THANKFUL FRIDAY

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We bought a new blender because I broke my old blender. I mean I buhroke it. About a year ago, I went on a cleaning bender and collected all of the kitchen appliances that only get used when every other planet aligns and carted them to the basement. My arms were full of appliances, including the blender, and I took one step down the basement stairs when the blender pitcher toppled off the base. It bounced all the way down the stairs and shattered on the basement floor. At the time, I just sort of shrugged it off. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had used that thing. I don’t like margaritas.

Just before the dumpster fire that is the current state of affairs, Micheal and I started intermittent fasting during the week and we just stuck with it. It means skipping breakfast and having a snack around 10:30 am. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, my snack has been some cottage cheese with some fruit. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it’s avocado toast with a boiled egg. (Shut up. I know I am lulu crazy pants.) Then, I started to get a craving for a smoothie. Not just any smoothie. I wanted a really green smoothie. One with kale and spinach and maybe a bit of celery, a squeeze of lemon. The more I thought about it, the greater my craving became until I finally decided that we needed to buy a new blender. So I told Michael that I was going to buy a new blender and he said “Wait a minute. Don’t you think I have a say in this?” Then he went down a rabbit hole of research into blenders. By the time I woke up the following morning, he had ordered one and as soon as the delivery person set it down on our front porch, I grabbed it up. I pulled it from the box and then immediately sliced open my finger on the blade while I was washing it. Appliances work better after they have been given a blood sacrifice.

That was two weeks ago. Now, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I put half of a banana, a stalk of celery, a handful of kale, a handful of spinach, a dollop of plain yogurt, and some ice into one of the individual blender cups that came with our blender. I squeeze half of a lemon into it and then blend it all up. Michael thinks it tastes like a pasture, but I love it. I drink it up, relishing the gritty kale bits, while watching a tutorial on electron microscopy or Numpy coding crap. Then I go do about an hour and a half of yoga before lunch. I just realized as I re-read those last two sentences that it sounds like I have fully gone granola hippy chic. Don’t worry. I’m still shaving my armpits and using deodorant that is not made of crystals, but I am one pound away from just barely being in the ‘healthy weight’ section of the BMI chart.

And I know that all of this sounds like a really lame thing for a gratitude post, but this week has not been easy. The dumpster fire has gotten worse. People are not wearing masks and social distancing. The lack of effort makes me think the worst of them, that they are either so selfish or too ignorant to separate science from politics. I had a phone call with my mother that had us both crying and neither one of us handle tears in an effective manner. I have been short and snappish with others. I have been disappointed with myself for not handling things better or doing more or walking more steps or just more everything. Many times a day have been a practice in containing the rage that threatens to boil up and out of this body and exploding over the smallest incident like the inability to put recyclables in the recycle bin (the kitchen counter is not the recycle bin). I know we are all feeling the strain and stress and frustration. Our lives are different and change is hard, but some of the most rewarding transformations come from the hardest changes.

The other evening, I held a firefly tightly in my fist. I watched its tail light blinking through the cracks between my fingers. When I finally opened my fist, the firefly crawled out to the tip of my index finger. It sat there, flashing yellow-green light, for two or three breaths and then it floated up and away. That is how I am approaching the feelings of this week. I’m going to take a moment to squeeze them in my fist and then I am going to gently release them. I am going to find gratitude in green pasture smoothies that bring me joy. I’ve never been a part of the ‘healthy weight’ section of anything. So I’m going to take a moment to celebrate that.

I am going to take today to see gratitude in tiny victories.

THE END OF SUMMER

Hiding places

8 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Hiding places"

It has long been a custom to link the end of summer with the first day of the school year. I've been hearing for two weeks the lament from Michael about how summer is almost over. Then on Thursday, his first day back to school, he declared the official end to summer. It is the end to his summer vacation, but it is not the end of summer. Or at least, I don't feel like it is the end to my summer. The weather here is hot and humid. Missouri is currently under drought conditions which is not normal. The backyard is a combination of tall prairie grasses and and dry barren patches. My sunflower continues to grow strong, but there is still not a bloom in sight. The evenings hum with the buzz of cicadas and crickets. The mosquitoes are vicious and the chickens are no longer laying six or seven eggs a week. We're lucky if we get four eggs a week now.  

August is a hard and brittle month. 

I spent all day Sunday decluttering the places we tend to dump things. The closed cabinet section of the china hutch has become a home to a random array of tools and leftover screws, several selections of dog and cat treats, pipe cleaners, Halloween spider webbing and a box of old markers. My desk drawers had become a dumping ground for the flotsam and jetsam that accumulates for no other reason than it feels inappropriate to throw them away. I threw away fabric remnants that I no longer needed and dried up bottles of glue. I set my side table and three decorative pillows out on the curb. Then I shifted the couch over to the west. That side of the room looks a little exposed now that there's no longer a piece of furniture lining every section of the wall. That's my design style it seems, lining the walls with furniture. In the clean out, I unearthed five small notebooks of lists and Chris's USAO and military IDs and a stack of old pictures. I will be unearthing notebooks containing two to three pages of writing for the rest of my life. And I will keep each one. 

August is difficult.

