I THINK I'M BREAKING UP WITH MY FITNESS TRACKER

Rushing

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It started with a button falling off on my Up band. Not my pants. First, the button that lets me switch between modes fell off and then the band had trouble syncing to my phone. For the last few months I've just been arguing with my fitness tracker over the number of steps I've taken in a day. I'd look at my Up app on my phone and see that it had only tracked me at five thousand steps for the day. I'd literally yell "...the fuck!?" at the screen because I knew that I had walked so many more steps than that. There was no way that all those loops outside, thirty minutes of treadmill time and the evening dog walk came out to a measly five thousand and something steps. All of that is at least a sixteen thousand step kind of day. 

So I got mad and I stayed mad at the Up band, at myself, and at the injustice of all those lost steps I wasn't getting credit for. Which is ridiculous. The whole point of that particular fitness tracker was for me to track my movement without becoming obsessed with tracking my movement. Then I got obsessed with tracking my movement. Oh, I tried to pretend on those days when I'd only done about eleven thousands steps that this was good, this was enough, but really I was always a little disappointed in myself for walking only eleven thousand steps. My fitness tracker just became yet another thing that made me feel inadequate. What's worse, is that the whole time I was tracking my steps and my sleep and sometimes my food, I wasn't losing any weight. I weigh the same as I did when I started. 

A few weeks ago I was having one of those days where I felt skinny. I would catch my reflection in a window and shake my head while thinking "damn, girl! you look T.H.I.N." Maybe I did and maybe I didn't. The point is I felt good about myself. That was also the same day I had a doctor's appointment to see if my cholesterol medicine was working. The first thing they made me do when I got there was to stand on the scale. At first I was really excited to stand on that scale, until I did. The scale said 175 and I shouted "you're a fucking liar, Scale!" Except I didn't really shout that out loud because then my doctor would have probably started prescribing me even more meds. But that's when it hit me. I had gotten caught up in numbers instead of just being. 

I don't need to track my daily activity. I stand the same amount of time as I sit during the day. I walk. I get on my yoga mat daily. My meals require me to chop up fresh vegetables and cook them. The most my can opener has been used this week is to open a can of black beans. I don't need a $100 bracelet to keep me accountable. I'm pretty good at doing that on my own. I'm pretty good at being my own worst judgmental critic too. The Up band was like that one mean judgmental girlfriend you had in high school. She'd say terrible catty things about others and you knew it was wrong, but you stayed friends with her because you were afraid she'd be mean to you if you didn't. I didn't really have that kind of friend in high school because I was good at politics and I don't see why I need that kind of so called friend now.

Sorry, but not sorry Up band. 

IT'S A DOG OF A WAY TO GET AROUND

Sunrise over Kansas

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I'd like to be able to tell some wild and interesting story about riding the bus, but it was pretty much like I had expected. I had a seat to myself and was able to nap and read and gaze out the window. No one offered me a baloney sandwich wrapped in wax paper and the world didn't take on a yellow film tint. The bus was smelly. The man sitting behind me had a cell phone that kept telling everyone on the bus he had a message or a text. There were two ladies in their late fifties or early sixties dressed in tight jeans and cleavage revealing tops. It was obvious as they stood in line to board the bus that they had been drinking. One of them was struggling to keep her belongings stuffed into a small purse like backpack. She'd get one item crammed in only to have something else pop out onto the floor. She talked to her seat mate for most of the ride. I could hear her raspy voice as she gave advice about love and life to the young man sitting next to her. There was a very young couple sitting slightly behind me who whispered to each other loud enough for the man directly behind me to hear them.

When we stopped an hour later for a break, I heard the older man tell the young couple that he could hear every thing they said. He'd been on the bus for three straight days and he said they "could keep their comments to themselves." He sounded cranky, which you'd expect for someone who had been riding the bus for three days and still riding, but I wanted to know why he'd been on the bus for so long. I wanted to ask him about his travels. I wanted to know where he had been and where he was going. The tone of his voice suggested that I would not be able to ask him those questions. My appearance suggested that I was not a person he could open up to. I had dressed for a funeral service in my new slacks and intricately embroidered blouse from Anthropologie, not the usual bus riding attire. It seemed to me that the typical Greyhound bus passenger wore sweatpants and many of them sported neck tattoos. They also mostly kept to themselves and slept. I've never been a good travel sleeper. I spent my time reading or taking pictures out the bus window. 

