GARAGE FLOP

Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the gunshots heard in the neighborhood the night before. Maybe it was that I only thought I'd posted that ad on Craigslist. Who knows? But Amy and I got up at 6 AM, set everything out and was ready for business by 7:30 AM excited and anticipating our first customer only to be left with the sound of crickets. Nothing. Not a soul. We sat outside and tied tassels to bookmarks for Amy's wedding with numb fingers. We moved inside to be warm and took turns keeping watch as the clock ticked by. I went back outside and took pictures of the two bikes I had for sale, made a new Craigslist ad for these with pictures and that's when I realized that the garage sale ad never posted. Within five minutes of posting the ad for the bikes I had three emails from people wanting one of the bikes. One woman showed up and bought a cake pan and a Hotwheel. Amy got a $1.16 for that. Half an hour after posting the bike ad, a man showed up and bought Chris's bike. The next guy that showed up was really interested in Chris's bike and extremely disappointed that it had sold. He did however walk away with a baggy of beads (only after confirming that they were glass), a pair of gloves and a mirror all for $1. By that point we didn't really care that he'd gotten $3 worth of stuff for only a dollar. At that we called it quits and packed it all up. I've made arrangements for Salvation Army to come and get it all. And I will never do another garage sale again.

Our sale may have been an utter failure, but our weekend together was not. One of the great things about having Amy here was that we got to eat at all of my favorite vegan places. When we weren't eating, we were roaming around vintage clothing shops looking for a bridesmaids dress for me to wear in Amy's wedding. We found the perfect dress for a whopping $18. We spent the evening watching mindless TV and making paper flowers. That night I dreamed that I was wearing my bridesmaids dress with white keds and I was dancing. It was a nice dream. I've missed Amy. We talked and laughed and ate and laughed and oh how we laughed. And it doesn't even matter that our garage sale will go down as the worst garage sale in history because we had that time to just be our old selves.

It really was a great weekend.

THE WIDOW MADDERA DATES, TAKE 2

I've had several people tell me that I should use a certain online dating site. Then last month I got to meet and have dinner with Heather's little sister. She gave me some really great pointers for online dating. She told me that I needed to be really aggressive in screening my messages and to not waste a lot of time messaging someone back and forth. She said it's better to bite the bullet and just meet face to face as soon as possible. This advice made sense to me. One of my problems was that I'd feel bad for not responding to every single message even when I was not interested. My problem is that I'm too nice. So with all of this new information and advice I set up a profile. And actually...this time around has not been as annoying. One thing I have noticed is that I am very attractive to the 50 and over crowd and the "20" something crowd. Also, I get a lot of messages from married men. I put 20 in quotes because one kid that emailed me (rather aggressively) looked to be no more than 17. I told him I wasn't into statutory rape. So when you edit out the 50 and over and the trying to be 20 somethings, I am left with a very narrow field. Turns out that people my age are in a relationship or just so freshly out of a relationship that they are not ready for online dating. So, we're talking about a really narrow field.

There are still some concerns or problems or I'm not sure of the word to use here. I already kind of had an account with this online dating site that was started a long time ago when I did one of those silly Harry Potter quizzes that everyone was doing at the time and posting to their blogs. As a result, my username is associated with this blog. This shouldn't be a big deal because anyone with any brain cells can find my blog and figure out who I am. I am not a woman of mystery. But I am concerned about what they'll find when they do come over here and start reading. I am concerned about editing myself. I feel like I already stick to a good rule of editing the content of my entries. If you don't have anything nice to say, it's best to just say nothing at all. Though I don't have anything mean to say about some of my encounters, I worry that if I talk about anything that happens, they might be offended. Heaven forbid I offend anyone.

Another thing that is a little awkward is that I have a number of good good friends that just happen to be male. I always feel the need to explain my relationships. The other day I was on a date and my phone was sitting out on the table when Chad decided to send me half a dozen texts. The screen of my phone lit up with Chad, Chad, Chad, Chad. I tried to laugh it off. "Oh, that's my friend Chad. We met on the internet." When you say that out loud it sounds ridiculous and then any further explanation of Chad just gets even more ridiculous. It's Chad, aka birdpony. Enough said. He told me to use him as an excuse to get out of things, tell them he's my special needs older brother. Really that's not far from the truth.

PHOTO MEDITATION

A few weeks ago I read this article on the flickr Blog about Jose Vazquez. He takes the most amazing photos with his cell phone. The same cell phone that I have. I completely related to his story of how he went from DSLR to iPhone. He's just an average guy who just wanted to take good pictures. Simple. And his images are beautiful. I've noticed that I use my fancy pants camera less and less these days. One reason is because I just haven't been able to take the kind of picture I want and edit in any way. I don't have a really good editing tool on my computer and my computer is too old and clunky to add an editing program. I find that it's too much work to take a picture that I don't need to edit or I spend so much time setting it up that I miss the moment. The moment is the real reason I started taking pictures in the first place. But even though I've been relying on my iPhone camera lately, I feel like my pictures have lacked something. Because I'm not used to having editing tools, I forget to edit things before I post. I just got sloppy, unmindful. Since reading that article, I've become more mindful. It's no longer enough that I take the time to stop and take the picture. Now I'm taking time to edit those pictures.

