Things That Are Alright

It never ceases to amaze me how the springtime sunshine can push it's way through a plethora of suck and make even the worst days better. I spent the first half of this week on the verge of tears for so many reasons that I can't even keep track, and here I am on Thursday, St. Patrick's Day, no less, feeling like maybe it will all be ok after all. Not that things aren't still a little upside down, or there aren't plenty of excuses to cry, but I am working real hard to find the silver lining in All Of The Bad Things right now, and it's coming out alright. I have a beer sitting next to me on a Very Dirty Porch in the Very Warm Sunshine, and even though the beer isn't green and my butt is getting muddy, it feels good.

Frank the Bloodhound figured out how easy it was to step over the less-than-four-foot fence in the back yard and has taken to wandering around town. It was almost cute and endearing when he tracked us to Rivertown Grill the other night in the rain and had to sit in the car until we were done with dinner. It was even semi-adorable the first time he showed up at the school to find out what I could possibly be doing there that was more important than throwing his Breno horse for him. The second field trip to school was a little much, in addition to charging all 140lbs of hair-flinging dogflesh through a very unhappy English teacher's classroom, he made me late for class when I had to take him home, which is apparently a bad thing when you are the teacher.

he's definitely grounded

Because as it happens, I AM the teacher. At least for now. For the next three months, every single day. I am the teacher. Already I am getting a taste of the sacrifice that teaching is as I forgo St. Patty's Day shenanigans to ride with a bus full of drama students tonight to watch a play at Woodland Theater. I mean did it have to be tonight? I will miss the tinge of green food coloring in my beer as I watch The Addams Family Musical with a herd of reprobate high schoolers. And so my full-time teaching career begins, turning the usual financial nightmare of spring into something survivable, if I can make it to work every day, which we all know is a major challenge for me.

I get to sub for Mrs. Wilson as she ends her 37 year teaching career with a full knee replacement so that she  remain ambulatory during her retirement. This lady has earned it. Apparently the school advertised for a substitute that was highly qualified in the subjects of health, fitness and drama, and all of the certified people ran screaming the other way. I guess drama isn't everybody's cup of tea. Who knew? And I guess that I am passably qualified to teach it. I am not sure if this is based on the fact that I have raised four girls or my limited background in theater... But mostly it's probably my ability to pretend to know what I am talking about that really won me the work. #fakeittilyoumakeit

This is such a great opportunity because one of the classes I am teaching is "alternative fitness", which is geared towards students who really couldn't hack it in PE due to stressors like dressing down and exercise. Interestingly enough, my class is full of jocks and athletes who just needed an elective and figured it would be easy. And if you're into yoga and training for a pack test, it is, because that's what I am doing. It is sobering to realize that there are 18 year old guys who can't keep up with my old lady pace when we do our walks. And I am wearing a weight pack! I am looking forward to finding a way to compel these kids to leave me in the dust, which would take very little effort on their part, if effort can be found.

Anyway, suddenly I went from being bored out of my mind in early February, to so busy I can't see straight at the end of March. I just stare on my calendar and will some of the obligations to go away, but they don't. They just stare back at me and laugh in that sinister way that obligations do. So I drink a beer and decide to figure out how to Do It All tomorrow sometime.

I love that it's baseball season, and the fields are full of heckling kids and the clinking of balls on bats. I come home to find the random teenage boy rooting around for gatorade on my back porch and begin to wonder when the baseball-sized dents in my car appeared. The dogs can hardly get their unauthorized neighborhood patrols in as they are so busy supervising baseball practice and digging in the soft mud that was once a front yard. Dagny should be arriving in Australia any time now I think.

beer, booger, baseball season #gobendelks

Life is busy and inconvenient. It's filthy dirty and out of control, but it's good. It's going. It's life. Noone remembered to put corned beef and cabbage in the crock pot this morning so maybe I will help out the Grill with theirs. It just seems wrong to not observe the holiday somehow, and besides, I don't have any Jameson here.

Things About Being Real

The other day, my sister and I were having a conversation about "being real" as opposed to being pretentious or fake or trying to convince anybody on the outside that we are something we really are not. I feel like I have pretty well mastered the art of letting everybody who knows me, plus a few thousand who don't, how "real" I am. To a fault. I am pretty darn good at highlighting my failures, my trials and errors and mess-ups and mistakes and oopses, wannabes and nice-tries. In fact, I am so real, that I think certain people have wisely calculated a wide berth of avoidance to reduce the risk of my train-wreck life, with it's messy divorces, dog hair, toilet floods and worms, getting in their perfectly crafted martini. And that's ok, because I'll take dog hair over perfectly crafted martinis any day. I guess. That's not really true. But I will settle for a warm beer.

The funny thing about "being real" or living in "reality", is that a lot of times it's straight up unrealistic.

Like for instance, me raising four daughters to various stages of older childhood/adulthood and killing none of them. It's very really happening, but it's very nearly impossible.

I feel like 90% of my life - of all of our lives - is doing unreal things. Some times we do them really well, sometimes we do them really bad. I tend to err toward the side of awful, but I still get some pretty unreal things done.

