wear my sticker? I'm done now.

Thankfully I was spared (chalk that one up to a Christmas Miracle) as they waited impatiently for the song to end (and by the way, I do believe it was the longest song on the program), and the rest of the night went on much like the excruciating first 25 minutes.

About 3/4 of the way through, the lights quit working. That was a highlight. But the show must go on, and on, and on, and so it did. With flashlights. But by then I was giddy with the lovely absurdities presented to me, one right after another. It was delightful. Having escaped certain death (or at least certain pain) from the tongue-pierced woman, I became suddenly very appreciative of all the funny quirks that come out in people when they're shoved into a hot, over-filled auditorium with other hot, over-crowded people, a faulty lighting system and an absurdly determined usher at the main door. Each new grumpy face delighted me. Every bang on the door became funnier and funnier.

I vowed, of course, that I would never, ever, in a bazillion years, volunteer to do this again. But it's been a month since the concert and now I almost might do it again. But only if the lights go out again. And the lady with the pierced tongue comes back.

I've been working out. I think I could take her.

Merry Christmas. Late or not.

thursday afternoon

2008-11-06T12:53:00.016-07:00

It's cold today. It's one of those day-after-a-storm days and the sky is bright blue with a few lovely poofy clouds here and there. There is just the slightest of breezes blowing, but it's a cold one, reminding my fingertips and nose that winter is coming sooner than I'd like.

You know, why doesn't someone make a nose warmer? Not a scarf, because that has to wrap all the way around your head and cover up your mouth to warm your nose. They have ear muffs, why on earth not a nose muff?

I suppose you'd look stupid.

But I digress. Shocker.

I'm sitting at the dining room table with a view of the Western Flutter-Leaf trees (a.k.a. Aspens) in the yard behind my house, fluttering their leaves as they should. They're best this time of year, since there's only 4 of them, and 3 of them are mostly dead. In the summer they're only half-clothed in green leaves, except for the one healthy one, which takes its role of Show-Off Healthy Tree quite seriously. This makes the other ones look absolutely pathetic until fall, when the brilliant one is yellow and losing its leaves and the dead ones just look like over-achiever Leaf Losers. PS. Photo below is so NOT a pic of my neighbor's trees. It's just a gorgeous reminder of why I love fall.

The point (Yes, there is one): It's a gorgeous afternoon and I adore this season. A few days ago I got out of the car and stepped into a gutter full of leaves. I couldn't help it: I ran through them, dragging my feet so it would kick up the leaves even more. I ran back and forth 3 or 4 times, then realized I must have looked fairly ridiculous -- not only because I was a 34-year-old mommy running through the leaves in the gutter, but because I was swinging my purse around while I was at it.

Caution: Leaf-filled gutters may cause rampant leaf-running, unabashed purse waving, and absurdly huge grins.

And then to top it all off, I grabbed a huge handful of leaves, stuffed them in my face and... inhaled. Deeply. Deliciously. Oh, I LOVE the smell of fall leaves!! It was just about the most perfect 8 minutes of my week.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Happy fall. Again.

toothpaste on the mirror

2008-11-04T08:12:00.006-07:00

The bathroom: A fine, practical, utilitarian sort of space. Oh I know, some people have a spa for a bathroom with a 10-foot wide, 5-foot deep bathtub and a fireplace with candles all over the place. Some people, I believe, would call their bathroom a sanctuary.

At my house the bathroom is the room an inch larger than a closet that just barely fits the necessities, the end. You walk into the sink, take a step and hit the bathtub, and wedged in between the two is the toilet. Apparently, when my house was being built in the 70s, no one could think of a reason that you'd want to actually like that space, or heaven forbid, move around more than 2 feet.

So I like to honor the builders of the 70s by treating my bathroom just as they intended: get in, get done, get out. Showers? 5 minutes. Tooth brushing? Keep it to the maximum 2 minutes. Hand washing? Just long enough to sing my ABCs.

My children are another story -- particularly the 3 youngest. For them, brushing your teeth is a group activity; in fact, if you send one of them up to get it done without anyone else, they'll stop and tell you they can't...because...well, no one else is in there...

Oh, I'd LOVE to know what goes on when they're all in there. For example, why in the world is there a blob of toothpaste on the wall every morning? The wall. Sure, the sink. They're kids, there's bound to be a little toothpaste in the sink, on the counter, or even the faucet. But what, pray tell, are they doing to get toothpaste on the wall every day?