I'm pretty happy with the results. Some of these images make me feel like a photographer, which is usually a title I'll argue with you about. But it's also been a reminder to slow down and not rush ahead. It is a practice that is slowing creeping its way from the camera to my everyday life.

RUNNING

That Saturday before our last snow storm, I was driving over to Whole Foods, taking my usual short-cut through one of the neighborhoods. I saw a woman running, which isn't an odd sight in this town. You can throw a rock and hit a runner. One time I saw a woman running when it was minus eight degrees outside. Any way, this particular runner wasn't all that special. She wasn't super skinny or fit. She was just an average woman running and for the first time ever in my life I thought "maybe I wouldn't hate it". With that thought festering in my brain, I found myself at Gary Gribble's Running Sports looking at running shoes. Turns out you don't buy a running shoe because you like the colors. You buy a running shoe that is going to help you run and the people at Gary Gribble's know how to find that shoe for you. I tried on multiples of shoes before deciding on a pair of bright orange Mizunos. I ran around the store's little track in them and was completely surprised by the joy that bubbled up in me as I jogged around.

So, Monday, I started the Couch to 5K program. I've done two days of the week one program and I have to say that I don't hate it. I'm also thinking I could have skipped ahead to week two, because week one's program seems a little easy. I noticed while doing today's program, I was actually smiling during my 60 second runs. What is up with that?!? I mean, sure, the last time I tried to run I was twenty pounds heavier and wearing gym shoes from Target. For years I thought I wouldn't even run if something was chasing me. I suppose the difference between now and then is that now I want to run as opposed to just having the ability to run.

As I started today's five minute cool down, the live version of the Flamin Lips' "In the Morning of Magicians" started playing and just as I finished the routine and stopped the treadmill, the song ended with people applauding. It was like they were applauding me. And it felt good.

FOOLS

I went through this phase in middle school where I had to see all of the scary movies. I watched all of the Jaws movies, all of the Freddie Cruger movies, anything Hitchcock, but I didn't stop at movies. I was also reading Christopher Pike books and just getting into Dean koontz. One of my favorite movies was April Fools Day. I watched that movie over and over again and if you haven't seen it, you may want to skip to the next paragraph. Except this entry may no longer make sense to you and in that case you might as well stop reading because I'm about to spoil the movie for you. The thing that I found fascinating about the movie was that it all turned out to be a prank. There was no murderer plucking off people one by one in an elaborate gruesome way. It was just people pretending to die in an elaborate gruesome way, only to come back at the end and yell "April Fools!" and then everyone laughed. It was just a long way to go for a gag. Chris was really good at coming up with stories and ideas that were all about long ways to go for a gag. He had about a million of them. There's probably a journal somewhere around here full of them. Most of the time he'd just come up with them off the top of his head and start off with "hey, what if...?". This time last year, the idea that Chris was gone forever was still very surreal to me. For some reason I kept expecting him to jump out from behind something and yell "April Fools!" and then I'd punch him in the balls and we'd all have a good laugh. Chris was a really good actor. He could have pulled off a convincing death scene as easily as he pulled off his socks. Dude was crafty. But eventually there comes a day when you realize that he's not going to jump out of the closet and surprise you. It's also the same day you realize which character from Up you turned out to be and you totally didn't see that coming. Maybe that's his gag.

Well, it's not funny. And I still want to punch him in the balls.