We traveled down small country highways that I had traveled before like Hwy 169 that takes you down through Chanute and Cherryvale and into Coffeyville. At Coffeyville, we turned and headed west until we connected with Hwy 75 in Caney, Kansas. Then we headed south, down through Dewey and Bartlesville. I had not traveled on that section of Hwy 75 in ages, yet the small towns we passed through were virtually unchanged. We passed a gas station that sported a sign promoting that they sell "real gas". Dozens of old beat up farm trucks passed us, one contained a young woman who couldn't have been older than eighteen. There was a small baby strapped into a carseat at her right elbow. I saw all these things, such familiar images. These were my stomping grounds of my youth and they seemed so small, so country. I couldn't help but think of how much my life has changed, how so much more metropolitan it seems to be, even though I'm just in Kansas City. I ride in taxi cabs. Actually, I had just taken a taxi to the bus station that very morning. I fly and travel often for work. I am comfortable in airports and on subways. Well, sort of.

I can hop into the backseat of cab and rattle off an address and make it look like it's something I've been doing for years. But I can tell you, on the inside, the voice that rattles off the address is meek and uncertain. When I'm sitting on the subway, my eyes are constantly darting to the map and my ears perked up like a puppy, listening for the next stop. I can do all of these things with the confident air of a seasoned big city girl, but on the inside I am uncertain. I sit there looking calm and collected while mentally I question every action and constantly check the sun to make sure I'm headed in the right direction. In my head, I am still gaping at the tall skyscrapers and the hustle and bustle of a city. On the inside, I'm still that little country girl who has piled into the back of an old beat up farm truck and contributed change so the driver could buy some of that "real" gas. I am still that little country girl who thought it was something to drive all the way into Tulsa all by herself. I am still thrilled and surprised that someone will deliver pizza right to my very door. 

I have become a blend of country mouse and city mouse, equally comfortable and awkward in both worlds. 

GET ON THE BUS GUS

Yellow

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Tomorrow morning at four AM, I will be on a Greyhound bus headed to Tulsa. Sounds like I'm writing a country song. You see, while everyone has been posting about the death of Gene Wilder, I have been trying to figure out a way to write about the death of our old family friend, Karen. This is why I'm going to Tulsa on a bus, to pay my respects to one of the women of the tribe who helped raise me. When I was little and had to stay overnight at Karen's house, she would make me teddy bear shaped pancakes for breakfast. The first time she did, I went home and told Mom about it. In fact, I talked for days and days about teddy bear shaped pancakes. This prompted Mom to step up her pancake skills and I woke up one morning to find a stack of elaborate elephant pancakes. When I tagged along to the movies with Janell and Karen's daughter Stephanie, I sat with Karen. She was the one that suggested we hang out in the lobby until Gremlins was over after she noticed me curled up into a a trembling ball on my seat. That movie was terrifying and I still have not seen it all the way through. Karen was also our cake maker. She made beautiful and delicious cakes. She made my wedding cake and Chris and I would talk about our reception for years and how that cake was so good. She was like a blend of Annie Potts characters. Her eyelashes, which I'm pretty sure were fake, were the most stellar eyelashes you've ever seen.

Our plan was to hang out at Randy and Katrina's cabin in Branson this weekend. Driving to Tulsa and back in one day and then turning around to drive to Branson the next seemed daunting. Driving to Tulsa by myself and then traveling from Tulsa to Branson on Friday seemed stupid because then we'd have two cars in Branson. I wanted to take the train but there's not a direct route to Tulsa. I thought about taking a flight but a quick search yielded ticket prices over $200. So, I'm taking the bus. This way, I can ride to the cabin with Randy and Katrina. Michael and the Cabbage will meet us there and we'll all be able to ride back to KCMO together. You know those critical thinking math questions on the GRE where you have a softball team with Susie, Dona, and Jessica and maybe a Samantha and someone else and you have to put them on the field but Susie can only be on the field if Dona is, but can't be on the field if Jessica is? Turns out that life is really a lot like those questions. 

I've ridden my fair share of charter busses in my day. I spent summers traveling around the country with the All State Baptist Choir in a caravan of charters busses, not to mention all the other band and 4-H trips. I have never ridden a Greyhound bus. Everything I know about riding the bus, THE bus, I know from TV and the stories Dad would tell about riding the bus across Wyoming. Because of those things, I have always thought the bus was a slightly seedy mode of transportation reserved for runaways and recently released convicts. My visions of bus riding also include a romantic side. I can imagine sitting, looking out a bus window as it travels across the South West, watching the sun move across the red dirt of a desert. I'd use the cacti as sun dials and we'd occasionally stop for coffee breaks in towns that consisted of one gas station. The soundtrack would include songs like Everybody's Talkin' and City of New Orleans. I imagine that as soon as I step onto the bus that the world will take on a yellow tint, like 70s film and I expect that someone will offer me a homemade baloney sandwich wrapped in wax paper.  