Or in the evenings, after everyone's gone to bed and I head up to take care of my ablutions and other various bathroom activities, why is it that when I go to use some toilet paper, it's all wet? Not sopping, mind you, just wet enough that when you pull on some, a little bit stays on the roll and there you sit holding a scrap of damp, clinging paper in your fingers.

What could they possibly be doing? There's not really water anywhere else, not on the floor or the sink, or the toilet or walls. It's just there on the toilet paper roll.

Then there are the baths. These, unlike the tooth brushing, are one-man jobbers. The Boy, in true "man-form," prefers the shower, and is in and out in seconds. Just long enough, I believe, to barely wet himself, run a bar of soap up and down his body, rinse, and get out. Seriously. I think it's about a minute.

But the girls all love a bath. And I have no idea how they do it, but there are always, always gallons of water on the floor when they're done. I don't know what they do. Are they laying down and swishing the water back and forth to make great waves plunge out of the tub and all over the floor? If they are, I never hear the wave-making, and even in those moments when I have to run in and get something, I hear nothing. The shower curtain is closed and there is no sound whatsoever, save for perhaps the stray drip from the faucet.

I've decided that maybe they just take the first 3 gallons that come out of the faucet and scoop it onto the floor before they turn off the water, so I'll be none the wiser. Who knows?

All I know is I'd love to be a fly on the wall to see what's really going on in there when I'm not around. Then maybe I could at least protect the toilet paper.

Oh well, we can't know all the mysteries of life, can we?

mars & venus

2008-10-16T09:45:00.002-06:00

I don't think there is anything in my life that compares to being in absolute and complete, this is for real and forever, I cannot breathe without you, love. It's something I think most girls dream of and imagine their entire lives and then one day you wake up and it's happened to you and you're marrying that one person you cannot live without. The thing is, you don't realize then that you haven't really got a clue what it really feels like to be deliciously in love. I mean, yes, you're crazy in love, but if you could catch a glimpse of yourself in say, 10 or 14 years, you'd laugh at what you were feeling then. If you just got married a year or two ago, you think I'm nuts. But if it's been a little longer, I know you know what I'm talking about.

We just celebrated our 14th anniversary by skipping out of work and spending the day window shopping and playing Rumikub and Scrabble. Yeah, I know, to a lot of people that sounds like the lamest excuse for an anniversary celebration in existence. I'm sorry to say, it's just what I love. But truthfully, even if it wasn't, I could watch a rock in the dirt for days as long as I'm doing it with Dave. He's just so dang funny that the ordinary is simply not. What a great, beautiful thing to be so happy just being with someone, that the ordinary becomes quite deliciously unordinary.

So in honor of the big 14th, I thought I'd share a coupla reasons why I'm so in love with my Dave.

Dave is a self-employed masonry contractor. Self-employment brings with it funny quirks. He's generally able to choose his hours, which is really nice, and when we're crazy busy, it's really good. However, we have had times when we haven't had enough work, which is really not so good. Most of the time we're somewhere in between crazy busy and absolutely-I'm-afraid-we're-selling-the-house-and-moving-to-that-box-on-the-curb, no work. Lately we've been on the skinnier side of busy. Just busy enough. And that's good enough.

Several months ago, we were experiencing one of those closer to the skinnier side of the skinnier side than I'm comfortable with. Dave hadn't been very chatty that morning, and seemed preoccupied as he got ready for work. I watched him and began to worry a bit for him. I mean, if I don't like the no-work times, it's even harder on the man who can't find the work. I tried to keep up the happy level on my end, and chit-chatted about nothing in particular until it was time to kiss him out the door. We walked into the mudroom and he opened the door and kind of slowly backed out. His focus was blankly off of me, out into the garage at nothing in particular.

And I watched him and my heart just broke for him. That's my whole heart right there, and he's unhappy, and I can't stand it! And I thought, Oh, he's having a hard morning, he's worried, he's stressed out, I gotta do something for him... I gotta go pray for work. Pray for help. Pray for him... And I smiled and wished him a great day at work.

His mood seemed better later in the day, and I was relieved that things must be looking up. A few days later, I brought up the work topic. Condescendingly, I told him I knew he had been worried, so I had been really worried for him. I mentioned that morning, and how I knew his mind was going, trying to think of a way to get us some more work. I told him how I can't stand when he has to worry about things, and how I wished I could take some of that burden from him. Really, I believe it was quite a moving little speech.

He smiled and told me he thinks I'm great, and how glad he is that I love him so much. That's right, Marianne, you know how to take care of your man.