CATCH-ALLS AND LISTS

During my first attempt at cleaning out the office (this time last year), I came across a doctor's appointment note. The appointment was for a CT scan and dated Dec 27th, but no year or name attached to it. The cogs in my brain started turning like crazy. I knew where we were on Dec 27th 2011 and I knew that Chris had not had a CT scan that day. But what about Dec 2010? We were still in OKC, still living with his mom, still planning on staying put. There had not been a new job offer then. I thought for sure I would have known if Chris had a CT scan or a doctor's appointment. Isn't that something I should know? But my head filled with doubts and questions only a dead man could answer. I thought "what if he knew? What if he knew before the move?" Suddenly these thoughts became all consuming. The people I confided in assured me that there was no way Chris knew before I did about his illness. I let their assurances calm me, but it's always there in the back of my brain. What if he knew? When we first moved here, we bought a dresser at a thrift store. It's a long dresser in the mid-century ranch style and I use it as a buffet in the dining area. One day I'll paint it and change out the handles. The drawers have become catch-alls for clutter. One drawer contains keys and pens, another one full of hand towels and place mats. Two of the drawers contain random bits of tools and glue bottles and tape. One drawer contains a stack of get-well and sympathy cards because I didn't know what to do with them. Saturday I decided to clean out some of those drawers so that I could store more useful crap there. I put tools and light bulbs and glue all in one big drawer. Cleaned out two drawers completely and ended up putting crafting supplies in them. I finally got to the drawer of cards and pulled everything out. Underneath the stack was one of Chris's notebooks. It was open to the place where he'd been working on it. It was, of course, a list. This one was titled "100 Things to Keep to Myself Until I've Done Them/2012". I don't know when he wrote it. He only made it to number 85 and I don't know if it's because he was working on the list when he got sick or he just never came up with 100 things. He was going to get me a new Nikon for Christmas. He was going to replace his scooter. He was going to do things. It was not a list made by a man who knew he had months to live. It was not a list Chris would have written had he known before our move here.

I have found that I haven't had a hard time getting rid of most of his things like his clothes. Though I did hang onto his smartwool socks and his green sweater. I like to wear that sweater with my skinny jeans and boots. The things I can't seem to part with or look at are the stacks of journals. Some of them may only have one or two pages written in them. All of them contain lists of things or bits of notes on this that and the other. All of them contain his words, his voice, him. Sometimes I just want to lay on the floor with them scattered around me, not reading, just touching. Reading his lists reduces me to nothing, an invisible speck. Seeing his handwriting, that blocky scrawl, sends me down into a dark hole. I don't want them but I can't give them up. So they'll sit on the top shelf of the office closet. But at least I know without a doubt now that he wasn't keeping this huge secret. I know that he was just as surprised as I was by that diagnosis. I don't know if this makes things better or worse. I am less angry unless I think about the boxes of garbage he left me to deal with in the basement. I suppose that is enough.

THE WIDOW MADDERA'S GUIDE TO SAFE SEX

One snowed-in Friday night, I got a phone call from my friend Heather. The first thing she said was "I'm drunk." So I told her to give me a minute and I'll catch up. We then proceeded to have a long drunken conversation that may or may not have ended with us both declaring undying love for each other. Somewhere in the middle of that conversation we started talking about dating and sex and I asked her if I should have condoms for just in case situations (there has never been a just in case situation). Heather replied "Oh, yeah...you need to go get you some of those." My next question was "how do you know what size to buy?". She told me to just buy the average size and that if a guy needed ex-large, he needed to bring his own. Well...huh. The next day I was in Walgreens, picking up my birth control pills, when I remembered that conversation. I walked over to the "family planning" aisle pretending to be a confident mature woman and that's when I remembered that I have never purchased condoms. If there was a situation where a condom was needed, Chris took care of that. I kind of put condoms in the same category as socks and underwear or deodorant. He was the one wearing them therefor he was the one to pick them out. When's the last time you checked out the selection in the "family planning" aisle? I had no idea there were that many varieties and combinations (yes, combinations) of condoms. It is mind boggling. There's a stimulations kind, pleasures, her pleasures, ENZ...I don't even know what that is...sensitivity, Supra...which I can only imagine translates to super great sex. I stood there for a good five minutes trying to figure out something to buy.

Finally I made a selection and carried it, along with a bag of ice melt ('cause that's sexy), back to the pharmacy to pay for all of the things at once. I set my things on the counter and told the pharmacy tech I was there to pick up my prescription. He's usually pretty bored when dealing with customers. I'm pretty sure I've seen him roll his eyes while reaching back to grab someone's refill. But something changed when I set that box of condoms down on the counter. That pharmacy tech smiled and got chatty and when I noticed that my bag of ice melt had sprung a leak (heh), he was all "oh no! let me ring that up and then you pick up a new bag on your way out!". I swear to God, I batted my eyelashes and smiled demurely and said "why, thank you!".

It's quite possible that many of you are "oooh...Cindy bought condoms!". Gasp. Yes, yes I purchased condoms. I don't even have any intentions of putting myself in a just in case situation right now. That's not the point. There was something empowering in that purchase. Buying those condoms was about owning my sexuality and owning it responsibly. I will never forget the day Katrina sat Janell and I down in her living room and warned us about the dangers of unprotected sex. That warning had nothing to do with unwanted pregnancies. It was all about sexually transmitted diseases with AIDS playing the staring role. AIDS hasn't disappeared just because we've stopped talking about it and AIDS is not a gay disease. According to amfAR, women account for one in four new diagnoses and deaths caused by AIDS. AIDS is an every person disease.

And that is why I walk.

*Thanks so much to those of you have donated to my AIDS Walk fundraiser page! I love you guys. I almost think I should have set that goal a little higher.

