AM I HUNGRY?

Am I the only one around here that’s struggling to keep up with their usual schedule? I’ll have a few days where I feel like I am on track and then there will be a Monday holiday or a snow day, and it al goes to Hell in a hand basket. And any hand basket I own, which is one…I own one actual hand basket, right now is full of fire and brimstone. I take zero advantage of those days when I am not at work. In fact, I’m down right lazy, spending hours on the couch watching nonsense TV (has anyone watched Younger? I have love and hate feelings but I’ve made it to season 5). Then once I’m at work, I am AT WORK, scrambling to catch up on the things I missed while I was out. I’ve read some other musings on struggling to be motivated in tackling New Year resolutions. I’ve writing encouraging comments of having grace and going easy on yourself, which is really easy for me to type out for someone other than myself.

Tuesday morning, I peeled my body out of bed and went through my usual routine of getting ready for work. I did this almost forty five minutes earlier than usual because Michael’s school had declared Tuesday a snow day. This also meant that I had to go out and clean off my car and shovel the driveway. The snow was light and powdery, like sugar which made for easy shoveling. Basically I just pushed the shovel across the driveway from one side to the next while my car warmed up. I slowly drove my car to work on white roads. It wasn’t the worse conditions I’ve driven in, but it wasn’t great. It turned out that only me and one other person in my department had not marked themselves as “working from home” on the calendar. I did not mind. I have been trying to find time to do laser power checks on our microscopes for weeks and I keep having to reschedule because of snow or holiday or the microscope’s schedule is booked. The schedules for the microscopes on Tuesday was wide open. I managed to get a number of things accomplished and even spent an hour on my yoga mat.

The problem would be my drive home.

A steady shower of white sugar fell from the sky all afternoon. Every time I looked out my desk window, the world outside resembled a recently shaken snow globe. Every twenty minutes or so, the groundsmen in two golf cart sized snowplows would plow around the circle drive and the driveway into the parking garage. Traffic remained light to nonexistent. I know I should not have risked the drive into work, but the thought of yet another day stuck inside my tiny house was more than I could bear. One of the things that make my relationship work with Michael is that we don’t spend all day every day together. The pandemic nearly ended us or me in prison for murder. I need brain space or I get twitchy and stabby. There is something to be said about my need for this brain space if I am willing to drive through a blizzard.

I can’t handle another winter.

I say this every year. Chris and I moved here at the end of February but the weather was tolerable. We could see that this was a place that had seen snow. Piles of it were shoved into corners of parking lots, but it did not snow again after our move. The winter Chris died we only saw a dusting of snow, but the winter a year later required shoveling. This was when I was able to barely squeeze my Kia Soul into the garage which left the full length of my long driveway for me to clear all by myself. I did it! And I was so proud of myself! I woke up the next morning sore and achy but ready to go to work. Except the snowplow had blocked the end of my driveway with a two foot tall icy slush wall. And that was the year I started saying that I could not handle another winter. Yet I have. Over and over again. This year in particular feels worse and I keep getting bombarded with things regarding my favorite city where I know it is warmer. Damn the hurricane seasons. I’d take a hurricane over minus degrees. Michael just shakes his head when I mention it because the summers would be unbearable for him. Also, right now is a terrible time for a scientist to find a job (psst…Federal Funding cuts means unemployment rates increase for a whole lot of Americans).

Each day I keep reminding myself that I am not stalled out or spinning wheels going no where. I am doing things. I am no longer waiting for my kitchen sink to look gross before giving it a scrub. I’m mopping the floors once a week instead of twice a year or whenever I could no longer stand the overlaying paw print pattern on the hardwood floors. My house is clean and I have even managed to get oils for the diffuser my brother and sister-in-law gave me for my birthday. My house is clean and smells like springtime mountain air. All this snow shoveling is making me stronger. It combines cardio with weight training. People pay money for those kinds of workouts. Who cares if it took me more than hour this morning for my toes and finger tips to thaw enough to get the feeling back into them?

No, but seriously…I really don’t think I can handle another winter.

I'M LEARNING FRENCH BUT DREAMING IN JAPANESE

Ever since Michael said that we were going to try to make Paris happen this year, I’ve been channeling Yoda and saying “there is no try!” I have committed myself to learning enough French so as not to be the stupide americain in Paris. Michael tried to get through the very first Duolingo lesson and then immediately gave up. He says that he just can’t hear what is being said. I will admit that I struggled through the first three or four lessons for the very same reason, but the more I stick with it, the easier it’s getting. Now I’m trying to use phrases I’ve learned in conversation. I’ve also been listening to a lot of French pop music. I am sure my pronunciation is utter garbage, but I can read French pretty well. 

Sort of.

Meanwhile, I keep waking up at one AM from a recurring dream about a young pregnant Japanese woman who is the only survivor of a bloody assassination attack on her gang lord husband. I think it’s something I’m co-writing with Quentin Terentino because then I lay awake for the next two or so hours mentally writing out what happens to her after she flees the house and all the bloody dead bodies. I have lots of ideas, like this one: Yuri tentatively makes her way into the main living room. Gore and death surrounds her, but she feels a hand grasp her ankle. Yuri struggles to not scream but looks down to see her husband Isamu covered in blood but still gasping for air. She leans down and he draws a bloody finger tip down her cheek, lays his hand on her round full belly before letting the hand drop limply to the floor. Then he rips the chain holding a small silver key from his neck. Isamu places the key in the palm of Yuri’s hand and closes her fingers tight around it. “You are free” Isamu whispers with his last breath.

Then what happens?!?! Who was the assassin? Why was Yuri spared? Is Isamu really the father of the child she’s carrying?

I don’t know! I mean I know, but I don’t know!

Oh, hey…did you know that perimenopausal induced hives are a thing? I do. Also, I’ve been bleeding from my vagina since January 19th. 

The crazy dreaming and sleep habits are partly due to my body, but I have to admit that I’m also doing a lot of worrying. Last week was a doozy. So many things happened! One of those things was that the NIH was told to put a hard pass hold on grant reviews. For those of you who do not know, the NIH funds a lot of basic medical research. Some of you may also not realize that while I am a scientist, research facilities like mine employ a number of nonscience people (maybe even more because it takes a lot to keep a building running). Less, or in this case no grant, money means less jobs for EVERYONE. Putting people out of work doesn’t seem like a smart way to boost an economy, but maybe I just need to be patient and wait it out…

The White House budget office ordered a pause in all federal loans and grants. The directive could upend funding for local governments, disaster relief and education. -The New York Times

Anyway, I’m worried about not having a job in the future and I’m worried about my friends who are in similar situations. I’m worried about the safety of my friends who have been receiving extra amounts of bigotry and just plain hatefulness thrown at them (at times, literally). This administration hit the ground running to make this country more discriminative and are taking off their bigotry filters (if they even had any to begin with). There’s a woman I have followed in the blog community for years. She’s wonderful, writes books on being kind and spreading joy. She’s a beacon of light. Her elderly parents have been accosted multiple times in the last few months. One of those times, her father could have been seriously injured because a man pushed him off his bike. The other time, a white woman angrily yelled the n-word at both of her parents and then threatened to beat them over a parking situation. 

