WHEN WE KNOW EVERYTHING

Today the Cabbage turns four. She's been talking about her birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's for almost a year now. If we were in the car passing a Chuck E Cheese, she'd say "Hey! You know that place? That's Chuck E Cheese and I get to go there for my birthday." The last few weeks have been a count down of sentences that start with "my birthday". Last Wednesday we were sitting on the couch watching Peppa Pig. As the Cabbage stared at the TV with that glassy eyed zombie stare that kids get sometimes, she said "When I'm four, I will know everything.". Michael said "Oh yeah? What's three plus three?" and without missing a beat or turning her eyes from the TV, the Cabbage replied "six". Michael and I looked at each other over the top of her head with eyes wide in surprise. Maybe she will know everything. 

I'm sure we all reached an age where we thought that this would be the year that all knowledge and wisdom would be bestowed upon us. Your fairy godmother would show up and bippity boppity boo, you would not only know everything, but you'd finally be tall enough to ride that crazy roller coaster at the amusement park. I'm not sure I ever really had that clarity. I knew that nine was an important birthday because that's when Mom said I could get my ears pierced. Sixteen is always big because of the whole driver's license thing except I didn't really know how to drive when I turned sixteen. The driver's license didn't come to me for another five or six months after turning sweet sixteen. Then comes eighteen when they tell you that you are now an adult. You get to vote, but you're still not old enough to buy beer. I was so nerdy that I couldn't wait to vote. My parents had been taking me with them to the polling place my whole life and finally I was old enough to get that "I voted" sticker for actually voting.

Twenty one is the birthday where someone buys you twenty one shots and you spend the late hours of the night puking your guts out and eating greasy diner food at three in the morning or Taco Bell. Except, I didn't do this either. I went to a twenty one and over dance club and bought a fuzzy navel. It didn't taste all that great and the whole using my id to buy alcohol for the first time was anticlimactic. If I ever thought that I knew everything, my twenties would be the years that I learned that I knew nothing. I think I believed that when I turned thirty, I may not know everything, but I'd finally be a real live grownup. Up until then, I'd only been pretending to have a clue as how to negotiate the dance floor of adulthood. My thirties have definitely been my "I am now an adult!" years. I've done my most grownup of grownup tasks like buying a lawnmower and a house. I held my husband's hand through a crushing diagnosis and death and then I took care of all the things that follow the loss of a spouse. I fixed that lawnmower when it broke down. I took on a relationship with a man who has a kid. I have a car seat in my car. 

But being a grownup doesn't mean you know everything either. Maybe when I'm forty? Fifty? One hundred? I predict that in my last breath, in that very last fleeting moment, I will know everything. Part of the charm of life are the new things learned daily, the adventure of discovery. You can't tell a four year old that knowing everything is over rated though. You can't tell them that one of the great joys of life is learning or that we continue to make new discoveries every day like the plate tectonics on Europa. Instead, you just nod your head and say "that's great!". But for the Cabbage, my wish for her would be to not know everything, just want to know everything. 

STRANGE DREAMS

Last night, in my dreams, I was trying to make it out to the beach to do yoga. I could see the beach and ocean, but as I hiked with my mat on my shoulder, I just kept getting further and further away. I topped a hill and thought for sure when I got to the top, I'd see the beach and ocean clearly again, but the only thing on the other side of that hill was a partially dried up pond. I turned around and walked back to the conference center. That's right. I was also at a conference. I was at BlogHer with Michael and Jen Tucker. We were sitting in an auditorium and there was this beautiful young woman sitting in front of us. She was wearing a uniform of sorts and I recognized her from somewhere. Suddenly it dawned on me who she was. She was the only American to win a gold medal in the latest Winter Olympics. In my dream, the US Olympic team had done poorly, medalling, but only one gold medal. This woman was not only the only one on the team to win a gold medal, but she was the first African American woman to win a gold medal in moguls. 

I boldly tapped that young woman on the shoulder. When she turned around I asked "Aren't you the only one to win a gold medal in this last olympics?" She grinned and nodded and then she hugged me. As we hugged, I told her how proud I was to meet her. She told me her story and about how it felt to win the gold and tears welled in my eyes. It was the highlight of the conference for me. As Jen, Michael and I stood to exit the auditorium, I just kept going on and on about how amazing it was that we got to meet her. Then Jen started to leave her purse. I snatched it up out of the seat to hand to her and I noticed how nice it was. I told her how much I liked it and that it was odd seeing her cary a purse around. She agreed. Then I told our little group that we needed a plan. I was adamant that I needed a shower, but then there was a debate about grocery shopping. It was finally decided that we'd just eat conference food. 

I went up to the room and showered, but I didn't really have time to get ready so I just put on a bathrobe to wear back down to the conference. The robe had "50th Anniversary of Reagan" embroidered on the front and I had a stack of business cards in the pocket to hand out. Except I didn't remember making cards, so when I stuck my hand in the pocket I was surprised to find them there. I pulled one out and was extremely impressed with the quality. The pictures I'd chosen for the front and back of the card were really good. As I walked down some grand stairs in my bathrobe, another woman noticed the embroidery and laughed. I handed her a card as she said that was going to go back to her room to get her bathrobe as well. Then I woke up. 

Most unlikely thing to ever happen that happened in that dream was the part about Jen carrying a purse. A fancy one at that. I'd love to meet the first African American woman to win a gold for moguls. Actually, I'd love to meet the first African American woman to win a gold. 

WATCH

I woke up around one AM Sunday morning. There where lights flickering through my window. A red flickering light through the white curtains. At first I thought the house next door was on fire. I jumped up and put on clothes. Michael was already out front when I peeked out the door. Two cop cars had pulled over a vehicle. They had black man standing in front of one of the cars. I could tell his hands were behind his back. I asked Michael if he knew what was going on.  He didn't, but he had seen them search the vehicle. It is illegal for police to search a vehicle without probable cause, which does not include a routine traffic stop. I don't know if this was a routine traffic stop, but Michael and I stood there and watched.