HANG IN THERE

It's one of those evenings when you're driving home from a long day at work and all the other drivers are being really annoying. It seems like no one is in a hurry to get to their destination which is weird because you'd think it would be morning when people aren't in a hurry. People are making left turns from the regular lane instead of using the ACTUAL TURN LANE. Then you find yourself stuck at a red light because the ass-hat in front of you spent the entire green light trying to decide if he should turn or go straight, turn or go straight and only decides just as the light turns yellow to go straight. This ever happen to you? But then as you're sitting at that red light you see a little yellow cat sprint across four lanes of traffic and make it to the other side unscathed. The cat kind of looks like the "Hang in There" kitty. A smile comes to your face as you mentally applaud the cat for making it across the street and you say to yourself "hang in there baby".

Yeah, well, hang in there baby.

SADIE SADIE

Lindsey and Sam got married. The Beginning. No...it was a beautiful wedding and a great celebration. Lindsey is such a goofball. She has this face for just about every picture we took together.

We laughed and drank and ate and drank and laughed the night away. When it was time for Lindsey to toss her bouquet, Misti's Mark looked at me and said "what?" and I looked at him and said "what?". Then Misti said "Gurrlll you need to get out there". So I begrudgingly stood over to the side of waiting ladies with my arms at my side. When Lindsey glanced back to get a look at the group, she saw me and I just gave a shrug. Misti said I looked like Grump Cat. Then she threw the bouquet and there was this swirl of black chiffon and screaming girls. I looked down and there was the bouquet right at my feet. I bent down and picked it up with a "what the fuck" look on my face and that's the face Lindsey saw when she turned around. The cheer that rang out from my table was deafening. The look on Lindsey's face was priceless.

Let's be clear. I did not catch that bouquet. It caught me.

Also...this happened.

I'm thinking of starting a Flickr set of guys with hair I want to run my fingers through. Eddie Vedder is next.

FORT SCOTT

Every time I say Fort Scott, in my head it sounds like Doc Brown saying "great Scott". Fort Scott is a small town in Kansas. I pass through it every time I go to visit Mom and Dad and I always look over at the actual fort part of the city and think "that looks interesting", but never take the time to stop. Since it's about an hour and a half south of me and about two hours north for the family, I suggested that we meet there to celebrate Janell's birthday. I thought this would be a great idea because Janell teaches history and talks about all things history. The thing I didn't plan on was the weather. It wasn't necessarily cold, but it was windy. Walking down the main strip of shops was fine because the tall buildings blocked the wind. But out on the Fort the wind knocked you down and kicked you in the ear. We opted for the trolley tour of the town. The trolley tour is actually a great way to see the entire town of Fort Scott. It's also a great way to find out how much all the houses cost. The trolley driver/tour guide pointed out houses right and left tagging the price tag to each. "Look to your right. That house cost $50,000. Look to your left. That house cost $3,000 in 1918 and retails now for $120,000." It was like watching the Price is Right of tennis. But if we hadn't taken the trolley tour, I never would have known that Fort Scott is the home of a National Cemetery. The Ft. Scott National Cemetery is No.1 of the original 12 dedicated by Abraham Lincoln. This was a nice surprise. After the tour we ate pizza at a family owned restaurant right on the main strip. The women running the place were so nice and the pizza reminded me of the Ken's Pizza place we'd go to in Owasso all the time. We ate pizza and told J.R.'s girlfriend, Summer, embarrassing stories of J.R.'s childhood. It was great fun.

After our late lunch we wandered the little shops and antique stores. I bought a new table (that's still in my car. don't worry...I've made plans to get it out of my car). Summer bought her prom dress (exciting!) and we eventually fought the wind to the Fort and poked around a few of the buildings. The Fort is a National Park (Talaura, you can get your passport stamped there!) and it's free (though I put $5 in the donation bin because, well..civic duty). You can go into every single building out there. Some are set up with educational information while other buildings are set up as replicas. I'd love to go back and spend more time (when it's not windy), but I think everyone had a great time. I am constantly surprised by the rich history that surrounds me. I can throw a rock and hit a National Park or historic site or historic trail. This makes the Lisa Simpson in me very happy.

CONTRADICTIONS AND LESSONS IN TIGHTROPE WALKING

Last week I watched the PBS Makers: Women Who Make America. It took me all week because I watched it while walking the treadmill, but it set the wheels and cogs of my brain to turning. My initial reaction to this documentary was shame. Like maybe I've let these women down by not maintaining the fire and activism. It made me question my responsibilities. It made me wish to be as calm and eloquent as Gloria Steinem. I've never had to struggle as a woman. I've never been denied the right to vote or discriminated in the workplace. And if there was a certain pressure to be the typical Susie Homemaker and 1950s wife, it was most certainly not put there by my husband and they were quiet enough to be easily ignored. Yes, I have chosen a career that tends to be lopsided in male to female ratios, but I've been fortunate enough to work for and with many inspiring and brilliant women. That's not to say that inequality no longer exists. With the exception of one woman who only works twice a week, I am the only woman in my department. This isn't a problem for me. The guys I work with are great and only treat me like a girl when there's something heavy to be lifted. And I don't for a minute believe that I'm the only girl just because they are less likely to hire women. Thanks to the women before me, I lead a pretty cushy life.