And then a few days later he told me the truth. As I was getting out of the suburban one day, I noticed a yellow smiley-face that had been spray painted on the wall in the garage. I laughed and went in and asked him about it. That particular morning that I had worried over my Dave as he distractedly backed out the door, he was, in fact, distracted by something completely unrelated to work. On the shelf he had caught a glimpse of a small can of glow-in-the-dark spray paint, and as I assumed his mind was off somewhere meeting contractors or something, he was pondering the many great uses of such a treasure. After he closed the door on his little doting wife, he grabbed the can and painted a smiley-face on the wall.

Good thing I was so concerned.

Here's one more glimpse into why I love him so much. We're huge Iron Chef fans at our house, especially the original ones from Japan or wherever they are. Several times this past year, we've have a family Iron Chef competition, with two teams, a secret ingredient, and 45 minutes to make a meal. For the first 2 or 3 competitions, Dave and I were the judges, but when Dave got home one Saturday morning and announced the next Iron Chef competition, he decreed that he and I would also be competing. Since he had already decided on the secret ingredient, he told me it would only be fair if I knew what it was as well: Curly Noodles. AKA: Ramen.

Okay, I thought. I've got 6 hours to come up with some good ideas for Ramen. All day I thought. I mentally went through my most spectacular recipes and tried to think of ways to substitute Ramen. I tried and tried to come up with something that would be both delicious and creative, and racked my brains for inspiration for something that would plate well.

At 4:00 we all met in the kitchen and divided up into teams. And then we began. Alas, after half a day of thinking, all I had come up with was uncooked chocolate-drizzled Ramen for dessert, and a salad, a spinach salad, with uncooked Ramen all crumbled up on top. That was it. Crumbly and chocolate ramen.

Contrast this to the ridiculously impressive main dish that Dave invented. Stupid as is seems, he took dry ramen and pulverized it in the blender with the dry ramen seasoning. Then he coated slices of chicken with it and fried it in just a little butter, and served it over cooked Ramen. And seriously, it was so dang good -- so good, that RyBread insists on making it about every other Sunday for lunch; so very good, in fact, that I always want some when she makes it.

That's the difference between Dave and me. He's making Ramen Chicken a la noodles, and I'm smashing dry ramen on lettuce and calling it a salad. He's spray painting smileys on the garage wall and I'm planning our going-out-of-business sale. Dave brings a delicious liveliness to my days. He helps me lighten up a bit and makes me laugh all the time. It's unfair, really, I'm always on the receiving side of the laughter -- he's always providing it for me.

So after 14 years of marriage, I'm tempted to say that it doesn't get any better than this. But the funny thing is, I know it will. I know that woman who's been married 25 years is smiling over this and thinking, She hasn't really even discovered how much in love you can be. And that's what I love best about being married to my Dave. It just keeps getting better.

Happy Anniversary DaveyBoy.

mary, mary quite contrary...

2008-09-27T08:17:00.002-06:00

I don't think it's just me, I think everyone has at least one of these: something you love but you're terrible at. Mine's gardening. Actually I couldn't even go so far as to say I love it. I guess what I really love are other people's gardens. I love flower gardens and vegetable gardens, although if it's too big a plot, I admit I don't like it as much -- too many weeds waiting there between the zucchini and tomatoes, I know it. But I love big, plant-filled backyards, with little "outdoor rooms," and "pretty-ish sort of wildernesses" that make you want to explore them. I love all the gardens in my magazines, even the xeriscaped yards. ...No, I don't believe I like my own garden at all.

Okay, really I love my little gardens once a year: at the very first turn of the soil in the spring. I love that delicious moist dirt smell as you break your back trying to soften it all up again. I love the first planting. I even kind of like the first weed-out of the season. And then it ends. Oh, sure, I keep weeding and adding annuals and occasionally trimming back the dead heads. ...For a while, anyway.

It's almost the end of September now. I quit pulling weeds a month ago out of principle, and I must say, if you just let them go, they'll really find a way to become the star of the planter. I have all the usual smaller weeds that only ever spread out, but not up; I've got Morning Glory attempting a hostile take-over of the Black-Eyed Susans; a distant relative of the dandelion is sprouting up nicely (and fluffily) between the faucet on the house and the evergreen-whatevers growing a few feet away; and some fleshy-looking, spreading thing my father-in-law once sampled as a snack and invited me to try as well (as it's an apparently integral part of someones dinner salad in Ecuador or something), is thriving everywhere else.