Of course, I realize that my bus trip will most likely be uneventful. With any luck I will have a seat to myself and be able to take a nap, read a book or watch a movie in peace. I will not have to worry about keeping my eye on the road or checking the fuel gage. I will not have to be sure to have the right amount of toll money ready for the toll gate. I'll get to Tulsa with very little effort on my part, but the imagined story of the trip is already writing itself in my head. Maybe I'll tell it to you one day.

THE CAT HAS FLEAS

By any other name

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Sometimes I really think I should be on drugs. I will fixate on something and worry it to death until I've spent all of my money trying to do something about the something or until I've chewed my lips off. Whichever comes first. Sometimes it all happens at the same time. Right now, I can feel the grooves I chewed into the inside of my cheeks while I was sleeping last night. But Cindy, you do all that yoga! No. No I don't. I mean, I could do more yoga. The meditation practice I started at the beginning of the year got derailed and yoga rarely happens for me on the weekend. Trust me when I say that the amount of yoga I do practice, keeps me from clawing the skin off of my body. 

This morning, before I called IKEA to check on the other half of our couch, I started to worry that they would have the chaise, but they wouldn't hold it for us. I started thinking that I should just leave work and go to IKEA and try to fit the chaise into my car (no way it would fit into my car). It really seemed like something I was going to have to do especially after spending over twenty minutes on hold. To get totally off track here, Josephine's been super itchy lately. She get's flea and tick medicine once a month and the groomer said that allergies where really bad right now for dogs. We've started adding fish oil to her food and rub her down with lavender oil each evening, but this morning I found fleas on my bed. So while I'm on hold with IKEA, I'm thinking about fleas and how I know they didn't come from Josephine. Albus has fleas and Michael and I are probably going to need body armor in order to put his flea medicine on his back. Even worse is that there are fleas. 

Let me go back to Josephine's itching problem because that's the beginning of my recent neurosis. Josephine is a schnauzer. Schnauzer are known for their itchy skin problems, yet I was on the verge of diagnosing my dog with scabies. I bought allergy wipes. I bought an anti-fungal spray. I bought lavender oil and fish oil and read all of the awful bad things on the internet. The fish oil and lavender oil are actually helping, but I was obsessed with solving this problem. She went to the groomer's and things have improved, but then the fleas. Except I know Josephine does not have fleas. I know it's that stupid cat who has the fleas and I'm going to completely obsess about it until I don't know when. When I'm not obsessing about fleas, I'm going to obsess about getting the rest of the couch together. Then I'm going to start freaking out over the cleanliness of the house because of fleas. I am one flea away from kleenex box shoes.

Of course, by the time it's taken me to write all of this, I've successfully put flea treatment on the cat by bribing him with a cat treat. IKEA pulled the chaise and had it on hold for Michael when he got there after work. We now have a complete couch (though I'm starting to rethink the cover...another story). Josephine was only a little itchy last night and I only found one flea, half dead on the couch throw. As per usual, my obsessive compulsive worrying is for naught. I know this, even while I'm playing out every possible scenario and outcome in my head and picking at my lip. I know that there's no reason for it. Oh, and guess what? I rode the scooter today and it looks like it's going to rain and I have a dentist appointment at lunch. So now, I've got a whole new list and I want to delete this entire entry because it sounds so complainy. 

Worrying about things going wrong is almost like wishing for things to go wrong. Things are going pretty right for me in this moment. That's usually when the voices start talking about how I shouldn't get used to things going right and start listing all the ways it could all go wrong. Just to make sure I'm listening, the voices will whisper "remember what happened the last time when everything was going right and you were super happy?" Except right now, I'm wondering how long do I have to remember that. How long do I have to remember cursing myself with saying out loud just how happy I was? I'm not saying that I need to forget. I'm saying that I need to change the language. I'm saying it's time to silence those voices. 

Today, I've decided that I never cursed myself by admitting to being happy. Today, I've decided to just let things be right.

THAT'S SOMETHING

Morning

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Michael and I bought a new couch. Really, I guess I should say that we are in the process of buying a new couch. IKEA was out of the arms and chase section of the couch we wanted. Now that I think about it, I have to a pause and ask "what the fuck, IKEA?" We were able to buy the two seater section, legs, and all of the covers, but no arms or chaise. I get that they'd be out of the chaise because the couch is modular, but ARMS?!? I went back on Sunday and got the arms. Michael will go after work on Tuesday and get the chaise. I put all of the pieces we have for the couch together yesterday, with the exception of attaching the right arm because that's where the chaise section goes. My knuckles are scraped and bloody from putting the covers on the arms and I have a paper cut from the cardboard box that stretches all the way across my forearm. We sat on half a couch last night. 