It seemed like something we should do after the events in Ferguson. Being witnesses just in case. I don't know why they pulled over the car, if the young man driving had done something wrong. We could hear the officers talking, but couldn't make out the words. We watched two of the officers search the front seat and pull something out of the car. I stood there barely breathing and trying to notice details. The officers never raised their voices and stood back from the young man at a respectful distance. We didn't witness the cops being belligerent. We didn't witness the young man resisting or being disrespectful. Everyone was calm and so we went inside. Shortly after we went in, the lights turned off and all the cars left the scene without incident. 

I'm sure the cops knew that the neighborhood was watching. We couldn't have been the only ones paying attention, but I don't think any of us were concerned about what the detained man would do. We were all watching the cops. What where the cops going to do? How were they going to react? This is what we were paying attention too. We have become a world responsible for each other and making sure those people of authority don't take advantage of this. Would we have stood watch before Ferguson? Would we have stood with waited breaths, phones at the ready to record what may happen next? I don't know, but I feel that it's more important than ever to pay attention. The change starts with us keeping watch over each other, holding each other accountable for our actions. 

We are responsible for each other. 

THAT UNCOMFORTABLE TWINGE

I know I should be writing and telling you things, but the malaise of hot summer just finally arrived here in KCMO. Michael woke up with a sinus headache and drippy nose on Sunday and I woke up Monday morning with the beginnings of a sore throat. I suspect the Cabbage may have something to do with this or the water park. I always came home from the public pool with some sort of ear/sinus/stomach funk when I was a kid. But I did put clips in the Cabbage's hair, clips that she had clipped to her snotty kleenex while I was brushing her hair. When the Cabbage dropped her sucker outside of Trader Joe's, Michael was the one to pick it up and swish it off in his mouth before handing it back to her. Public pool, snot clips, side walk sucker? Most likely all of the above. I spent yesterday on the couch waiting for my face to just give up and turn inside out. Today it looks like I'm just going to stare off at the computer screen and cough a lot. 

Things are at a standstill around here. The construction on the bathroom still has not started. They did tell me it would be 8-10 weeks before they could start. I just assumed that was something they told everyone, but didn't really mean it. They meant it. I told Michael the other night that he needed to tell me that we'd have a new bathroom by Thanksgiving. He told me that the first thing I should do is take a bath in the the tub. We've already talked about me and baths and cleaning the tub, showering and rinsing the tub again before I can settle in a tub of water. Look, I worked with Legionella for a few years. I still get creeped out when the misters come on in the vegetable isle at the grocery store. I know too much. Any way...we are still waiting for the new bathroom, holding our breaths for a week of inconvenience.

We've also done zip all nothing about sorting out the basement. In fact, I've added three boxes of things from Mom's house to the bazillion other boxes of useless crap. Every time I head in that direction with the intention of making some head way down there, I walk through one cobweb and that's it. I'm done. Really I just don't know where to start. There's too many boxes, too many spiders. Of course it seems like that now because I'm sick. Just the physical act of typing the last two sentences has exhausted me. 

Some day. It's starting to be my new motto. Some day we will have a new bathroom. Some day I'll deal with the basement. Really if that's it on my list of some days, it's not all that bad and I can wait for some day. Until then, I'm going to go blow my nose for the one thousandth time today.

SACRED SATURDAY

Sleep did not come so easy for me Friday night. I went to bed sometime around ten only to wake up around midnight. I laid in bed reading a Maisie Dobbs book until after two AM. I was awake by six thirty so I just got up and showered. I went to the Farmers' Market and then decided to go to a yoga class. I was almost an hour early to class when I parked my car across the street from the studio. I decided to go for a walk with my camera, something I haven't done in a really long time. I had forgotten the magic that the streets can hide on an early morning. 

The streets were virtually deserted with just the occasional jogger or dog walker passing by. It had stormed the previous evening and the streets were still damp.

Sometimes, the city seems foreign. In the quiet aloneness I can almost imagine I'm in a European village.

And occasionally there are hidden gems, only found if you are really looking.

Then I went to yoga where I bent myself into a yoga pose I've never done before. And I felt my body fill with joy. 

RACIAL PROFILING IS WRONG AND DOESN'T WORK

I originally sat down to write up an entry for Love Thursday, but my thoughts just keep circling back around to the recent riots and unrest in Ferguson MO. I wanted to say something about this and I didn't want it to get buried in a usual weekly post. This topic is too important for that. Protests started Sunday in response to the shooting of 18 year old Michael Brown. Police say that Michael Brown had an altercation with an officer in which he reached for the officer's gun. Michael Brown was shot as he was running away. Unarmed. Shot multiple times. Witnesses say that Michael Brown even had his hands up and was getting on the ground when the officer shot him a few more times. 

Of course I in no way support rioting or even agree with reacting to violence with more violence. My heart goes out to Michael Brown's family. They deserve to know the truth of the events behind their son's death and they deserve justice. I recognize that I am in no way qualified to discuss matters of rioting, let alone racial profiling. But just like in the case of Trayvon Martin, the events behind Michael Brown's shooting could have easily happened on my street. It's bad enough that it involves racial profiling, but the excessive force has gotten out of hand. Guns always win over fists. You might shoot a person once in self defense, not multiple times.

Google "officer shoots unarmed person". As you scroll down the list of the search result, pay attention to two things. First, the number of unarmed shootings and second the race of those victims. A research report in Psychological Science, The Consequences of Race for Police Officers' Responses to Criminal Suspects found that police officers were more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white suspects. These are the results of putting police officers in an isolated room and showing them random pictures of college-aged males (equal numbers of black and white). In the picture the suspect was holding something, sometimes a gun, sometimes a wallet or cell phone. The interesting part about this study is that research noticed that officers exposed to the program over and over again lost their biases. This is strong evidence that these training programs should be mandated for all law enforcement officials.

I have never been a target of discrimination because of my race. I can't even begin to imagine what that's like for someone. And as a white woman, saying that I sympathize sounds inappropriate. No, my job as a white woman is to scream it from the mountain tops that this is unacceptable and that I do not condone or support or VOTE for people who allow intolerance in law enforcement agencies. It is my job to push for programs to educate police officers as well as people of the communities. At the end of the day ALL of us make up this country. There is no such thing as "those people" or "them". There is only "us". We are all just trying to live our lives, put food on the tables and roofs over our heads. All of us deserve to live our lives without fear that the people who are supposed to be protecting you are going to hurt you. All of us deserve to live our lives without fear. 