Meanwhile, over in the veggie patch, my tomatoes are barely going to have turned red by the time the first frost hits. I'm about ready to try some fried green tomatoes just so I can say I got to eat my very own tomatoes this year. The yellow squash produced one perfect, summery squash, and the rest shriveled on the vine long ago. Right next door, the zucchini are producing far more than any family should have to eat in one summer. So for all those reasons, as well as the fact that the morning glory have really outdone themselves on the tomato cages, I'm calling it done pretty soon here -- I'm thinking another, oh, day or so, and they're coming out. Fall is the most delicious time of year anyway, so I say, bring on the dead leaves. Come on, crispy mornings. Hello to the end of dragging my sprinkler around the yard every other day. No more dirt under the fingernails til Spring.

I love the fall, and the end of my growing season's just another fantastic reason to celebrate it. You know, I think I'd have made a lousy farmer. Lucky my livelihood doesn't depend upon my ability to garden. Oh well, even if it did, I seem to be really good at cultivating those salad-green weeds from Ecuador. Looks like I'd be okay after all.

Happy Fall.

cooler than you think

2008-09-07T16:30:00.003-06:00

There's something in me that wants to think I'm still cool -- If I ever was, that is. I'm always shocked when someone acts as if I'm older and less cool than I feel. Like the time my friend's 16-year-old came over to interview me for her financial literacy class (I failed, by the way), and asked me how old I am. "34," I said. "34?! Why you're so young!" she said. "You've still got your whole life ahead of you!", as if I'm considering throwing what's left of my miserable life away because I'm so terribly old already. And she said it in the same way that people sometimes talk to old people, like they're 4 years old and incapable of understanding adult conversation. Oh, I love her to death and she was really kidding (...I hope), but I can't help but wonder if she secretly thinks 34 is as good as 93 and I'm really teetering into the grave.

It's all relative, I guess.

Just like coolness.

I drove over to my favorite little antiques shop a few nights ago, hoping it would still be open. It wasn't. Dang 6:30. I ended up driving home behind a particularly obnoxious vehicle. To call it pimped would have been an understatement. It was shiny blue and very sparkly with dark tinted windows. It had several exhausts -- okay, probably just 2, but when he stepped on the gas, it sounded like 20. And I doubt it was more than 3 inches off the ground. It was a real beauty...Well, to someone, anyway. And on top of it, the entire neighborhood was shaking in beat with his woofers and subwoofers and tweeters and whatever else they have to make your music everyone's music.

I'm looking at this car and I'm thinking what I always think when I drive by these kinds of cars: This guy thinks he SO cool. Oh, look at me in my cool pimped ride! I'm so cool with my super loud music with the thump thump and the bass! Move out of the way, uncool people. (Isn't that what cool people say? I'm sure it is.)

Happily, I'm still only 34, so I didn't feel the need to yell at him to turn that racket down, there's people trying to drive here, and then add under my breath, Dang kids these days, think they own the world! That'll probably come when I'm about 35, but I'll check with my neighbor's daughter, she'll know for sure.

But I was reminded of a day a few years ago when I had the suburban filled up with our kids in car seats. It was one of those first yummy spring days of the year, when you have to roll down the windows and turn the radio up and breathe in the absence of winter. We were on our way to the library (which was usually a bad idea when I had two 1-year-olds, a 3-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 6-year-old, but that's another story) and stopped at a red light. We had been there only a few seconds when we heard, rather than saw the car coming up behind us on our left. Then, of course, we felt him, and next moment, there he was in all his lowered, shiny red, tinted windows, thumpin' bass glory. We all looked over at him, and' although I didn't say anything, I thought it. Oh, look at you in your cool lowered car with your cool super loud music and your stupid tinted windows. You are so cool, Stud.

And then I turned my attention back to my stereo, which was also playing rather loudly, since of course, the windows were down and we had to be able to hear over the wind. It was then that I realized cool is relative. Because there I was, in my car seat-stuffed suburban, sunglasses on, bottles of formula in my bag, and the music blasting Goofy, singing "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee."

Now that's cool... At least to my kids. So I guess Mr Fancy Ride is cool to someone, and so am I. I'm sure we didn't make each other's cool lists, but at least I made it onto someone's. It probably won't last though. From what I hear of teenagers, I have a very short cool life, and I think it's already on the way out. Oh well, it was cool while it lasted.

the wisdom of youth

2008-08-23T13:41:00.000-06:00

Well we're officially a week into the new school year. A week! I swear, we were robbed of summer this year! I mean, really, starting school in mid-August? Please. It's still summertime! I know, some moms think I'm crazy. But I love having my kids around, I love the constant noise and play and music and laughter and the house that never seems to get clean. Oh, sure, I love a quiet, clean house too, but I love when my kids are home. I really hate it when school comes along and makes me give them back to their teachers for 6 hours a day.