Is this the country that we are now? What does “Make America Great Again” truly mean? Because if this, straight up encouraging hatefulness and taking away funding that supports low and middle class citizens is the way to “make America great”, I’m not sure I want any part of being an American. And I am struggling to understand how anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ can support any of this. Leaving the country, which is something Michael and I have discussed in regards to our retirement, is becoming a more appealing idea. Chris and I, years ago, started doing this thing where we’d take vacations to where we thought we might want to live someday. We’d pretty much settled on Portland,OR and Kansas City wasn’t even on our list, but we ended up very happy with our move. Nine blissfully happy months. Anyway, maybe this is how Michael and I should consider our travel adventures, start vacationing in places we might want to retire to one day. Except Paris. I know Paris is an unsustainable retirement option. 

Especially if my retirement is fucked because I lose my job next year. 

THE STATE OF THINGS

It snowed all day on Sunday. All. Day. Monday morning, we awoke to blue skies and blinding sunlight. The snow is taller than Josephine and when she finally jumped off the top step to go outside, she had to tunnel her way to her favorite potty spot. Now, if she goes out it’s because she’s desperate. She comes back in covered in snow with balls of it clumping to her legs. She stands stock still and expresses the tiniest saddest whimper while I grab a towel. At ten o’clock this morning, I finally bundled up and cleared a path at the backdoor to make Josephine’s life a little easier. While I was up and bundled, I started tackling the front steps and path. I shoveled a path from our steps to about half way down the drive when I paused and thought there had to be a better way to do this.

We do have a snowblower.

And that’s where Michael found me, in the garage untangling a power cord and wrestling the snowblower out of the garage. Now I’ve never used the snowblower before, but I figured it had to be better than a shovel. So today I learned that the snowblower is only slightly better than a shovel when there’s almost fifteen inches of snow on the ground. Michael and I spent the next two hours clearing the end of our driveway and unburying my car so I can go to work tomorrow. We are still uncertain if Michael will be going to work tomorrow. If school is not cancelled again tomorrow, we’ll need to go back out and unearth his truck and then swap cars in the drive. My toes finally have feeling again, so I’m hoping they cancel school because I do not want to go back out there.

Okay January. I see you. You are coming in cold and furious. This is the most snow Kansas City has seen since 1993 or something like that. That means we are starting the year overachieving. I mean, I feel like I accomplished a lot this weekend. I made a decent loaf of bread, wiped down everything in the house with Clorox wipes, wrote up a class for a couples yoga class I’m offering up in February and while I only did six sun salutations on Saturday, that’s still six more than what I did last Saturday. I have several out of state family and friends who have messaged me about the weather and asking if we were okay and I can honestly say that we are. We have electricity and food. We’re safe and warm. We might be a little bit broken from clearing the driveway, but we’re surviving.

UNDECLARED

It’s New Year’s Day and I’m currently sitting on my bed with a dog and a cat at my feet, nursing an honest to Gods hangover. Michael told me that he didn’t think I had too many more gin and tonics that normal, but he’s the bartender in the house and sometimes he can’t be trusted. All I know is that I made it to midnight and then went to bed where I spent a good twenty minutes trying to decide if I was going to throw up.

I did not.

I disagree with Michael about the ‘normal’ amount of gin and tonics and can say that last night was a rare occasion, one I will most definitely not be repeating for a really long time. While I haven’t made any actual lists or vision boards for what I want for myself in 2025, I have been thinking long and hard about it. At least one of those wants is health related and I’ve been thinking a lot about my (declining) yoga practice. A common Solstice celebration in yoga is to have a practice of one hundred. Usually it’s one hundred rounds of a sun salutation. Back during the lock down times, I was probably close to doing one hundred rounds of sun salutations a day. Like a hamster on a wheel, I’d be on my mat doing loops and loops of surya namaskara variations because I very much felt like a caged animal. So I’ve been thinking about starting that up again, working my way up to one hundred salutes to the sun every day. This is something that is holding center stage in my mental vision board.

In fact, right now that’s the only thing I’ve got for 2025.

That’s not entirely true. Of course I’d like to work harder at being a better person in 2025 and all that usual blah blah blah. Michael and I would really like to spend Christmas in Paris this year. Frugality is a reasonable thing to paste into a vision board so we can make that Christmas wish come true. I’d also really like to volunteer at a local charity and maybe finally get around to teaching another yoga workshop. The thing is, putting these things down on paper in January, especially when next week’s high is expected to be twenty degrees, feels impossible. I truly believe I was made for hibernation and the time I spend curled up under soft, cozy blankets and pets is time well spent. It’s contemplation time where I think about how to fill in my vision board around one hundred sun salutations.

January is being very January this year. The Cabbage spent most of the week with us with a bad cold. Fever, sore throat, all of the icks. We’ve managed to keep them caged up in their room and they go back to their mom’s today, but winter is coming this weekend. That means Michael and I will be caged up in our house with left over kid germs. I didn’t plan on putting ‘get more colds’ on my board for 2025, nor did I have ‘fumigate the house’ on my board, but here we are. This is how we’re jumping into this new strange year. We’re jumping in with shields and swords, fighting microscopic invaders. Perhaps I should include ‘drink more orange juice’ to the board.

Maybe leave out the vodka.

THE GREAT SANDWICH

In my most recent newsletter from Karen Walrond, she talked bout the origins and the state of limbo. And I read it while nodding my head and agreeing completely. Limbo aptly describes how I am feeling right now. There are two weeks left to this year. Just two! And once again, I’m sitting here gobsmacked that we are on the cusp of a brand new year. Yes, I know we haven’t even gotten to Christmas, but that’s NEXT WEEK! I spent some time on Saturday wrapping the few gifts I have for the Cabbage and hanging our stockings. They have two more gifts coming, but those probably will not get here until after Christmas. The Cabbage was a little late in providing me with a want list. They’re okay with the state of things. Any way, my tasks are mostly complete.

I am very much feeling in between, hovering in the moment of just before.

I’ve thrown all usual habits into a dumpster, poured lighter fluid in and threw in a lit match. Dog walks and yoga time have become distant foggy memories. But today is the first day in weeks where I have not had large amounts mucus flowing like hot lava from my nose. I can’t even try to form a snot bubble from one of my nostrils and no longer have the red scaly nose of a toddler. I finally feel well and spent the weekend scrubbing my grimy house. I also made a very successful batch of sourdough ciabatta rolls. The successful loaf of bread is in reach. I might actually do that next.

This time of year is never a great time for my brain. It’s the beginning of dark times and mean reds. Being organized and efficient does not work in my favor as it frees up empty swaths of time. Last week, I used some of that time to work on a writing project that’s been sitting idle in my docs. I was writing about something from the past and how I was manipulated by a loved one and I got so angry. I just sat there fuming at this thing that I couldn’t change and had no control over to begin with. I do not have the time to waste on being angry with this person, nor would it change anything. The only benefit of writing this event down and rekindling this anger is knowing that this is something I can consider whenever that same person tries to guilt me in some fashion.

So you can see…empty swaths of time for me means picking and probing at long passed events like a tongue with a mouth sore. I dissect old moments to find out how I could have handled them better or handled them at all. When I’m not picking at old scabs, I’m scratching in new wounds of belligerence for falling off the exercise horse. “Fatty Fat Fat” I say as I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. As if my little hiatus on exercise has anything to do with the size of my waistline. My lack of usual movement is causing me to hallucinate and see a reflection that is not necessarily true. Some of you are thinking “Cindy, this is an easy fix. You feel better, so start moving your body more.” But those people who think that do not know how tired I am all the time. I could lay down on the floor under my desk and take a nap right now. Except I wouldn’t sleep because the Catch 22 here is that I’m not a napper.