While we were in IKEA trying to decide on which couch to buy, I looked at Michael and said "we're buying a couch together." He thought about it and then nodded. "We are buying a couch together." I feel like that's even more serious than that time he bought a scooter.  We're taking my home and turning it into our home, which is more than just cleaning out a couple of drawers in my dresser so he'll have room to put his socks and underwear. Though, I am getting those drawers back because we also bought Michael a new bed with large storage drawers under it. When he opened up the drawers on my side of the dresser, which are crammed full, he asked me "how long have they been like this?!" I looked at him out of the side of my eye and said "since you moved in." 

I'm still guiltily surprised at how easy it was for me to stretch out into this space after Chris died. I had been so careful and consistent in getting rid of clothes so that the clothes I kept fit neatly into my half of the dresser. It is not that I stopped cleaning out old clothes. I just got less selective in the things I tossed even after I moved back into just the three drawers. I stretched out, spread out and then had to real it all back in. Things that didn't get tossed during the shrink back phase suddenly found new homes stuffed into nooks and crannies. There have been times when I have felt overwhelmed by confining myself back into my old space because it doesn't fit the way it did before. My house went from all mine, quiet and orderly to Our house, noisy and just on the brink of exploding into chaos. Containing the clutter is an endless task. I throw out mail and neatly stack the things Michael ends up dumping onto the table daily.

And there have been so many bitten tongues. "Can't you see I eat my breakfast there every morning?" "How many cups do you need in the living room?!" "You really think it's a good idea to put knives, pointy side up in the dish drainer?" These are all things I have thought and not said out loud because I recognize the bitchy nagging sound of those words. But there have been moments where I've felt myself snapping and on the verge of yelling "OUT! GET OUT!" We can be together and not live together right? Instead of snapping, I notice how hard he's trying. I notice that he's doing his best and that he has spent a long time living in this space on my terms. I am no longer making this space mine. We are making this space ours. There is no moving backwards now. We've bought a couch and in order to split that couch up, we'd have to buy another pair of couch arms. 

And who knows when IKEA's getting more of those. 

THINGS I USED TO DO

Tuesday

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I used to do gymnastics when I was little. I wasn't very good. I did get first place in competition for the balance beam a few times, but that was about it. The balance beam and the vault were my two best events. I was mediocre in floor routines and absolutely the worst in uneven bars. I could never pull myself up onto the top bar. Our coach, Mr. McLaughlin, would lift me up so that I could grab the top bar, but then he'd just walk away with me dangling there for what seemed like forever. You could leave one event out in competitions and I always left out the uneven bars. I was pretty decent at vaulting. The thing about the vault is that it really is a no fear event. You have to be all pot committed before you even start your run to the spring board. I had that part down; I tended to get a little wild at flying over the vault though. The balance beam was my shinning spot. I could balance while dancing across that narrow beam like a boss. 

I used to play the piano when I was little. I was mediocre at best. I could read music and memorize pieces to be regurgitated on the keys. I lacked passion and desire and discipline. I rarely practiced unless Mom was in one of those "I'm setting the timer and you are practicing!" moods. When recital time came along, I could perform my piece without error, but also without enthusiasm. I was never comfortable on the piano bench and I have short fingers that had to stretch too far for some of the keys. Piano led to percussion, where I was effortlessly good at playing snare, tymphany, and xylophone. Percussion was something I could play well without trying and didn't require much passion. Percussion somehow led to the cello. The cello turned out to be the instrument where I had to practice and no one had to tell me to practice. The cello turned out to be the instrument I wanted to play. 

I used to draw. I have sketchbooks filled with pencil and pastel drawings. I went through phases where I drew page after page of whales, then horses because most girls go through a horse loving phase and of course there are pages of elephants. My inspiration came from National Geographic magazines or whatever was sitting on the dinning room table. I sketched what I saw. One of my fruit bowl sketches is framed and hanging on my Mom's wall. I had the best flower and flower parts drawings in my Taxonomy of Vascular Plants class in undergrad. I was not an artist, meaning I wasn't good at composition or developing a particular style. I wasn't motivated to take art classes or dig deep to find my inner Georgia O'keeffe. I grew up in rural Oklahoma with a black and white TV. This was a way to entertain myself. 

