Things About Summertime

If you grew up in northern Stevens County, there's a pretty decent likelihood that you have been to the beach at Evans Campground. If you have been to the beach at Evans Campground as a young teenager, there's an even better likelihood that you have both pushed and been pushed off the dock by a peer of the opposite gender. And there is almost every chance in the world that you also swam out to the floating logs and worked tirelessly for hours to stand up on them and walk across. Lord knows I did all of those things, over and over and over and over, and I can't remember now if I ever successfully made the log crossing or not - but judging by my experience last weekend and my desperation to preserve self respect, I am gonna say I didn't.

I am 39 now. A semi-well composed adult who is capable of making good decisions and surviving Real Life with all of it's twists and turns. But even a semi-well composed 39 year old can fall prey to childish whims and nostalgic dares. I wasn't at Evans Beach last weekend, as it happens, but my 16 year old daughter was, and I can probably tell you her exact activities moment by moment. I, myself, was out at Bradbury Beach, which could be a clone of Evans except there is no adjacent campground so it's strictly a day use beach. If you didn't grow up at Evans Beach, then you were most likely at Bradbury. Bradbury is equipped with the exact same floating dock apparatus that serves functionally as a launch pad for flying teenagers and a warming center for smaller children who watch the antics of their older siblings with rapt attention. And the beach also boasts the same floating log perimeter, beckoning cruelly like a ropes-challenge siren to be mastered by the well-balanced and coordinated teenager. Or in this case, 39 year old.

I dared some of my peers to the same challenge that we aspired to more than 20 years ago. For some foolhardy reason, my peers accepted the thrown gauntlet and we waded into the frigid Lake Roosevelt murk late on a hot June evening. And then we swam.

Nobody remembers how hard swimming is until you're right in the middle of your swim and you realize that it's exactly the same distance between your point of origin and your destination, and for all of the backstrokes, breaststrokes and sidestrokes in the world, neither of those distances appear to be decreasing. It's a weird and frightening phenomenon, unless you're distracted by the numbing of your limbs. Once you figure out that the top 6 inches of lake water is a significant 20 degrees warmer than the rest, you roll over into a back float and start flutter kicking, which covers even less ground than all of the other strokes combined. While you're mid traverse in what has become a Major River Crossing of at least 10 miles, you begin to wonder to yourself if the water at the top is so much warmer because of the drifting island of middle school boys that just wafted past on a cloud of water wings and dollar store floaties. You start doing the math about how many of them would have to have peed to make the temperature difference, and whether with that much urine pooling around you would be able to smell it over the nostalgic dead fish and mud scent of the opaque river water. No matter, you can feel your limbs again so it's all good, and surprisingly, the logs are now only 5 feet away. Another hour and you'll be there for sure.

We got to the log and immediately began laughing about how funny it was that we had joked about getting up on them. The laughter ebbed away into chattering teeth as we contemplated the long swim back, pools of urine and how warm the sunshine on top of the slippery logs felt. Soon we were all bobbing and heaving like a trio of top heavy buoys, trying to mount the listless, rolling logs. It wasn't long before (being responsible and intelligent adults) we started to develop a strategy. If two of us stabilized the log, at least one could get up there and balance. We attempted stabilization at both ends of the log and in the middle, and the only thing getting any traction was the spin of the log underneath our bare arms, and torsos, and occasionally legs as we clung desperately to the bucking ponderosa. Soon a husband emerged from the water to help the screeching and squalling damsels in distress, but he turned out to be almost as useless as us girls against the 16 foot tree which was determined to have the last laugh. We fought the log for a long time. How long, I am not sure, but all of a sudden I realized that the sun had just gone behind the mountain and we were about three days from shore with an ocean of freezing water between us and no middle school boys in sight to assist our plight.

I guess you could say we gave up, although I'd like to imagine that the log was at least as tired as we were when we got back to the beach in the twilight and began comparing welts and scratches. That part I don't remember from my teenage years, or the bruises and sore muscles that emerged the next day, as if I had just done a submarine crossfit sesh with a pine tree for an instructor.

But the rolling log reminded me of hours spent as a girl, with any assortment of friends, on those logs, talking about boys and bathing suits, injustices and italian sodas, parents and plans for the future. I remember the shivering cold and the sun-warmed wood of the dock on my back. I remember dares to swim underneath and the big spiders that lurked there, and the naughty boys who would try to scare us from below in the murky water, and the ones who pushed, pulled, lifted and carried us over the edge into the water. The boys that later on maybe would be a first kiss, or a last crush, or at least shape the vast canyons of our hearts with a river of adolescent emotion.

This is summertime. I have missed so much of it in the last few years, since I am usually working - too busy to remember how important clinging to an expanse of rolling timber can be. I can only hope that my kids will have the same memories and scratches and triumphs from a split second upright... making the whole struggle worthwhile. I hope they know the unstable sanctuary of the middle of the dock, away from the edge that tempts too greatly the run-by pushes from the boys. And before the strength of their upper body, their center of balance and their recovery time changes, I hope they fight a few logs.

Things We've Overcome

It's Tuesday night and I should DEFINITELY be writing all of the newspaper stories that are due in a couple days, but I am not. I am drinking wine and pretending that I have no responsibilities. No high school play in 7 days that is a nightmare of epic proportions. No newspaper deadlines. No more every day trips to Colville or Spokane for track. No Major Reasons (such as land lord visits) to not leave my house in this perpetual state of disrepair. No softballs games, rehearsals, graduation parties, birthday parties, papers to grade, lessons to plan, leaking dishwashers, broken fences, bills to pay, dogs to govern, kids to keep alive... just me and my wine. And a snoring hound dog and a naughty dachshund clicking around in the other room looking for snacks - well, at least somebody is cleaning the kitchen floor.