Incidentally, I was having this same conversation with one of my friends, but as we were talking about how short the summer was, I said, "We were robbed!!" And she thought I meant, you know, robbed. Stolen from. Burgled. Love that word. It was an odd few seconds there while I tried to explain myself. I suppose I should watch that dramatic speech I fall into so often. But I'll probably just watch it and not really change it. I love it, almost as much as I love commas. Delicious. ...There I go again.

So anyway, we've already had several humorous conversations with the kids about school, so I thought I'd share my favorites from the last week and a coupla the best ones from the past.

First: At dinner the other night, Kam announced that her cousin would be taking Chinese this year in school, which would open up the likelihood of her going on a mission to Japan. This was a promising beginning.

Then Ry piped in and said, "There was a girl in my class last year, she was Japanish... Japeeze... Ja... what is it?" We were still laughing too hard about the Chinese speaker in Japan to answer Ry.

The next night, I believe, Morgs started to tell us about a boy named Daniel in her class. Before she could get to the point, she was interrupted by her twin, The Boy, with, "You have a Daniel in your class?! Me too!! ...'Cept it's Dillon. His name's Dillon." Come to think of it, I know a guy named Daniel, too. Except it's Clarissa. And she's a girl. ...Love that.

Now to fully understand these next ones, you should know that we're a praying family. Every morning and night, we kneel and pray together, with everyone eventually getting a turn to offer the prayer as we proceed through the week.

Now, apparently my children have a very vague idea of what exactly it is that I do after they all leave to school. This is, of course, no huge surprise, since many of my children's teachers are under the impression that stay-at-home moms whose children are all at school probably just sit around catching up on General Hospital and The Barefoot Contessa while eating chocolate Dibs all day. Heaven knows who's doing the laundry and shopping and house cleaning and the secretarial work for the husband's construction business and whatever millions of mindless errands there are, and volunteering in the kids' classrooms and helping out the PTA occasionally, as well as trying to improve her talents on the piano and teach herself guitar and maybe if she's lucky get some time to write; because it certainly couldn't possibly be the stay-at-home mom!

Don't get me wrong. I have a healthy amount of respect for moms that can juggle the crazy life of career and family. That's just not in me. I'm capable of one career: motherhood. It's all I've ever wanted and frankly, all I can handle for now, even with all the kids in school all day.

But now I've gone and gotten off the point. So Kam was offering the prayer one morning last week and had said, "Please bless Dad at work today, and all of us at school. And bless Mom... to... be safe?" (Yes, it was a question) "...at home?" (again) "in her... responsibilities?" Did I mention the vagueness?

I laughed because it reminded me of a day sometime last year when Kam was offering the prayer again. She had just asked for the blessings of Dad and all the kids at school, and then said, "And please bless Mom that she can be safe in...whatever it is that she does." Silly girl. I sit around all day eating chocolate Dibs and catching up on General Hospital and the Barefoot Contessa. Duh. Bless Mom as she veges all day on the couch with her ice cream and soap opera addiction.

I guess I ought to consider letting them skip a day of school and just sit and watch what I do. ...Nah, let 'em wonder. Let's see how good the prayers get.

And finally, I leave you with the wisdom of my Morgs. A coupla years ago, she came into my room, looked me straight in the face and said, "Mom, if you ever see a guy, and he's got scars on his face, and he's wearing a striped shirt and those braclet things on his wrists from the police, he just might be a criminal." A sage warning from someone who clearly knows a criminal when she sees one.

the view from next minute...

2008-08-23T01:08:00.000-06:00

A month. It has been an entire month since I've been able to actually sit down long enough to complete a posting. Oh, sure, I have several in the works -- and they're good ones -- but there they sit, in the works.

What a month. No, what a week. I learned in the most painful way last week that sometimes you can't go as far ahead as next Tuesday for a better view. Sometimes you can't go farther than the next minute. ...Breathe. Breathe again.

I learned last week that even though it seems like the world should stop and take note of your own particular upheaval, it does not. You wake up the next day and life is still moving, with or without you.

I learned last week that sometimes life is a little less real and a little more like a badly written mini-series than I ever thought possible -- So much so that if I was watching it, I'd be like, "Who wrote this?!"

But I also learned that a few of the people I really really love and have always expected to shine in life are capable of far greater things than I ever imagined. I learned that sometimes the strongest person is the one who should have been the broken one. And I learned that there is always hope in next Tuesday, and that if I can just get there, surely today will not feel quite so achingly painful.

