THANKFUL FRIDAY

I was talking with a graduate student about some imaging they wanted me to do for them in the next few weeks. She asked about a current project I am working for another person in her lab and I said “that person has the microscope booked for every Friday in September.” Then I said “Which I guess means I only have two more batches of slides left to run for them.” Then the two of us got really dizzy and had to sit down. What in the world has happened to September?!?! Robin sent me a message asking me for a little bit of detail around my visit at the end of the month and I don’t really have any details. I’ve sort of been working on a whole one-weekend-at-a-time time frame. It seems to be the only way I’m keeping any thing straight. Then Kelly posted something about it being one month until October Camp and I reached for my paper bag to breathe into.

I feel unprepared.

My knee feels a lot better, but the doctor has ordered an MRI and then threw out words like “torn meniscus” and “laparoscopic surgery”. I think those are the worst case scenarios. Most likely it is just a strain that will require some physical therapy. I am able to teach yoga with only minor adjustments and I can get my scooter out of the garage without falling over. Those are the only things I need to be able to do right now. This is my mantra for the week because the guilt over not getting up to exercise or walk the dog set in some time on Wednesday along with a generous portion of anxiety. This might be too much to share, but my period is late and it is starting to look like it is not going to happen this month. I could have miscalculated. That’s easy to do now that I don’t have pills to remind me. I do not believe for a second that pregnancy is the reason, but I’m not so sure I am ready for my age to be the reason. Which is most likely the case. So, this week I sustained an old person shouldn’t be jumping on a trampoline injury and my ovaries are starting to shut down.

Let’s just say that I am feeling really sorry for myself right about now. In my heart, I am sixteen years old, but my body is doing everything it can think of to remind me that I am forty five. Forty five isn’t even really that old! I mean, Michael asked me recently what it felt like to not even be halfway through life right now because he truly believes that I will live well past one hundred. I ride a scooter! I have roller skates! I tell immature 13-year old boy jokes. I wear tulle skirts with tennis shoes. I love to jump on trampolines! And this week was a reminder that I shouldn’t (not can’t) do some of those things. Mainly jump on trampolines. Sitting around with my knee elevated all week long just gave me ample time to stew over it all and it has forced me to dig deep for gratitude. My knee feels a whole lot better, better enough to think that dog walks can proceed next week. I’m not, nor have I ever used these ovaries any way. September is zooming by because of all of the fun activities that planned for it.

October will not be that much different. Now is the time to really embrace moments of rest so that I may better enjoy the moments of fun ahead.

MEMORY TATTOOS

Mesas, buttes and volcanoes

7 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Mesas, buttes and volcanoes"

We needed a way to break up our drive time into five hour driving increments. Five or so hours to Alabaster Caverns for two nights. Five or so hours to Clayton NM for two nights. Five or so hours to Gunnison CO for three nights. This was our plan. All of our planned locations for this trip were places Michael had never been. Chris, Traci, her Chris and I used camp at Alabaster Caverns all the time. My gaze drifted down to the tent camping area often during our stay on this trip. Traci, remember that time you ended up throwing away your tent as we packed up to leave? We were still friends with James. He was there that weekend and it rained so much that we ended up trapped in our tents for a few hours. We borrowed a mop when the rain storm was over and mopped out our tents. That evening, a tarantula walked up and joined us around the campfire. It seemed like we were always there when a group of scouts were. We'd laugh at the sounds of the boys whooping and hollering as they stood under the cold outside shower, washing the layers of mud from their clothes from crawling through all the caves. Then there was the time Mom lost her cat there and we spent the day combing the area searching for it. We had permission to go all over the cave, off the main path. I found a whole skeleton of a horse tucked behind a large flat rock in one of the larger rooms.

There are three different ways to drive to Colorado. Two of those take you across Kansas. One takes you through the Oklahoma panhandle and into New Mexico before you turn north for Trinadad. As a kid and a young adult, I have travelled on all of these roads. My Dad's favorite path though, was the one that took us across the panhandle and into New Mexico. If you peeled away a layer of skin on my arm, you will find this map embedded there. Dad would drive the camper straight through the panhandle and stop in Capulin, NM for the night. At the time, or at least from what I remember from the last time we made that trip in 2006, the actual town of Capulin consisted of one campground and two rundown, abandoned buildings. The only reason the campground exists is because it is right across the street from the entrance to the Capulin Volcano National Monument. My Dad liked to stop here because he knew the guy who owned the campground. They had worked together once at American Airlines. Dad new a guy everywhere. The tradition was to spend the night in Capulin, get up early the next morning and hike the rim of the volcano before loading back up into the truck and heading on out to Colorado.

