Tuesday Craziness

Another crazy Tuesday. Random stuff pinging around in my head today:

• We're supposed to have some new furniture delivered today. 
• I need to get in a 3 mile run at lunch.
• Work is crazy busy.
• I have The Drive to Houston in front of me tonight, with the prospect of looking at a solid week and a half down there (weekend work is not out of the question right now). I'm trying not to feel too guilty about it - a few days doesn't bother me too much, but when I start looking at being away from the fam over the weekend, I get a little sad.
• I stayed up too late reading a new book last night (Joshua Ferris, The Unnamed), and I managed to pull a back muscle hauling a mattress upstairs a few days ago, so I'm a wee bit grumpy.
• On the plus side, my morning caffeine was perfect this morning. Diet Coke is my morning "coffee", and this morning it seems to have sat in the freezer for just long enough, 'cause it had that nice frozen slushy stuff on top. 
• Even better, I have some new music to listen to on the way to Houston tonight. I had a friend recently recommend Leonard Cohen's music, and after seeing several references this week to his music, I decided the universe is trying to send me a message. I can't believe that I am completely unfamiliar with his work, but I only vaguely recognized one song when I was perusing his albums. So I downloaded a Live in London album and plan on enjoying that on the drive.
• It's going to be a good day.

One Morning at a Time

This morning contained the expected craziness that comes after a long holiday. Our family took all of last week off, including the kiddos, so our school/work morning routine was a bit rusty. My boy had no trouble remembering his tasks in the morning and took care of everything quickly. My girl is always more of a challenge and is going through a whiny stage as an extra special bonus - fabulous.

As I was packing the boy's lunch (which was more fun than usual since we didn't have a chance to go to the grocery store this weekend - you want leftover mashed potatoes and gravy for lunch? Fine by me...), the girl started whining about getting a smaller breakfast than the boy. The girl gets breakfast at school an hour after she gets there, so I don't feel bad only giving her one waffle while he gets two. The boy has to make it all the way to lunch, so he needs a few more calories in his stomach. Of course, she feels slighted when anything between the two of them is the least bit uneven. I once again explained to her why her breakfast was smaller, and told her that next year, when she is in kindergarten, she'll get a larger breakfast too. As I said that, it occurred to me that I'll be packing two lunches, and wrestling with two different palates, every school morning for the next several years. While time generally goes too fast for my taste, the sudden thought of the thousands of lunches I'll be packing and the mini battles I'll be fighting just made me feel tired.

I fell back on some wonderful advice I received at one of my baby showers - nothing lasts forever. Every stage,every phase, will eventually pass and will be forgotten (at least until you hear another parent talking about going through the same thing!). That advice got me through some rough times when they were infants, and it helped this morning, too. Eventually, we will run out of mornings where I need to fix lunches; until then, I only have to focus on (and  try to enjoy) one morning at a time, and not worry about the many mornings that are hopefully in front of me. We got through this morning just fine, the kiddos were happy when I dropped them off, and they were poised for good days at school. That's really all that matters. And the boy was looking forward to a lunch of mashed potatoes and gravy - I'm just glad he likes leftovers...

Long Run Sunday

Update: 8 miles, done. 11:31 pace, total time of 1:32:00. That's actually faster than last week's 6 miler, which was an 11:45 pace. I'm gonna feel that one tomorrow (and the day after, most likely). Off to find some coffee...
*****
Trying to get myself psyched up for my scheduled 8 mile run this morning. It's 31 degrees out, and the last thing I want to do is leave the house. But I'm guessing if I don't get out and get it done this morning, it won't happen today. Sigh. Time to bundle up and get moving - at least it's not raining, right?

100 Miles from Memphis

One of the stories that came back from the Vegas boys' trip several weeks ago had to do with Sheryl Crow - or rather, Sheryl Crow's doppelganger.  According to J, the look-alike and her entourage were wandering Vegas casinos, trying to convince people to "hang out" (whatever that meant) with Sheryl Crow. When the group approached J at a blackjack table, he called BS and asked them about Crow's hometown of Kennett, located in the bootheel of Missouri. Well, actually, he forgot the name of Kennett and asked about Sikeston, a town about an hour from there, but that didn't matter - the blank looks he got told him everything he needed to know. He did say the doppelganger looked enough like Sheryl to make him do a double take, but the Canadian accent pretty much sealed the deal. A little while later, he saw the entourage getting into an elevator with several college-age looking boys, who apparently expected to get to meet Sheryl Crow. Good luck with that, boys.