And really, I have hope in next Tuesday because I have hope in Christ. And there it is.

So to those people whom I really really love and are starring in a horribly written mini-series (you know who you are): You make me want to be braver and wiser and funnier and a little bit more like you. Thank you for who you are. And PS. Dang, I love you.

In case of an emergency, hit me.

2008-07-22T19:45:00.000-06:00

So I spent the greater part of my morning in the Insta-care -- Utah's local alternative to the ER. Last evening The Boy managed to fall on his arm wrong. He cried some, but not tons -- that's a good sign, right? His arm was swollen at the elbow, and he had no desire whatsoever to straighten it out, so it wasn't just a little owie. But I, going against my Injuries & Crises history, waited til this morning to take him in. That's a bigger deal than you realize. In my earlier first-aid moments, I'd have rushed him, cradled in my arms, straight into the emergency room, not even bothering with a car. I'd have run him there. On foot. Lots faster than a car. Okay, so there's a little drama in my blood. What can I say?

Don't worry, it was a good call. It turns out nothing was broken, it was probably just "a good sprain," whatever that means. I mean, really, is there such a thing as a good sprain? The very definition of a sprain is

"a violent straining or wrenching of the parts around a joint, without dislocation." (Thank you, dictionary.com.)

Those aren't good words. Violent. Straining. Wrenching. If I'm understanding it correctly, a sprain is the moment right before the break. How's that good?

But I digress. Apparently, I've been known to freak out a bit. Oh, I never felt like I was freaking out. In my head, I was calm and collected, the very image of strength and stability in a time of stress. Ha.

Let us consider a day two years ago -- almost to the day, ironically enough -- when The Boy incurred a similar injury. All of the kids and Dave were in the living room, playing some game that I'm still a little vague on. I know it somehow involved marshmallows and jumping off the back of the wing chair, which of course, sounds really stupid. I mean, duh, let your kids jump off the furniture and someone's bound to break an arm. But since it was "supervised" by dad, how bad could it be?

Well they're all playing and laughing their heads off, when after one particular thump, I heard crying mingled with the laughter -- obviously someone was hurt (bad, by the sound of the crying), and no one had else realized it yet. And then I hear Dave repeating The Boy's name several times and saying, "Just let me look at it." I listened for what I thought was probably 4 or 5 minutes before bursting in to save the day -- plenty of time to let Dave take the lead in this thing. After all, there was no need to go rushing in too soon to come to the rescue.

In all likelihood, I actually waited 4 or 5 seconds. When I came into the living room, The Boy was standing with Dave's hands supporting him a bit. He was still crying and holding his arm, but just as I entered the room, he kind of just slumped over. Dave, of course, still had him, so he carefully lowered him to the floor, where I went directly. I've never seen one of my kids pass out, and I admit, it was a little disheartening. But I mustered my coolness and assessed the situation. Calmly (I thought), I smoothed his hair back and rubbed his cheeks softly as I said his name. His response was to roll his head and eyes a bit. Just as I suspected. Now was my moment to shine. Feeling perfectly cool and in control, I announced to the room in general, "He's in shock!" Dave, of course, is thinking, "Really? Brilliant! Thank heavens you told us!" and the kids all freak out. The oldest girls start crying, the younger girls are asking, "What does that mean? Is he gonna be okay?" And I'm thinking, "Hey, hey, guys. What's the problem? No need to panic."

It wasn't until later that I realized that the kids were actually all fine until I showed up to "diagnose" the situation. Everybody, he's in shock! Well that's helpful. I think they picked up on my freaked out vibes and all hope for a calm situation was out the window. Good thing I was there to give them the cue to panic.

Yeah, that was pretty good (in the good sprain way?), but another time, my oldest, Kam, had her best friend over. It was night-ish, 9 or 10 or so, and the doorbell rang. I answered it to find the best friend's oldest sister. She briefly told me that her dad had blown out his knee playing Church Ball, and they were heading to the emergency room. My job was to have her sister stay here until they could get back. Got it, I said, and headed downstairs to do my duty. Here it comes. Everyone, he's in shock!

"L," I began. Not wanting to forget anything, I paused and then in one breath said, "I don't want to freak you out or anything, but I guess your dad blew out his knee playing basketball and your sister just stopped by to tell me they're on the way to the emergency room and you've gotta stay here til they get back, I'm sure he'll be fine, but it could be pretty late, you know how those knees can be, painful and hard, so just get comfy, you're gonna be here awhile."