This time last year I was thinking about how nice it would be to jump out of the car while it was moving through heavy traffic. I don't feel that way this year. I don't necessarily feel like doing cartwheels, but at least I don't feel like jumping into traffic. I've got my distractions. I've gotten more focused on food, our meal plans and cooking something new once in a while. I'm reading more. I'm organizing my work and thinking about new business cards. Michael and I are adapting to a new schedule and getting back into a routine as he starts the school year. We find ourselves occupying the same spaces at the same time in the mornings, dancing around each other in the bathroom and the kitchen. It is more fluid then one would expect. I'll start cooking our breakfast while he gets the scooters out of the garage. We both sit at the dining room table and eat breakfast together. It's nice. So, I'm keeping busy, but not so busy that I don't forget to just sit still every now and then.

One evening recently, I sat on the back stoop watching Josephine as she did her patrol of the back yard. I noticed one lone firefly blinking across the back yard. At first, it is a lonely sight, without the others blinking back in response to this one's blinks. Did you know that the average lifespan of a firefly is about two months? This guy was either born late or he's found a way to extend his lifespan. Either way, he's soaking up as much of the summer as he can. I want to be that firefly. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Imaginary beasts

4 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Imaginary beasts"

The fireflies in the Mark Twain National Forest light up differently than those from our own backyard. We noticed this on our first evening in the forest. Our campground was located almost in the middle of one of the forest quadrants. After we had set up camp and eaten dinner, we took a stroll down to the lake/pond. Michael was hunting a good spot for us to lay down a blanket later for star gazing. I was trying to catch a glimpse of the bull frogs that I could hear at the edge of the pond. It was right at that perfect time of evening where the sun had just dropped down, but not far enough to make everything dark. We walked to a field on the other side of the pond, picked a spot for star gazing the next evening and then turned to head back. 

As we headed back towards the campground, we noticed the fireflies. They had just started lifting up from the forest floor to start their evening of hunting. Right away, I saw something different about these guys. Their flash of light was short, a blink really. It did not linger and slowely dissipate like the fireflies in our own backyard. These forest fireflies blinked like little camera flashes and they seemed to do so almost in unison with each other. We marveled at the diversity and the differences between 'city' fireflies and 'country' fireflies. The next night, we laid on a blanket in the field on the other side of the pond and looked at the stars. Occasionally we would think that we had spotted a satellite only to realize that we had spotted a firefly.  We did see a real satellite or two and Michael finally got a glimpse of the Milky Way, but it's the fireflies that impressed me the most. Always the biologist. 

I am thankful for our time away, traveling this country and for the things we saw. I am so grateful that part of that time included Chad, Jess and The Kid. At one point, Chad and I looked at each other and just started laughing for no reason in particular. The Kid looked at the two of us, shook his head and said "you guys are ridiculous." Which made us laugh harder. I am thankful for that woman with the truck who hauled all of us and our bikes back up the longest steepest hill, even if Chad had to pay her $20. I am just thankful that she was there and agreed to Chad's offer. Between that woman and twenty bucks, no one died that died. Mostly Chad. Chad wasn't murdered that day. I am thankful for ridiculous moments and easy bike rides. I am thankful for that moment when we came across a doe and her fawn. I am thankful for all the car tags we collected. We got fifty different car tags, some of those were Canadian. We were missing four American State tags by the time we made it home. 

I am thankful for fireflies.

I am thankful for you. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Up

7 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Up"

Weeks ago, I was sitting on the back step watching Josephine sniffing around the backyard. The sun had just dropped and evening was still. I noticed a faint blink of light floating around the back corner of the yard. The first firefly sighting of Summer. Or at least this is what I thought at the time. The weather turned almost Fall like with heavy rains after that first firefly sighting, making me think that the kind of Summers I am used to may not be happening this year. The temperatures are still very mild for this time of year. Yet despite the absence of warmth, the fireflies continue to dance across the backyard every evening. One firefly has turned into many fireflies. 

Michael calls them lightning bugs. He finds it interesting that I have always known them as fireflies while he knows them as lightening bugs. We hit several of them mid-glow on our way to Hannibal last Friday and marveled at the green fluorescent streak they left behind on the windshield. A superoxide anion, which is a form of molecular oxygen that contains an extra electron, reacts with an enzyme called luciferin to produce the greenish yellow glow of a firefly. You would think that knowing the science behind the glow would take some of the wonder and magic from seeing a firefly in action, but not for me. In fact, the knowledge of how it happens, makes the whole thing even more amazing. Mix together some luciferin with some ATP and a superoxide anion and Bam! you have a flash of light. Produced by a tiny beetle. 

Fireflies represent so many things for me. They are the harbingers of Summer. They make you want to believe in magical things and fairies. The thing about them that I am most grateful for though is how they spark curiosity. How do they do that? Why do they do that? These are questions I asked as a child. These are questions that inspired a young scientist. I am thankful for the inspiration fireflies have given me. Luciferin is used in labs today to help study protein-protein interaction in live cells, how cells signal one another, and to monitor cell growth. It has been an invaluable tool in basic scientific research. So...I'm pretty thankful for fireflies. They are a pretty good reason for supporting environmental protection. 

Climate change is a real thing that is happening to our planet. It is not about belief. It is a scientifically shown thing that it is happening. I'm not sure some people understand the full implications of how this is more than just temperatures. Crop failure has led to famine in places like Somalia, which has now become a breeding ground for terrorists. All they need is a bowl of rice to recruit a new member to their fold. Beaches that our US Army could use to deploy troops in times of crisis, no longer exist. In fact our US military stands to spend millions of dollars in repairs for docks and piers that are now under water due to rising water. Defense Secretary James Mattis has called climate change a national security threat. The United States has contributed more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than any other country on the planet. Today I am grateful for every US governor who stood up and declared that they would continue to uphold the Paris Climate Change Agreement.  I am grateful that my governor is among those who are taking a stand.