Speaking of naughty dachshunds, I am pretty sure that my kid figured out how to curb the nasty habit a certain wiener dog proudly boasts of dropping a deuce in the dining room every morning. Turns out that pooping outside is HARD. The grass is either cold or wet or cold and wet, frozen, snowed over, overgrown or green, and therefore very difficult to poop in. That's what they make dining room floors for, apparently. Anyway, when we were cleaning the other day, we came across a little pile of fake poop that somebody brought home from Boo Radley's and left on my pillow. Precious. Nat had the genius idea to set the faux-poo in Dagny's sacred pooping grounds (i.e the dining room) to mess with the pea-brained dachshund. So far the dog has been totally miffed that someone else used her zone and actually went outside IN THE RAIN to poop. Ok, granted it was on the covered back porch but still, not the dining room. WINNING!!

Another lofty accomplishment today happened after school. After rehearsal. After softball practice. After a quick jaunt to Taco Tuesday when I came home to cook more tacos for Aspen. And then it hit me. The smell: B.O. The real deal. Full on, grown up, sweaty armpits, coming from my youngest offspring. It is the end of an era, folks. No more baby Aspen. She was marched directly to the shower, handed a fresh stick of deodorant with firm instructions, and thus launched into her pubescent career. To the middle school softball team at practice today: sorry mom was so slow on the uptake.

One problem that we didn't successfully solve this week was the red sharpie marks all over the kitchen walls from a remodel project that was rudely interrupted by a divorce and that are a constant reminder of best-laid plans and how they don't work out. Nat and her buddy Belli helped me paint the hallway and kitchen in an attempt to scourge the marks of failed intentions from the walls, but alas the demon red kept seeping through. The walls look better, so there's that, but I finally resorted to just hanging random things on the wall over the tell-tale henscratchings. Sometimes Band-Aids are just the way to go, folks.

Oh yeah! And the yellow iris "volunteer" that decided randomly to grow in my half barrel planter that is really just a few pieces of rotten wood leaned agains my also rotten wood porch step. I am hands down the most unsuccessful gardener that ever was, partly because I am gone all fire season, letting plants die, and partly because I just don't bother to try. But it warms my heart to see the happy yellow flower smiling defiantly in the face of utter adversity: hail storms, digging wiener dogs, giant flopping hounds, and of course, me. It stands tall and bright, promising beauty and hope in a world of falling apart, rotten wood and holes dug by a neurotic dog. I am sure it's symbolic on some level but I haven't had enough wine yet to interpret it.

All of this overcoming and finally, at 9:38 PM, I settled down on my couch and decided to catch up on season 6 of Game of Thrones. The whole reason I subscribe to HBO Now - and all of the episodes so far this season that I have been saving to binge watch. Obviously I don't need sleep to teach school. Or direct a play. Or write stories. I have faith that it will fulfill a deep seated need to find resolution since the cataclysmic end of Season 5 when I swore I was done with all of it. So here I am, hoping beyond hope that Jon Snow isn't really fully dead, yet. Maybe a Band-Aid for him, too?

Anyway, I have a lot going on right now with all of the wine and Targaryens to catch up with, so I will just leave you basking in the warm happiness of all of my successes of late. You're welcome.

Things About Time

The trouble is, you think you have it... Time, that is. These words have been attributed to Buddha but they are actually a paraphrase of something the Yachti shaman Don Juan said in Carlos Castenada's Journey to Ixtlan: 

"There is one simple thing wrong with you – you think you have plenty of time … If you don’t think your life is going to last forever, what are you waiting for? Why the hesitation to change? You don’t have time for this display, you fool. This, whatever you’re doing now, may be your last act on earth. It may very well be your last battle. There is no power which could guarantee that you are going to live one more minute."

Living in the constant reality that any moment may be your last, or that of the people around you that you love changes the whole game. We wander around like zombies, already dead to the phenomenon that we live finite lives with an absolute ending that is totally unpredictable. We walk through life rituals, many that we hate, punching the proverbial clock until it runs out. Every single day death chases a cocentric ring around my own life, circling ever closer to me as it hits families and friends that I know without warning, taking husbands, daughters, mothers, sons, wives and fathers. Best friends, cousins, aunts and uncles... Every minute the larger "We" loses another loved one and the circle tightens down a little smaller, a little closer to home. 

Even if you believe that life goes on after death - some glorious golden-streeted, angelic-chorused hall of eternal bliss - there is no escaping the fact that for those of us left behind, death means the end of relationship here, the end of seeing, touching, talking to the ones that we lose. 

We all know this, but at the same time we make decisions every day to put off  chasing the things and the ones that we love and doing the things that make us who we want to be. We avoid hardship and inconvenience and pain, we take the comfortable pathway to a paycheck, to conflict-free relationships that require as little of us as possible. And at any moment, the chance to rise to a challenge could be gone forever.

 Our grandparents lived in a time that had their mettle tested through some of the roughest turmoil that our country has ever seen, and it produced a generation greater than any in our history. They raised their children, however, with the ultimate goal of getting past hardship, glorifying convenience and comfort and enjoying the enablement of technology developed in answer to back breaking labor and time consuming menial work. Two generations later and we are technology dependent, and the worship of convenience has escalated to shocking heights. Injustice has become a hashtag, and battles  have left the trenches of foreign wars for the mud slinging campaigns of social media offenses. We lack the motivation to tackle the worst enemy of our destiny: the person in the mirror. It's easy to armchair quarterback the failing world around us than it is to be the change that we want to see in the world... We can get to that later, right? Later is a myth. 

We get the college degree of least resistance to get the job of maximum benefit to achieve the optimum number of vacation days for golf and video games. Retirement is the golden standard of success. To be able to STOP doing things we hate. But retirement is as mythical as later. Why don't we stop now? Why don't we chart a new course through some rough waters to do the things we love for the rest of our lives? The conversation of destiny and passion is all but forgotten. And to risk financial stability for the scary reality of launching into an unknown dream is relegated to Hollywood. Heck, we're so scared of failure that we don't even leave our parent's basements.  