She stared at me blankly for a second and then said, "Okay, what?" And then I did it again! Instead of finding some more delicate, less hurried approach to the whole thing, I pretty much just repeated the mindless truth!

And now, the spokeswoman for delicacy, me.

Then there was the time I followed the wails of my RyBread to her room to find her covered from nose to toes in blood. She'd been pulled off her bed and had hit her nose, and I, in the He's in Shock Tradition, announced, "Oh, it's broken for sure!!" Helpful.

There are a thousand more of these stories, one for almost every first aid emergency at my house. I think I should just stick to the band-aid on the finger and a kiss on the owie and leave the diagnoses to the capable hands of my Dave. I'm just glad I'm easing up on the whole thing -- I can tell the freak-outs are lessening with time... at least I hope they are. I know it's not gone completely, though. Last night I asked Dave if it was time to make the announcement. It never was. He never went into shock. ...Now what?

Eeny Meeny Miny Moe

2008-07-21T16:09:00.000-06:00

It was Sunday yesterday. I love Sundays. I mean, they're a busy day with church meetings and after-church meetings and big fat yummy dinners. But I love Sundays because it's the one day my kids always end up playing together. All of them. Every Sunday. This is no small thing, of course, because there are 5 of them, between the ages of 7 and 12 -- they're the "my 5" on my Favorite Faves list, and they're delicious fun; but not in the weird-crazy-witch-lady-from-Hansel-&-Gretel delicious fun; more like that "you are so dang fantastic, I could eat you. But I won't. Because you're not food" kind of delicious fun.

So yesterday they were playing "So You Think You Can Dance, Piano-Room Edition," where they each get a turn dancing to a 20-second demo from the digital piano and then get judged on it. I like to watch them when they're not looking, because really, I don't know that any of them can dance. Well, maybe a couple of them can. But the other ones are just trying to imitate moves they've seen real dancers do (not on the actual show, by the way; I don't think any of them have seen it. Not even 5 minutes of an episode. I don't even think they could tell you when it comes on). Sometimes I'll peek in to see arms flailing and feet moving, almost like Elaine from Seinfeld, and think, yeah, that's about how I look when I think I'm dancing. The Boy (my youngest, but only by 2 minutes) will sometimes just hop in place to the beat of the music and call it a dance, and who am I to argue? It's not like I really know. I practically got kicked out of a community ballroom dance class due to my terrible dancing abilities. But that's another entry.

What made me laugh was the "Not It" that officially called everyone to play. "Let's play 'So you think you can dance,' who's gonna be the judge? Not IT!" This, of course, is followed by a unison chorus of "Not ITs," which then begins the battle for who has to be IT. Inevitably, one of the oldest girls will announce who's IT and everyone will go along with it because, well, they're the oldest. If it had been me and my siblings, we would have immediately launched into Eeny Meeny, followed by all of Eeny Meeny's relatives: "My mother and your mother were hanging out clothes..." "Engine, engine, number 9," or of course "Inka Binka bottle of ink." If we were short on time we'd opt for "Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish," since we could put a limit on the number of pieces you wish for and it would go faster. And of course in that case, we'd finish it with "and you are IT," as opposed to "And you are NOT IT," which would require several more rounds.

Funny, my kids haven't really stepped into the world of Eeny Meeny so much.

So as I stood there rolling out what would later become some exceptionally spectacular rolls for our big yummy Sunday dinner, I thought about all those little kid things that we grow up with and then eventually grow out of. I remembered a day a few years ago as my family walked to the school playground one hot-ish summer evening. Dave and I hung back a bit as we talked and pushed the twins in the stroller; the three older girls had run ahead and their sing-song chanting was our white-noise background music. I watched as Mak would jump and stomp every few feet, almost in rhythm, and it wasn't until a quiet spot in our conversation that I stopped and really listened to the girls -- in absolute shock. "Don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back!"

And there was Mak stomping with all her might on every crack she came upon.

What, was she testing it out, trying to find out if my back's really gonna break? I never put much stock in those kinds of things -- you know, "if you swallow gum it'll take 7 years to digest;" "if you sneeze with your eyes open they'll pop right out of your head;" "every time a fly lands on you it's barfing and then eating it's barf." Come on, that's all just a bunch of kid rumors that your mean older brother tells you to keep you up at night.

But suddenly my faith -- or lack of it -- in all kid rumors was being shaken; suddenly I felt differently about all these silly kids-tales. Could it be there's actually truth to this? ...What's that funny tingly feeling at the base of my spine? And my stomach, suddenly there's this rock-kind of feeling right in the pit of my stomach; is that some wad of gum from 1997? And what's with that smallish sticky feeling on my arm? Did some fly just land there and barf and eat it while I wasn't looking?! What is happening??