I am in a time sandwich, meaning this is the filling between two slices of bread and it is a terrible sandwich. Worse than the one Talaura thought I’d left her when went to that camping music festival in Guthrie. Look… it’s a complicated story made funny only by too much heat and probably too much booze. It’s a ‘you had to be there’ thing. I can make a good sandwich. Hell, just the other day, I whipped up a tuna salad to put on a ciabatta roll that Michael said was the best tuna salad he’d ever tasted in his life. That’s saying something because when ever I suggest tuna salad as an option, he makes the face of someone who just smelled a bag of rotten farts. I have good sandwich making skills; I could make a better, less self destructive time sandwich.

I think that I am going to focus on being a better sandwich. Do less brain picking and have more dance parties at my desk. I’ll be back later next week with a Year in Pictures post.

Happy Holidays!

BAH HUM

I’m not saying that I’m anti-holidays this year. It may look that way because I have yet to put up our Christmas tree and I am opting out of Christmas cards this year. I did buy us a new dinosaur menorah that we’ve been calling the Menorasaurus and my lovely holiday wreath is hanging on the front door. I will get our stocking out of storage, but I’m skipping the tree this year. Here’s what happened. The distance between Thanksgiving and Christmas got shortened. I spent Thanksgiving driving to Oklahoma and back. I got sick again and I’m now on antibiotics. I figured that by the time I had enough energy to clean the house and set up the tree, it would be time to take it all down. The idea of it did not spark joy.

Instead, I’ve decided that I am celebrating the holiday season in a more selective way.

Years ago, my family started a new Christmas Day tradition. Instead of turkey or ham for the big holiday meal, we picked something that we all really loved that we didn’t get to eat as often as we liked and that was fried oysters. Randy and Katrina would buy the oysters from the White River Fish Market and then Katrina and Mom would cook the oysters all while fending off anyone walking into the kitchen trying to snag a fried oyster before sitting down to dinner. Eventually other things got added like shrimp cocktail and then there was that hilariously fun year we had a fondue pot. This is Christmas for me. My head is filled with visions of all of us gathering in the old family house, crowding the kitchen or setting the table. It took four of us to make the cocktail sauce, each of us contemplating flavors and always agreeing that we needed more horseradish. That cocktail sauce is the only reason my parents always had a bottle of gin in the house. Yes..put gin in your cocktail sauce, heavy on the horseradish, light on the ketchup, some lemon and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Do not buy a pre-made cocktail sauce.

This kind of Christmas has been lost to me for many years.

Once my dad was placed into a memory care facility and my mom quickly sold our house to move into a much smaller house, we have failed to maintain this tradition. I think we tried it once or twice but I never felt comfortable in the new kitchen space and we gave up trying, opting instead to just eat at White River Fish Market where they cook the oysters and clean up the mess. It’s fine. I’ve told myself (keep telling myself) that the food is not important. It is the gathering together in one space that is important. This year, I’ve been having a much harder time believing this. I have felt untethered from my home in Oklahoma for some time and after moving our mom into assisted living, I completely lost an anchor. At Thanksgiving, I slept on my brother’s couch so I could have Thanksgiving dinner with my family at the Cracker Barrel. While standing in the storefront with Mom, waiting for a table, Mom said “it doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving.” I couldn’t disagree with her. There was something slightly depressing about the whole thing and I knew this going in. I was already scheming up a new plan for Christmas.

Michael and I booked an Airbnb in a neighborhood near my mom for the weekend before Christmas. My idea is to create a comfortable space for us all to gather. We’ll cook oysters and have shrimp cocktail. We’ll spend a day just being in a comfortable living room together without the chaos of restaurants. I am not delusional. I know this will not be like old times. We’re missing some very important players from the old times. One might even say that at least one of those players was the cornmeal to this fried oyster tradition. But part of celebrating the holiday in a more selective way is making choices for comfort and choosing something familiar to all of us. A large kitchen and comfortable living room for gathering. Fried oysters and cocktail shrimp. These are familiar things.

We’re two weeks away from this and I am already anxiously hoping for perfection. I’ve been compiling a list of things to take with us like extra chairs, throw blankets and pillows. Plus food. I’ve put siblings in charge of specific tasks. And it already feels brighter than Thanksgiving. I am coming to terms with the fact that my family is no longer growing as much as it is aging. In some ways that makes things easier. We no longer do physical gifts. Instead we gift each other time. The aging part is made more difficult when we try to hold onto the way things were, desperately grasping to a life that is no longer the same. So, what if instead of desperately grasping to the past, we just remember the past while being in our present? Any way…this is my Christmas wish for this season and I don’t need a tree lit up with lights to make that wish come true.

I’m choosing to be bah hum….not full strength bah humbug.

I WENT TO FUNKY TOWN

Right off the highway in a little bit of a sketchy run-down area is this place called Funky Town. Shortly after moving here, Chris and I drove by the place in the daylight and really all that is visible from the highway is the sign for the place, but we both started singing Funky Town and asking questions. In all of that time between then and now, no one has ever given me a straight answer about this place. I have been told all kinds of vague stories that range from retro Disco club to swinger’s club. In fact, most people have told me that Funky Town is a swinger’s club. While I was telling Heather that I visited Funky Town, she asked me at least two different times if “I was a swinger now”.

That’s none of your business.

Anyway, since no one has ever given me a straight answer about this place, my brain built one inside my head. This is something my brain is very good at doing. In this case, my brain took every Disco related thing I have ever seen and smashed them into one rainbow gold version of Studio 54 with a table in a dark corner piled high with cocaine. So when my friend Sarah texted me that she was going for her birthday and included an invitation, I did not hesitate. Well…I hesitated slightly. They were not going until 9 PM (my bedtime) and it was freezing degrees with snow on the ground. Then I shook myself out of my hesitation and took a nap. This was my chance to find out what exactly happens at Funky Town.

My brain turned out to be not entirely inaccurate. The place is very much like a rainbow gold Studio 54, but a rainbow gold Studio 54 plopped down inside of a Molly Murphy’s (is that even a reference any one is going to get?). There was a tiki lounge section, a psychedelic VW bus making up part of one of the bars, and a car wash on the dance floor. We had tables situated in a forest area under some fake trees. The place was packed with people dressed in bellbottoms and gogo boots, afros and porn mustaches. I saw four different guys wearing the same rainbow sequined suit. The clientele ranged from barely legal enough to get in to old enough to have invented this party. I didn’t visually witness any sort of ‘swinging’ but I can’t say for certain that there were not couples there looking for other couples to swing with. It was very busy and very loud and I spent about two hours on the dance floor, dancing my heart out.

It was fabulous.

The one regret, the thing I couldn’t shake the entire time, was my want for my big camera and flash. I wanted to take pictures of people and for people. I wanted to photograph the whole scene and hand out little cards with my name and contact information. I’m not good at costuming myself. I wore pink baby doll dress and legging. There was mascara on my eyelashes and gold hoops in my ears. That’s about as fancy I get, but I could put together 70s photo journalist costume if it would get me camera access.

Maybe next time.

RETROGRADE

Apparently Mercury is going into retrograde right this very minute and according to my Yoga Journal weekly horoscope email (that I usually ignore) this is a great time to finish projects. The number of times I’ve heard people go on about retrograding Mercury, one would think that I had some sort of clue of what ‘retrograde’ means. I don’t hate physics and earth sciences; I just don’t love them. Anything biological, I’m all in. Quantum physics makes me hyperventilate. Last week on NOVA, I watched as some guy talked about gravity’s effect on time and I had to go throw up. All of that is to say that I now know that retrograde motion has to do with how planets orbit the Sun and the speeds of those orbits. Sometimes, like three or four times a year, Mercury looks like it’s moving backwards. This is Mercury in retrograde.