But I'm not blind to the fact that inequality still persists. It infuriates me that the cost of my car insurance went up when I had to list myself as a single female. The discusion of reproductive rights makes me roll my eyes in annoyance. I can't believe we are still debating this and that there are still men out there who think women can just "shut it down". It upsets me that we can so easily brush aside violence against women by turning it into a joke. And I feel the pressure to be all things womanly and still be one of the guys. I think that this is where many, women and men, miss the point of equal rights. Today's woman doesn't necessarily want it all. We shouldn't even be expected to have it all. It's exhausting. The point of the equal rights movement for woman was and is about having a choice.

I think the goal for the new face of feminism should be about changing the language, changing the words we use to describe each other and the labels we choose to label ourselves and others. It's also about accepting others' choices without judgement. I suppose this idea makes me less of a feminist and more of a humanist. I just want it to be acceptable and OK to be where I am and I want this for everyone regardless of sex, race or sexual orientation.

THESE DREAMS

Its not just the Bloody Marys inducing the crazy dreams around here. Honestly, it's been going on for over a week now. Every night is a haze of people I know finding new lovers, people I know breaking up with old lovers, babies being born and friend of a friend's relatives dying. I wake up at random hours hot and tangled and achey from fighting in my sleep. This morning I woke up around 2 AM because I was being attacked by a bear. I have lines on the insides of my cheeks where I've chewed them. My hands cramp from holding swords and slaying dragons. My dreams have been an incoherent swirl of images that are reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson's LSD induced visions. It's like Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and Rob Zombie decided to direct a movie together inside my brain. I have no idea what's going on. I am not the type of person that pays attention to the phases of the moon or the alignment (or misalignment) of the stars. I do spend a lot of time in my own head and I have been known to have an active imagination. I also have the hypochondriac gene. A few weeks ago I had a dry itchy patch on my hip and I was pretty convinced I had shingles. I don't have shingles. I just need to slather myself in lotion. Every day.

One thing I haven't been doing is savasana (final relaxation). I've been skipping it and doing twenty minutes of meditation instead. I just don't have the time in the morning for a full yoga practice with a twenty minute savasana and a twenty minute meditation practice. I've always told my students that savasana is the most important yoga pose and I've been skipping it for weeks now. I know. This morning I decided to post pone meditation practice in favor of a twenty minute savasana. Meditation is going to become part of the getting-ready-for-bed ritual. Maybe I can use that twenty minutes to put the beasts in their cages and lock up the evil witches before I crawl into bed.

I'll let you know how that goes.

BLOODY MARY

I'm not really sure how it started...well..OK...I might have an idea, but for some reason during the AIDS Walk Open yesterday I decided to review the Bloody Marys of the nine bars that participated in the Open. It became really obvious by the third one that I would not be able to keep track of myself let alone the different Bloody Marys so lucky for you I kept notes.

The winner of the best over all Bloody Mary goes to Dave's Stagecoach Inn. For those of you familiar with Dave's, you may be surprised by this. I know I was. The smell of the bar hits you right when you walk in the door and it really wasn't a pleasant smell. Then we all stood back and watched the lady behind the bar make my Bloody Mary and at first we all got really excited because she was adding all the right things and it was looking really good. That was until we saw her reach into the jar of olives. You know that scene in National Lampoon's Vacation when Jane Krackowski's character stirs the Kool-Aid with her whole arm? Yeah, it was like that. All of us watching kind of stopped breathing for a second and then I heard in unison "alcohol kills everything". I slowly nodded my head. But seriously? That was the best Bloody Mary. It had the perfect spice to salt ratio.

Second place has to go to The 303. I really wanted to give them first (we went there before Dave's) because they really do make a nice Bloody Mary. They infuse their Vodka and you can taste the hints of cucumber, celery and horseradish. This was the smoothest of all the Bloody Marys. In fact, I give all the credit to the hole in one I got at that bar on their Bloody Mary. Also, this is a classier joint. I say go there for Sunday brunch and treat yourself to a Bloody Mary. After The 303, The Foundry's Bloody Mary comes in third. This is the one that started the Bloody Mary challenge. It was also the spiciest Bloody Mary of the day. It had kick and pizazz and made me want to do jazz hands.