******

J was familiar with the small southeastern Missouri towns because I have a great deal of family in that area. A large number of my family members live in Kennett, a town with a population of less than 11,000. The bootheel is home to some fantastic farmland, a lot of flatness, wonderful people, and some of the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen (with northeastern Arkansas possibly the only exception). One of my parents grew up in Kennett, many aunts, uncles, cousins, and other assorted relatives live or lived there while they were alive, the graveyards there have familiar family names, and the town is still alive with memories for my family.

Driving through downtown Kennett is very much like stepping back in time - the storefronts are dusty, the lettering is outdated, and the world has very much moved on from this area. We were on our way to St. Louis several months ago and stopped at a restaurant along the main drag for lunch. We were the obvious outsiders; everyone else exchanged greetings and handshakes as they came and went, with a lot of generational mingling. It very much had a small town feel, reminding you that there are still towns where no one is a stranger. At the same time, this small town in rural Missouri is home to a Grammy winning musician, and unless I'm mistaken I have an aunt who sings (or at least sang) with her in the church choir. Sometimes the world feels very small.

******

The first time I remember hearing Sheryl Crow on the radio, I was early  in my college years. I was driving from Fayetteville to Little Rock, down Highway 71, just south of Drake Field (used to be "The Airport" but XNA has taken over that role now) when the song "All I Wanna Do" came on the radio. It's rare for me to remember a detail like that. J can remember almost every movie he's ever seen, what year it was, what grade he was in, what theater he was in, strange details like that. He's sort of freaky sometimes; me, not so much. For whatever reason, though, I clearly remember rolling down the windows, cranking up the radio in my old Civic, and loving that song.

******

As I was running my three miler this morning, I listened to Crow's new album "100 Miles from Memphis." My brother-in-law recommended this album several weeks ago, and I finally remembered to download it last night. I queued it up in my Shuffle today to help my run, and while it doesn't contain the best rhythms for running fast, it was terrific for mind wandering. The album reminded me of several artists as I made my way through the songs - Tony Joe White (musician out of Louisiana, wrote "Rainy Night in Georgia"), Janis Joplin, some Elvis, and maybe a little Cash here and there. The rhythms and bluesy sounds reminded me of the many summertime family reunions I dearly loved when I was growing up. The feel of the album reminded me of these extended family members, where I came from, and the different places that I call "home" in this world. Even though I've never lived in the bootheel of Missouri, my roots are there, my history is there, and a large part of my family is still there. So for me at least, Crow's album was reminiscent of my memories of - and connections to - Kennett, a town about 100 miles from Memphis.

Long December

J and I both grew up in North Little Rock; to be honest, our families lived about two or three blocks apart when we were growing up. (Cue cliche about growing up in a small town.) In some ways, this complicated the holidays when we lived out of town, because we would be fitting in two Thanksgivings, two Christmas mornings, etc., usually in a fairly short visit home. Both families were always really good about accommodating schedules, but it still made for a hectic holiday and visit. However, since we're here now, it's not such a big deal. Yesterday we did Thanksgiving at my parents' house, today we'll do it at J's, and tomorrow we'll wonder how long it will take to undo the damage of two straight days of eating. Well, for us, it's actually more like a solid WEEK of heavy eating, since we spent the first part of the week in Houston. I'm feeling the damage this morning, and we still have another Thanksgiving dinner to go...Ugh.

Funny enough, I normally don't worry too much about over eating, gaining weight, etc. I'm blessed with a fairly fast metabolism (thanks mom!), I eat fairly healthy (although there's always room for improvement) and I enjoy being active, so it's not something that is usually on my mind. The one time I am guaranteed to gain weight is when I increase my exercise frequency dramatically, perhaps by starting an exercise program after being sedentary for a while or maybe by ramping up a running schedule. My body goes into crazy-eating-mode for a few weeks, and then calms back down when it figures out what is going on. But for that first week or two, I notice a pretty big difference and often see my available wardrobe shrink for a few weeks.

The idiot part here is that I decided to greatly ramp up my running about a week or two ago. A week before Thanksgiving. Yeah, great timing - do the thing that is guaranteed to make you gain weight the week before the holiday centered around eating. Brilliant. So today, after a week's worth of running and heavy eating, the only thing I want to do is find my loosest pair of jeans and chill on the couch (even though that is certainly a pipe dream unless I want to watch Sponge Bob with the kiddos). So I guess I'll go out and do my run instead. In the 32 degree weather. Yay.