And time goes by. Every minute is one closer to whichever end we are fated. One more opportunity to seize the day, capture the moment, has passed. I feel it keenly when my friends and family members lose loved ones suddenly. There really is no time like the present, because it's the only time that we are guaranteed. I hope that where I am in this moment is exactly where I need to be to realize exactly who I am. I was created for the purpose of loving deeply, sharing broadly and pushing limits. Even here and now in a high school classroom, watching the rain slither it's way out of a dark grey sky, I can do that, and intend to. 

Hats off to all of you, my friends, who have dared to risk greatly and win the day that you are living in. I see you and I love you for it! 

Things About Getting Old

I don't care what you say, I still like staying in hotels. There's something about the pristine white sheets that don't have filthy swirls in the foot region, gently reminding you how long it's been since you mopped your floors, or perhaps took a shower. There's something about someone else cleaning the toilet for you, and the shower, and fresh towels that don't smell suspiciously like a middle schooler used them and refolded them just to fool you. Don't tell me about the hairs you've found when you pulled back the covers, or the documentary about the glasses washed with toilet rags, or the blood stained carpets, or the fact that the comforters are never, ever washed. Don't steal my joy. Let me bask in the glory of a bedroom that isn't plagued with mountains of questionably clean laundry which apparently has no permanent resting place, or bird feathers all over the floor from Crookshank's latest love offering. Let me enjoy the rhythmic lull of the soft pounding from the room next door - kids jumping on the bed, I am sure. Let me embrace the rare privacy of knowing both locks AND the do not disturb sign are doing their cock-sure best to keep out children, animals and housekeepers.

I got to spend two glorious nights in Spokane at a hotel this week, and I am can't decide if I am mildly embarrassed or just a smidgeon proud of the fact that I went to bed before 8 PM one of those nights. It's just that the bed was so clean and big and wonderful... I couldn't even muster the fortitude to venture to the hotel basement for my two complimentary drinks during the reception hour. I must be getting old. A few years, maybe even months ago, I would have been so consumed with the  FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, ICYMI), that I could easily find myself wandering the streets of any city I was visiting to see what mischief I could find at all hours. Now, there are precious few motivators to get me out of my hotel room.

I have outgrown many impulses it would seem - spontaneous excursions, loud parties and late nights have all begun to lose their appeal for me. Instead of taking inventory of who I might run into at a party, I now take inventory of how much I actually LIKE who I might run into, and whether it's enough to rally me out of sweatpants and into public. At one point in my life it was all about being seen, getting out, and HAVING FUN. Now it's all about being well rested, and couches are really a lot of damn fun once you get to know them. I have officially become a lightweight with a 3 beer cap which occasionally gets blown with dire consequences and many days of regret. The flip side to this is that I am not succesfully functional without those three beers on any given day, but don't tempt me into more unless you'd like to assume my responsibilities for the next three days. I am old. I will be 39 in three weeks and two days. 39 seems SO. OLD.

I am not sure when a 'party' in my life began consisting of a sleeve of saltine crackers, a cube of butter and an entire season of Justified on Netflix. Something has gone terribly wrong. I began packing a chair to sporting events at some unidentifiable point in time. Next thing you know I will keep an umbrella in the car next to the safety blanket in case of spectating induced hypothermia. Maybe the first warning sign was those jeans I bought because they were comfortable. Or maybe it was when I asked for a blender for my birthday. I am not sure exactly, but it's happened so sneakily around the edges of me playing Peter Pan and pretending that I couldn't grow up that suddenly here I am: with full time work and sensible footwear.

It's too soon folks. Too soon to throw in the towel and call it quits. Too soon to quit bouncing on the hotel beds (DEAR JESUS) and much too soon to go to sleep. There's a lot of sunshine to chase, adventures to be hard-won and excitement to live through. I'm not dead yet. Only almost 39. But I think that is part of the enamorment I have with hotel rooms - I can't help but feel like a little kid pretending to be a responsible grown up with enough going on to stay in my own room. It's so fancy and sophisticated, and I know it's really just a big joke on those hotel people that they have a kid crashing in one of their large adulty beds. I suppose the intruige of not being entirely sure that I will have a successful method of payment adds to the whole experience, but...

Things That Are GREAT

It's almost like God shrink wrapped this week in pink cellophane with a whole bunch of curly ribbon and handed it to me like an early birthday present. And it's only Monday. Usually by 11:21 on Monday morning I am having a recurrent discussion with The Diety about when I will quit suffering the consequences of poor life choices every.single.day. But it's Monday morning, and things are looking UP this week.

For starters, I came home yesterday after a long day with a good friend and Aspen had CLEANED HER ROOM. Voluntarily. Without Instruction. Or reminders. All the way. Clean. To the point that there is identifiable CARPET visible! Holy cow! By herself! All these years and I thought she was developmentally delayed in organizational functions. Turns out, she's totally capable. This knowledge will probably not serve her well in the future, but I couldn't be happier. I am not even gonna mention the collection of questionable items peeking out from under the bunk beds. Or her bed making skills. I am super impressed. Of course Natalee is mildly disgruntled that I am not as ecstatic over her clean room because, well, it's old news. But seriously, super proud of you, Nat. And Aspen - I am still reeling.

And then it dawned on me after I showed up for school and the teacher's meeting that I usually sit through feeling TOTALLY lost got cancelled AND Mrs. Wilson had come back for a weeklong cameo appearance to teach sex ed in 9th grade health, so I was off the hook for first period! I think she had a twinge of guilt asking a substitute (who, incidentally, was homeschooled for all 12 school years) teach sex ed. Drugs and alcohol was enough of a stretch when I realized that my students knew more about the subject than I did. Don't worry, parents, I enlisted one of my cop buddies to bail me out of that awkwardness.