So, why am I telling you about things I used to do? I don't know. I'm bored and unmotivated to write. I think writing about nothing is going to get me writing about something. Those are all things I didn't really have a burning passion to keep doing, but I still managed to hang onto something from each task. I can still balance like a boss. I can still read music. I can still draw a pretty realistic killer whale. I did retain some skills that I acquired from things I used to do. That's really not why I'm telling you about those things. They were things that came easy to me until they didn't. Does that make sense? The balance beam was easy until I had to start flipping off the end, which was fine until my body got too tall and weird to flip. Instead of trying harder, I just quit. The music stuff was easy, but when all my scholarships came from scholastic merit, I didn't really need to focus on the music any more. So I quit. Becoming a better sketch artist would have required more work. So I quit. 

Getting my camera out sometimes is very much like digging out my old sketch pad. It is work and most of the pictures I end up taking aren't any better than my fourth grade drawings. I don't take enough pictures. I focus too hard on composition instead of just taking pictures to see what will turn out. I spend too much time futzing with settings and wondering if I should just switch it to auto pilot. Writing, putting words here or anywhere is hard. It doesn't serve me any kind of purpose other than getting the random clutter out of my head. Sort of like how knowing how to read music is a useless skill for me now. Photography and writing do not make me any kind of money. There's no point in doing either of these things. Yet I do and I don't want them to become things I used to do. 

So...I'm going to try to find some motivation to keep on keeping on. 

MIMOSA MEMORY

Walk and roll

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There's a mimosa tree a few houses up the street. We pass it on our evening walks with Josephine. Most times I don't even notice it, but right now the tree is covered in pink pompom like blooms that look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Those blooms fill the air with a sweet green smell. That smell along with the cicada soundtrack of summer that was playing in the background, triggered summer time memories from a time so long ago that I'm not even sure those memories are real. They have that shimmery heat wave look to them, like those cartoon images of a mirage. I'm Droopy with a handkerchief on my head.

A mimosa tree grew on the southeast corner of my parent's property. I remember when the tree was small, but only vaguely. Mostly, I remember that tree as being big and tall enough to be my climbing tree and how I would spend hours sitting on one limb or another. If I wasn't in the tree, I was laying under the tree. If wasn't sitting on one limb or another, I was jumping off one limb or another. I remember one summer evening, sitting in that tree while watching a lunar eclipse. The land facing east was still undeveloped and the pasture there stretched on and on. The moon was at it's largest that night taking up more than half the eastern horizon. We were in the middle of preparing for Janell's first wedding and Mom was mad because we were all outside watching the moon instead of beating the carpets with a tennis racket. 

There was a brief amount of time after I fell from that tree and broke my arm, where I struggled with climbing it. The fall came from a moment of indecision. I could climb down the way I'd climbed up or I could jump down from the branch I was on. I turned slightly to go ahead and climb down, when my shorts snagged on part of a branch. The momentum of my forward movement halted suddenly by the snag yanked me backwards and I flipped over, landing hard on the ground below with my arm broken in two. After my arm was healed and the cast was gone, I would step up onto my first foot hold, a foot hold that was practically worn into place because I'd used it over and over, and I would pause. I would hesitate to go up any further. My confidence was shaken even though I know the reason I fell from the tree had nothing to do with my climb up into it. Yet, fear would still grip my heart even as I continued to climb on up into the tree and settle into my usual spot. 

But I still climbed up into that tree. 

That pasture that seemed to stretch for miles is now dotted with houses. The mimosa tree on the corner is now gone. Dad wanted to cut the thing down when I broke my arm, but I begged and pleaded for him not to do it. He got his way when I moved out of the house. I came home one weekend and my tree was just a stump. Dad mumbled something about diseased, but I knew better. Those things are changed or gone now, but the lesson never left me. If I'm standing on that ledge looking down into a crystal clear pool, no matter how tightly fear has wrapped itself around my heart, I'm going to jump.

Because I'm more stubborn than brave. 

VISION BORED

Making lazy circles in the sky

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Yes Chad, I meant bored not board. The other morning I was walking outside when I had a very clear vision. In the vision, I was riding my scooter down a back country road. There were saddle bags bulging at the sides of the scooter while I sported a hiker's kind of backpack on my back. Josephine's head stuck out the top of the pack and we were just traveling along the open road. It was such a clear vision that I started to wonder if it was actually possible. The idea of traveling across the US on the scooter seems very inviting. I would stop and photograph forgotten towns and abandoned road side attractions and camp out in yurts and teepees. Then I'd write a book about my adventures that would end up on the best seller list. The book would be so popular that it would made into a movie. Amy Poehler would play me in the movie; soundtrack by Neko Case.

I've done some math/calculations/guessing and I've figured out that I would need to take about a two year sabbatical from work in order to travel across the U.S. and write a book. This would give me six months or so to travel from one side of the country to the other and then back to the middle. It would look something like this.