On the plus side, the holiday so far has been wonderful, although I think my kids are about to go out of their minds batshit crazy that Christmas is coming. They've been pinging off the damn walls like pinballs since Wednesday, and the chaos is driving me nuts. I'm thinking that the songwriter for the Counting Crows must've had young kids when he wrote the song "Long December" - 'cause that's exactly how I feel. It's gonna be a long December.

Contentment

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a moment that contained pure contentment. It wasn't any big event, it wasn't even anything much out of the ordinary. It was basically an ordinary night following an ordinary day at work and dinner with a good friend. But for whatever reason, at one particular moment, I felt complete contentment with who I was and my place in this world.

There's no particular reason for me to feel discontent with my life. I don't have any great strife or frustration going on in my life; in fact, I'm pretty damned lucky all around. But I still feel the push and pull of life, the "could I be doing this, should I really be doing that, am I making the right decision about this issue?" I think it's something probably most people feel at one time or another; the indecisiveness with not knowing what the future holds. Sometimes it's wondering whether you are fulfilling your potential, sometimes it's making sure you are happy with the way your life is going, and sometimes maybe it's just a bad mood that sets you thinking.

Couple the indecisiveness with the typical every day life stuff (which takes up 95% of my time, if not more), and the moments of contentment tend to get shoved out of the picture unless I look for them. I'd like to get in the habit of looking for them more often, being more open to them. At the same time, part of what makes these moments so memorable is their rarity. Maybe I just need to get better at recognizing them and enjoying them when they happen.

Temporary Insanity

The trip this weekend to Houston was fantastic.  We had a great time catching up with lots of friends and got to see how much everyone's kids (!) have grown. Our group of friends met when everyone was still kidless, and now, ten years later, everyone has at least one kiddo and in some cases, a second on the way. We spent Saturday afternoon on the back porch, watching the kiddos play on the swing set or run around screaming like banshees (my boy). I tried to explain that it was just the sugar, yeah, that's it, he's never this crazy.  I don't think they bought it, they're all too smart for that. The birthday girl, who turned 2, was quite excited about her party but got a little tired of opening presents. Next year will be a completely different story, I'm sure.

Anyway, included in the mix of kiddos were a couple of really little ones, 8 or 9 month olds. My kiddos are well past infant stage, and I guess I've forgotten how little babies are, the expressions they make, how tiny they are, and how much fun they can be. I have NOT forgotten how much work they can be, but apparently I'm the only one who has forgotten that little bit of reality.

Saturday night, as J got in to bed after spending a good bit of time with his friends M and Mr. Crown, he commented on seeing all the babies that afternoon and how much fun they were. And maybe we should consider going for a third.

WHAT??? The temperature in our room dropped about 20 degrees as I struggled to comprehend that comment. I'm sorry, but WHAT??? I told him that a) he was drunk; and b) if he still wanted to talk about it when he was sober, we'd talk about it then. He has yet to bring it up again. I'm blaming temporary insanity.

Roles

Remember back in maybe high school or college when you did icebreakers and group exercises? Or maybe a time management course that was designed to make you use time more efficiently? One of questions I remember being asked often was "how do you define yourself," and the way you answered was typically to describe the various roles you played in life.

The purpose of the exercise was to make you aware of the myriad directions in which life pulls you, and the various responsibilities you have. The answers back then might have been student, friend, daughter, or advocate. These days, I suppose my assumed roles would be mother, wife, lawyer, daughter, housekeeper, organizer, chauffeur, etc. But for some odd reason, when I tried to do that exercise recently just for the hell of it, the first - and pretty much only - thing that sounded right to me was athlete. The rest of the roles, while true and obviously important, are my roles to other people. My life feels too complex these days to fit into neat little boxes the way it used to, and I suppose that is probably a good thing. The roles morph into each other these days, just as work crosses the line into home sometimes, or daughter and mother clash on occasion when I don't agree with my kids' grandmother.

But the one thing that has been true for nearly as long as I can remember is that I define myself as an athlete. That falls into its own little box and, while it has to be balanced with everything else, involves something that is utterly mine and mine alone. It forms what I think of as part of my baseline, the very core of what makes me who I am. There may be a few other things that fall into this category (I can think of one or two right now), but I don't feel as strongly about any of the other ones. Maybe that's a selfish mindset, but it's what makes sense to me at this point in my life.