THIS WAS THE SUMMER

This was the summer I got used to wearing flip flops that go between the toes. This was the summer the bathroom tiles fell off the wall. This was the summer I grew a head of cabbage and more collard greens than we can eat. This was the summer I got bit by a spider and it left a permanent mark on my arm. This was the summer I saw all of the Dakotas and a tiny corner of Wyoming. This was the summer we colored the driveway with chalk. This was the summer I gave my Dad's eulogy and this is the last summer I will sleep in the house I grew up in. 

For years we've been telling Mom and Dad they should down size to a smaller house closer to town. Dad would tell you that he's all for it, but Mom won't have it. Mom will tell you that she'd loved to move, but Dad wanted to stay. Now it's up to Mom and she's moving into a house right next to my sister. The house conveniently went on the market a few weeks ago.  Our old house will now be one I can drive by and say "hey! I lived there when I was a kid". This is the house they brought me home to after my birth. I learned to walk on the brick floors of the den. The carpet on the staircase was worn from countless sledding trips down them in sleeping bags. There were so many evenings where I fell asleep on my Strawberry Shortcake blanket on the den floor in front of the fire. But it's time to say goodbye. 

I spent the few days I was there sorting through old pictures and boxing up the few things I wanted to keep and a few things that might sell on eBay. All in all it wasn't much. A box of Memaw's china, some pictures, some old Fisher Price toys for eBay and an old doll. It's one of those big floppy rag doll types, but she's wearing all kinds of clothes. The clothes button, zip and tie and she's wearing shoes you have to buckle. I remember spending hours buttoning and unbuttoning her vest over and over. I saved a box of letters Stephanie wrote me in high school. A box of cringe worthy notes about her latest crush and questions about my latest crush.

The rest went into the dumpster. Even the yearbooks. I know those were things I probably should have kept, but as I flipped through the pages I didn't feel an ounce of nostalgia for those days. Instead it dredged up old feelings of inadequacy. It was just a reminder of the years where I could be half me. I was so insecure, so awkward. I wore jeans and large t-shirts to hide my imaginary large grotesque body. I turned page after page not seeing frivolous teenage years, but all the reasons why I wanted to leave. In fact, by the time I got to my Senior year, I was already absent. I took college courses and was only around half the day, two of those hours spent in band and choir. I am no where to be found in the senior group photo.

Letting go of those yearbooks was like letting go of fifty pound weights. Oh the years it took to pull away from all of that, to be comfortable in my skin. To find my voice, my confidence. To be free.    

This was the summer I let go.

PROCRASTINATION

I've walked by my computer so many times this weekend, knowing that I really should sit down and write. This weekend has been so light and slightly lazy. Sunday I worked in the garden, harvesting green beans, a handful of cherry tomatoes, two parsnips, a head of cabbage, one cucumber and one okra. Michael helped me hang laundry on the clothes line. A few weeks ago, he put up an extra line so now all of our clothes can hang to dry. I made a fresh batch of ghee and organized the bills. In between tasks, I'd pass a look at my laptop and think "I really should work on that thing or write some words or something". I said I'd put together some of my blog entries about Dad to read at his memorial service. I've managed to dump them all into one place, but it's going to take a little more than that to make them congeal into something that would pass for any kind of eulogy. I have all week. 

One of my coworkers came by my cubicle to give their condolences. I waived it off. "It's no big deal. I know my way around death." I said this in a joking way, but honestly...I know my way around death. I'm not so sure that's such a great super power. I know I never planned on or even wanted to be the type of blogger that blogs about grief. Yet her I am. Cindy Maddera of Elephant Soap, Grief Blogger Extraordinaire.  If I felt a little more confident, I'd put on an outfit like Zatanna's and have business cards made. Maybe that's too jazzy for death or maybe it's time we made death a bit more jazzy. Give it some pizzazz. 'Cause that's what death needs, more pizzazz.

The reality is that grief is heavy and hard and sad. It makes you want to do nothing and everything all at once. It's all the things that I don't want for my blog let alone my life. But hey. People die man. That's the truth. One day one of those people you love will just up and go missing from your life. Then you have to learn how do everything all over again with that person missing. Like learning to walk and talk and chew gum all over again. I know it sounds bleak and depressing, but there's a few things that just don't exist: the Loch Ness Monster, perfection, pots of gold under rainbows and permanence. I suppose a glass half empty type of person would see all of this and say "what's the point of even living?". Good thing I've always seen the glass as half full, because there's something beautiful and splendid about knowing that nothing is permanent. It sets the stage for how I should go about living my life. This isn't going to last. Make the most of it.

Some days I'm really good at remembering this. Other days? Not so much. I just have to get through this week. I just have to get through the next few days. I just have to get through this day. Today, I will pull a rabbit out of my hat and make it all disappear. 

LOOK AT MY PRETTY NEW SPACE

I really had intended on introducing the new blog with bells and whistles and all kinds of fanfare, but then Dad died and I had that story about the raccoons and...well. The introduction of the new blog turned out to be more like "Hey, did you do something different to your hair? I like it". Any way. Welcome to the new Elephant Soap! I'm pretty pleased with it. I'm sure there's still some tweaking to be done here and there, but for the most part I think it's done. I take that back. I doubt it will ever be "done". The beauty of this template is how easy it is to make changes. I can redecorate whenever I feel like it.

I said "I can". I am in love with how my blog has turned out, but more importantly I love that I've done all of this on my own. I transferred all of my content from Wordpress (sorry Wordpress) including my domain. I made sure that when hosting is up for the primary domain, I will not lose my domain. I figured out how to use Square Space. I'm still learning how to use Square Space, but every time I've searched their help section I have found answers to all of my questions. I haven't had to learn any code or foreign languages. Square Space couldn't have made it any easier for me to switch over. I walked into this on really shaky legs. I was almost positive I'd wreck everything and I'm a little surprised that I didn't. I managed to download all of Chris's blog content as well as make a backup for my blog and I didn't even ask Todd for help!  