Every thing is an illusion.

The planet Mercury has a lot in common with the Roman god, Mercury…probably because they named the planet after the god. The god Mercury (or the Greek version, Hermes) does a lot of stuff. He’s a messenger, a guide for the dead, a god of commerce and good fortune and fertility, but I’m pretty sure most of those ancient gods had something to do with fertility. He can be called upon to protect travelers and also known for communication and writing. I’m sure the whole ‘messenger’ thing is part of the communication and if you tend to lean into woo-woo whatever the planet Mercury is doing reflects whatever the god is up to. This, depending on star signs, matters to us humans in a woo-woo kind of way.

I’m some sort of Capricorn-Aquarius hybrid that I don’t understand and my horoscope told the Capricorn me to “schedule more naps”. Isn’t that lovely?!? It also told me to dedicate space and time for my own passions. It told the Aquarius me to figure out my desires. My takeaway is that I should dedicate time and space for figuring out what my passions are and what I truly desire. Actually… the Aquarius horoscope is garbage. The one for Capricorn gave me permission to sleep more and be a hermit crab. The Capricorn me is zip tying up the Aquarius me and hiding her way down deep in the soul basement. Or wherever those things live.

Obviously, I’m not a woo-woo kind of person.

Let’s talk more about how this is a great time to finish projects. Last weekend…was it last weekend?….wreath making day, Salem was talking about diligently working on her novel and I looked at her said “I will never finish writing a book.” They denied that this is true, but they haven’t seen the (growing) list of started writing ideas sitting in my Google Docs. They also, for some weirdo reason, love me and think I’m pretty great, which I’m like ‘okay…whatever’. They’re young with an old soul and super cool. This makes me feel like I am also super cool. I don’t even know where I’m going with this….I guess the tiniest woo-woo version of me really likes the idea of more naps, any naps really, but finishing something I started would be neat too.

This is a very rambley post.

Happy Thanksgiving.

FOOD DREAMS

The last few nights, my dreams have been filled with food. They are almost feverish in nature and often slightly gruesome. It started with a friendsgiving I was attending, except I didn’t really know any of these people. The table was filled with people I know through the internet, people I have never spoken with face to face. We are ‘friends’ because we like the content we each bring to social media. We are like minded humans. Our dinner plates each held a large whole fish and I watched as everyone at the table picked up the fish with their hands and tear into the flesh with their teeth like wolves or bears. I realized the fish wasn’t even cooked and in many cases, still a little bit alive. Yet, the whole time, I held meaningful conversations with those seated around me while they ripped and chewed on a raw whole fish. I awoke with clear memories of a candle lit table covered in a beautiful cornucopia of dishes and people picking fish skin from their teeth.

The second night of fever food dreams had something to do with werewolves eating Doritos, which at first sounds like something Chris made up. In fact, if I looked hard enough through his files, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a screenplay about werewolves who like to snack on Doritos in between meals of human flesh. The floor of where ever I was in this dreamland was littered with human body parts and bags of Doritos. I stood before a werewolf as he casually pulled perfect orange triangle chips from the bag. He offered me one, said “Want a Dorito before I rip off your arm?” I snorted and rolled my eyes. “You want my last meal to be a fucking Dorito?!? Just rip off my arm already and get on with it.” Thankfully I woke up before the ripping started, but my left shoulder was a bit achey the next morning.

Now, after writing this all down, I’m sitting here attempting to decipher the meaning of all of this. What is my brain really trying to say to me or warn me about? We are entering the season of overindulgence. This usually means I just end up adding more kale to my diet. I over indulge in kale. Last weekend, I bought two things of soup: one tomato feta from the refrigerated section and one jar of garden vegetable. When I presented them to Michael as lunch choices, he asked “Why did you buy the tomato soup?” I told him I bought it for the day’s lunch. Then he asked “Then why did you buy the garden vegetable?” I replied “That was my impulse buy.” Michael snorted and replied “No one impulse buys vegetable soup. That is not an impulse buy.” I believe he was implying that impulse buys were things like the various candies on display at checkout, not jars of soup.

Not so secret: I have on occasion purchased an extra bag of kale. I consider this an impulse purchase, a just in case we run out of kale purchase (we never run out of kale).

Maybe these dreams are my subconscious telling me to dig into a more primal side of life, a life of more decadent pleasures like eating a whole jar of caviar with a spoon made of pearl. Maybe that werewolf is just telling me to live a little and eat some junk food. I don’t know what any one at that dinner table could be saying. I’m not eating a raw live fish…but I’ll eat raw fish(?). Maybe eating something that is still moving is the next decadent adventure? I don’t know if I want that adventure and I am pretty sure I have reached an age were I can fully live a “Choose Your Own Adventure” life. Perhaps I will just start out by making an impulsive candy bar purchase.

A fish shaped candy bar.

THE PARABLE OF THE WREATH MAKER

Last year, my favorite store was selling a Christmas wreath for almost $500 and I got so mad that I yelled out some expletives. First of all I immediately fell in love the wreath. Of course I fell in love the wreath. It was adorable and whimsical and sophisticated. It represented everything I want to be in life. But that price tag made me furious. Now, to be fair, my favorite store is known for ridiculous price tags. I only shop there when they’re having 50% of already sale item sales. Even then, I am meticulous about my purchase choices. This Christmas wreath sold out before it even had chance to go on sale and once again I was outraged that someone was wiling to fork over that much money for a holiday wreath.

The second thing that made me mad about this wreath was that I knew I could make it. I could make it for way less than their selling price. Knowing that I could make the wreath was annoying because while I can do crafty, I don’t go out of my way to be or do crafty. If someone dumps a bunch of craft supplies out in front of me and tells to create, I will do so, but I don’t want to purchase the supplies, store the supplies or deal with any kind of mess. Crafts are messy. This is why my holiday wreath remains the same for two or three years before I decide it is time for something new.

By the time I saw the store wreath, it was already too close to the holiday to bother. So instead, I started doing the thing that I usually avoid. I started hoarding holiday craft supplies so I could make this wreath for this year. I told Nurse Jenn about the wreath while we were out at the zoo and she mentioned that she wanted to make Yule wreaths with dried orange slices and greenery. Then she suggested we gather at her place on Sunday to make wreaths. Sunday afternoon, I sat at Jenn’s table with a group of lovely people and we chatted about all kinds of things while we built wreaths. It was lovely and I left so much glitter at Jenn’s house. I wanted to build a live wreath, but I’m allergic to all of the things. I did make a small live wreath when I had finished assembling my own, but gave it to Jenn because I can’t hang it in my house. My eyes and hands were itching by the time I left.

It was all worth it and I am so proud of my wreath. It is not identical to the store one. I accidentally bought two church like houses, but went with them anyway. And I think mine turned out better than the store version. I bought a wreath off the sales rack for $5. I found multicolored bottle brush trees 6 for a dollar. I went a little overboard with those trees. I did not ten boxes (I left a whole bunch at Jenn’s).Two. I needed two boxes, but whatever. The most money I spent was on the little houses and I purchased all three for $15. Maybe $2 for snow. The lights I already had. So for $32, I made a wreath that some hoity toity store wanted to sell me for $500. It would have cost me $24 if I hadn’t gone overboard with the bottle brush trees.

I love a good deal and I love my current distractions from reality.