So all in all, my week is looking pretty up. I get to play hooky from school for two days for some fire training stuff, which is always fun. Sort of. But lest you think I live a charmed life, I just spent half of my lunch break trying to open the straw for my sack of milk. Did you know that school milk comes in sacks now? Yeah, and like a Capri Sun, you stab a little straw into the plastic and hope for the least amount of spray back possible. That's assuming you can get the straw out of the cellophane wrapper. School lunches FTW! I am unsuccessful enough in these endeavors that I mostly undertake them in my classroom when no one is looking except that one weird kid that likes to come in and talk to me as a cover for snitching his computer to play games on during lunch break. I think he was too preoccupied with The Dinosaur Game to notice the milk that I accidentally squirted all over my lap. Hey guys, I didn't choose the thug life...

So here's to a golden week of slightly fewer stresses than normal and a couple of lucky breaks. Including FINALLY having the school stage relinquished to me from the archery classes so we can spend the last two weeks of rehearsal for the school production actually being productive. HAHAHHAHAAHAHA. Or whatever. Hey man, I have a handful of teenagers spewing Shakespeare. I'm calling it a win.

Things About Morel/Moral Hunting

Last weekend I went morel hunting with one of my besties. Mostly it was a good excuse to get out into the hills on 4 wheelers and I was really not much help since I barely even knew what a morel looked like. But I learned a lot on that perfectly warm Sunday afternoon about morels and morals and mountains and why good excuses and good friends are so important.

It had been awhile since I had spent much quality time with this particular friend, since her life had been thrown into crisis mode with more than one very sick family member shortly after she had surgery on her foot. Finally, everyone was back home, most of them on the road to recovery, and she was fully ambulatory. We were overdue for a frolic in the woods, no question.

Both of us being EMTs, we were, of course, prepared for any misadventure. Equipped with the appropriate 'hydration' apparatus, our guns, proper footwear and adequate sunblock, we tore off through the forest in the late spring heat. The summertime dust hadn't found it's way through the April shower-soaked earth yet, so it was the perfect touch of wind and sun on our faces without choking clouds of moon powder.  It's hard to overstate the power of a wordless conversation between friends on a back road over the noise of a four stroke engine. Sometimes there just aren't enough words, or the right words, to cover all of the Bad Things that can happen over the course of a month or two.

Not that we didn't talk. Of course we did. We got off the bikes and hiked up around a big fancy solar powered surveillance set-up of some kind that Homeland Security runs up on top of the mountain. We solved all of the world's problems from the very tip-top of our little corner of it. We talked about missing out and messing up and when you know that you've made the Right Choices, if you ever do. And then we dropped into the deep, dark recesses of creek beds and shady enclaves where morels most certainly waited for us.

I have always believed that everything happens for a reason. The good things, the bad things - there's a moral to every story, an intention behind every action and a cause for every effect. But I think sometimes finding the moral in a story is almost as hard as finding a morel in a forest. Sometimes the bloodsucking pests are in the way, sometimes they're covered with overgrown foliage and sometimes, you just don't see them. My friend, the experienced morel hunter, rode right past a bumper patch that somehow caught my eye. And that's what friends are for. Helping you see the morels in your forests or the morals of your stories. Helping you make sense of the senseless things and make sure the effort does not go without reward.

Turns out it was more mosquitos than morels waiting, but we did find a few mushrooms. I've decided that per capita, the ratio of morels to mosquitos in any given area is about 1/712. Each tender fungal delight cost us approximately 17 mosquito bites. Of course, both of us being EMTs and ready for anything, we had plenty of repellent with us. Oh wait: no. Not a drop of DEET to be seen for miles. Not that anything was visible through the cloud of Cessna sized pests that followed us like a superhero cape flying off the back of our four wheelers. Being a clever and ingenuitive kid, I dug though the first aid kit and came up with a packet of BioFreeze which we slathered all over our bare arms. Interestingly enough, mosquitos don't like the icy-hot burn of muscle gel and actually buzzed off until the menthol vapor had disappated. Life hack, FTW.

But it was worth it. Eventually we outran the bugs and got back to the business of Fixing Life and divvying up mushrooms. It occurs to me that there is no perfection quite like a sunshiney warm day with a good friend and no place important to be, except right where you are. In the cloud of mosquitos or on top of the mountain. To smell the season-wakened poplars and the rain that's rolling in off the clouds to the north, without any demands or requirements - this might be heaven. To follow the tracks of the wild things, sit in the old clearings of our great-grandparent homesteaders which have given way to nesting elk and rustling snakes, I can think of no greater privilege than to live in this unhurried, unviolated space with some of the greatest people I have ever met who are helping me find my morels and my morals- this is wealth in it's richest form.

Things That I Deal With

My house.

It's where all the cute, innocent baby bunnies of the world come to die. 

Like it's not enough that I've been relegated to teach 9th grade health class. Or that I single handedly provide a breeding ground for every pestilence known to man, or that I adopted a dog who claims the world record in more hair shed than retained in a 24 hour period... but must the bunnies all die here as well?

And it's not like I provide them with peaceful, humane exits from this world of suffering. No. Nope - Violent, horrific deaths full of terror and predatory nightmares.

The first three were tiny newborns that The Cat (Crookshanks) delivered to me in the kitchen: live, squealing trophies of his hunting prowess that I quickly confiscated and tried to resuscitate, to no avail. And then a few months later, The Cat brought me segments of what was probably one of the surviving siblings of the earlier victims of his serial murders. Segments. Cleanly separated, freshly dead, segments. Served to me somewhat reluctantly from Crookshank's favorite eating spot, under my bed. My own, serene, once unviolated bed. First it was the back half. Waking up to the smacking, tearing, pleased with himself growl of a contented feline, I groped under the bed until I found the carnage. The crime scene was relocated outside, only to be recreated later when The Cat returned with the front half of the dead rabbit. You know, all ears and cute little nose, with dead glassy eyes, perfectly chopped off just behind the front legs. Once again I did a gruesome recovery operation, and tossed the entire quivering package, cat and rabbit front end altogether, outside.

You'd think that was enough, you know? Like really? Aren't you over it now, Crookshanks? The rite of passage has been accomplished! Not really, I guess, since I woke up the next morning to just the decapitated head of the poor beast. In my living room. On the floor. Still dead.