The best celery stalk award goes to the Uptown Arts Bar. The Bloody Mary itself was decent. Kellys Bloody Mary is OK if you like them limey and salty. Sidekicks and The Point tie for mediocre generic Bloody Marys and Gambles was disqualified because they were out of Bloody Mary mix. Though the bartender there wins for best reaction to a picture of cervix (I don't even know how to explain that one). The worst Bloody Mary by far goes to Missy B's, but it was the cheapest ($2!). The fishy flavor makes me think they used Clamato juice. I can't even hear that word without thinking of that New York episode of the Simpsons.

And there you have it. A full day of Bloody Marys. I've been recovering all day today and I'm pretty sure it will be a really long time before I can even look at a Bloody Mary. Those drinks induced some pretty crazy dreams. In fact I'm convinced that there are a couple of you out there who are going to have a baby for Christmas. Merry Christmas!

ROUTINES AND RITUALS

Saturday, I left the house for the first time in two days and the whole outing made me giddy and slightly dizzy with glee. I smiled and waved at strangers. I went to Target and rolled my eyes at the bikinis on the racks. I went to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. I filled my gas tank (wince) and went to Walgreens, all the while smiling and waving like I was in a parade. It was bliss. Sunday was just as pleasant with the sun shining and a lunch date with Diane and the fifty degree weather. But then came Monday. Monday started out just fine. I was back in the groove, back to work, putting out science fires, trying to tune out the talk of the next snow storm. I was adamant that the snow storm wouldn't hit, that it wouldn't be so bad. I was making overnights and streaking out plates, ensuring that I'd have tasks to get done the next day, determined to go to work. Every time I mentioned coming to work on Tuesday, Jeff would just look at me and shake his head. Everyone but me believed that there was no way any of us would be at work Tuesday and the more they talked about it, the more I began to panic. By the end of the day, I had worked myself up into a right mess. So much so, that Jeff suggested that I weather out the storm with him and his family. I politely declined because I knew that I would spend the whole time worrying about what was happening at my house (there's a branch out there making me real nervous right this minute). Also, I knew that I would need my routine. I would need my yoga mat. I would need the meals I had planned. I would need my things. I would need my rituals.

Many may attribute my panic to loneliness. I can assure you that this is not the reason. Though I spend a large amount of time alone, lonely is not necessarily the word to describe me. I like my alone time, even relish in it. But it is part of the routine and the thing that happens mostly on weekends. I am one of the rare few that enjoys going to work. I am grounded by my weekly schedule starting with my morning ritual and ending with my nightly routine. I am always sure to leave space in the day for flexibility in this schedule, but there are things that I have to do every day or I don't feel right. The thing that makes a snow day different from a Saturday is that it takes away my choice. This is what causes the panic.

My main goal was to stick to a routine today. Treat it like any other work day. I got up, showered and dressed. I did my yoga and meditation practice. I made tofu scramble for breakfast. Morning ritual. I read emails and chatted with Talaura and came up with a plan for the driveway. I would shovel 1/3 of the driveway and break for lunch. Then I'd tackle another 1/3 and take a writing break before finishing up the last of the driveway. I am on my writing break right now. Just the end of the driveway left and I'll dust everything with ice melt. Yesterday when I said I would be fine, that I could handle the panic I didn't really believe myself. Today I can say it with all honesty.

I'm just fine.

SNOW DAY SHMOW DAY

I handled the first snow day like a champ. I did all the snow day things like watch lots of TV, drink hot spiced tea (with a dash of orange liqueur), took lots of pictures of snow falling and when the snow finally stopped (or so I thought), I shoveled my driveway. The driveway took me two rounds. I shoveled and shoveled and I could feel the sweat dribbling down my back, but my toes were frozen solid. Finally, I went in and took a break and then went back out to finish the bottom section of the drive. The guys next door had just about finished their drive by then and so when the finished the last of their's they came over and helped me with mine. That last bit of driveway didn't take as long thanks to those guys. But I came back in completely exhausted and with my back already beginning to ache. The next day, I kind of broke. I looked outside to see a fresh layer of snow on my driveway and a HUGE pile of snow from the snow plows completely blocking any escape from this house. And I just kind of gave up. I went out and made a sad attempt at the snow mountain before tromping back up the drive and into the house. A quick search on Craigslist and a phone call later, I had someone scheduled to come clear my drive. And then I started crying. I sat on my couch and cried and cried until my nose was good a clogged and I could no longer breath. The thing that upset me was that I knew that if Chris were here, we would have tag-teamed that driveway like a boss and joked about the crazy amount of snow the whole time. This line of thinking just led me down into a dark hole and all I could think of was that snow days are meant for two people. It's meant for snuggling on the couch together, for snowball fights together, for lazy sex. I may have been able to distract myself for one day from this, but two days, with no way of escape? Not a chance.