I may add some things here and there over time. Maybe open some kind of shop where people can order prints or yoga videos or something. I don't know. There's so many possibilities. In the meantime, make yourself at home. Look around. Click on links. Let me know if something's not working or looks wrong in the browser. Enjoy!

RACCOONS ARE ASSHOLES

The first time I ever went tent camping, Chris and I were attacked by an unidentified animal. It rushed the tent in the middle of the night and managed to tear a sizable hole in the fabric before Chris could grab his boot to use as a boxing glove to beat at the snarling bulge coming at us. We decided that it had to have been a rabid raccoon even though we never actually saw what it was. A few years later, we'd be camping in Osage Hills State park and have our second raccoon encounter. This time the raccoon was small and cute and just kept sneaking into our campsite to scrounge food. The moment we'd turn our flashlight on him, he'd run off. 

The raccoons at Watkins Mill are neither rabid or cute. They are thugs. Bold, run in packs, thugs. They have taken lessons from the Honey Badger. They. Do. Not. Give. A. Shit. At one point we looked over and a large raccoon was sitting in the middle of the picnic table and when Michael yelled at him "Dude! We're right here!", the raccoon growled at him. After the first raccoon sighting, we put all of the food including the ice chest into the truck cab. We put the lid on the camp box (pots and pans, utensils, cups, aluminum foil, stuff like that) and shoved the box under the table bench. The camp box is old and has seen better days. It's got a large crack in the side where I bumped into with the scooter, but it still holds stuff. Or it used to. 

That night, as we laid in the tent trying to sleep, we listened to the raccoon pack picking through our campsite. We could hear them chattering and knocking over a few empty beer cans. Then we heard the sounds of them trying to break into the camp box. Michael and I just laughed. Boy where those raccoons going to be disappointed once they realized the most edible thing in that box was Ziplock baggy of caffeine free green tea bags. Finally we heard one of the raccoons emit a loud shriek and they all scampered off, moving off to the next campsite. The next morning showed signs of a broken camp box and muddy prints all over a roll of toilet paper. We spent the day joking about how the loud shriek was probably a shriek of frustration after working to get a box open that contained only pots and pans. 

That evening the campground played a movie for the kids and had free popcorn. We sat around the campfire, eating our popcorn, not a raccoon in site. We'd put all of our stuff away earlier in the evening any way. I decided that I wanted one last s'more, thinking that this time I'd make it with Thinmints. Michael got up to get all the things out to make these and ended up tearing the truck apart looking for the bag of marshmallows. A clear image of that bag of marshmallows resting in the camp box entered my brain and I said "I think they may have been in the camp box". The one food item that just on accident got tossed into that box. The marshmallows had vanished without a trace. We were not the only victims. Determined that I would make a Thinmint s'more, Michael went off into the campground to bum one marshmallow from someone. He went to three campsites before winning a giant marshmallow. The first two campsites had also been robbed of their marshmallows. That shriek we'd heard the night before was not a shriek of frustration. Oh no. It was a shriek of victory. 

We didn't hear or see the raccoons that last night. They either knew that they'd gleaned all the food from our area they would get their hands on or they were passed out in sugar induced comas somewhere in the woods. My bet is on the later. 

DON'T TELL THEM TO GROW UP AND OUT OF IT

I don't know if it's all this talk of remodeling the bathroom or that back to school feeling, but I've been considering making some changes with the blog. I know. I'm surprised too. I usually only ever feel like this after attending a BlogHer conference. I'm skipping this year because of vacation time and money and the lack of both (new mantra: new bathtub). But there's been some thoughts in the back of my brain about moving the blog over to Square Space and sprucing things up a bit around here. The reason I have only been slightly thinking about it is the fact that I have zero knowledge of how this whole internet coding shit works. Every time I get a notice that this or that domain are set to expire, I go into panic mode. I'll spend an hour trying to figure out some password username configuration that Chris would have used to open an account. At some point in all of this, I end up sending a panicked "HELP ME!" email out to Todd. Then I'll finally figure out I'm in the completely wrong place any way and Todd emails me back telling me I'm in the wrong place anyway. I'm down to a list of five domains. They are all mostly Chris's. I've held on to his domain for a few reasons. First of all, he's somehow linked them all to his .info domain with it being the primary. I don't even know what this means. I do know that if I don't pay the yearly fee for this domain, all of the others stop working. I know this because I didn't pay the bill once. I was also holding on to Chris's blog because, well, it was his blog. His words. His crazy loopy thoughts. Well, somehow, in all my poking around hosting, I have messed up Chris's blog. The link to his page in my "bloggy goodness" is broken. It takes you to some other place telling you that this page has been eaten alive. OK, maybe not, but it's still a broken link. I fucked it up and I'm not really sure how to fix. No. I'm positive I don't know how to fix it. I don't even know how I broke it. I thought that I could never lose Chris's blog. Like that's the thing I keep forever along with his wedding ring. But it turns out that I'm OK without his blog. (I hope you guys are too.)

The part that makes it feel like someone is squeezing my chest is where I fly off on my own here. I'm going to be a domain of one. At least I think I will as soon as I figure out how to untangle the rest. All this time the blog has been association with other blogs. It's sort of been circled in among a list of others. Chris had created a blog commune, taking care of not just my blog but our friends blogs too. There I was nestled in the middle of them all. It's hard for me to own this space solely as my own. Chris was the writer. I was just the record keeper or secretary of our life. Though I would have never started blogging or writing if Chris hadn't created this space for me, I have to come to terms with the fact that it is truly my own. Chris built the house, but I made it a home. A haven.

I'm still on the fence about some of the changes I may or may not make. My blog doesn't have ads and doesn't generate an income. I need to consider costs, but it's time for me to take action.