Like passing the work capacity test for the forest service. Realistically, I could Just Say No. I Can't. The disc between my L5/S1 vertebrae has degenerated completely, similar to the moral standards of my late 20s. I am old. I have a torn shoulder, a sprained ankle and All Of The Things hurt. But I will do it, because it's worth it to me. And it's not pretty. I don't look like Mary Lou Retton dismounting the balance beam with rosy cheeks in a patriotic leotard. I look like a dying vagrant with COPD that someone just tried to beat to death after falling off of a train. But I will still do it. And that is both real and unrealistic.

In many ways, we're all pretending a little bit to be something we're not. I am pretending to be a young, athletically viable firefighter. My friend is pretending to be Just Fine as she sits in the hospital with a very sick husband and other family members in crisis. My other friend is pretending to be a softball coach. My cousin is pretending to know how to be the Best Stepmom Ever to some hurt kids... and she's killing it. One of my friends is pretending to enjoy police academy, surrounded by guys half his age, guys that don't have decimated hips and too many decades of abuse on their bodies like he does, and he is KICKING ASS. Because maybe it's unrealistic, but it's really happening. And they'll get it done. Those girls will get the crap coached out of them, and that husband will be Just Fined all the way home to his La-Z-Boy where he belongs. Those kids will be whole and happy. And that guy will be the best cop that ever copped. I pretend to be a teacher, and I am about to pretend to be a full time teacher for a full semester... it's ridiculously unrealistic, something that regular and accountable for me, but you watch, I'll really do it. For reals.

We go through life being Really Unrealistic. Doing things that we can't possibly. Like childbirth. Or homeschooling (NOT ME!). Or paying the bills. Pretenders are heroes, sometimes, and I think that all the time, heroes are pretenders. Pretending to be brave, pretending to know Exactly What To Do, pretending to like it. Sometimes, being who we really aren't is the thing that saves the day. Like coaching a softball team, or being the "strong one" in the family, or maybe even just being nice to someone when nice is certainly NOT what you really feel, but very certainly what somebody else needed you to be.

So the next time you get overwhelmed with the The Thing You Cannot Do, with all of the dog hair that won't stay vacuumed, or the kids that won't get potty trained, or the really, really REALLY hard mile and a half on that one day when a mile and a half is just too much - just know that I am here being unrealistic with you. We are doing this unrealistic life together - really doing it. Covered in dog hair and swilling our warm beer, but we're doing it. We're covering the miles and growing the kids and loving the people. Even when loving seems like the most unrealistic of all, we do it. We make the choices and take the steps to get life done, with all of the unreality included.

I am ok with being a messy. With being imperfect and slightly embarrassing to my people. It's ok, because I know that I have kicked reality right where it counts. I don't need to be real, and I don't need to be fake, I just need to be. Right Here, doing the Right Thing, Right Now that needs to be done, even if I can't.

My next plan for unreality is to get Eric Church to marry me, or something along those lines. For practice at accomplishing the impossible though, Ima salvage some freezer burned hamburger in homemade chili from scratch that I am trying unrealistically to remember from watching my best friend make it a few months ago. So far, so good. There I go, making miracles all over the place.

Things About Being Healthy

I went to the doctor yesterday. He said I get lightheaded and nearly pass out all the time because my blood pressure is too good. Apparently it's a thing. 

So my doctor asked me what I thought I could do to bring my blood pressure up:

"Gain more weight? I'm good at that."

"No."

"Eat more fat." 

"No."

"Add more stress to my life?" 

"Ahhh, no."

"Drink more alcohol? Also a skill I possess."

"Not quite."

We spent a moment of awkward, accountability filled silence when we were both thinking that in addition to being an EMT, I'm also a mildly-intelligent person capable of logical thought. But my blood pressure was really low so it was hard to think of the right answers. 

"How about more fluids." My doctor offered benevolently. 

"Like beer? It's mostly water."

At this point he cradled his head in his hands and either laughed or sobbed quietly. I'm not sure which. Then he suggested doing more cardio vascular exercises to increase my cardio muscle reaction time. He suggested running, biking, or whatever I liked to do. 

I said I liked to sit on the couch and eat. Preferably cheesy garlic bread. 

I think he gave up then, giving me a "you know better" look behind his tears of mirth. 

This particular doctor has taken care of my family since before my youngest sister was born, so it wouldn't shock me to find out that my mom got a concerned phone call - or perhaps one congratulating her on her wild success in rearing a world class comedienne. 

The doctor also wanted to know, out of all of my plethora of activities, which I was enjoying. I stared at him blankly for a moment as the realization that I could be having FUN doing some things dawned on me. Then I blurted out "snowboarding". Because in my 14 hour days, the two times I went snowboarding (to be more accurate we should call it snowfalling) this winter stand out as FUN. 

Nevermind the whiplash. Nevermind the mildly sprained ankle which may have been throbbing when the good doctor asked. Nevermind the mortally wounded pride from the disastrous yardsale that was every. Single. chairlift dismount in front of lift operators who were recruited straight from Australia's Hunks Of 2015 Calendar. Snowboarding was FUN. The best. My favorite. 