I'm guessing most people have something like this in their life - athletics, music, science, some interest that has transcended the years and helps form the baseline of who they are. For some of my friends, I feel like I could guess what interest they might have; for others, I have no idea. I wonder if that is a comment on how well I really know them as friends? And indicative that maybe I could spend some time getting to know them better? Anyway, this was one of the topics that kept me awake during my run this afternoon, so I thought I'd share. 

Bullet Friday

Not enough time to crank out a full post today, so in bullets:

• Got in my 3 miles last night. Can't remember the last time I ran 3 days in a row; my legs were feeling it towards the end.
• Listened to an interesting podcast during my run about The Happiness Project - basic conclusion seemed to be that we are happiest when we are totally focused on the task we are engaged in. The more mind wandering that occurs, the less happiness is seen. Probably have a post on that, but not enough time to write it today.
• Mostly packed for the trip today, although the car remains to be loaded and I need to tie up a few loose ends.
• J and I split a yummy bottle of La Crema chardonnay last night while packing for the trip. Although I wished we'd had some sushi to go with it, I still managed to down my fair share (salmon and this chard are one of the best flavor combinations in the world, at least in my opinion). So now I'm paying for it this morning...stupid headache. Or maybe stupid me... 
• We'll be traveling for the next few days, so I'm not how much posting I'll be doing.

See you on the flip side.

Running Randomness

Another week almost over, I can't believe it's already Thursday. Just a few bullets about the week and a couple of musings on running.

• Ran 3 miles last night, it's the first time I've run back to back days in several months. Have one more 3 miler tonight before I run the "long" one this weekend of 7 miles. That'll put the weekly total at 21 miles, Sunday to Saturday. I'm good with that.
• Started trying to get our music library organized last night. Holy crap is it a mess. Duplicates all over the place, even duplicate songs within folders. It's a long term project. Ugh.
• Heading to Houston this weekend with the whole family; we've been trying to get down there for a while, but the stars appear to have finally aligned and we're headed out tomorrow. Now, as long as the dreaded stomach flu that's going around doesn't take us down...

******
It's good to be back on a training plan for running. The schedule I posted a few days ago, assuming I follow it, will take me right up to the LR Marathon. I started running consistently (using that term rather loosely) in June or July of 2009, and J and I did a training cycle for the December 2009 Las Vegas Marathon. Well, I should say that J finished the cycle and actually ran the marathon; I ended up in trial around the time that training was the heaviest, and I dropped to the half. But even doing the half was fantastic - running 13 miles at once is still sort of mind boggling.

I tried to start another marathon training cycle in January of this year, but almost immediately got injured after ramping up too fast. Then my tennis season hit (my first love), and I focused on that until September or so. I really let the running slide during that time. So here it is November, and I'm hoping to throw together a decent training cycle for the 2011 LR marathon in March.

It sounds strange, but one of the things I miss the most about being in a training cycle is the long runs. Not the 5 and 6 milers - those are sort of run of the mill - but the 10+ milers. For these, you really don't have a choice but to drop into a sort of meditative, almost hypnotic state. You know you are going to be out there for two hours or more (I'm slow), so you switch your brain off and just let your body do its thing. It's not a matter of trying to rush to finish, because it's not possible to "rush" 10+ miles - at least, not for me. You just have to get through them. And when you are done, everything feels sort of husked out and gritty, and you have this sense of satisfaction that your body covered that kind of distance. You develop an awe over what the human body is capable of doing, and not just in the abstract. This was your body that covered that kind of distance, even though a few months ago it seemed laughable. So you go home, take the best hot shower in the world, eat everything in sight, possibly catch a nap for an hour or so, and hope that you won't be too sore the next day. And sometime in the next week notice that your legs have muscles they've never had, your body feels stronger all around, and you feel really good about what you are doing. 

Don't get me wrong, I've not done that many "long runs" in my short running career - I think my longest run to date was somewhere around a 16 miler. I've done far more 3, 4, 5, and 6 milers, and right now, the idea of the 7 miler scheduled this weekend sounds a bit daunting. I don't think I've run anything longer than 6 miles since the Little Rock Half back in March. So it's not like I have a terrific baseline for starting this cycle. At the same time, I really do want to knock this monkey off my back one of these days. Maybe I just want to shoot the middle finger at all the times in my life I mocked my "running ability." I may not be very fast, but dammit, I am a runner. Now I just want to be a runner who has finished a marathon - that's not too much to ask, right? It may or may not happen this training cycle, but it certainly can never happen if I don't give it a try.