THE PLACES I'VE LEFT CHRIS

I did not anticipate the strange photo album that would be born from leaving Chris's ashes in the places I visited. I remember laying in bed one night with Chris. This was after the final "keep him comfortable there's nothing we can do" diagnosis. We were just laying there talking about nothing and everything. The subject of cremation came up and I asked him "So...what do you want me to do with your ashes?". His reply was "I don't know." He asked me what I wanted to do with my own ashes and I told him about maybe being dumped in with the elephants in the zoo. I told him how I'd said that to my mom once and she'd totally ruined the idea by saying "so then the elephants would poop on you". He never answered my question. We just sort of skipped passed it. I was always bothered by how the ashes of Chris's dad were just displayed in a typical urn on top of the TV. I wasn't disturbed by the idea of people ashes. It just bothered me that placing him on top of the TV surrounded by a few trinkets was how they decided to honor this man's life. But really, all I had ever known of the man was that he spent a lot of time sitting in front of the TV. I wanted something different (better) for Chris. That something different is growing into quite the collections of Places I've Left Chris. I knew that there would be several places on this last trip that I'd want to leave Chris. I'd made the mistake of not taking enough to leave in other places when I went to Ireland. I needed to take more ashes than the little travel boxes I had could hold, so I filled a hot salsa jar with Chris's ashes. Some may think it is a bit irreverent to fill up a hot salsa jar with someone's ashes. I found it appropriate for Chris, lover of all things hot and spicy. I'd once witnessed Chris slice up a Habanero pepper and place it on his hamburger. There'd be a couple of times we'd end up pouring some of those ashes into a travel sized toothpaste box, the box being easier to smuggle. The container doesn't matter.

I would have liked to have left some of his ashes at the wood chipper in Fargo, but since it was housed inside the Fargo Travel Center, I thought better of it. I didn't really want his ashes to end up sitting inside a vacuum cleaner in a closet somewhere in the travel center. Instead I left some at the World's Largest Buffalo. And it was the thought of leaving Chris's ashes at Devil's Tower that inspired Talaura to put that on our list of things. Of course there really was no way we could get that close to Devil's Tower and not go out of our way to leave some of Chris there. I can't even tell you how many times Close Encounters was quoted in this house. Though it would have been funny to be able to leave some of Chris's ashes right under Washington's nose at Mt. Rushmore, I discreetly left him in view of Mt. Rushmore and directly behind the pillar that held the Oklahoma State flag.

There was one place that I had not expected to leave ashes. We ended up stopping our second night in the Ft. Abraham Lincoln State Park. The campground sits right next to Missouri river. In fact, it's situated right at the junction of where the Heart river joins the Missouri river. Michael was thrilled to be on the Missouri river. He went on and on about it. I think it was his favorite part of the trip. The next morning, as we packed up everything to head on towards Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Michael said "I think we're forgetting someone." He wanted to leave some of Chris at the river. It meant something to me that Michael wanted to be a part of this memorial. So, right there, where the Heart River meets the Missouri, we left some of Chris's ashes. The emphasis on We.

PRAIRIE CHICKEN

We drive straight north on Interstate 29 to Fargo, ND and then straight west on Interstate 94 all the way across the state to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This wasn't, of course, our final stopping point. It was just our means to an end, our way of knocking out three states on our lists. We would end up going in one giant loop, traveling east to west through North Dakota and west to east across South Dakota. This is the Midwest, rolling prairies, rows of corn and wheat. The wind blows constantly, making the grasses look like a green ocean. You can count time between homesteads. They are spaced miles apart and many of them are abandoned. Miles and miles from the nearest town and miles from the nearest neighbor. There is no in between. The homesteads that are thriving are well kept with pretty red barns. The abandoned ones leave behind a shell of a farmhouse and a barn that is leaning as though all it would take is a nudge to go toppling over. It makes you wonder what makes people stay. Why is this one working? What made them give up on that one? I am no stranger to prairies or farmland. Oklahoma has a variable landscape but most of the western side of it is all prairie. I am used to pasture upon pasture of wheat fields and acres upon acres of grazing cattle. To get between Oklahoma City and Chickasha, you must drive through rolling hills of tall grass prairies. The same can be said for the stretch of turnpike between Wichita and Emporia. Yet, there is something different than I'm used to in these Dakota prairies. The grass is greener and not as tall. The hills are less hill and more rolling flat lands. Speed bumps in the prairie. The rows of farmed land are balanced with pastures of grazing sheep or cattle. The off and on showers carry the smells of fertilized earth and livestock. There is also a sweetness to that smell that reminds me of honey and hay. There is a brief moment where I think I could possible lay down in those pastures without itching or sneezing. Surely I'm not allergic to these grasses, this prairie. It is a fleeting thought. I know better. Grass is grass and I will always be allergic.

I become hypnotized as I stare out the window. At first I'm on the look out. I'm looking for wildlife like pronghorns and prairie dogs. Both of the Dakotas have a thing for giant statues and metal sculptures. Besides the World's Largest Buffalo, we saw a giant heifer and a towering crane. We passed a giant bulls head on our way home. After a while though my mind begins to spin it's own theories of life on the prairie. I could see myself hanging laundry on the line or sprinkling out feed for the chickens. I'd spend mornings kneeling in the garden wearing a large sun hat while digging in the dirt. Maybe I'd try my hand at canning things or cake baking. I don't bake cakes, rarely a cookie or a pie in this house. Maybe farm life would encourage more baking. My imaginary farm life quickly morphs from pioneer woman to hippie as I turn the second floor of the barn into a yoga studio. My pastures would be full of grazing goats instead of cows and I'd make artesian cheese with the goat milk.

But the distance between homesteads snaps me out of it. The isolation is too much. I used to joke about how I'd never move back to a place where I couldn't have pizza delivered any time I wanted too. Now I can even have Chinese delivered right to my front door. I am four miles from everything I need. Grocery shopping is a weekly event as opposed to a monthly one. I am spoiled by the amenities of city life. There was a time I could run around outside barefoot across sharp gravel, hot asphalt, clover full of bees and prickly grass. The soles of my feet are now soft from pedicures and I never take a step outdoors without some sort of sandal or flip flop on my feet. At the end of the day, I'd be that homesteader pulling up stakes and heading closer to bright lights and big cities, moving into the land of pizza delivery and high speed internet.

I wonder if I could still have a goat in the city though.

THE DAKOTAS 2014

I just waived goodbye to Talaura, started a load of laundry, and emptied the cooler. Michael is still sleeping and I've gone back to bed to write this entry. There's so much that I left out of my video post, like the lists of wildlife and license plates. Talaura and I are really good at packing the most possible amount of things to see in a day and we saw a lot. I hope you enjoy the video.