For these reasons, the long-operating dog door was put out of commission and we began the new adventure of trying to potty train a stubborn dachshund who had always had open reign between house and yard. As if.

I guess after a few months Crookshanks got the hint that I wasn't impressed with his love offerings, and I guess he was unimpressed with the 140 lb bloodhound that moved in and loved nothing more than to chase him around the house. Anyway, The Cat quit brining dead things in, which I appreciate. To his credit, he also trained the bloodhound to quit chasing him by stopping dead in his run and turning to rub all over Frank's legs, which confounded the giant hound to no end. Frank had to go outside to run off some of his anxiety from being fondled by a cat.

A few days ago, a new baby bunny appeared, hopping around Nattie's rabbit barn, reaping all of the sloppy benefits of tame, show-quality bunnies arrogantly flipping the food out of their cages. I would assume that the new grey bunny was somehow related to the murdered litter from earlier this year, all offspring of the rabbits that our Beloved Neighbors across the way turned loose when they got tired of feeding them. But it was cute. And maybe even a survivable age - and more importantly, Crookshanks didn't seem too interested in working that hard for a few slices of fricassee. So the grey bunny frolicked merrily around the rabbit shed for several days, nibbling grass and taunting the dogs who were much too slow.

And then one night, through my open window, I heard the screams. All too familiar with rabbit screams, I got up three different times in the after-midnight darkness to try to find him, but no luck. I thought maybe Frank finally got stealthy enough, or Crookshanks got motivated for a minute... but something was going terribly wrong for the little grey bunny. I couldn't find him, or Frank, or Crookshanks. The screaming finally stopped and I fell asleep to dreams of gore-encrusted bloodhound lips and rabbit heads on my pillow. But the next morning there was no sign of foul play, and no sign of the rabbit.

Today I went out to fill up the water in the back yard and I found him. He had tried to squeeze through the wire fence and gotten stuck by his hips. He was intact, seemed unharmed. Probably died of fright. Just hung up in my stupid fence. There wasn't a scratch on him, just terror stricken, dead rabbit eyes. I had to tug him free and relocate him to a more appropriate decomposing place. Moving dead furry things ranks right up there with my least favorite activities ever, BTW. Isn't that what boys are for? Oh yeah, right.

So, here I am, in the rabbit house of horror. And it's not like I've ever gotten a good stew or a furry pair of slippers out of the deal. Makes me mad. There's just no justice in the world.

one of Nattie's (don't worry, no bunnies were harmed in the making of this photo)

Note: all of Nattie's baby bunnies are safe and snug in their hutches. Although she announced to me a couple days ago that she has two with "special needs". Good thing we have experience there... 

Things About Getting In Trouble

I got pulled over today.

Yes, I was speeding. Again.

Yes. I deserved a ticket.

Yes, it was the Washington State Patrol and none of my buddies from the county who could give me a scolding, tell me about the latest batch of chocolate peanut butter stout they're brewing at home and send me on my way.

No, he didn't write me a ticket.

I am not sure why. Maybe it was my winning smile. Maybe it was the genuine nature of my polite apology for blowing by him at 130% of the posted speed limit. Maybe it was that he had already filled his quota. I am not sure, but he let me off.

Given that the trooper made more than one reference to the stickers on the back of my car, I am suspicious that they had something to do with his leniency. Although I am not sure if it was the beer stickers, the Avett stickers, or the Humanizing the Badge #weseeyou on my bumper that did the trick.

As I handed the cop my license and registration, I also let him know that I have a concealed weapons permit and that I have a gun in the car. He remarked that he assumed as much based on my stickers. I puzzled over whether it was Rogue Brewing or the Cascades National Park decal that gave away my weapons propensity. Then he asked me for my proof of insurance and what I carry. I told him a Glock, a G42, as I frantically tore through All Of The Secret Compartments in my car and every wallet lying around looking for an insurance card. Either feeling bad for my obvious frenzy or keenly interested in avoiding writing a citation, the officer began helping me thumb through the cascade of useless receipts and papers from my glove box. "That's funny, I would have figured you'd have a Ruger, based on your stickers." he remarked casually, after suggesting I try to pull a digital version of the card up on my phone. "Oh yeah, no service here." he shook his head ruefully. I was muttering some lame excuse about giving all of my printed copies of the insurance cards to the teenagers on my policy, while wondering if being pegged for a Ruger person was a compliment or an insult. Knowing virtually NOTHING about most guns, I smiled politely and shook my head.

-SIDE NOTE- why is it ALWAYS later, driving away, or lying awake at night, hours later, that I think of the Funniest and Most Witty Things To Say, and never at the appropriate moment? Seriously. -END SIDE NOTE-

It's kind of a relief to hear from an objective source that the stickers on my car don't scream greenpeace or immediately label me as a Trustafarian Hipster. I mean it's NOT like it's a Subaru, after all. But it's also not like I have an NRA membership sticker and a rebel flag, so I am curious now about what my stickers really do say to the average tailgater.

After what seemed like 6 hours of searching, the dedicated trooper found my insurance card for me, filed carefully with the instruction manual for my 2006 Toyota Sequoia. I was relieved, both because the cop was a handsome fella that had me all flustered and because I was having visions of court dates to provide proof of insurance and explain why I was trying to beat sound waves to Colville. I also felt a little bit bad that he was about to offer to follow me into cell phone range to call my insurance company. He then commented on the giant crack running across the breadth of my windshield and how I should look into getting it fixed, and I realized he was letting me off. I was surprised enough that I am not sure I even said thank you.

I've gotten my share of speeding tickets. I've deserved them. The last time I got pulled over, on the same road, probably going the same speed, my bestie in the back seat was high on pain meds after surgery and offered to flash the officer if he would forgo a ticket. Turns out they don't always go for that and it didn't work. I could have gotten another one today, but I got lucky. I wouldn't have been mad at the officer if I got written up, but I will say I was a little disappointed in myself for taking his time when he probably could have been doing something more important... although maybe giving a humbling reminder to a careless driver like me is as much protecting and serving as a State Trooper can get to on a sunny Monday afternoon in the middle of nowhere.