If he hadn't put me on the spot so suddenly, asking all those hard questions I would have probably answered that the thing I enjoy the most is drinking beer and eating cheesy bread with my friends while we solve all the world's problems. #expertlevel

Anyway it's nice to be passing out because I'm so healthy. I'm gonna go ahead and credit that to all of the healthy beer I am so famous for drinking. And the weight that clearly doesn't want to be lost. 

Things About Taking Responsibility

I made a mistake. First off, I posted something political on Facebook.

I know, do I even need to go on???? There’s enough mistake right there to last me for ages. It was a rambling piece that I largely agreed with, mostly (I thought) about taking personal responsibility to educate oneself before voting or airing opinions on weighty matters. But I realized, with the help of a few good friends, that just in copy-pasting the post, I was doing exactly what the author cautioned about.

I was jumping on someone else's bandwagon. I was not using my own mind, my own words, my own capable voice to say what I think. Because I DO think. And I don't need someone else to say it for me. I have opinions on nearly everything that matters, except maybe how overdue Leo was in getting that Oscar. #couldntcareless

#idiocracy

So in recompense for posting the propaganda of One More Faceless Mouth With An Opinion, I am going to share mine. Feel free to share if you are lazy like me and would rather have someone else say MOSTLY the right things for you. (Although we all know that I am dead on.)

Regardless of who gets elected, this election race has moved beyond the simpler times of "voting for the lesser evil" or even the idealistic "vote your conscience". The first is an impossible choice. The second is a wasted vote, and nearly treasonous when you consider the consequences. I would like to say that if we all truly "voted our conscience" that the political machine couldn't possibly win, but I have seen the "consciences" of many people in action and I cannot vouch for that surety. So we are left with the gut wrenching choice of voting for the candidate we hate the least, any one of whom will be an embarrassment to this great country. Because the USA is great, and it never stopped being so, just because some windbag pronounced it thus.

In fact, our country continues to grow greater. 100 years ago, women weren't allowed to vote. It wasn't until 1920 that voting rights were granted to women. It was only 51 years ago that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into effect the Voting Rights Act after tear gas was used to stop African Americans on a march to protect their constitutional right to vote which was granted in 1870. The 15th amendment prevented states from prohibiting any male citizen to vote, regardless of "race, color or previous condition of servitude." We've come a long way in half a century. It doesn't mean that racism is dead in the United States, or equality is across the board and real. We still have work to do, and a lot of it. But I hope becoming "great again" doesn't mean I don't get to vote anymore.



With our flaws and our struggles and our trials to overcome, we remain one of the greatest nations in the world. We voice our ridiculous opinions freely, and whether our elections are all a giant rigged charade or not, I feel safe to say that we get what we deserve in our legislatures and our courtrooms. We have most likely begun the cool and casual decent into Idiocracy (if you have not seen this film, there has never been a better time), the proverbial frog in the pot, boiling slowly to death without our knowledge. It could be happening. But the ONLY way to reverse this trend is by every individual taking each possible step to make sure the people we want in office get there. Not by holding federal buildings hostage or killing law enforcement officers. Not by shooting up abortion clinics or destroying our own neighborhoods in riots. There is a way to make our voices heard. It's happening in November.

For me, I'd just be happy to find a candidate who believed in the same things that I did. Things like dogs not ever getting old and cops never dying in the line of duty. Things like taking care of our planet one person at a time by being responsible, not wasteful, and understanding the impact of every purchase, every throw-away, every package and every trip to town. I'd like a candidate who believes in my inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. One who doesn't need to legislate who I marry, what I grow, how I care for my body, or what I own. I'd like a candidate who believes in the ability of each human being, however unrealistic it seems these days, to make the best choices for their community, family and self, without passing down laws to assure this. I would like a candidate who sees me work four jobs, raise four children, and doesn't penalize me for every penny I earn, or reward me for working less.

The problem with my Ideal Candidate (see what I did there? #propaganda) is that he requires an Ideal Citizen - and those, my friends, are few and far between, evidenced by the Americans who think that shooting a cop, or breaking out the windows of a local business, or laying siege to a wildlife refuge are any sort of solution to the very real problems we face. Generations of deeply rooted racism do not go away with a riot - violence by a race only perpetuates the need to control them. Overreaching governments are not thwarted by militant attacks on federal employees - they are merely justified. And killing the sheepdogs who patrol our streets and keep us sleeping safely in our beds at night only undoes the security we enjoy as a nation.

Our problem, in this Great Nation, isn't with the candidates we have running for office, it's with the people. People who have grown fat and lazy and are eating up the lies about How Things Should Be. Fairy tales about things coming free and easy without the blood sweat and tears that their grandparents shed to provide them the liberty which they squander on bloodletting and greed. We have fallen so far from the strength of The Greatest Generation, men who would give their lives for the security of an entire country and women who would give up their men, their stability and their accustomed roles to become the workforce that carried the nation. We are now a generation of men and women without a driving cause greater than free college and/or reality television. We have abandoned personal accountability as a shameful scourge of the past. We have blamed everyone else for the weaknesses in our communities. Our children are shooting each other in school cafeterias because life is cheap - everything is cheap. Of course our mental health as a nation is suffering. We don't understand the value of liberty any more.