AND THEN THE TILES FELL OFF THE SHOWER WALL

There were six of them. It started with a slight sag and then slowly developed into a minor hang. They sort of formed a tent shape on the side of the wall, the gap between them and the wall increasing little by little every day until "plink", coming off the wall completely. Those six tiles just couldn't hold onto the damp crumbling bit of backer board any longer. I knew it was coming. Every day I'd step in to the shower and look at those six tiles with dread. Michael was in the shower when it actually happened, which we were both happy for. If I'd been the one to witness the carnage of it, I think I would have collapsed in the tub with the tiles. We've spent the weekend discussing things, with Michael doing his best to ease the knots that have formed in my gut. We've been scrounging and struggling to figure out a way to buy a certain house that will need a little love and attention and figuring out how to put some love and attention into this house all at the same time. This house needs more love and attention than I want to admit. There's a crack in the floor behind the toilet. The sink handles broke and I bought the closest replacement handles I could find, but turning the knobs so that the water shuts off has become our in home Mensa test. Then there's the window. The window. I hate that window with a passion. It's a wood framed window in a bath/shower. The mold and gross has permeated into the wood so that no amount of cleaning will get rid of the yuck. It just needs to go (to Hell, using fire). As much as I want to believe in fairies, I have to be realistic that no amount of magic fairy dust exists to fix those tiles or that window. We've decided to stop worrying about buying that other house. Instead we've gone from six measly tiles falling off the wall to calling consults for a total bathroom remodel. And why stop there?!? Why not just go ahead and take out a home equity loan and redo the kitchen, repave the driveway, put in a new garage door and finish dry-walling the garage? Our thinking is that we could spend some money now doing renovations that would make this house a little bit more easy to rent for $750-$800 a month without worrying about having to fix a whole lot of things.

We are leaving Sunday for a road trip vacation across the Dakotas with Talaura. I've done very little preparation for this trip. Today I went to see the doctor about this maybe spider bite that started out the size of a pencil erasure but has now spread out to cover over half my bicep. They made me step on the scale which proved to be an excellent numerical representation of how horrible I feel in my own skin these days. I've been put on a three week regimen of doxycycline for the maybe spider bite which causes the hypochondriac in me to flip the fuck out because it's also a malaria drug. The house has reached that level of clutter and dust that makes me twitchy and Michael is scheduling bathroom remodel estimates this week. All of it makes me want to curl up into a fetal position inside my closet or some dark hole. Adding major bathroom renovations to this list has made me feel panicky, yet at the same time I've been sketching plans on the backs of my grocery lists. I crave the change, but fear the inconvenience and mess that is going to be caused by this change. We only have the one bathroom. Michael said he'd set up a temporary shower in the basement. I envision a tarp and an old shower head and every scary basement scene from every horror flick ever. Showering in the basement is like inviting murder. I think it looks like I'll be showering at work.

But seriously, all the renovation talk and sticking around in this house has got me thinking. What's wrong with this house that we can't be comfortable in it? Why can't we make this house work for us? Yes, there is an issue with space, but I know families of four who live in the same amount of square footage and get by quite comfortably. My house is a million dollar apartment in New York. Except here, I paid practically nothing for it and we could have it paid off in seven years. This doesn't necessarily mean I want this to be our forever house, but there's no reason why we can't make this house work for us now. A lot of this is going to require some cleaning out. Possibly the kind of cleaning out that requires a dumpster. There's a full basement that is unfinished, but since the sewage has backed up twice in that basement since I've lived there, it will most likely remain unfinished. To some extent. That's not to say that there are not things that could be done to the basement to make it a more usable space as opposed to it's current function of place to dump unwanted things and garbage.

For now, I'm trying to set it all aside, enjoy this vacation and then come home to some roll-up-our-sleeves serious work. But I'll tell you what. Want to set an OCD person like me over the edge? Just knock six tiles off their shower wall, sit back and open a beverage and watch the crazy ensue. Highly entertaining.

FATHERS' DAY

This was the first year I didn't at least call and talk to my Dad on Fathers' Day. I didn't make plans to visit some wacky museum or some fried catfish/chicken fried steak place with Dad. I posted a picture of Dad selling peanuts in Colorado on Facebook with the obligatory "Happy Fathers' Day" message, but only later in the day after enough guilt had settled in from reading through all the other Facebook Fathers' Day posts. My Dad is computer illiterate. Even when lucid. Anything posted online for him is a waste. That has always been the case. Posting anything about Dad on the internet has been more for your entertainment than Dad's. But everyone else was sending out Happy Fathers' Day wishes, so I thought I should jump off that cliff too. I thought maybe it would make me feel better to send out Fathers' Day wishes even though my Dad is not Dad anymore. I haven't even asked my brother or sister if they visited Dad yesterday or how he's doing. To the untrained eye it would appear that I just don't care. That could be partially true. There is something about making an effort to acknowledge and celebrate Fathers' Day when you know that really you're only doing it to make yourself feel better. "Look. I told my Dad 'I love you' on Facebook. We're cool right?" All of the internet is now aware that I love my Dad. Great. Because I don't want to look like an ungrateful child. And I realize this post is spiraling down into a sarcastic negative vortex. My Dad and my Uncle Russel used to go to their local drive-in and Dad would order a pine float. When he told this story he'd look at me and say "Ya, know what a pine float is don't ya?" and because he'd told the story so many times I always knew the answer was a glass of water with a toothpick in it. My Dad would brag to anyone he could force to listen about how his son played the drums, one daughter played the flute and the other daughter played the cello. He would say "I know they don't get that from my side. I was only good at playing the radio." My Dad's favorite show ever was Hee-Haw and we always had season passes to Silver Dollar City so Dad could sit and listen to bluegrass music all day long. It's the one thing I never heard him complain about spending money on. Of course, we had maybe a dollar to spend inside the park, but he never once complained about shelling out the money for a season pass.