It reminded me how thankful I am that we have these men and women out here, doing their thing - the Thin Blue Line between us and chaos - protecting and serving whether we deserve it or not because they believe in a greater good - a higher order of peace and safety. It made me thankful that they're human and give us breaks sometimes, and that they hold us accountable too. Would I be as grateful for this particular State Trooper if he had written me up a citation for 15 over the speed limit AND almost failure to produce insurance AND reckless driving with a busted windshield? I'd like to think I am mature and reflective enough to say yes, but I am also a human on a tight budget and (as evidenced by my driving) no time to spare, so maybe I would have grumbled a little, but grumbled thankfully.

But maybe he knew that I needed a little break. I needed a little #weseeyou back at me - that while I need to slow down, I'm not a terrible person and can be treated like I am important enough to help rifle though a glove box and get-out-of-jail-free, just this once, maybe. He made my day. Really. And that's saying something since I got to hang out in the sunshine and watch track meets and softball games and spend time with the people I love.

Oh yeah, and he was handsome.

To the Trooper that I was too nervous to even get the name of: Thanks. #weseeyou

Things About A Great Man

I met Pop Bob when I moved into Northport. I was leaving behind a lot of baggage, including a broken marriage and a lot of damaged relationships. Only 7 miles behind, but it was behind me. I was starting a new life in the tiny town, working at the hardware store and figuring out what life was all about, with a fresh-faced new boyfriend sporting a chew in his lip and a herd of tiny girls.

I remember Bob leaning on the counter at Northport Hardware and asking me questions. Not light, fluffy, nice grandpa questions, but hard questions, about where we were headed next, how we were gonna do it, and just life. Bob knew how to cut to the chase in a conversation but still make you feel like you were talking about the weather when the topics were actually life altering. The smile behind his eyes remained through the toughest conversations and the unspoken understanding that he offered. The best thing about Bob, though, was that in the end of every conversation, he had a way. A way to fix the worst problems. Not with tools and books and recommendations, but with a worldview. An outlook on life: nothing was too big to overcome, and there's always a way.

There isn't a kid who has grown up in Northport in the last 20 years that couldn't learn the value of a good rake, a working lawn mower, a happy dog, fishing or family from Bob Long. Cruising around town from the wee hours of the morning in his little blue pickup, Bob was an icon of community spirit and removing everybody's excuse for not being a decent human being.

Bob was born in Red Lodge Montana on November 8th, 1932. In 1951 he graduated from Red Lodge High School, and a year later married the love of his life Connie Babcock. They had five children while Bob worked as a rancher and in the oil industry for the next couple of decades. In 1970, they relocated to Washington State, where they lived in Colville, while he worked at Vaagen Brothers Lumber. Two years later moved his family to Northport and worked for a limestone company, before he returned to Montana to work  for Carbon County.

After a brief time back in Montana, Bob retired in 1995 and he and Connie moved back to Northport, where they have lived for over 20 years, surrounded by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Beyond a pillar in the community, Bob was a dedicated member of his church wherever he went, and perhaps an even more devoted believer in the power of a good day fishing. After raising his own children, Bob continued to pour into the generations following, taking his grandchildren under his wing and mentoring many local young people in the pathway of community service and hard work that were Bob's mainstay.

Pop Bob and Herc

Delivering meals, maintaining yards and running errands for elderly shut-ins around town were only a handful of the mountains of work that Bob did to care-take his town. In the words of his pastor: "If anyone could earn their way into heaven by good works, it was Bob Long." When he wasn’t serving his neighbors, you could find Bob down by his beloved river with a fishing pole in his hand and his big golden retriever Hercules by his side.

On March 26th, Bob passed away unexpectedly surrounded by his large family and community. More than a father and grandfather, Bob was a friend to generations of people in both Montana and Washington, and they overwhelmed the high school gymnasium in Northport at his memorial on April 23rd in testimony to his great heart.

Men like Pop Bob are few and far between, with that gap ever widening as the generations that understand the importance of moral integrity, honesty and kindness seem to be fading. But Bob diligently passed along these values to the ones that would listen, that would take the time to go down to the river and fish, or drop off dinner for a lonely neighbor. If you had the time for Bob, he had the way for you. Often it was the things that Bob knew he didn't need to say that had the most effect.  A knowing look, with those smiling eyes and it was like Bob was highlighting the path that you already knew. Countless family members, neighbors, church friends have all told me that Bob was one of their closest friends, because that's how Bob lived: making the person he was with the most important one in the world. He could communicate worlds with the shake of his head and the twinkle in his eye.

When I met Bob Long, he reminded me that there are good people in the world. He taught me that being humble and kind were far better than being bitter and frozen. And that bad things are exactly what you make out of them - a chance to learn and grow and be a better person. Obstacles and struggles aren't the end of the world - you just have to find a way around them, and there's always a way.

Things That Aren't Even Things

Ok, so here I go waxing all political which I keep swearing I will not do again, and will certainly live to regret, but I have to get this off my chest: All of this transgender/gender neutral bathroom garbage is a non issue. It's an excuse to vent prejudices and propaganda from camps on both sides of the gender identity issue line, and it's nothing but a lot of hot air, distracting from all the Real Issues in this crazy mixed up world. So here I am, adding my voice to the clamoring din, trying to make it stop.

Let me tell you why this whole conversation is an exercise in vanity:

1) You won't know when a transgender person is sharing your bathroom, because DUH, they look like you. This is where a lot of ignorance comes to play in this issue, because apparently when people hear transgender they think drag queen and assume she-men will be sneaking into the stalls of innocent young girls. Wrong. There will be women in the women's room and men in the men's room, and unless some of y'all want to be the genital checking police (which STILL won't guarantee biologically assigned gender identification), you won't even know when you bump into each other going in and out the door. Unless you spend your entire life in Northport, Washington, I guarantee that you have peed next to a transgender person and not only did you survive, Y'ALL DIDNT EVEN KNOW.