Easy Mornings

Like any household that has kiddos, ours is sometimes a bit crazy in the mornings. But about two weeks ago, a strange thing happened - my boy started coming downstairs fully dressed, going straight to the bathroom to brush his teeth, and finishing up whatever else he needed to get done without us saying a word. Sometimes he'd be completely ready for school before J and I were even out of bed (both kiddos have alarm clocks that get them up in the mornings, so we typically don't need to go upstairs to wake them up).  It was so easy, I sort of felt like I'd slipped into an alternate universe. When I asked him why he had decided to make that his normal routine, he told me that it was so he'd have more time in the mornings to play. Hmm, guess I know what his motivation is these days...

So we've had it extremely easy in the mornings for the last several weeks. I thought I appreciated how easy it had become until yesterday, when J forwarded me an email he originally sent a year ago, detailing one of "those mornings" that happen every so often. I was out of town that morning, so he was flying solo in getting the kiddos ready for school and dropped off at school.  At that time, they were 3.5 and nearly 5, and things could get a little hairy in the morning when there was only one of us to ride herd. I absolutely cracked up reading it yesterday, so I thought I'd share it in case any of you can relate.

From J's email in December 2009 (keep in mind the goal time to drop off kiddos is 7:30 so J can make it to work on time):

"Got up late.
Tried to let kids sleep in some.
Got the kids dressed.
Couldn't convince the girl NOT to wear her high-topped converse. After struggling to get them on her, she declared they didn't feel good. Changed shoes.
Gave kids pancakes.
Got the boy mad because he declared he wasn't a kiddo, but I insisted that he still was, citing multitudes of examples demonstrating that he was still, indeed, a kiddo.
Got the kids in the car.
Boy griped at me because he had TWO pancakes, and swore he only asked for one. (He asked for two and was taunting the girl in the kitchen about the fact she only had one and he had "lots".) I said "Fine," took his pancakes, ate one, and gave him the remainder.
Got to school.
As the girl got out of the car, I realized that I forgot to put her dress on her. She was wearing navy tights and a navy shirt. 
Oops.
The boy was so slow getting out of the car that the girl started yelling from the stairs. "Why you taking so lo-ong?"
Got kids to classroom.
Took off coats. The girl's stuck to her. Gold glitter silly putty (where the hell did that come from??) stuck all over the inside of her heavy coat (faux fur) to the lower left back of her shirt. Got it off the shirt, but the coat is another story altogether. Gave up on coat, left for work. 7:55AM.

"So I get father of the week honors - sent my 3 year old to school half-dressed and covered in silly putty."

After I reread that email from a year ago, I have a whole new appreciation for how easy our mornings have become.



　
　

Training

UPDATE:
4 miles, treadmill, done. Time for a snack...

Ok, it's on. Here's the schedule for the next few months. I may not make it all the way through, but I'm going to give it a good shot. A little later tonight:  3 miles, most likely on the treadmill at the community center. At the very least, maybe a set schedule will help me get back into a routine.

Sun.	Mon.	Tue.	Wed.	Thu.	Fri.	Sat.	Total	Date
X	0	3	3	3	0	6	15	31-Oct
X	0	3	3	3	0	7	16	7-Nov
X	0	3	4	3	0	7	17	14-Nov
X	0	3	4	3	0	9	19	21-Nov
X	0	3	5	3	0	10	21	28-Nov
X	0	3	5	3	0	7	18	5-Dec
X	0	3	6	3	0	12	24	12-Dec
X	0	3	6	3	0	13	25	19-Dec
X	3	3	7	4	0	10	27	26-Dec
X	0	3	7	4	0	15	29	2-Jan
X	0	4	8	4	0	16	32	9-Jan
X	0	4	8	5	0	12	29	16-Jan
X	0	4	9	5	0	18	36	23-Jan
X	3	5	9	5	0	14	36	30-Jan
X	3	5	10	5	0	20	43	6-Feb
X	3	5	8	4	0	12	32	13-Feb
X	0	4	6	3	0	8	21	20-Feb
X	3	3	4	2	0	0	12	27-Feb
26.1	0	0	0	0	0	0	26.1	6-Mar

Strangers

You know how sometimes you get into periods where life just rocks on along, everything is going fine, surface thinking is all you need, and the idea of getting into "heavier thoughts" is just unappealing? I'm pretty sure I've spent years there at certain times in my life - sometimes it's just what I need.