In my Dad's younger years, he looked like Gomer Pyle especially when he was in his Air Force uniform. Rumor had it that his nickname then was Gomer. His favorite place on earth was Colorado. I don't know why he never made us just move there. Trout fishing for him was not a passive event. He got up every morning, headed to the lake, pond or river and fished until he'd caught his limit and everyone else's. He was a man obsessed with catching and eating all of the trout. My parents had just returned home from one such fishing trip, when I took Chris home for the first time. Of course we ate trout. Chris swears that Dad tried to kill him with a fish bone. Unintentionally.

If there's only one word to describe my Dad it would be "corny". He told the worst, most ridiculous jokes. He knew where all the best chicken fried steak dinners could be found in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Wyoming and he knew the prices for all of those dinners. They all served the best chicken fried steak for $3.99. He drove past Mt. Rushmore once and was unimpressed. He really enjoyed the idea of seeing someone getting hit in the face with a roll at Lambert's. He wore cutoff jean shorts with cowboy boots. Sometimes he'd put on a shirt with that ensemble and it was always the western styled kind that snapped down the front. He'd snap two of the snaps before heading into to town to run some errand or another.

I only ever remember seeing Dad drink any kind of alcoholic beverage twice. Once he found an unopened six pack of beer somewhere. He drank one and then made biscuits with the others. The other time was when we were in Vegas and Chris ordered that giant warp core breach drink. He'd gotten a free shot glass from the Hard Rock and he used a straw to siphon out the beverage into his shot glass. He used to smoke a pipe in the winter times when I was little. I remember the smell of his tobacco, sweet and woody smelling. That was it for his vices.

I hope that in his head he's off doing something he enjoyed, fishing, selling peanuts or driving off into the sunset on one of his long drives. I hope that in his head he's happy and I hope that somewhere in his head he remembers that we love him.

Happy Fathers' Day Dad.

RETURNING TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

A year ago I remember standing outside Bella Napoli's waiting for Michael to show up for our first date. I was early. I am always early. I stood under one of the big Ginkgo trees that lined the sidewalk with my head buried in my phone, pretending to look busy with important phone things. As it grew closer to the time we'd agreed upon for meeting, I started to panic. A wave of anxiety washed over me and I sent a text to Chad saying that I feel like I'd made a terrible mistake. In fact I was just on the verge of bolting when Michael showed up. I don't think I ever told him that. I might have mentioned that text I'd sent to Chad, but not the part about almost running. Any way...I didn't run. I stayed. A few days later he took me out for what Talaura calls a "wow" date with stargazing at an observatory and conversation lasting until the wee hours of the next morning. The date would just continue on into the next day. Chad called me while Michael and I were tooling around an antique mall near the City Market that day. He asked me how the date went and when I replied with "we're still on it" I had to pull the phone away from my ear because Chad's laugh was so large and loud. The next week I left for Oklahoma for Amy and Roger's wedding. When I came back I got a text from Michael basically saying that he needed space and had moved too fast with me. I felt so stupid because I'd spent all that time in Oklahoma telling every one that I'd met a guy that I thought I might really like. I even gushed a little over it all. The whole thing left me smacking my forehead at how stupid and naive I was. And to be fair, my ego had been seriously bruised. This was a new brand of rejection for me and something that I hadn't been prepared for. No matter. I'm a tough girl. I got up and brushed the dirt off my pants and hopped back on that proverbial bike of online dating. A few weeks later he sent this: "I've made a terrible mistake. Please meet with me and let me explain. Please at least hear what I have to say." I honestly didn't know what to do and I told him as much. "Please just listen to what I have to say." And he said all the right things. He owned up to his stupidity, admitted he was wrong. After listening to him I knew I'd give him a second chance at this, but I had every intention of keeping him at a distance. I would keep him at arms length. He'd be that guy I felt comfortable enough with to see me naked and go to movies with, but that's as far as it would go. We'd be friends with benefits.

I want to laugh so hard at that now. I want to laugh at how I was so not going to budge an inch on this. When he started talking about buying a scooter, I was adamant that he not buy a scooter because of me. I wanted to say to him, without actually saying it out loud, this would never be anything more than just two people hanging out enjoying each other's company. Here I am, a year later with a commitment ring on my finger, him completely moved in, and talks of buying a house happening in our near future. A year later and I have fallen. I am a sap. I know I should have seen it coming. I've never told the internet Michael's last name, but I can assure you that the similarities between mine and his is like a smack in the face. Remember Lindsey's bouquet landing on my feet? The Gods already trying to tell me something. Amy was the first person I talked to about Michael. We sat in a booth at a Chinese buffet in Duncan. I told Amy all my fears and guilt about things, but I told her that I was pretty sure that I really liked this guy. I opened up my fortune cookie and it said "change comes through suffering" and Amy and I started crying. Not because we were sad. Amy said that ever since Chris all of her feelings just leaked out her eyes. We spent the rest of the weekend with leaking eyes. That was the beginning.

I had to scroll back through pictures to figure out this date. That's the benefit of taking a picture every day. We decided to celebrate by returning to Bella Napoli's. Someone joked about celebrating the first date. My thought was that we almost had to. We didn't have time to take note of official dates, the first "I love you", the day he moved in. All of those days meld together. All we could do was hold onto the raft as we tumbled through the rapids. And here we are. A year later. I am still amazed at how life just flips. Like magnets or coins. I'm still reeling from this last flip. When I look back at the past year and the circumstances that lead me and us here, my head swims. Though I'm sure if I scrolled back through old texts and blog entries I'd figure out some sort of timeline, but why not start at the first point. "Let's start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start". (Points to those who get that.) When I talk of my life with Chris, I can honestly say that I have no regrets in our time together. When I look back at the last year with Michael, it's assuring that I can say the same for this relationship. Love honestly and completely with no regrets is a motto I've been unknowingly living all these years.

FLIPPITY FLOPS

First of all, I'm going to straight up tell you that I am not getting anything from writing this post. I'm pretty sure companies in general don't even know I exist. Trust me. No one is paying me to write this, nor am I getting a free pair of shoes. At the beginning of every summer, I buy myself a new pair of Sanuks. They make their shoes from recycled yoga mats and I think they're super comfy. I usually go for the loafer looking ones, but their new yoga slings caught my eye. The problem is they have a strap that goes between the toes. Those of you who know me, really know me, know that there's nothing that disturbs me more than straps between toes. I have made attempts to get over this because there so many cute summer shoes out there and they all have between toe straps. Every time I try on a flip flop of some kind, I start clawing my skin off.