But then I received a photo mission from Charlie (aka: Chad) and Talaura sent me the funniest meetup description. And before I knew it, I was laughing and bundling myself up to go outside. I fulfilled my photo mission and spent some time outside with the real camera (not the iPhone), taking pictures of the snow. I made myself a pb&j for lunch. I uploaded some pictures to flickr that I had forgotten were on the camera and spent some time editing them. Some of them, I'm really proud of.

And that's how I glued my broken self back together.

LIVES WISHED LIVED

The booth that sets up next to Dad's peanut wagon every weekend at the flea market is run by a little old lady. I don't think she is quite my parents' age but I suspect that she is in her mid to late sixties. She speaks with an accent that I cannot place. Dutch? Swedish? I'm not sure but definitely somewhere north Europe. She sells tools like rakes and axes and other useful things like socks. She has a kind face and she and Dad look out for each other at the flea market. The flea market can be a place to be suspicious of. It is similar to walking the midway of a state fair but replace the noise with the wind and the lights with dust. I picked out a new rake and told Dad that I needed this and that's when the woman came around the corner. She didn't realize that Mom and I were with Dad at first, but she soon recognized Mom and they hugged a hello. Dad introduced me: "this is my baby" and she looked me over and said "You know? I've never met any of the girls before." I guess Randy finds his way to the flea market more often than Janell. My mother excitedly told the woman that we were planning a trip to Ireland and that she just got her first passport. The woman replied "I never made it over to Ireland, but my friend and I hitchhiked our way to Paris once." She then told us the story of when she had just turned 18 and she and her friend decided to go to Paris. Boarder patrol almost didn't let her through because she was so young, but they saw that she had just turned 18 and let her go. They spent a week in a friend's flat in Paris, having a marvelous time.

I am envious of her tale. How exciting and crazy it must have been to be hitchhiking across Europe then. What would it have been like to be that carefree? I am envious because sewing my own wild oats consisted of a few drunken evenings at the local bar or partying until dawn, dancing the Macarena, at Carlos and Charlie's in Cozumel. And I wonder if given the chance at that age, if I would have been as bold or brave. Would I have taken that leap and thrown caution to the wind? I was always so responsible, so good. The lesson of knowing when to leap and to be fearless took me longer to learn. I am still responsible and fundamentally good, but I know now that sometimes it's OK to take risks. Things I didn't know then or was to afraid of the consequences.

Dad paid the woman for my rake and we said our goodbyes. She made me promise to tell her all about our trip when we returned and that she hopes it will be grand. These are my hopes as well.

FLIRT

I had this whole entry I was working on about flirting and my inability to recognize when its happening to me. I just always think they are engaging in polite conversation. Nothing more. Any way...I deleted the whole thing because I felt it just wasn't a very good entry. Actually, I feel like I just don't have a good entry in me this week. My thoughts are too scattered and random to collect into one whole entry and I don't catch them in time for a twitter entry either. I am caught between routines, fantasies, and marking time. The other day, as I was attempting to clear my mind in meditation, Eric Northman came into my head, which was weird because I haven't watched that show in ages. If this were a different kind of blog I might be tempted to tell you exactly in vivid details what happened inside my brain that morning. But it's not that kind of blog and I hear those particular readers gasping my name in shock "Cindy!". I'll just tell you that Eric Northman has some mad skills. Or I have an overactive imagination. I think both options are correct. I did finally change my facebook status from married to widowed. I thought it might be time to stop being married to a dead man.

Facebook is the cruelest really. Chris is always there "poking" me or influencing web pages to follow. People leave messages to him and I see them all. They are sweet and heartfelt messages, but they still sting like bees. Before the internet, when someone died, they stayed dead. Now there is always a lingering presence of the one who moved to the beyond. We have made our own ghosts through the power of the internet. It is my own undoing. I choose to leave his facebook page open. I choose to keep his blog online. The things I don't do is visit them. Just like the pictures on flickr. If I need to go in and pull an image for the blog, I only go back so far careful not to move past a certain year or a certain date.

I don't tell you things for sympathy or to make you feel bad for the messages. I know that tomorrow Chris's page will be filled with messages of love and loss and tales of how much he is missed. I tell you these things so you know that no matter how easy I make it look sometimes, this is still hard, that I still feel guilty for not being able to keep him safe for you. I tell you these things so that you know my grief isn't only for my own loss, but for your's as well.

MEETUP

Months ago I signed up on Meetup in an effort to join some groups, meet some new people, and generally just get myself out there. I signed up and then never committed myself to any of the events. But when an event came along to tour the Steamboat Arabia Museum, I finally bit the bullet and accepted the invitation. I thought even if I didn't walk away with any new contacts I'd at least be able to add a museum to the Life List. As it turned out, it was not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I did have a moment of anxiety as I stood awkwardly in the designated meeting area. I glanced around the room looking at groups of people and wondering if they were part of the meetup and it took every once of energy not to bolt. I easily came up with half a dozen excuses for not staying. I'd heard this museum wasn't that great. I would be meeting strangers. I wasn't sure if I had the social graces to meet strangers. My favorite Ethiopian restaurant was just around the corner. It would be an easy escape. But I swallowed all of that and joined the group.