MORE THINGS THE INTERNET THINKS I SHOULD BUY

In this episode of Things the Internet Thinks I should Buy, I bring you food mills, underwear, boots, and cat sweaters.

Let’s start with the underwear. That’s the most fun because those ads contain women in underwear and there you’ll be, harmlessly scrolling along in social media land, when suddenly there’s just a big lace clad butt picture or some woman adjusting her boobs in her bra. Sometimes there’s music playing in the ad. It has definitely made harmless scrolling a not safe for work activity. I do though appreciate the reminder that I could do better for myself in the underwear department. My underwear is not functional or sexy. It is a layer of fabric between my naked body bits and my pants and that’s about it. Maybe ‘buying nicer underwear’ should go on my New Year’s resolution. Right now and off and on since August, I’ve been just randomly bleeding and ruining underwear like in the days of my distant youth when the menstrual cycle was a new thing to me. So, I don’t really feel like buying anything nice until I’ve got this all figured out. I did see my gynecologist this week and we’ve made a plan to figure it out and with fingers crossed, I might be normalish by the new year. Until then, I don’t deserve nice things.

That’s not true. I am deserving of nice things.

The next ad I keep getting is for a certain brand of boots. I love this brand and love the boots. I mean I desperately want these boots, but ever time I click on the ad, I see that they are sold out of my size plus they’re not cheap. I’m almost willing to overlook the price because I know this brand and I know they’ll be comfortable, well-made boots. But I can’t overlook the size. If I’m going to spend that kind of money on boots, I should buy the right size. So now when I see this ad, it makes me sad. The same is true whenever I get the ad for a spectacular space cat sweater. First of all, the sweater is not my usual fashion choice. It’s brightly colored with a giant cat in a spacesuit gazing into the distance on the front. I don’t know why I love it so much, but I do. I want an oversized version of this sweater to wear with my leggings and the boots that they don’t have in my size. The sweater is not expensive, but the website is scammy. Like super scammy. I am guaranteed to loose all of my money and identities if I attempt to purchase this sweater. So I need some legitimate company to sell this sweater and I need those boots in my size please.

I believe those are reasonable requests.

Finally (not really…I get a lot of ads), I keep getting ads for food mill/composters. They’re like trashcans but only for food waste and they break up the food for compost. And I want one. Yes, I know that I could just throw my food waste into a compost bin in the backyard somewhere. Except I’ve done this, but you can’t just throw food waste into a bin. You have to stir it up and adjust pH and do things with the compost. I am lazy when it comes to gardening. Also, are you aware that compost bins can spontaneously combust? Especially if you do nothing but put stuff in the bin. The food mill/composters do all of the work for you. Then all you have to do is figure out what to do with the milled up food waste. I think I could manage that. Nope. I know I could manage this. I just have this vision that this product will reduce our amount of weekly garbage by half. Maybe more. I mean…we set out one to two bags of garbage plus a full recycling bin every week. It’s not like we’re big trash producers, but I can see where we can do better. The food mill/composters are expensive. Like really expensive. It’s like when the Roomba was a new thing expensive. I am a patient person. I waited long enough for the Roomba prices to go down and now I have a robot vacuum cleaner. I have no doubt the same thing will happen with the food mill/composters.

Sure, I do get a bunch of other ads every day trying to sell me some really useless crap. Those ads are easy breeze bys. I am not annoyed by, in fact I probably enjoy, the ads for the underwear, boots, sweater and composters and I’ll tell you why. Those ads are helping me dream of a better future for myself. A future of nice underwear and comfortable boots. A future of crazy cat sweaters and even a better environment. I like this dream. I like the idea that I can be that whimsical type of person that would wear bright colored space cat sweaters. I honestly don’t care much about the underwear, but I wouldn’t mind a nicer bit of fabric on my naked body bits. I am a practical person, so of course my dreams have a practical nature and if I have learned anything from my mother it is the importance of a good quality practical boot. And that composter thing would just make me a better citizen of the planet. Do I understand that this is capitalism at it’s finest and “they” have figured out my financial weaknesses?

Yes. And I do not care.

AND THEN I DIDN'T SMILE FOR TWO YEARS

Last Thursday, before leaving for my weekend with Heather, I went to the orthodontist to get Invisalign. I thought they would just hand me some plastic teeth covers and that would be it. That is not how this works. First, the technician had to glue a bunch of nubs onto my teeth as well as a metal hook because I have to wear a rubber band on the left side. I was not prepared for any of this. The place where the rubber hooks to the top is poky and has worn a sore into my upper lip. Maybe that will get better when I change them out on Thursday for the next round of teeth covers. Invisalign is basically like making a claymation movie, except instead molding clay, you’re moving teeth. And they’re probably not really called ‘teeth covers’. This is what I have decided to call them because they feel very much like the plastic couch covers of the 70s and 80s.

I hate them.

I keep telling myself that all of this is for the greater good and the health of my mouth. None of this is cosmetic. It’s all about securely setting roots into the jaw bone and maintaining a healthy jaw so that I won’t have to pull all my teeth and get dentures when I’m 80. This is a good and important thing I am doing for my teeth. So many people have told me that I will get used to the teeth covers. They have told me that I will become so well practiced in prying them off my teeth and popping them back on that I won’t need the special hook tool the orthodontist gave me to pry them out. This skill is important because I can’t eat with them in my mouth. There’s no such thing as a spontaneous snack for me anymore. It’s not that I usually snack between meals, but sometimes candy and other goodies are brought into the office. Halloween means that our break room will be filling up with mini-candy bars and skittles. I’m going to have to really want it. Since Michael and I have both been sick, I have not tested out what it’s like to kiss with teeth covers. The orthodontist said to not eat with them in, but did not say anything about leaving them in during sex. It’s either going to be real weird or someone’s new kink. I mean, I’m sure I would not have to search hard to find that porn. I am not going to do that search. This is just where my brain went.

I am growing weary and frustrated with the maintenance of this body. I spent about an hour on hold Monday morning just to leave a message with my intern doctor that I’d like talk about the blood test results from the blood work she ordered two weeks ago. Tuesday, my plan is to make an appointment with my gyno to talk about my ten day periods and the extra one I’m having right now. Maybe it’s just because it’s the week of Halloween, a week of all things gory and spooky. My body wants our costume to be a crime scene or a mash up between Carrie and Slimer (from all the snot coming out of my nose). I know by body is aging, but right now with the teeth covers and the erratic periods, I feel very much like a thirteen year old again.

Aging is living.

MY LACK OF GRATITUDE

I recognize that I’ve missed a number of Thankful Friday entries for the month of October. I also have not slept in my own bed on any Friday night of October. This weekend will be no different. Months ago, Heather got tickets to David Sedaris and then said “Come up for that weekend!” It has been on my calendar since June, well before a planned work trip and an unplanned visit to my mother. To say that the month of October has been a bit packed with travel and feelings is an understatement. I have mentally started compiling a list of things I’m thinking of putting off until next year because I’m loosing interest in doing anything with the rest of the year. I keep saying to people “When things slow down…..” and that really does sound like January to me. I know that in the winter months, there will large swaths of time of nothing because it will be too cold to leave the house.

I also came back from Oklahoma with a nasty head cold that is making it really hard to keep up any kind of momentum. When I texted Heather to warn her about my condition, she replied “Take it easy and we will continue to take it easy through the weekend.” Other than an evening with David Sedaris, we have foot spa plans which requires me to do nothing and I can’t believe how much I am looking forward to doing nothing with Heather. I will admit that returning to a weekly gratitude posting was creeping onto my list of things to be put off until next year. Then I thought about how my weekend to come is something I would normally use for a gratitude post.