Then I saw those yoga slings and I thought "maybe". I carefully read through all of the reviews on Zappos and there really wasn't anyone saying anything negative about these shoes. Most everybody was all "these are the most comfortable shoes ever!". So I added them to my virtual cart and pressed the purchase button. Dang it if those people weren't right about them being the most comfortable shoes ever. It's like walking around on your favorite yoga mat all day. But I still had to get over the between the toes strap thing. I wore the shoes for two days before I finally stopped twitching. I think it helped that the material of the strap is like an old Army T-shirt I used to wear to sleep in. I loved that shirt. It was so soft. That poor shirt was almost as transparent as a window by the time I threw it out. The strap material on these shoes is of a similar cotton. It's wide and I obviously feel it's presence between my toes, but it's soft so I don't mind so much. People, I am finally wearing shoes that have a strap between toes! This is a pretty big deal. I mean, just imagine how this changes my shoe possibilities!

Actually...it doesn't change my shoe possibilities by much. It just means that I now want a pair of yoga slings in every color.

TOUGH COOKIE

The summer I stayed with Randy and Katrina, I rode Katrina's bike all around the neighborhood. Their house sits at the bottom of a hill. The game was to see how fast you go down that hill without crashing into some car or what not in the intersection at the bottom of the hill. We played dangerous games. I'm pretty sure we didn't think so then. But looking back it all now, we probably shouldn't have been speeding full blast down hills that had intersections at the bottom. Dozens, maybe even hundreds, of times we flew down that hill, giddy with how much speed we'd pick up. One time, I came flying down that hill and decided at the last minute to make a left hand turn in that intersection. It was a bad decision. I was going to too fast to make the turn, so as I turned the bike just laid over. Me and the bike went skidding half way down the street. The neighbor across the street was outside watering his yard and witnessed the whole thing. He watched as I peeled myself off the pavement and picked up the bike. "Are you OK?" he shouted. My whole left side was a mix of blood and gravel, yet I raised my chin and without one quiver in my voice, replied "I'm fine". Then I turned the bike around and walked it back up the drive. I leaned the bike up next to the garage where it belonged before marching into the house. That's where I fell apart. I cried while Katrina cleaned up the mess of my arm and leg. I still have a scar on my pinky finger from that wreck, lucky there's not more. We were encouraged to sign up for corporate challenge this year so I put my name on the list for a few events. The walk was an easy choice, but I also signed up for softball thinking that they wouldn't really need me. I know nothing about softball. I played wiffle ball in elementary school and I remembered being fairly decent at that. Michael's been teaching me how to use a baseball glove to catch a ball. I figured that if I had to play, I'd at least be able to catch a ball. Our first game was early (7 AM early) Saturday morning. Our "coach" had put me down as catcher in the playlist. All I had to do was stand behind home plate and catch the ball. Easy peasy. He threw a practice pitch at me and the ball hit my glove and bounced up into my face with a loud "smack". I stood up and shook my head while Coach came running over to check on me. I gingerly felt inside my mouth with my fingers, checking my teeth. I could taste the metallic taste of blood. Coach asked me if I wanted to quit. I wiped my bloody fingers on my pants and said "No. I still got my teeth." Someone from the dugout yelled "She's got the taste of blood! She's ready to play now!". Well, I don't know about that, but I played the game with an ice pack stuck to my face in between innings.

It must be pride. Here I had a perfectly good excuse to pull myself from the game, go home and pull the covers up over my head. I mean who schedules things at 7 AM on a Saturday morning any way? I was not excited to be on the team. Any attempt to play sports has left me feeling like an awkward gangly ungraceful fool. Honestly I pretty much feel like an awkward gangly ungraceful fool just walking down a sidewalk. Add a ball and something that requires hand/eye coordination and then picture a gorilla on ice skates with a hockey stick and that's the image I have of myself attempting to play anything sports. I will concede that I probably do not look like a gorilla. Maybe a hippo or a cow. I think maybe it's fairly obvious what happens to my self esteem when trying to play sports. Put me on a yoga mat and ask me to bend into a pretzel shape or stand in Vrksasana (tree pose) and (in my head) I am a beautiful graceful ballerina. Throw a ball at me and it's another story. Here I had a giant bloody lip that I could have used to my advantage, instead I spit blood out of my mouth and said let's play this fucking ball game. Just like I walked, not limped, my bike back to the house after that wreck. Because bottom line, I am not a quitter and I'm tough. I also like to think I'm a little bit of a bad ass. Michael and I have joked all weekend that it looks like he hit me. In the middle of one of these jokes he turned to me and said "you do know that I would NEVER hit you right?". I said "Of course, but if you ever did? After I pulled myself off the floor? I'd beat the shit out of you." We both know I totally would too. I may look like a gorilla on ice skates attempting to play hockey, but I'm not giving up with out a fight. I will pick up that bike and I will wipe the blood on my shirt and keep on going.

I don't know if this should be taken as a warning or a testament.

JUST LIKE CAVEMEN

We built a fire pit! Then we built a fire in that fire pit! This is how we transformed out backyard for only $50. First, we bought 101 landscaping bricks from someone on Craigslist for $25. Then we bought 650 lbs of gravel for $13, some landscaping tarp ($10) and some carpenter's chalk ($5). The best part was getting the gravel. We went to a place called House of Rock where you can buy gravel by the truck loads. We placed our order and then drove around to the scale. A guy took our ticket and then got in a front loader thing and filled it up with gravel to dump in the truck. But that's not the amazing part. That guy scooped up exactly the right about of gravel. Now that's talent.

/div>

This is what we started with. That pile of wood has been sitting there for three years. It's the leftovers from that big tree fall of 2011.

First we laid out our frame.

Next, we put down a ring of bricks and filled it with gravel.

Then we drew another chalk circle.

Since the fire pit plans were inside Michael's head, he decided to take over the next part of creating the inner brick ring. While he did that, I made citronella torches out of booze bottles.

When I looked up from my project, we had this:

So I made this:

That's pretty much it. And pretty much as DIY as I get. Hope your weekend was delicious.