Most everything about this trip was so familiar. The roads traveled. The landscape. I knew exactly when to start looking for antelope. I knew which mounds of dirt to look at to see prairie dogs. I was unsurprised to see the roadrunners running down the fence line. I knew what time in the evening to start watching for bats to start flying around. The hot, dry, desert like air used to be the only kind of summer I knew. Baked earth. Baked skin. The way the inside of my nose always felt stuffy and on fire. Yet, there were new things too, things I'd never seen or experienced. I had never been inside Alabaster Caverns when there was so much water, enough to have a small water fall and pools of standing water with frogs and tiger striped salamanders. Even though I had been through Clayton, NM, I'd never stopped there. I had no idea that there were dinosaur tracks around Clayton lake or that they kept that lake stocked with trout. When we stopped to visit the Capulin Volcano, the National Park Visitor center was open. It didn't even exist the last time we were there. And of all the times we travelled across Hwy 160, we had never made the detour up to see the Great Sand Dunes.

This was the first time I'd been to Colorado and not caught a fish. Not a one. I left my Dad's ashes in Taylor River near our campground, part of me offering them as an appeasement to the Fish Gods. Instead the Fish Gods responded with "Oh...this guy. We remember this guy. He fished your limit a lifetime ago." Which is all true. If the limit was four fish per person and you only caught one fish, he caught the other three and said they were your's. He caught my limit of fish a lifetime ago. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Field of Gold

"Field of Gold"

Recently, my friend Tiffany posted something on facebook about how her students had no idea who Paris Hilton is. What's totally freaky about that is that very morning while I was in the shower, I thought "what ever happened to Paris Hilton?" I thought this after looking up and seeing ants on the bathroom ceiling. Which made me start humming Lionel Richie's Dancing on the Ceiling. This in turn made me wonder about Lionel's daughter Nicole Richie who was bffs with Paris Hilton. Completely logical train of thought. 

We drove home from my Mom's house Saturday evening, leaving early enough in the day to have daylight through most of our drive. At least up to the last hour or so. The section between Joplin and Kansas City is one long straight line and the highway is surrounded by a seemingly endless flat landscape of fields and farmland. It can be a tedious drive. We were somewhere in the middle of it when we started to pass a semi. As we neared level with the driver of that semi, I started to pump my fist in the air, giving him the universal blow your horn sign. Then the driver honked twice and Michael and I cheered and clapped all while the Cabbage sat oblivious and uninterested in the backseat. I looked at Michael and asked "do kids even do that anymore? try to get the semi to honk?" He shook his head and replied "maybe not." 

The other day the Cabbage was telling Michael about a video she had on her mom's phone that she watches to brush her teeth. Michael asked her where she found the video and the Cabbage said "I just asked the phone." The kids growing up today don't even really need to read or write. They can just tap a button and ask a question. Eventually they won't even know how to open a door or a window and they will not know that you can get a truck driver to blow his horn. They will not know that Strawberry Shortcake dolls smelled like strawberries or lemons or blueberry pie and they will not know how to look at a paper map and find anything. For a moment I was a little sad about all the little simplicities that children today would not know, but then I realized I sounded like the old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn. The kids growing up today have Strawberry Shortcakes of their own and their maps are three dimensional with real buildings. Same but not same. I am thankful that I can teach the Cabbage the universal blow your horn signal. Thursday, I did all kinds of responsible grown up things like scheduling doctor appointments and managing finances, which made me thankful for those reminders to think and be like a kid.

We rescued a baby rabbit from the cat Sunday night and Josephine ate half a chocolate easter bunny Wednesday night. The animals are keeping us on our toes and have a thing for bunnies. I'm thankful we were able to save the live one and I'm thankful that Josephine didn't eat enough chocolate to hurt her. Jr, my great nephew, is coming home from basic training this weekend. Everyone has missed his face so dang much. I'm thankful for his return. I am thankful for a box of lemons that Heather sent me from California. I am thankful for a quiet weekend. I am thankful for you.

Here's to a weekend of gardens and chickens and here's to a wonderful Thankful Friday!