IF 

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you 

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, 

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too; 

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; 

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; 

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same; 

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone, 

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, 

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, 

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Things About Frank

We got another dog. I am not sure why we (we being mostly I with a moderate amount of enablement from the remaining girls at home) got another dog, but we did. It wasn't as if there was a shortage of dog hair on the couches, poop in the house or scratches on the floors. It wasn't as if every flea in Stevens County hadn't already found a comfortable place to live in this house. But we got another dog.

In some ways the new dog is more like a horse, if we're going by sheer size, volume of food consumption and general maneuverability around the house. At this point he outweighs everyone else that lives here. In fact, he makes Truck look like ein kleine hund. The new dog is a purebred Bloodhound, the kind I have wanted pretty much my whole life. The kind with big droopy lips and eyes who howls at the garbage truck and bays like he's on the trail of an escaped criminal when someone doesn't give him a snack at the dinner table.

Frank adequately compensates for all of the teenagers that have moved out of my house in his moody flailing about. He is the master of dramatic sigh-filled flops onto the couch, following by a series of long high pitched moans that are eerily reminiscent of MacKenzie doing math homework. He helped himself to a plate of waffles on the back burner of the stove one day, thereby filling the rather large appetite gap left behind when Halle moved out. And his knack for watching you silently with knowing eyes from across the room has replaced the hole that When left when she decided she'd had enough of Northport and moved away. Most of all he is chief accomplice of the legendary Noone, helping to spill, break, tear and cover in mud and/or slobber every single item in the house and then disavow all knowledge. Natalee says that his drool dries all sparkly like unicorn blood and she seems to enjoy the sheen of glitter cast liberally around the house.

He's a big baby, really. A two year old softy who doesn't understand that his 6 inch dinner-plate paws come down with the force of a baby elephant everywhere he goes. He tries to play with Dagny, who just gets mostly offended and insulted that he can't seem to control the perpetual flopping. But he is a nice boy. He's gentle and listens MOST of the time, when he feels like it. He and Truck are NOT best friends, because the thing about hounds is that food is their favorite, and sharing is not.

Frank's real best friend is Ava, the neighbor's pretty German Shepherd, who shares his affinity for smelly river water and running away whenever possible. Luckily Frank has taken to running away to Ava's house when an unwitting child leaves the gate open, and the Middlesworths bring the reprobate hound back sadly sans-girlfriend. I am not unconvinced that Truck hasn't been unlatching the gate just to tempt the giant puppy away from his house, but I have no visual evidence of this sabotage.

When we got him, they called him Hank, but since we already have a Hank dog in the family, we morphed his name to Frank, which has become interesting when we get him and Truck confused and start calling out weird amalgams of both names. My sister insists that it's not her fault if she accidentally calls Frank something more obscene. Luckily he also responds to "poophead" and "dufus" so we have a  lot of fall back options.

Since Frank joined the ranks of The Doghouse, I will admit that my vacuuming skills have improved exponentially. I will never understand how short-haired hounds lose so much hair during the winter, like a punishment for not banishing them to the frigid out-of-doors. Another perk to having a horse sized dog in the house is that the cat is less than impressed, so Crookshanks has more or less taken up residence out side, which is fine with me.

We love Frank. Less when he is yelling at Truck for hurting his feelings by walking through the kitchen, and more when his lips fan out like mink blankets across the couch. At this moment he is hiding outside in the rain where he RAN when I tried to put some tea tree oil drops on his neck to discourage his flea comrades. I think witnessing Dagny being washed in the kitchen sink aided his fear response, and he probably thought he was the next creature to be crammed into the metal square that is smaller than his head. Poor Frank. Life is scary. Don't tell him he has a vet appointment for a rabies shot on Saturday, he would probably cry about it all night.

Things To Make You Swoon...

Things About Low Speed Crashes

People who are unrealistic about their age and ability level should probably not go snowboarding. Probably, people like that shouldn't even be let out of the house because there is a lot of liability involved. I mean, it doesn't help when people like that go out for drinks the night before and their "best friends" tell them that one more Salted Nut Roll won't hurt. (Ok, Maybe it was actually me saying that, but still.) Bad ideas, all the way around.

I am unrealistic about my age. I am CERTAINLY unrealistic about my ability level in that I actually think I might have one at all. I am very unrealistic about how many Salted Nut Rolls, glasses of wine or Shock Tops are a good idea on any given night. The most unrealistic thing of all, however, is imagining that it's a good idea to go careening down a hill on a flat, waxed board, with enough of a hangover to wish things around you would quit rushing and sparkling in the sunshine.

The craziest thing about snowboarding with absolutely no skill level whatsoever, is that even if you never exceed speeds of 3 MPH, when you crash it still feels like dying. It's not like I have worked up any velocity! I mean, the mass is far greater than the speed, and even so, I think that I snapped my neck and broke both wrists at least three times apiece. I even knocked the wind out of myself in a slow motion yard sale in deep slush. Today I can't move my head. My neck can't even hold my skull upright. I have been in a weird semi-reclined leaning position all day, basically with the muscles in my neck that are tightly spasmed holding my head at an awkward angle slightly off of the pillow.