I may have only stepped away from this gratitude practice for a brief moment, but I have noticed a shift in my mood and outlook and not it’s not a good shift. How easy it is to slip back into old mindsets of negativity! It is so easy to fall into old ruts and just get stuck following an old path. The good stuff, the moments that make you smile, a lot of times those moments don’t just happen. We have to make moments of joy happen and be open to recognizing hints of those moments when they happen spontaneously. It’s exercise. It’s lifting the five pound weight over and over until suddenly you don’t even notice you’re lifting the five pound weight. I do the work so that eventually I don’t realize I’m doing any work. Joy and gratitude just appears easily. Well…I’m noticing that I need to do the work.

So, I’m grateful for a weekend of rest and time with a friend.

WHAT I BROUGHT BACK

Michael and I drove down to my mom’s Thursday evening, arriving just in time for us all to go to bed. The two of us and Josephine slept on mattresses that had been plopped down in Mom’s living room. I woke up early Friday morning, achy and frozen. We dressed and took Mom out for breakfast. The whole time, Michael and I steered the conversation to the positive and hyping up her big move. Then we went back to her house to load up the vehicles with the things for her new space. This did not take long. Her new space is basically a studio apartment with a tiny living area, a bedroom and bath and a small kitchenette with a small fridge, microwave and sink. We arranged furniture and that was that. Mom is now in her new home.

There were some moments of struggle, things she wanted to take but does not need like her microwave. For the most part, the transition was easy. It did not keep me from worrying about her for the rest of the evening. Michael, my brother and sister-in-law and I went back to my mom’s house to chat and plan the next course of action. I did manage to fill two garbage bags with trash just from clearing and cleaning the kitchen counter, but I quickly ran out of steam. There’s a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff that could be useful to someone. There’s furniture and dishes and pots and pans. I picked up at least five can openers while clearing the counter. There is not a table top surface that is visible from all the piles of knick-knacks and trinkets and just junk. The three of us, me and my siblings, all agree that we need time and space before tackling all of it. This will be how we spend Michael’s Spring Break.

I struggled to sleep that night. Partly because of comfort. Partly because I was so itchy. At some point on Friday, I broke out in hives and have scratched for two days. A big part of my struggle to sleep though was how I couldn’t stop thinking of Mom sleeping in her new space for the first time. Would she feel safe and secure or would she panic and have a restless night, jumping at every new tick or tock sound? The next morning, Michael and I got up early to head back home. I took my mom’s car and a small toy caboose with The Peanut Man emblazoned on the side. I also came home with a mild cough and lots of sinus drainage, which is not an unusual state for me when in Oklahoma, particularly in the Fall. I brought along a slight sense of dread and worry for my mother’s future.

I knew the hoarding situation was bad. I did not realize just how much my mother has declined mentally. I had been told and I had witnessed some of her fogginess, but it didn’t really register. It’s sort of like when the doctors told Chris and I that they found a tumor on his liver. We joked and called it a tortilla chip. It was cancer. Yet to this day, I can’t say that Chris died from cancer. The tortilla chip killed him. I was only seeing my mother’s decline in the times I could get down to visit, which filtered the severity. My sister was seeing and dealing with it daily. I talked to my sister right before we left Mom’s to head back home and she had finally gotten a good night’s sleep. I called my mother on Sunday to check in and she sounded almost like an earlier version of herself. She sounded strong and pleased. She said she had slept through two nights in a row. She’s making friends and I got a picture today of her participating in the day’s group painting project.

I’ve dropped the worry and dread.

I’m keeping the car and the toy caboose.

For now, we are all okay.

MARTHA'S VINEYARD CAMP MEETING ASSOCIATION

It’s easy to catch a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard from Woods Hole. Oak Bluffs has the most flexible ferry schedule. The first time I visited, I rode the ferry to Oak Bluffs, rented a bicycle and immediately cycled over to Edgartown. I didn’t really pay attention to Oak Bluffs, not even when I came back to return the bike and get back on the ferry. This time though, I learned something about Oak Bluffs that I can’t stop dreaming about.

In 1835, some men from the Methodist church in Edgartown purchased a half acre of land for holding religious camp meetings. They built a shed with a pulpit in the front and this was their area of worship. The worshippers attending would set up tents around the pulpit. The first meeting was a success and the tent city started growing. Sometime between 1855 and 1865, there were more family tents and people started to extend their time on the island. Sort of mixing their religious meeting with summer vacations. Eventually a local carpenter was employed to build cottages. At one time there were 500 small family cottages, now there’s about 300, some of them have even been insulated for Massachusetts winters.

Sarah and I walked by almost every single cottage. It’s not hard to do. They’re packed close together and they’re tiny. Yet each one is unique in color, trim and porch displays. I realize now that I never took any pictures of a whole cottage. I focused on the porch displays and the gardens and the neighborhood cat. We stopped in at the gift shop, where we asked all kinds of questions. I wanted to know how many of the cottages still belonged to original families. Only six out of the three hundred are still within original families. There are strict rules to owning a cottage. They don’t allow them to be rented out for more than six weeks a year. You will need three letters of recommendation, one of those from your religious leader, to purchase a cottage. These rules are in place to protect the community feeling of the place.

This was it. This is the kind of place I’m always talking about where all of our friends build our own retirement community, except the houses are already built. The ocean beaches are an easy stroll away, as well as the grocery store and ice cream shops. We could take the largest cottage and have it fitted for a doctor’s clinic for the minor issues of aging and there’s a hospital in Oak Bluffs for bigger issues. We could have amazing trick-or-treat nights for the local children and caroling in December. Our Thanksgiving Table could be set up in the open air tabernacle that sits in the center of the community. Our parties would be epic!

Our community would be joyful.

Community and not taking pictures seems to be a recurring theme around here. But our stroll through this little village inspired more than retirement dreams and the pictures I did take. I thought up a whole story about two girls from different families spending their summers together, riding their bikes out to remote beaches and flirting with lifeguards. They change into different people during their time off the island, but return to being the same old same old every summer. They grow up. They have struggles, but they always come back to the village. It’s their sanctuary, their healing place. There are stories to be told here. Stories of love and loss. Stories of destruction and growth. Stories of finding something worth hanging on to forever. I want to rent one of those cabins for as long as I am allowed and use my time to research and write.

I want to go to camp.

SUNSETS AND NORTHERN LIGHTS

The sunset that evening was spectacular. Sarah called it a “Lisa Frank Sunset” and I don’t think there is a more appropriate description. We witnessed the electric pinks of the setting sun from the deck of the ferry as we traveled back to Woods Hole from Martha’s Vineyard. It was so cold and windy that I would have to take breaks, ducking inside to warm up before jumping back out into the wind for more pictures. This moment and then on our last morning when we stopped at the beach so I could get lighthouse pictures are two moments of joy on my timeline map, stuck in with thumbtacks. Both times, my camera was in my hands and up to my face and I was snapping away.

The night of the Lisa Frank Sunset, I got restless and walked outside. I looked up at the sky and could see brushstrokes of pink still lingering in the clouds. I thought it was leftover sunset and since I wasn’t really in a good spot for taking pictures, I didn’t bother. When I finally went back inside, I sat on my bed scrolling through Instagram. Chad shared an image of the Northern Lights taken by a friend and it suddenly hit me. I texted Chad to ask where his friend was and he quickly sent back an answer. His friend had taken the picture in Massachusetts. I hadn’t witnessed lingering sunset. I had been staring up at the Northern Lights the whole time and didn’t even know it.