Except it probably would not be so straight, particularly through that section between Charlotte and Boston because the scooter is not an amphibian scooter. At least I don't think it is. Also, the last time I went to New York, I flew from KCMO to Minneapolis and then to New York. I had never flown across Lake Michigan and somewhere in the middle I reached under my seat to be sure the life vest was still there. So I won't be barging the scooter across that lake. I feel that six months, give or take, is plenty of time for me explore the the winding roads of America. There's a lot of the North East I've never seen like Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh. I've never been to Montana or Idaho either. I could focus on the parts I haven't seen and zoom past the ones I have seen like that giant Ketchup bottle in Illinois. 

I figure I would need the rest of that time to write the book. I'd have to finish writing in at least a year so I could send it away to be edited by people who know how to edit. I feel that if it was my job to write the book, I'd actually write the dang book. The whole trip would make it so the book practically writes itself any way. There'd be pictures and probably a few lessons learned segments. I already envision a part where I try to change the back tire on my scooter. You have to remove the whole exhaust to get to that tire. I'm sure there would be a whole chapter of conversations with strangers. I'm a magnet for eccentric oddballs. It's like a bizarro superpower. I could also do on a whole chapter on food. A vegetarian in Montana. That's almost a book on it's own. 

It's all a pipe dream though, one to put on the list for when I retire. My work is great, but I don't think they'd agree to giving me two years off to go riding around on my scooter. Specially with pay. I'm also not so sure Michael would be all that cool with me taking a solo trip away for six months. I'm not so sure Josephine would be into riding on my back in backpack either. There's to much of a sense of responsibility in me to just drop this stable life for a vagabond life. There would be six months of my life where I wouldn't know what I was having for breakfast every day. Meal plans wouldn't exist. I would not be able to rely on a detailed schedule. The whole excursion would take me so far out of my comfort zone that I'd either adapt or turn right around and come home. Most likely I'd adapt because I'd be too stubborn to call it quits, but it's still a dream.

A freaking awesome dream.

I WILL NOT STAY SILENT

Is key

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Several weeks ago we were in IKEA. The Cabbage got to hang out in Smaland, which is her favorite, but when Michael went to pick her up, there was an incident. An accident had occurred and there was a drop of blood on the floor. Kids couldn't leave one section until the blood was cleaned up. Michael got really frustrated because it was taking a long time to get the blood cleaned up, but here's why it took so long. House keeping had to come in to clean up the blood, but the person in house keeping hadn't had a background check for approval to be around little kids. So, the house keeper had to wait for an escort into Smaland from security. Yes it was frustrating to have to wait to get the Cabbage, but Smaland is free babysitting for thirty minutes. Free. Not letting the house keeper who hasn't been approved to be around children into the place without an escort is IKEA telling us they care super lots about the safety of our child. Even though you just paid nothing for them to babysit your kid.

Now, let's put that into context with the current situation on gun control. There were four proposals introduced into the House of Representatives on Monday that did not pass. These are the four proposals:

1. S. Amdt. 4751: Sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). This would increase funding for background checks and define what it means to be mentally incapable to own a gun. 
2. S. Amdt 4750: Sponsored by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn). This would require federal background checks before the every gun sale in the U.S. This mean it has to be done before the purchase of a gun ANYWHERE in the U.S.
3. S. Amdt 4749: Sponsored by Sen. John Coryn (R-Tex): This restricts the purchase of a gun to anyone on the federal watch list for up to 72 hours and that federal officials must be contacted if someone on the watch list is purchasing a weapon. 
4. S. Amdt 4720: Sponsored by Se. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). This would prevent any person on the suspected terrorist list from purchasing a gun. 

Most of the Democrats thought the Republican proposed amendments were too lenient and the Republicans thought the Democrat proposed amendments were too stringent. So nothing fucking got accomplished. Big surprise. But let's look at these amendments in comparison to some other things like who we allow to watch our children. People without proper background checks are not allowed to work in child care facilities. If you fail to pass the eye exam at the DMV, you are not allowed to renew your drivers license. It should be fucking common sense that if you are on the no fly list, you should not be able to purchase a gun. 

Every single one of us should be screaming at our representatives. Their email boxes should be full. Their social media should be bombarded with demands. We should demand better than this. I want all of you to go and look at this picture and read that story. The same day I read about that cute little girl, my friend Heather sent me a text saying that she was in "active threat training". This is what our lives look like now and I personally think it's wrong and gross. I would have been happy if they'd just passed the republican amendments because at least it's something. At least it's moving forward. 