I started to get excited halfway through the day up at Red Mountain yesterday when I finally got around to using my toe edge and figuring out how to drive my board with my back foot, which kept changing because I am not sure if I prefer left or right forward. I watched my sister with a broken ankle swooshing down the hill as though it was the easiest thing ever, and I felt envy in my heart, possibly with some malice. She's not THAT much younger than me. Where did she get a skill level? It's hurtful.

I did get my crashing skills finely honed, with a little help from Aspen, who has mastered the art of the faceplant. I even held a perfect record of not ONCE disembarking the chair lift without tripping the three young kids that I was "chaperoning". I'm sorry you guys, I thought I had a skill level. This is probably due to the wild success I experienced last year on the ski hill.

traditional ski-lft selfie with AP

Luckily I had exactly nothing that I HAD to do today, other than lean weirdly on my couch and complain a lot to anyone who would listen, and perform some deep self-evaluation about unrealistic expectations and Peter Pan complexes. I was planning on taking Frank the Bloodhound for a brisk three mile walk, but that idea went right out the first time I tried to stand up.

Anyway, I will just be here on my couch for the next 8-10 days until the muscles in my neck rescind their mutiny. Send wine, or Salted Nut Rolls.

Things About The Dead of Winter

Maybe "they" were thinking of the dormant trees and dead plants and how everything has the blue-gray sheen of a corpse when they coined the phrase "dead of winter", but I think maybe "they" were in touch with the spirit of the season, which is something along the lines of: BLAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.

Don't get me wrong, I like winter. I like snow. I like crisp, cold air and rosy cheeks and staying inside where it's warm. I like the idea of cuddling (I can't remember if I really enjoy it that much or not, because it's been a long time). I like sledding and Christmas and jingle bells and the smell of fresh cut spruce in my house. But once The Holidays come to a screeching halt on January 2nd, and we go back to school and work as if there was never any fun in the world at all, it's easy to forget the happy parts of winter.

Because winter really is about death. It is the dead zone of the natural year. It is the end of one life cycle and the rest before a new one begins. It is being "dead tired" from all of the holiday traditions and SO MUCH FAMILY.  It is the time of "bored to death" cabin fever, "dead broke" after The Holidays and the "death warmed over" look that we're all sporting after we recover from our "deathbed" of seasonal colds and flus. While we're all busy "freezing to death" we are simultaneously commenting on how the weather is "dead wrong" and we're moving to somewhere green and warm and ALIVE. Was it really only a week ago that I was jogging through town in glorious, glistening snowy sunshine, feeling like the world couldn't be more beautiful?

There is very little, in the dead of winter, to remind us that we are alive. Except driving on roadways covered in three inches of freezing rain. Or pellet stoves that decide to quit working in the middle of the night during the coldest week of the season. Or broken pipes, cantankerous hot water heaters, and shoveling snow. Lots and lots and lots of shoveling.

Other than mini-crisis management though, there is nothing in my life during the dead of winter that I can't do later. Some other time, Some other day. When people ask how I am doing, a normally honest response would be "BUSY! SO BUSY!" but right now, I have absolutely no where to be, and absolutely nothing I have to do. The laundry will be there tomorrow, staring at me all. day. long. So will the dirty bathroom. And a myriad of other little projects that I could take on. But I can do it tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week. Heck, I don't have any plans until March.

With all of this time on my hands, I have been cooking. I have cooked all of the things. A Full Turkey Dinner with All of the Trimmings. Bulk quantities of shredded southwest chicken breast, black beans, chicken tortilla soup and all of the ingredients for cobb salads, and rice bowls. Exactly 83% of this food will go to waste, even though I took a quart of soup to Neighbor Joe and sent Turkey Dinner to my rehabilitating bestie and her family. There are not enough of us to eat the food that I make in my boredom. I had 5 overripe bananas today that I put in the freezer instead of making into banana bread because I knew it would sit on the counter and mold, like the three oranges, one apple and two onions I just threw away.

So many good intentions swirling around, but kind of like with my intentions to exercise and stuff, I am struggling to find the WHY. Why do I cook? Why do I work out? I am making no difference. Nobody eats the food. Nobody will really care if I lose ten more pounds, or thirty. I am doing just as much good watching 13 episodes straight of Orphan Black, and letting the girls have the macaroni they've been begging for. Why am I fighting it? Seriously. It's the Dead of Winter. The only thing that makes it better is comfort food like BLTs and Macaroni and Cheese and BEER.

There's the trouble right there. I don't have enough beer in my life. Since I started counting calories and all that crap, I have cut way back on my beer consumption, along with other things (like macaroni and cheese) that make life worth living. Is it any wonder that my existence has lost meaning? :) I think that some re-ordering of my priorities might be in order.

Maybe tomorrow I will wake up and it will all make sense - I will feel motivation and purpose again. Maybe I will remember why I want to be in shape, and eat healthy. Maybe I will put on my work out pants and they won't just be an accessory for maximum couch enjoyment. Maybe I will have a beer. Maybe I will remember that it's not just me, it's the Dead of Winter.

Things About Girls

It's not all sweetness and light.