But sometimes, you're going along about life, minding your own business, and something unusual happens, some sort of crystallizing event, or maybe catalyst is a better word. Suddenly, you don't have any choice other than to delve back into the fray and try to sort things out, addressing issues that suddenly loom large although they may have been minor just a few days before. That's kind of where I've been for the last several weeks.

Even though I talked about wanting to do some deeper thinking back in September, I don't think I really went actively looking for some of the things that have hit my radar screen lately (contrary to popular belief, I really don't go looking for trouble). It just makes me wonder if by starting to think a little more deeply, I didn't manage to put a few things into motion. But although I have had some strange stuff hit the fan lately, a lot of it is not my story (which also means I'm not free to tell it). Regardless, there have been some unusual trains of thought and some interesting conversations, and that's the background for where this post is coming from.

I mentioned above the times where life is gliding forward, continuing along without any great disturbances or drama going on, and the days tend to fly past uneventfully. I really do believe these times are necessary in life - or at least, they are for me (I don't do drama very well). But I also think that during these times I get lulled into a comfortable complacency and forget that, even if there aren't any large changes, things are always in motion. And one day, reality rearranges itself and I look up and realize that there is a lot of strangeness around me. Relationships, where I am in my life, where I'm going - these all feel somewhat strange, and I need to reconnect and reexamine to make sure I'm happy with the path I'm on. I need to ask myself the hard questions, and pay attention to the answers.

I've had several very good, sometimes intense, conversations lately, and have been more than a little surprised by some of them. It feels a bit strange to put myself out there so much and tread on what is sort of unfamiliar ground. It has been a while - several years I guess - since I've had the kinds of conversations that stay with you for days. There is a lot of reward in these discussions and relationships that go deeper than the surface. Is there risk? Absolutely - there's always a risk that things will go in the wrong direction, something will explode, and pieces of your life will end up as shrapnel. I guess my (and maybe many people's?) default setting is self protection when it comes to conversations that are difficult to have. It's just easier to not have them, and the change that they can bring around is frightening.

At the same time, some of the most valuable relationships in my life have come into existence when I have taken on what I consider to be a great deal of risk and I have forced myself out of my comfort zone; ironically, the risk taking has resulted in friendships that are my "safe places" in life. It's not something I can do all the time; it's not practical and takes a good bit of energy to break out of the comfortable complacency. But every now and then I have to sit down and reevaluate and break things down again, and I feel very fortunate to have safe places in which to do that.

Heh. This post wandered very far afield from where I started it (and boy did it wander). I started out with the below two paragraphs, but as I wrote, they didn't fit in with what I apparently wanted to talk about. I'm going to leave them at the bottom of this post, though, because I very much loved the quote at the end. I just wasn't able to write about it today.

****
I finally managed to get a run in yesterday, it had been way too long since the last one. I listened to a new podcast along the way, and heard something at the very end of the run that has been rattling around in my head ever since. The author of the podcast always inserts a song about halfway through whatever topic he is discussing that day - an intermission from his voice, I suppose. Yesterday's podcast contained a song and an excerpt from the musical group Black Lab, explaining the name for their current album,"Two Strangers." I'll quote from their blog here:

"yes, it's an album of love songs, but lovers are always strangers, always hiding themselves (whether they want to or not), always trying and failing to find out who the other really is, always trying to reveal themselves to the other but instead embellishing the mask. we are strangers to each other because we are strangers to ourselves. we don't see who we are and we don't want to see. we want to huddle with that one other person and build a world separate and different from the real world, one which is truer to the landscape of the heart. unfortunately, reality reasserts itself and tears that world apart. we are left with our vision in tatters, alone, estranged, then we either find a new stranger to love or we recognize that the person we love is, after all, a stranger - and we get interested all over again."
*****

Mushroom Misfortune

My boy has always maintained that he does not like mushrooms. Actually, according to the faces he makes, it transcends the average dislike and crosses over into "hate." So we don't make as many mushroom dishes these days as we did BC (before children). Tonight, J made one of my all time favorites, steak strips and mushrooms in a tomato reduction sauce. The dish contains both shiitake and regular mushrooms, and it has been several months since we made it.