Please call, email, text, tweet, whatever your Representative and tell them you want change and that we can not continue to do nothing. You can find your Representative at House.gov

PLEASE DON'T GROW UP TO BE THE MEAN GIRL

We had haircuts scheduled for last week, but had to move them to Sunday because I decided to go to Oklahoma that weekend. Actually it worked out better this way because we have the Cabbage until Wednesday of this week (summer schedule) and she loves going to our hairdresser's. Casey, our hairdresser, works out of her home. She's got a little one woman hair cutting shop set up in her basement. It's her way of working on her terms while she does the whole stay-at-home-mom thing. That's why the Cabbage loves going over there. Casey has a little girl the same age as the Cabbage. They run around the upstairs, squealing and playing with as many toys as they can in a the shortest amount of time. 

I got my haircut first. Casey and I marveled at how fast my hair grows and how the last cut had grown out into this massive mop of hair on top of my head. She cut it super short this time and I love it. It's perfect for riding the scooter and the bicycle because when I take my helmet off, I can just run my fingers through it to fluff it up and it looks OK. Michael agreed. When I came out to tell him it was his turn, he told me he really liked it. I traded places with him on the couch and flipped the channel over to AMC where they were playing the Original Sabrina. I snuggled down into the cushions and watched a glamorous Audrey Hepburn waiting at the train station with her French poodle, David. This is when the Cabbage came running in with Casey's little girl. The Cabbage took one look at my hair and scrunched up her face. "Why does you're hair look like that?!?" she asked. I replied "because I like it this way." Then she sort of rolled her eyes and said "It's weird, but OK." 

Normally, hearing a little kid being brutally and rudely honest doesn't bother me. It's hard enough getting grown adults to realize that they may have said something hurtful, but the thing that got to me was the tone that the Cabbage used. She had perfected that dismissive, snobby mean girl tone of voice that reminded me of the mean girls from my school days. It made me cringe on the inside. It made me want to tell her playmate how I'd witness the Cabbage exit a bathroom stall and lick the palm of her hand before washing them. I didn't because I do realize that's just as bad behavior. I also will admit that this isn't the first time I've heard her use that kind of tone. Once after picking her up from a friend's birthday party, Michael mentioned that it was nice of that little girl to invite the Cabbage and we should remember that for the Cabbage's birthday. The Cabbage replied "well...I don't have to invite her." Michael said something to her about it. I don't remember what it was or if I even heard it over the roaring in my ears over the whole thing. 

I know I tried the mean girl routine once just to test it out. The minute the meanness left my mouth I immediately felt disgusted with myself and followed up whatever cruel thing I said with a heartfelt apology.  I was for sure on the receiving end of cruelty. One could argue that I did it to myself, refusing to ever really look the part of a typical midwestern girl. I want to scream out to the Cabbage to not be a typical midwestern girl, to not fall into the trap of being just like all the girls in her class. Mostly, though, I want to scream at her to not grow up to be the mean girl. 

SOWING SEEDS

Instagram photo by Cindy Maddera * Jun 13, 2016 at 2:17pm UTC

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap

My friend Charles was ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal church on Saturday. A group of us all decided to caravan out to Topeka to witness his ordination. This also meant sitting through an entire Episcopal church service including a sermon and sacrament and incense and hymn singing and kneeling. I think the last time I sat through an official church service was in 2003 and I didn't know it was going to be a church service. It was supposed to be a funeral, but Southern Baptists will take any opportunity to save your soul. In six months to a year, Charles will be a priest. It will probably be in six weeks, because he's an over achiever. I'm going to know a priest ya'll. A gay married priest! I know the best people. 

The Bishop's sermon on this day was the Parable of The Sower. It is a parable I have heard many many time. Often it was told as a cautionary tale. Be careful where (implied who) you sow your seeds. Other times I have heard it told as a ministry tale of go forth and sow seeds all over. Always in these preaching, the seeds have represented your proclamation of Jesus Christ. In other words, just tell everyone about the Son of God and maybe some of them will follow you back to the church. Except the Bishop on Saturday never mentioned this. In his sermon, the seeds were seeds of kindness, compassion and acceptance. In fact at no time during the service was it ever mentioned to be fearful of God or all the many ways I was going to Hell, but it was this different interpretation of such a familiar parable the hit me the hardest. 

I woke up the next morning to the tragic news of the mass shooting in Orlando and my heart cracked open. I thought about that group of boys that I sometimes hang out with around the fire pit in Terry's backyard and how it could have so easily been one of them inside that nightclub and my heart grew chilly with fear. As I turned off the news and tuned out the noise, I thought about interpretation of scripture and how we so often get it wrong. For years that simple parable of a farmer spreading out his seeds of wheat was partially about being careless and stubborn. But what if those seeds were seeds of kindness, seeds of compassion and acceptance? Sure it might seem like a waste to sprinkle seeds in the rocks, but we've all seen that plants are tenacious, growing up through cracks in sidewalks. 