It's not all sugar and spice and everything nice.

It's not all sparkling golden laughter and twinkling eyes and caring, warm hearts.

It's rodent sized hairballs in your shower drain every six months or so, because when you have girls, girls have hair. And they also have friends, and their friends have friends, and also cousins, lots of girl cousins. And all of the girls and their friends and their friends friends and girl cousins all somehow find a reason to use your shower, and put their long, glorious hair in your shower drain, until pretty much you have DNA samples from every female in Stevens County. Possibly Washington State. And probably much, much, much more scientific data than anyone in an Average American Household ever wanted to collect out of their drain.

It's also slamming doors and theatrical sighs and eye-rolling that just. won't. quit. It's year after year after year of "whatever"s and "seriously?"s and "ohmygosh"s, in addition to the everything in the world being "annoying", "not my fault" and "not fair".

It's glitter craft projects adorning every carpet and finger nail polish accents on every piece of furniture.

It's a fist sized hole that mysteriously appears in a wall, and the occasional plate glass window shattered by an imaginary javelin.

It's a thousand articles of clothing whom No One owns, and nothing to wear, ever. At all.

It's going to All Of The Games and All Of The Practices and buy All Of The Gear of All Of The Sports and All Of The Hobbies until you find the exact one that is "the favorite", and then it's doubling it up, because this is surely their destiny: to be professional tuba players/basketball stars/volleyball champions/irish dance professionals.

It's pony tail holders on the floor in every room, bobbi pins on every surface, and a hair brush and random intervals throughout the living spaces.

It's moody singer-songwriter tunes, angry rap and the inescapable Disney Artists from every generation, including the most unfortunate and most recent ones.

It's pictures of puppies, romantic poems and angry hate-notes of vengeance and tattle-taleing.

It's three thousand pairs of shoes that are totally inappropriate for any given event, and probably don't fit right anymore.

It's purple and pink and orange and CAMOUFLAGE and a rainbow of changing moods and favorites.

It's marathons of Glee and The Flash and Mario Cart, and crushes on Every. Single. Boy.

It's day after day, year after year, watching a herd of little women turn into fierce individuals with places to go and people to be.

It's a girl thing. 

Things About Roller Skating

Natalee is turning 16 tomorrow. Sixteen. Sweet 16. A top-end teenager. Which means I only have one young kid left. The rest are all old.

For her 16th birthday party, we went roller skating. We took a good percentage of her class from school, along with some relatives and friends from other grades, for a sum total of 19 people, to the roller rink in Spokane, where we skated our collective buns off.

That's right, WE skated. WE including (but not limited to) me, myself and I. I skated THE WHOLE TIME. All three hours I skated. I swooped and circled, I chicken danced and limboed and even tried to do the cupid shuffle on roller skates, which is a terrible idea if I ever heard one. Especially when he says "freeze!" and all you can do is fall on your face on top of several small children who were in front of you and apparently know how to stop instantly on 8 rolling wheels of plastic. I was just happy during one sequence when I got a "hop" and a "right stomp" in appropriately. My left stomps always turned into a weird rolling recovery sequence of waving my arms foolishly in the air for several minutes. Turns out I am NOT an ambi-stomper on roller skates.

My ankles hurt within about 45 seconds of roller skating, which is important to note since my sister with the perpetually broken ankle and detached tendons, etc, etc, etc, skated THE WHOLE TIME too. She probably isn't speaking to me or anyone this morning, if she is still alive. I almost wasn't alive. If hips were capable of murder, mine would have killed me in my sleep. Instead, they collaborated with my lower back to exact harsh punishment on me today.

I am not sure which was more fun, watching the adults (i.e. me) flailing around like wanton scarecrows, or getting to witness my three nephews on roller skates for the first time ever in their whole lives. It was pretty much a perpetual dogpile with wheels on top. Roller skating is a sport where no one can actually take themselves seriously, which might make it my most favorite sport ever. Check your ego at the door, y'all. Even you - that middle aged couple doing constant couples skate routines - I see your potential for imminent disaster behind those clever hand movement that mask your instability, you don't fool me. Admittedly, I thought I was pretty cool at 11 years old when I won an Amy Grant record doing the Hokey Pokey at homeschool skate night. Far cooler than my sister who won Sandy Patti doing the limbo. Even homeschoolers don't like Sandi Pattie. For heavens sake. Did they think it was grandmother skate night?

The best part about it was that my Fitbit app says that three hours of roller skating burns approximately 1288 calories. One thousand two hundred and eighty eight calories. Twelve hundred and 88 calories. That's so many. I could have had two pieces of cake if I wanted. Why does running, which feels like torture, burn like 5 calories an hour, but roller skating burns over 400? Roller skating is FUN you guys! If it wasn't, I would have quit like 37 minutes in. But it's super fun! I would go every day if I could, and after awhile, I would beat Em at the limbo, win the races AND probably defeat my ex husband in a professional couples skate dancing competition (more on this, contact Josh Weston). Not to mention ROLLER DERBY!!!!

I drove home alternately whimpering in pain and plotting how to get a grant to build a roller rink in Northport. I am sure that somebody is dying to give away a couple hundred thousand to get kids and housewives off of the streets and onto 8 wheels.