The museum turned out to be really fascinating. I can't believe all the things these guys were able to salvage from that old steamboat. In fact, the museum doesn't even have half of the contents on display because they are still going through everything and carefully preserving the findings. The steamboat sank in the Missouri river in 1856, but it wasn't until the late 1980s when a group of local business men would go and track it down. By this time that area of the river was completely different. In fact they wouldn't find the steamboat in the river at all. It was buried deep in a nearby cornfield. I thought that was the most interesting fact. Also, the guys involved had no idea what they were doing. They weren't archeologists or historians. One guy owned a chain of restaurants and the others were members of a family owned heating and air company. But they managed to excavate and salvage most of the cargo aboard the Arabia. And there is a lot of cargo.

The best part was after the tour when I was able to convince a few of the group to join me for dinner at the Ethiopian place. They joked that this part could have been a meetup all of its own because none of them had ever had Ethiopian food. But it provided us all with a good excuse to take some time to get to know each other. It was nice. I learned about couch surfing and other fun meetup groups to join. I learned that I can get into the WWI Museum for free through the month of February. And I learned that it doesn't take as much energy as I thought to meet new people.

GHEE-DY

OK, I think it's finally time to tell you about ghee. Ghee is clarified butter, which sounds terrible. At least, I never thought that it sounded like a good idea. It's kind of a big deal in Ayurvedic medicine and is encouraged by the tablespoon as a cure-all miracle oil. The research varies on the benefits and the downside to consuming clarified butter. I mean, it's fat, but it's good fat that has been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol and is high in omega-3:omega-6. Ghee can be heated to extremely high temps without breaking down and reduces the glycemic index of anything cooked in it. It is a saturated fat, but one with short-chained fatty acids. So it's easily metabolized. Of course, it's still saturated fat. Moderation and common sense people. Use it. You can buy ghee at your local health food store or make your own. I think I prefer making my own because it's believed that the good energy you put into the ghee while making it, increases the benefits. The more love and happy energy you put into it the better. While the butter is on a slow boil, you turn up the music and dance. You sing to it. You whisper words of love and happiness into the pan. Then you strain it through cheese cloth to remove the milk fats and bask in the glow of the delicious ghee that you have made. And your house will smell like buttered croisants.

When I went on antibiotics at Christmas time, my skin broke out with hives and pimples. It was really bad and ugly. After the round of antibiotics, the acne got better but never really went away. One week of replacing my olive oil and butter with ghee and my skin is practically clear. I don't use it every day. Coconut oil has become my other choice for cooking oils. But many of my meals contain ghee. Rice and mung beans would taste like gruel without it. I know it sounds silly, but ghee has brought a richness to my life. I have seriously become enamored with ghee. Ghee, ghee, ghee. I love ghee.

Sorry. But I did warn you that there was an entry coming about the wonderfulness of ghee.

AND THEN I GOT DRUNK

When I was a kid, my sister and I used to clean up the garage so that we could roller skate in it. You guys remember roller skates right? It's those boot looking things with four wheels on the soles. Mine were white with pink pom-poms. We'd set up a radio and skate around and around the garage. I think I remember us only being able to do this a few times because the garage was rarely clear enough to do it, but I loved it. I think one of the things that made it so great was spending time with Janell. Teenage older sisters don't always have time for their little baby sisters. This was one of those things Janell did with me that made me feel like I was getting a chance to hang out with the cool kids. Saturday I cleaned out my garage. I took glass and cardboard to recycling. Filled a bag or two with garbage. I swept the floor and organized the shelves. I put my recycling bins near the door. They had been wedged by the lawnmower on the other side of the garage. I would have to shove the lawnmower to the side every time I needed to take it out to the curb. And with it being on the other side of the garage, there were times I'd just toss my recycling towards the bin like playing basketball. I'm not good at basketball. But I didn't clean out the garage just to move my recycling bins to a more convenient location. I had hopes of making enough room to get my car into the garage. I had a feeling the garage wasn't wide enough for my car, but that turned out to not be the problem. The garage is wide enough. It's just not long enough. The problem is the lawnmower. If the lawnmower was stored outside, I could turn the scooter sideways and then the car would fit.

But even though the car doesn't fit in the garage, it still felt good to have it cleaned out and to get rid of some garbage. It's easier to get to tools and gardening supplies. Camp gear is organized. And even though the garage is not quite big enough for the car, I do have a decent space for roller skating.