And I didn’t take any pictures.

Months ago, when I dragged Michael out to Smithville lake to see the Northern Lights, the only way we could see them was through the camera lens. We saw nothing with our naked eyes. This is why I am not sad about not capturing any images from last Thursday’s solar flare event. Seeing the Northern Lights with my eyes is something I never thought I’d get to see or experience. So often, when we think of things we can’t imagine living through or experiencing, they are the negative life experiences. “I can’t imagine…” “I could never…” I don’t know how anyone could….” All of those sentences end in a description of destruction and loss. What if I started flipping this narrative? Not just flipping it, but making it happen?

I can’t imagine ever seeing the Northern Lights. Check

I can’t imagine eating a baguette while gazing up at the Eiffel Tower.

I can’t imagine ever having the kitchen of my dreams.

I can’t imagine watching the sunset over the Grand Canyon. Check

I can’t imagine going to Ireland with my mother. Check

I can’t imagine doing anything more than just taking the picture. Check

I can’t imagine ever seeing a moose.

I can’t imagine checking off everything from my list because my list will just keep growing. In the meantime, I will place another thumbtack in my mental timeline and start linking all the other thumbtacks together with string. Then I can pluck the strings and let the memories vibrate through my soul.

A CHANGE IN THE TIMELINE

The timeline for moving my mother to assisted living has been moved up. My sister is desperate to put my mom someplace where she’ll be too distracted with elderly activities to do dangerous activities. I guess there was an incident a week or so ago where my sister caught our mother standing on the kitchen cabinets, vacuuming the top cabinets. This gives me a real glimpse at my own future and the old lady that I will be because my first instinct was to shrug and say “good for her!” I had to pause and think about why this might actually be a bad or dangerous activity for my eighty three year old mother who has been prone to falls. My mom is bored. She needs stuff to do, preferably stuff that doesn’t involve electric hedge trimmers or climbing the walls.

I have to admit that I straight up panicked when my sister sent me the text that she was trying to get Mom moved by the end of October. Between work and Michael’s school schedule, October is FULL and I don’t know how I’m going to get down there to help out. My sister is all ‘you don’t need to help unless you want to help’ and I of course don’t want to help but I don’t want her to have to do this alone. I am also struggling to find an estate liquidation company that a. works in the area b. will handle smaller houses and c. call me the fuck back! I do not want to be cleaning out the same stuff I’ve already cleaned out once in the middle of winter. Or any time really. To make matters worse, any time anyone asks me how I feel about moving my mom into assisted living, I start crying. I can’t talk about it. Thursday, after my sister’s text, I got on my yoga mat and started sobbing in child’s pose. No one had asked me anything. I was just doing my practice while sobbing uncontrollably.

Nothing to see here.

I think the reason I can’t talk about my feelings on this subject is because they’re so complicated. I truly believe that the assisted living home is going to be wonderful for my mother. She will have people her own age to talk with (or at), tons of activities available to her and outside gardens to wander. She will have a community, something she hasn’t had since leaving Collinsville. On the other hand, I am worried that my mother will isolate herself and find excuses and or complaints for not joining in with her new community. I can only imagine that the feelings are similar when sending a child to their first day of school. Will they make friends? Will they be liked by others? Will they be sad the whole time? These are all the things I worry about with my mother.

Then there’s anger.

Honestly, I’ve been angry with my mother since 2013 for a number of reasons, one of them being not listening to some sound wisdom from her children to not rush to sell the old house. But she refused, was adamant that this had to happen RIGHT NOW! At the end of the day, she did what she wanted without considering the consequences or her own future. She purposefully isolated herself and she didn’t take care of her body. It’s like she gave up on life without having the gumption or follow through to truly give up on her life. Instead she takes out her frustrations of still being around on her children. We are the ones that have to sit and listen to all the ways she is unhappy, disappointed and unsatisfied. We are well aware that her unhappiness, disappointments and unsatisfaction began well before any of us were born, that we are just part of the long line of it since her birth. Knowing this does not make listening to it all any easier.

I let go of the idea and feelings that I am part of my mother’s long list of disappointments some time ago, mostly because I have no control over it. I’m not angry at being one of her many sources of unhappiness. I am angry that she never took responsibility for her own happiness. I am angry at her choice to take her life lemons and turn them into just straight up lemon juice, refusing to add sugar for a nice refreshing drink. Instead she has just marinated herself in that bitter lemon juice and I am angry at her refusal to take responsibility for her own actions and choices. And this lemon juiced soaked woman is who we are moving to assisted living. My sister confessed that she’s been having nightmares about our mother getting kicked out of the facility and I couldn’t assuage her concerns.

That’s a valid nightmare.

I suppose my tears come from worry that my mother will not be able to take advantage of her new home and will not find joy in the company of new friends. I worry that she will park herself in a chair in her room and never venture out of her room, not even trying. This thought along with no longer having a home to go back to in Oklahoma are the things that send me over the edge. My touch stone is broken and unrepairable and my mother is sitting in a room choosing misery. And the estate liquidation company will not call me back which means that we will have to deal with the contents of our mother’s house on our own.

For most of my life I have felt unprepared or trained for the task of adulting. I didn’t know how to go about buying a house or even saving money properly. There are adult things I purposefully avoided because I knew I was ill-equipped, like motherhood. I just straight up avoided the things I knew for sure no one had even bothered to mention to me, let alone teach me how to deal with. All right, there were some tasks I had to deal with because they were unavoidable. Bodies don’t cremate themselves. While I was making it up as I go, I did manage to do those very hard adult tasks. I didn’t say I was not capable. I am untrained to deal with the aging parent side of adulting.

But I’m dealing.

SOURED

The first quote in my new Saturday morning journal is something from Amelia Earhart and because Michael left multiple pages between the quotes, I have spent multiple Saturdays on the same story. The story that came forth was one of a woman trying to make a loaf of bread from a sourdough starter she had also created. So, it’s an autobiographical tale. I had left off the previous Saturday with the woman, Amber, eyeing her sourdough starter with suspicion. When I picked up the thread from there, I wrote about coming from a family that didn’t bake loaves of bread. This is true. We baked cakes, cookies and pies. Cornbread and biscuits. Rolls for Thanksgiving dinner. Never loaves of bread. I was raised in the west by people raised in the south. The leavening agent of choice was baking powder or backing soda and yeast sold in tiny square packets. Sourdough was something someone made in the north, on a coast.

I am not genetically predisposed for baking a loaf of sourdough bread.

Yet…I keep trying, tossing my failed attempts into the garbage each week.

As I tossed the latest failed attempt, Michael told me for the thousandth time about how he used to make really good bread. He worked at Subway and Planet Sub in his late teens, early twenties. So he knows how to make corporate bread for the masses. Then he asked if I just wanted him to make me a loaf bread, obviously oblivious and clueless about my motivations for my own attempts at making a loaf of bread. The truth is, I could also make a really good loaf of bread using the very same method Michael would probably use. I too have done this thousands of times. What I have not done, is create a loaf of sourdough bread with a crispy outside and a light, airy inside. I have not produced anything I want to slather with butter and jam or smashed avocado. Not ever. Not with the old starter and for sure not with this new one.

But it doesn’t keep me from trying.