Our kiddos are usually pretty good about trying new things, as long as we only make them try one bite. It had been a while since I had made either of them try a mushroom, so I laid down the requirement that they had to try one bite of both types of mushrooms in the dish. My girl immediately ate her two bites and got it out of the way. The boy, however, was a bit more reticent. He tried the shiitake first, immediately chugging several swallows of juice to get it down. He then procrastinated on the second bite, waiting until about halfway through the meal to get the second bite over with.

He speared the smallest possible bite of mushroom, and looked at it warily. He had already finished his juice, so he couldn't chase the bite with a gallon of juice this time. He put it in his mouth, and I watched to make sure that he didn't spit it back out, then got distracted by something J was saying. About 20 seconds later, I look over just in time to see him gag and spit the mushroom bits out. Great. Being the mean parents we are, we made him give it another try. It's not even a full sized mushroom we're talking about here - it's a tiny bite. So he tried again. Same result. I decided to give it one more try.

He put the mushroom in his mouth, a slightly panicked look on his face. Ten seconds later, not only did he gag, but the rest of his dinner decided to make an encore appearance. Right onto his plate. I think it is a testament to life as a parent that I finished the bite of food that I was eating, then got up, rinsed off his plate, sat back down and continued eating as though nothing had happened.

I won't be having him try mushrooms again any time soon, that's for damn sure.

Interlude

Saturday morning. The house is usually quiet until around 6:45, when the kiddos start waking up and coming downstairs. Often they both head straight to the living room to watch television, but this morning the girl climbed up to snuggle between J and I. She brought her usual menagerie of animals, including a seal (Seal), a frog (Fwoggie), and Pancake the dog. She snuggled between us for about 10 minutes and talked about her dreams from the night before, her animals, and whatever else occurred to her. She then scampered off to watch Sponge Bob with her brother.

The kiddos occupied themselves for the next hour or so, while J and I caught a little more rest (sleep isn't really the right word there - anyone with kids knows how hard it is to sleep when the kiddos are awake). The house was awake but still  in a quiet state, waiting for the day's frenetic activities to begin. It was nice to just lie there and "float" for an hour or so, not quite awake, not quite asleep, just - drifting. It was a pleasant way to ease into the craziness that often defines our weekends around here.

Afternoon Shenanigans

I stopped work and picked up my boy a little early today. Instead of going straight home, he wanted to play at the school playground for a little while. It was a beautiful day, nearly 80 degrees, a little breezy, and the trees are maybe just past peaking in fall color. I doubt we'll see another day like today for several months, and I couldn't think of anywhere else we needed to be, so we indulged in the outdoors for an hour or so. My mom dropped off my girl a little later, and the kiddos ran around getting rid of some of that infinite energy they have.

I sat on the swings, watching them play and listening to the dry fall leaves rustling in the trees. My boy showed me how he builds "sand castles" - I now have an explanation for the state of his shirts at the end of the day. Why any school would include white as one of its uniform shirt colors for kindergartners is beyond me. My girl played on the swings and followed her older brother's lead in building "sand castles" in the dirt. Yay.

The afternoon reminded me of being back in school, when I think I was a little more in touch with the seasons and the sky at different times of the year. I miss that connection with the outdoors sometimes; as grown ups, we don't really get outside regularly, and I tend to forget how nice it can be to sit and watch the afternoon sky change colors.

All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon. At least until my boy came up to me and said, rather urgently, "Mom, we need to go home right now." I looked at him and asked why. "Because I have to poop!!"  Great. I start to look around for the girl when suddenly he says, "Oh, never mind."  Uh oh, I think. "I just had to toot. It was a false alarm!" False alarm indeed. Nothing like a five year old boy to bring you back to reality.

RIP and Other Miscellania

My Ipod met its maker last night. Sniff. Somewhere around Marshall, Texas, I tried to coax it into a lucid state. It gave me a few more "Ruuuumm...Ruuuuummmmm.......Rrrrruuuuuuummmmmms" and closed its display for good. Sigh. Even my 4 year old broke down in tears this morning when I told her the news. She was very upset that I couldn't play "Kick Drum Heart" in the car this morning on the way to school. I understood her grief.