Addendum: A friend of mine posted this on Facebook about the same time I posted this blog, it seems appropriate...

"That thing you want to do that makes no sense on paper that everyone says is ridiculous? Go ahead. Because I tap danced while wearing roller skates. So there." - Gene Kelly

Things I Can Give Up

It is the last day of 2015. It's monumental, I suppose, this 38th year of mine, a year full of change, turmoil and triumph, highs and lows, work and play... but it feels like a Monday. Like I have to get up and get stuff done as soon as possible. Maybe a night of heavy drinking will fix that.

I was researching the tradition of New Year resolutions for a story I am writing in the Silverado Express, and it was fascinating to see that the custom of using the beginning of the year to make changes, to repent and forgive, to purge and cleanse and start over, is almost universal, whether the new year celebration is on January first, on the Chinese lunar new year, or Rosh Hashanah. The underlying theme of new year resolutions is sacrifice - the giving up and letting go of anything that hinders us: grudges, bad habits, clutter... Even the sacrifice of pride that keeps us from owning our failures or forgiving the people who have hurt us, or giving up something we love for the greater good. This tradition is rooted in the Catholic tradition of Lent which requires church members to forego the eating of meat among other things for a period of time.

In the spirit of the season, I laid in bed for awhile pondering what sacrifices I would make this year (because it was a great excuse to lay in bed for awhile), at the beginning of 2016, to start the year off unencumbered and ready to get some shit done. So here is my list of things to give up. Things I don't need hanging off of me in 2016:

1. Ungratefulness - this is something that has come up for me again and again and again. I have so much to be thankful for, but I habitually resort to complaining about what I don't have. And it's ugly.

2. About 30 more pounds - which means leaving behind the bi-weekly habit of cheesy bread and beer. I am on the path... just a little more paring!

3. Anger at situations that I cannot change or control. I am pressing hard after a deep seated peace, knowing that I am exactly where I need to be to get me where I am going.

4. Worry about my growing-up kids that are no longer under "my protection." I need to trust them to the Arms of Someone more powerful than me.

5. Substituting things for people. I pacify loneliness by shopping, and all that results in is a whole lotta stuff and still nobody here to make me feel better. When the urge hits, I need to reach out to a friend or pick up a book. Hey - imaginary friends are better than credit card bills!

6. Fleas, lice, round worms, ringworm, and all other vermin. You are no longer welcome in this house. Find somewhere else to haunt.

7. Relationships that are false, shallow or lecherous. I don't need to be sucked dry anymore, and in the same token, I need to evaluate how I relate to others and always make sure that I am giving and honest.

8. Neediness: I have been given everything I need to be a whole person, without being dependent on someone else. I forget this every day.

9. Judgement - I have enough of my own failures to focus on without being distracted by the shortcomings of others.

10. Excuses: For the first time in years, I am virtually pain free. I am capable and I am willing. It's time to be the person that I want to be, without letting my laziness and apathy slow me down.

Things Unseen - Why to Believe, and Why to Push It

It isn't just that I've had a couple of gin & sodas. It isn't just that it's The Holidays. It isn't that my good friend who really couldn't afford it footed my bill at the bar, or that by some weird God-related coincidence some random weird guy at the bar knew that this entire day swirled around and came back to It's a Wonderful Life and referenced it to me. It isn't because I am a spoiled brat and throw a lot of fits. Even if all of those things are true, that's not what it is.

What it really is, is that It Matters. No matter how much I feel like in any given moment, that it doesn't matter what I do, what I say, who I see or talk to, it really does matter. Just like if George Bailey had never been there for Mr. Gower, you never know when just being there matters the most. And you never can tell how the one time you made cookies with somebody, or read them a book, or made them watch a ridiculous Christmas movie, could be something So Big in their lives that they never fully recover.

Tonight I was feeling sorry for myself after sending my kids off to their dad's house for a Christmas celebration, and then I got into an argument with kids that aren't mine about Santa Claus and Christmas and believing. Even my own kids chastised me this holiday season about being too relentless with the Christmas Movies and the Christmas Music and TRADITION. Other kids think I am just plain nuts in my Santa Claus dogma.

I don't know how to say all of the feelings in my heart. All of the frustration for the 8 year old who tells me Santa Claus is a lie, because his parents believe in the importance of  teaching him to thank them for the presents they paid for. Or because perhaps they are afraid that as he grows older he will think that his parents lied to him about a mythical being. Or the 17 year old who doesn't even the know the name of Santa's reindeer because no one ever bothered to tell him. I probably sound petty when I say that it seems horrific to meet someone who has never seen White Christmas or Holiday Inn, or who has never laid awake all night listening for reindeer hooves on the roof of their house.

What baffles me is how you can expect your child to believe in a God that you cannot see or hear but banish so completely the wonder and faith of believing in Santa Claus. If there is anything of value that we can give our kids, it has to be the richness of believing in what we cannot touch or see. It has to be the mystery of Christmas Eve and the wonder of Christmas morning.