Michael keeps asking me what he can do to help with the things I’ve been worrying about. “What would be easier for you?” is his go-to question. The answer I never give him, the truth, is that what would be easier is not have to answer the question at all. Just step in and take some action. He still hasn’t learned that while I am a very independent woman, it sure is nice to have someone else just step in and do something without having to be asked or told. You see it needs to be done, so you do it. But in all fairness, there is nothing I can do to fix or change or make things easier for myself either. I just have to accept the process and give in to the knowledge that there is nothing I can do.

All this time, while making my sourdough bread, I have meticulously weighed flour and water. I have had complete control over the ingredients, yet no control over the outcome of mixing those things together. And that’s the lesson. Each batch of bread is a reminder that there are only parts of a situation that you have control over. The moment I place the dough into the oven, I loose all control over what kind of loaf of bread it’s going to turn out to be. I just have to wait and see. If it fails, it fails and I just try again maybe with a different recipe or doing more to adjust the temperature of the house to accommodate a better rise. The important part is that I try again. And again. And again. And again. With each attempt, leaning into the unknown, knowing that I made an effort. I carefully weighed and measured.

All that’s left is the wait and see part.

I'M FINE

Last Thursday, I was in the middle of my morning walk with Josephine when I stepped and then rolled on a walnut ball. I twisted my left ankle and fell hard onto the sidewalk, scraping my knee and the palms of my hands. I laid there for a few minutes wondering if I was dead or just broken. Then I carefully peeled my body from the ground and hobbled home. And I treated the day like any other day despite having an ankle the size of a grapefruit and a bloody knee. I went to my chiropractor and literally said to her “I do not have time to take care of my body right now. Pop things together and let’s go.” RICE doesn’t work for someone who finds it impossible to be still.

Now, I have been sitting a lot with my foot propped up. In the evenings, I have been sitting with an ice pack draped over my ankle. I also have not taken Josephine on a morning walk since last Thursday. I am sitting at my desk now and stressing about the number of steps I am not getting today. I hardly ever sit at my desk. I’m mostly always standing because sitting is the new poison. I have an appointment this week for my yearly cholesterol checkup and my doctor is a new intern. I get a new one every two years, but this one didn’t want to authorize blood work before we meet. So I guess we’ll talk about my weight and my sporadic exercise routine. I can show her the lovely shades of purple and blue surrounding my left ankle. I can talk to my doctor about how I’m really trying to incorporate exercise into my daily life even though I’d really like to be taking a nap.

I kind of feel little bit like Artax stuck in the Swamp of Sadness.

About a month ago, I started my own sourdough starter. I had let my old one rot and die in the fridge and since I had already replaced it twice by asking my work friend for some of his, I didn’t feel like I could ask again. Also, I thought that by making my own starter, I might be more vested in taking care of it. Olga. I’ve named her Olga and she looks bubbly and smells ripe. I think it’s working but I have spent the last two weekends testing it out by trying to make a loaf of bread. Both experiments have produced hard dense, discus like structures that are very wet on the inside. To be fair, I never really made a spectacular loaf of bread with the old starter. It was mostly used to make spectacular pizza crust and maybe that’s how I should be testing out Olga. But I just want to get a loaf bread right. This feels like something I should be good at. Wait…this is something I used to be good at. The number of loaves of wheat bread I baked during my 4-H years was equivalent to a bakery and the bread was good. We liked eating the bread. All I can do now is produce lumps of dense dough very similar to the shape of my body.

Lump of my lump.

I get that I have a lot of mental space and energy being spent on other things right now. I have a day job that requires brain power and problem solving. I’m teaching a four week yoga session on building up a strong and healthy plank pose. I’m still teaching chair yoga once a week. I am always thinking about a current family situation and ‘always thinking’ really should translate to ‘always worrying’. Things will settle and be easier…next week…next month…next year. This is what I keep telling myself. I will be able to commit to my own body once some other things are settled. Once I’ve healed.

Or once I’ve made a decent loaf of sourdough bread.

ROASTED VEGETABLES

This isn't a recipe post. I just didn’t really know how to title this one. Depending on your general philosophy, the title can express negative and positive feelings. Are you a glass half full kind of person? Then you might find this post to be mildly pleasant. Who knows? And since I will not be advertising this one in my Facebook timeline, very few of you will end up reading any of it any way. I guess I could have titled this “The Things I’m Not Prepared For” but that’s such a big list of things. Or it’s a short list.

Things I’m not prepared for: everything.

We are preparing for my mother to go to assisted living. Now, I have been a huge advocate for assisted living. In fact, I urged my mother to consider moving into a retirement village when she sold the old house. Unfortunately, retirement communities had already taken up negative mental space in my mother’s brain and she flat out refused. Instead she bought the house next door to my sister, which further isolated her from her usual activities. Bit by bit, since moving into that space, my mother has become less active. We are now at the point where she doesn’t leave her house unless my sister takes her somewhere and the toll it is taking on her mental and physical well being is very obvious. Her doctor recommends we make the move by December.

I want to believe that my mother’s mental health is going to drastically improve once she is in her new little studio apartment. It is the time between now and when she is actually settled is the part that is making my stomach hurt. My mother took almost everything from the old house. Boxes of things I know I personally put into the dumpster while cleaning out the old home will randomly appear when I arrive for a visit. “Oh I found this stuff of yours. Do you want it?” I have stopped arguing or trying to make sense of it. Instead I enthusiastically say “yes!” while putting the box in my car. Then I drive it away and dispose of it properly, saying goodbye once again to things from my past. And I honestly do not think I have the energy to do this for a whole house again.

Every time I have visited my mother this year, she has been almost frantic with what she was going to do with all of these things. My sister and I have both told her that she only needs to think about the stuff she’s taking to the new place. A love seat. A full size bed. A dresser and nightstand. Clothes. She won’t need fifty bath towels or twenty sheet sets. She won’t need her pots and pans even. My sister and I both have told her this and that we will find someone to help us take care of the contents of what’s left. I have a number for an estate sale company, but these are all things we can not do until my mother is settled in her new space. We are at this uncomfortable holding pattern.

I was not prepared my mother to age so quickly. I was not prepared for her confusion or how soft her body feels now. I was not prepared for the boulder of guilt that I am now carrying around with me because I feel like I am not doing enough or I’m using my distance as an excuse to not do more. Some of that guilt boulder is made from apathy. I just don’t care about all of the stuff in my mother’s house. I don’t value it the way she does. I have never valued the things as much she does. This has always led to contention. She sees it all as her memories and I am inconsiderate for not placing the same values on these memories as she does. I will be taking her car and I feel guilty for that even though I have the blessing from both siblings. I don’t like asking for things, even when it will make my life easier.

Today, while trying to figure out a visit for Thanksgiving, I was looking at Airbnbs and it just felt so expensive. This is when it hit me. I no longer have a home in Tulsa, at least not one that accommodates all of us, Michael, the Cabbage and Josephine. I know I am always welcome at my brother’s. They have a spare bedroom or at least I think they do. But all four of us visiting is cramped and I hate doing that my brother. And all of these feelings and anxieties have been festering inside of me for weeks now. I don’t dare write about it all because my mother doesn’t react well to anything I’ve written about her in this space. I’ve been considerate of her feelings for oh so long, but I’m filled up to the max. I’m not sharing this to Facebook with the idea that this is the only way she knows how to get here.

The things I wasn’t prepared for was the hard stuff. Yet every time I am presented with the impossible, I have moved forward in some way….hopefully healthy. I may not be prepared for it, but I seem to be pretty good at improvising. Macguyvering my way through life, one sheet pan full of roasted veggies at a time.