Anyway, here we are at another Friday morning. The kiddos are off at school, I'm getting ready to delve into work for the day and I'm just very happy to be back home this morning. The drive last night, although punctuated by tragedy, was pretty easy and  I'm looking forward to the weekend. I have a book club gathering tonight, although I haven't yet finished the book (shame on me!), and I think we're supposed to get together with some friends tomorrow night to watch the Hogs game.

At some point I need to figure out how to get motivated to start exercising again, but apparently I'm not too concerned about it as it has been over a week since I've run. Maybe I need to sign up for a 10K or half marathon just so I can put a goal in front of me. The Little Rock Half / Full Marathon happens every spring, and I really enjoyed running the half last year (even though it was the day after a grueling 2.5 hour tennis match - I was complete and utter mush after that weekend). I should probably just bite the bullet and sign up for it so I have a reason to start training. Now, if I can just figure out where I left my motivation...

Ode (or Dirge) to One of the Best Gifts I've Ever Received

Alternate title: Waxing poetic about a damned Ipod.

For Christmas in 2004, my father-in-law gave me an Ipod as part of the annual gift exchange we do with J's family (he had drawn my name from the proverbial hat). It was a remarkable gift, because he paid full price for this gadget that was in high demand at the time. My father-in-law thrives on getting  good - no, killer - deals, and his amazing shopping prowess is surpassed perhaps only by his son's. So this gift was a bit out of character for him, and really made me appreciate it. That was a somewhat memorable time in my life - Christmas 2004 was about 2 weeks before my son was born, and about a month before I turned 30. It snowed in Houston on Christmas Eve that year, and parts of Houston near the coast had a white Christmas.  You could probably say that hell froze over that year. 

ANYWAY. All that to say that this gift of an Ipod started out in memorable fashion.

Music has always been an important part of my life. One of my earliest memories is of being in the car with my dad, listening to Gerry Rafferty's amazing sax in "Baker Street"; I think I was somewhere around 3 years old at the time. My dad had a huge record collection that I used to sift through (Fifth Dimension, Cream, Willie Nelson to name a few), and I can still remember my dad's record players and reel-to-reel setups lining the walls of the living room. My parents tell a great story about the first big purchase my dad made when he started working at his first good job. Apparently he came home one afternoon and told my mom he'd bought some speakers. All well and good, except the speakers were 3.5 feet high 2 feet deep black monstrosities, and cost as much as a car would have at the time. I'm surprised my dad survived, honestly. I think this little incident happened before I was born, and those speakers? Still stand in my parents' living room today, ready to blow out windows in the house should you ask them to do that.

I spent the better part of that Christmas day in 2004 getting the Ipod setup, learning what frustrations Itunes could (and still can) throw at you, and feeling sort of kid-like again. I hadn't spent that much time with a "toy" in years. I loaded a ton of music on it, figured out how to make it work, and it fell into my everyday life effortlessly.

When I leave the house these days, I always have at least three things with me - my wallet, my phone, and my Ipod. It has music on it that has gone the way of previous crashed computers and laptops; this music is no longer accessible by any other method. It has playlists that have been fine tuned with age and can suit my mood perfectly. It has songs on it that immediately conjure specific memories and emotions (some painful, some cherished) - these are songs that I might otherwise forget about. It is a music memory for the last several years of my life, and some of it will not be replaceable when the time comes to switch to something else.

As I drove down to Houston Monday night, the Ipod locked up on me. This was the second time it had happened in the last few weeks, and I hoped it was simply a bad cord connection to the car radio. But yesterday I had it plugged into my office computer, and at some point I realized that the music had stopped and I could hear this quiet, almost desperate "RuuummRuuummmRummm" from somewhere in my office; it reminded me of cranking a car with a mostly dead battery. The Ipod was completely frozen and making this most unhappy noise. I unplugged it, gave it a rest, and it came back around, but I'm not sure how many more times that I'll be able to avert disaster. After 6 years of flawless operation, I think its time in this world is drawing to a close, and that makes me almost ridiculously sad. It may be a little clunky and outdated (I like the word "retro"), it may not be the coolest thing to pull out on an airplane, but I'm not ready to let it go. The thought of trying to duplicate everything on a new Ipod is just depressing, but I probably need to start thinking that way. Sigh.

At this point, the question really is:  How the hell am I going to make it to Christmas without my music?? Because it's obviously too close to "that time of the year" to buy a new one for myself, and I'm afraid to use my old one (sniff) too much. Dammit. I have a feeling my wine budget needs to be increased for the next few two months.