Years ago, as I slogged through the mess of my own spirituality in the wreckage of my soul as I was living in a hell on earth, I wrote a poem for my mother. It was shortly after my Grandma had passed away, the Grandma who had told me stories of brownie kiss freckles, mermaids at Twin Rocks on the Oregon Coast, and stories of fairies dancing in the ferns around Multnomah Falls. She told me the legend of The Bridge of The Gods, the ancient Klickitat brothers who fought over a fair maiden and wreaked havoc on the villages and lands of their people, ultimately destroying the naturally formed bridge over the Columbia River. In Punishment, their father, the Great Chief, struck all three down and they became the mountains: Adams, Hood and St. Helens, standing as mournful sentinels of caution to the native people. My grandma, with all of these stories, taught me faith in ages that have gone by before me, belief in knowledge that can not possibly be proven, and she is the reason I will always love, and always believe in Santa Claus, and even more, God. Don't tell me that there is an unseen world but that you are the only one with accurate information about it, according to your badly translated book of stories.

Christianity is in such an all-fired hurry to shun traditions and legends that originate before the advent of Jesus, because of their "pagan" roots - which interestingly, are ALL of our roots. There is history before Christ, y'all. Deal with it. There were miracles and mystics, and if God is yesterday, today and always, then most likely he was hanging out with the pagans before Jesus wandered along. Our little box of religion that is a few thousand years old puts a lot of limits on an omnipotent God, who, incidentally created all of the cultures behind all of the legends and stories and mysteries.

Here is the poem I wrote, and the belief that I feel compelled to share with my children and any others that I come into contact with. Because this is faith. Because it probably matters. Because I think my grandma had it figured out.

I believe in things unseen

In brownie kisses and faerie rings

I believe in gnomes and elves

And pixies that disguise themselves

I believe in sprites and nymphs

Mermaids and mischievous imps

Little things we never see

That hide in toadstools, rocks and trees

I believe there is a world

Of unseen things as we’ve been told

With lots of different creatures there

Irksome ones, and some that care

Now I think I understand

Why Grandma told me faerieland

Was not something I had to see

But trust my heart and it could be

Although this world I cannot see

I know it is as real as me

This trust has grown throughout the years

Throughout the joy and all the tears

And things unseen have grown beyond

Faeries dancing on the lawn

To faith in God and heaven above

And giving unconditional love

for Grandma Schiffman, 1997

Things That Are Disgusting

I have decided that if there is anything gross in the world that it will happen to me. While I will spare you some of the more sordid details of my long past, I will bring you up to speed on the manifest disgust that I have had the pleasure of enduring recently.

It would be easy to just tell you to imagine the grossest things you can and then take it on faith that those things are going on at my house.

Say for instance, you imagined something as horrific as the idea of roundworm larva that live on the microscopic backs of fleas. And say for instance, that you imagined a demon-possessed kitten with the face of a miniature tiger that came to live in a house that was equipped with a dog door, and you couldn't actually keep the kitten out, but it brought these back-packing little parasites with it and shared them with All of The Dogs.

Then say for instance that the dogs, after a few months of chewing the obnoxious fleas off of their itching spots, swallowed enough with the happy little round worm larvae on their backs, that the little worm-eggs hatched out and then the dogs (and probably cat) all had round worms. And then say that the worms started crawling randomly out of your dogs anus on to the living room floor as he slept angelically. I mean just imagine that. Wriggling little white round worms on your living room floor. All around the vicinity of your dog's precious rear end.

And just imagine if the same cat who basically ruined your ENTIRE life, along with 30% of your Christmas tree ornaments which he flung wantonly off of the Christmas tree and into the waiting maws of a vengeful dachshund who got left behind on the last trip to town, imagine that this cat was also a fierce and ferocious hunter, and his favorite activity was bringing half-alive and all-the-way dead, and best of all, ripped-in-half baby rabbits and birds into your bedroom to tear apart and devour. Ripped in half, folks. Little furry halfs of baby rabbits. With fuzzy little cotton tails and hind feet. Under your dresser.

The carnage of an ornament. But slightly less gross and more photographable than anything else in my house. 

I mean, I am sure you've already heard the horror story of the people with the kittens who infected the Entire 12 Grade School with ringworm? And also the story about the poop floods at Christmas time.  Or even better the poop floods and head lice! Those things? They all happen here. All of them. And more.

All of these things are of course survivable, as is the bean soup that I fed the kids with the drowned fly in it. It's just that I thought that throwing a splash of "vintage cooking" wine (i.e. I opened it last summer and then left for fire season) in for flavor was a great idea. How was I to know there was a long-dead fly floating in the corked bottle? The internal moral debate that ensued was tumultuous. I could have thrown the whole pot out in a paranoid frenzy. Or I could calmly scoop the fly and surrounding soup out and let it boil for a very. long. time. Obviously I settled for the latter. Mostly I did it because one of my loving offspring announced to me recently that I am the only one in the house who likes soup anyway, and I have clearly been force-feeding this terrible slog to my children against their will. Who cares if it had a dead fly in it?

The good news is that nobody died from the fly-soup. The worms and the fleas have been routed (God willing!?!?!), and there hasn't been a trace of ringworm in well over a year. At least not here, which means things are getting less gross, right?