And then there's Mak. What in the world was possessing her to keep going and stomping so mercilessly like that? Was she feeling a bit of animosity towards me for some parent-inflicted chore I'd put her up to earlier? Or did she just like the feel of the beat: DON'T (jump) step on a CRACK (jump) or you'll BREAK (jump) your mother's BACK (jump)!

Whatever it was, it was too much for me. The back thing, with the breaking, and it's MY back we're talking about... I mean seriously, should we really be tempting fate so brazenly?

I had the sudden urge to run after her, screaming, "Stop!! Please! For the love of all that is good and pure in this world, STOP STOMPING ON THE CRACKS!!" I didn't, but then found myself seriously considering a heart-to-heart with her about it: "You know, Mak, sometimes people really get hurt when you're playing what may seem like a harmless little game."

No, don't be silly, it's just some childish thing she'll grow out of, I assured myself. She doesn't mean anything by it.

And then I blinked, and it had all passed, and she had grown out of it. And I'm standing in my kitchen 5 years later, listening to my kids debate the ITedness of their game while I roll out dough and chant, "My mother and your mother were hanging out clothes. My mother socked your mother right in the nose..."

And dang, I miss it. I miss the little kidishness they're all growing out of. Now when we walk somewhere, Mak doesn't run ahead, but stays with me and grabs my hand in her 11-year-old-let-me-be-your-friend-and-we'll-walk-and-talk-and-laugh-together attitude, then asks how I slept last night.

Pretty good, I say. Except my back's been bothering me for years now...

The view from next tuesday...

2008-07-10T18:12:00.000-06:00

So... the title of my blog. What's the deal with that? I seriously spent about 3 weeks contemplating names for this dang thing, and easily another oh, hour or two checking availability on my different ideas. I considered the usual -- you know, something with my name, or something catchy about what I do: "marianne's life," or "life as the super mom -- it's what I do." I could have gone with a clever one that hints at (or maybe screams) my interests: "the mommy-accordion lover- marathoner-snowboarder-mt.everest hiker-scuba diver-and all around great gal blog." Or of course there's just the ever popular and right to the point, "My Blog." They were all very good, very REAL possibilities... Well, except for the accordion-loving mt.everest hiker one... You know, since those interests don't actually belong to me.

I ended up choosing the name a coupla days ago, when for no reason at all, I was wide awake at 3 o'clock in the morning. Maybe it was because my husband's out of town and the bed just isn't the same without him. Maybe it was the fact that both of our Italian Greyhounds (obviously pictured above) honestly believe my bed is their bed and they're just tolerating my presence there but are secretly plotting my removal from that place as they slowly shove me out of it. Whatever the cause, I was wide awake and thinking. Okay, worrying. I spent a good hour fretting about whatever (I won't get into that because it turns out half of my concerns were actually part of a sleepy-funk and not really real concerns), then finally allowed my mind to wander elsewhere for another hour. By about 4:50 I decided I might actually be tired enough to fall back to sleep; but then I realized the rec center opens in 10 minutes, and I could just run over there and get my weights done. So I did.

POINT: Yes, there is one. As I walked into the weight room, I realized that I should completely ignore most thoughts of worry that occur to me between the hours of 11 pm and 5 am. I have to wait until it's actually morning before I freak out about things, because light, you see, has a knack of bringing with it... well, light. Understanding. Reality. Wakefulness -- that one's kind of key. And once I have light, I gain real perspective.

So when I realized I just needed morning perspective (as opposed to the crazy half-awake non-reality), I knew I had found my title. It's my happy reminder to myself that perspective just depends on where you're standing. Don't like your perspective? Try shifting to the right just a bit. Wait for the sun to show up. Or better yet, move to next Tuesday and you'll probably love the view.

And so it begins

2008-07-09T21:41:00.000-06:00

Well it's about time I join the world of blogging. I finally succombed to the peer pressure: "Oh, I just posted it on my blog." "So I was bloggin yesterday and..." "Oh, don't you blog?" Blog, blog, blog, blah, blah, blah.

And yet, here I am. Huh. ...Well do with that what you will, and welcome to my life and my musings about it. I doubt this will be as journally as most of my friends' blogs. Well, who knows what it will morph into; for now it will just be a happy collection of my random thoughts, my mindless babblings, my flapdoodle and bosh. I think I already like it.

But I'm going to bed.