2) In many places in All Over the Globe, bathrooms are shared/gender neutral. Human beings (boys and girls both) have been taking care of business in side by side, gender neutral fashion world wide since the first latrines were dug in the Garden of Eden. We do it all the time, 'Merica. Get real. Also: Why are you looking? EW. Really, the only place this seems to be a problem is at Target. Or Walmart, but I can think of far scarier people sharing my bathroom there.

3) Guarding gender specific bathroom rules like flipping nazis won't keep perverts and rapists out of ANYBODY'S stall any more than gun laws will keep guns out of criminal's hands. How can you possibly not see this argument that you are so keenly fond of? BAD GUYS DON'T FOLLOW RULES. Don't be dumb.

4) Do you really want a man, full on, bearded, muscular and swarthy, coming to pee next to your little girl, just because he was BORN A WOMAN? Think about what you're demanding. Furthermore do you want a woman in a micro mini skirt waltzing in to the men's room because she was once a boy? Is that somehow a solution? And again: HOW WILL YOU KNOW? GENITAL POLICE?!?!?!?!?

5) This is an issue in our schools because of A) ignorance based fear fed by parents and B) kids who grow up together witness the TRANSformation from one gender to another, which can be understandably confusing and certainly uncomfortable. High school is a rough enough time for every kid coming into their own, and transgender kids have an extra shitty experience figuring out how and where they fit. Locker rooms and bathrooms at school represent the crux of that process for many kids, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identification, or any other part of Becoming A Person. Why are we, as adults, trying to make it harder? It's like the fearmongers are all romanticizing the locker room experience when it used to be so friendly and kind... I was homeschooled but I still don't buy it. Why would it be so difficult to create a safe space? Whether you agree, disagree, support, condemn or feel Appointed By God to Call Down a Hellstorm of Judgement on transgender people, I think most of us can be thankful that YOU don't get to decide anybody's life but your own. So bug off.

6) This entire argument is mostly between people who don't know the difference between gay/transgender/cross-dressing and the people who really despise the people who don't know the difference between gay/transgender/cross-dressing. All y'all got your silly little drums to beat. Go use the bathroom you want to use and shut up about it. Again, NON-ISSUE.

7) If you continue to make Rules About Bathrooms, you should probably consider making gay people use the bathroom of the opposite sex, to avoid all those lustful restroom interludes where somebody who might be attracted to you in IN THE SAME BATHROOM! *GASP* So, all you lesbians, regardless of your girly status, don't put me or my daughters at risk by sharing our bathroom. And all y'all gay guys, trip on over to the ladies room so you aren't molesting the straight boys at the urinal... NONSENSE

8) Or what if we all just got over ourselves and our shame and our opinions and just let everybody else pee in peace. #yoursmineours #bewhoyouare LOVE>HATE

NOTE: For a brief and candid look at the history of gender specific bathrooms, check out : This Blog Post

Things That Are Fascinating

This morning a 9th grader, who seemed possessed with the imperative need to be on his computer before school started, was relating to me his new plan to develop atom transforming technology that can genetically modify cows, lakes, and heck, whole planets. He apparently had to get online to start researching the project. And play a video game or two. It will never cease to amaze me how some kids have endless creativity to either avoid work or circumvent rules, but when asked to apply the blossoming mind to actual academic pursuits, they are devoid of any artful thought or even basic brain function. Far be it from me to judge, the Master of All Math Avoidance. Heck, I guessed my way through a math exam to test out of all of future required classes in college and I lucked out. So here's to putting that developing brain to work, even if it frustrates the hell out of me during every period of the school day.

Yesterday I was informed by a senior that finishing her FASFA online was far more important than doing yoga in my PE class. Generally I would agree, except that I distinctly remember my high school senior last year doing her FASFA at home on her own time (check that - I think I actually did it for her), and if by 'doing yoga' she means getting that required PE credit in alternative fitness in order to graduate, then.... Perhaps we should reevaluate the statement. But again, A+ for creativity in Yoga Avoidance (yes it's so hard) and also, disrespect. Kids these days. Once again I cannot complain or judge as I recall a certain 17 year old all but cussing me out in front of a math class last year - a 17 year old that I had raised.

There is a difference though, in this generation of egalitarian youth who truly believe they are untouchable thanks to an overprotective, attachment-parenting society. My own daughter got school and social officials involved down in Oregon when she told her teachers that I would not provide her with lunch. The REAL story is that she spent all of the lunch money on her school account on treats and gatorades at the school snack bar and when I realized her account was empty I told her she could pack peanut butter sandwiches from home. Instead, she told her friends and teachers that I refused to feed her and her boyfriend's mom started sending lunches for her. Then the school counselor called me. We were tottering on the brink of a full-scale social services investigation, and the child that clearly needed a spanking had tied my hands completely. Thankfully that kid turned out ok and I think she's even seen the folly of her ways back then... We're a few syllables short of a full blown apology, But that's ok.

How to raise a child is a book that has never, and will never, be truthfully written, because there is no way to encapsulate the behavior of all children into one formula. Parents and educators and psychologists alike continue to chase the pink elephant of a one-size fits all approach to kids, and until we get the science of human cloning down, they'll be out of luck. I raised four daughters with slight variations of the same parenting style, evolving over time. Although each one will tell you they got a rawer deal than the next one, I have been the same mother - over emotional too often, angry sometimes, not nearly as sympathetic or affectionate as I should be - to all four of them. Their personalities, behaviors, flaws and strengths could not be more diverse if they had been raised on seperate continents. But the same creative genius for getting their way flows straight from my genetic makeup through them...

And then there is the 11th grade redneck kid who comes into my classroom every day during my prep period to sharpen his pencil for art class, trying to sneak so I can't see him. Sometimes he is tiptoeing silently behind my back. Sometimes he is plastered to the wall like a chameleon lizard, snaking his way to the pencil sharpener. Today he was slithering on the floor under the tables. The clonking of his cowboy boots on metal and the bright red stripes of his Garth Brooksian western shirt gave him away before he had entirely breached the door frame. I don't have him in any of my classes this term, but he is still hell bent on entertaining me whenever possible, and quite imaginatively. There are a few good ones left.

There is no limit to the human imagination but what age and social dignity call for. Luckily, some of us never find our behavior dictated by these norms, but live in our Peter Pan world - continually seeking out new ways to avoid the things we hate and attain the things we love in unorthodox and often impractical ways - if my four girls are consistent in anything it is this. I have succesfully taught them to believe that boundaries are the places that we learn to grow, to think critically and invent the rest of our story. In return, they have taught me the same thing. All of the most Impossible Things are done because they must be, limits be damned. And for what it's worth, I would consider that a win.

Things That Aren't Funny

Teaching school has done wonders for my sense of humor - in that it's pretty much completely obliterated. Things that I used to be able to find the funny in have lost all of their comedy.

This includes but is not limited to 9th grade health students with VERY QUESTIONABLE personal hygiene habits giving me sneak attack wet willies from behind. The old Liv would have laughed it off and made a snide remark. But 'Ms. Stecker' quickly explained to said freshman the legal definitition of battery (thanks to a study session with a BLEA recruit).

Once upon a time I could find the humor in coming home to an epic dog accident spread wall to wall in my 6x10 foot bathroom. Or finding dog hair a foot deep between cushions of the couch EVERY SINGLE DAY when I vaccuum. Or that my daughter now considers herself a "plunger ninja" - a title of great accord and importance in our flood-prone home. It used to be funny to me, all the little things. Not so much lately.

Not Funny. 

Also not funny is a renegade, 140 pound bloodhound hanging out with the state DOT road crew on the Columbia River Bridge. Or at the logging shop up the road. Or at the overprotective neighbors with three tiny children for hours on end. Or at the bar. Or at the school where I work. Or anywhere OTHER than the fence that I keep piling, twisting, pounding, digging and hiring teenagers to fix.

Riding with my 16 year old as she learns to drive, adventures in whiplash style, isn't funny to me. I haven't replaced the white knuckle fear for my life with hilarious anecdotes about will planning and why letting my teenagers learn to drive in different states AFTER they were out of the house is a much better idea.

Also Not Funny

Least funny of all is a 12 year old gagging over a bowl of delicious homemade pineapple curry which I felt represented a turning point in my 15 month hiatus from cooking anything interesting due to the aforementioned child's lack of culinary adventurism.

A few years ago, the antics of highschoolers in a classroom setting would have given me ample fuel for hilarious storytelling. Now I go home from alternative fitness without finding the humor in kids walking with their hoods up in 80 degree weather to hide the earbuds that have been clearly outlawed, or jumping in frigid river water on a $1 dare behind my back. Not funny you guys. Also not cool.

Ok. A little bit funny. 

I have turned into a fuddy-duddy. A stooge. A stick-in-the-mud. A geeze, as my mom and aunt would say in fond reference to the unamused old-man status of my dad and uncle. I don't laugh enough. I am not sure if I remember how. And while I blame the kids, I know that the problem rests with me. The funny is still there - the ridiculousness of every day life surrounded by adolescing idiots. I just forgot how to dig it up.

Things About Busting Out

Sometimes I can feel the four walls of the choices I have made closing in around me like the trash compactor in A New Hope (If you don't get that reference, I have nothing but sympathy and suggestions for recovering you childhood for you). I am fantastically busy - so much so that the idea of adding one more activity to the list borders on tear-jerking. The trouble is that I find myself drowning in everybody else's business. This is not the business of me. This is the business of the people that I owe money to, the friends in need, the children I am raising - the choices I have made - closing in, all around me.

I can find The Joy in the things every day that I Must Do, but secretly, in my heart, I long for The Joy to find me. To seek me out. To pursue me relentlessly like a puppy who needs my involvement Right This Second. I can make the best of things, see the cup half full, bloom where I am planted and all of that jazz - I am a pro - really, I am. But I ache to wake up, once again overcome by happiness, and the knowledge that I am known. I am doing my OWN business. It's about me. It hasn't been the season for that lately - there's just been too much outside of me that needed tending, so the weeds have taken over my internal garden in the same fashion that they would a real garden if I ever tried to have one.

But the sun is out, and my dormant soul is pushing back against the walls of obligation and duty. So much so that I just Googled airfare prices for next week to three different continents, then map-quested a semi-reasonable road trip that I could actually manage. I need to fly. I've been feeling it for a couple of weeks. Maybe longer, but it was quiet until recently and I could ignore it. Not any more. I am restless and frustrated, and I need the open road to remember me and all of our good times. I need to remind the springtime that I am more than the sum of my many children and jobs and commitments. More than a teacher, a waitress, a mother, a chauffeur - I am a Wildling trapped in an SUV and a rental agreement. I stare out the window of my classroom some moments and feel my breath come short and shallow, as if the air has been cut off completely by the finger-smudged glass.

Maybe I don't have somebody to ride shotgun for - maybe alone is better anyway. Maybe I am discontent - but if nobody was ever discontent, I feel like we'd still be grunting at each other over our gourdfuls of seeds and berries, and waxing philosophical about how the idea of a wheel isn't very practical really. All that traveling. A little bit of restless is what it takes to get over the mountains, and I am grateful that my restless isn't dead yet.

It's time to break this 100 mile radius that I have circled for months on end. It's time to cross state lines, bend the rules and make up my story as I go, choosing to tell only The Ones I please when I am done. It is time to expand my heart again, to take in more than this tiny little town and all of the hurts and aches and struggles that the winter has fed it. I know that out there The Joy is waiting. It's calling for me to come and play. The air smells different in Montana. In Oregon. In Idaho. Along the highway. Maybe I won't hit Mexico, but I can get started. Wait for me, Someplace, I am coming...

Chief Mountain, Glacier National Park