What kind of seeds am I sowing? I want to believe I am sowing those good kind of seeds, but I have my doubts. I have a low tolerance for ignorance. I have a low tolerance for those who take the first thing they see on the internet as truth without questioning it. I have a low tolerance those who support hateful, racist speech. Those are my rocky areas. If I were the praying type, this would be my prayer today: May all the words, thoughts and love sent to those families dealing with the aftermath of this horrific event give them strength to remain standing through these difficult days. May I sow seeds of kindness, compassion and acceptance even in the rockiest of places. May my actions encourage others to also sow seeds of kindness, compassion and acceptance, even in the rockiest of places.

So say we all. And thank you to the force.

THE DISAPPEARING GIRL

Instagram photo by Cindy Maddera * Jun 5, 2016 at 5:07pm UTC

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 5 likes

I don't know what to write here any more. Or right now any way. I start something and then I shake my head and say to myself "You can't write that. You shouldn't write about that. No one cares." I feel like I've been holding onto a conversation that I keep meaning to have, but I've been holding it for so long now that I don't even know if it's a conversation worth having. Yet it is a conversation that keep poking me in the back of the brain. It's the kind of conversation whose voices sound an awful lot like those ones that tell me I am fat, untalented and stupid. And what's even worse is that some of those voices have the same tonal inflections as some people who claim to love me. That's probably a sentence I shouldn't write, but there you have it. This show has a few hecklers. 

Thursday morning, as I crossed over the Oklahoma/Kansas border, I noticed an abandoned rest stop on the east side of I-35. I told myself at that moment that I would stop at that old abandoned Oklahoma rest stop on my way home. I would stop and take pictures no matter what time of day it was or where the sun was in the sky. I am so much like my dad once I get behind the wheel of a car. I will drive and drive and drive and wish I'd stopped here, wish I'd stopped there. Never stopping. But as I hugged the Jens goodbye Sunday morning, I reminded myself that I was stopping at that rest stop. I made my way out of Oklahoma City and north toward Wichita and before I knew it, I could see that rest stop in the very near distance. I was only slightly dismayed to see a "road closed" sign blocking the entrance road. I parked my car as close to the sign as I could, making sure I was far enough off the interstate and then started walking. 

I don't think I ever realized how far off the highways and interstates rest stops really are. It makes sense to set it back from the highway. People would be getting out of cars and stretching their legs. Dogs would be running around, hopefully on leashes. Rest areas are basically parks on a highway. I walked up the cracked entrance road and felt the familiar Oklahoma wind on my face. The rest area was dotted with cement tables, each one under it's own teepee frame. The grass had grown up tall between the cracks of the sidewalks. The prairie was slowly reclaiming this bit of land. I adjusted my camera setting to accommodate the sun blazing down from a cloudless sky and I started taking pictures. I walked the sidewalk between picnic tables to the abandoned bathrooms and past the abandoned displays of Oklahoma history. The only thing that remained in one of the glass cabinets was a faded map of the state. As I made my way back to the car, I realized that those voices that tell me the mean things where no longer talking.  

I have yet to process those images. They're still sitting on the SD card in my camera. I know there's one in particular in that set that I'll want a print of. I know there's several that would make great postcards. But more importantly? I know I have some talent. I know I am not stupid and I know I am not fat. 

WHAT TIME IS IT?

I fed the bird

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 1 like

This was a weird morning and it had nothing to do with the live bird Albus brought into the house (the second morning in row that he has done this). This is what has become normal in my daily life; collecting the living and half dead animals that Albus drags into this house. The thing that unsettled me on this particular morning was that the sun was mostly up when my alarm went off at 5:50 AM and so was Michael. I don't know which part of that threw me off the most. Michael usually has an alarm that goes of for twenty or thirty minutes and me telling him that it is time to get up before he ever gets up. Ten minutes to six usually just seems darker. Michael was up and he made himself breakfast while I was in the shower. And when Albus brought the bird in this morning, I made him deal with it because he had on pants and I still did not have on a bra. I win. 

I was slightly confused the whole rest of the morning. Even though I was on time (meaning ten minutes early), I still thought I was late by at least an hour. Morning traffic usually runs in waves with busy times varying between seven and eight. My road connects to Hwy 71 and cars coming off that highway stream down the road, paced just far enough apart to make it a little difficult to leave my driveway. There's also a kid that walks to the school bus who is almost always standing in the middle of my driveway when I go to back my car out of the drive. I will admit that there was one very frightening morning when I almost hit him with my car. I am uber vigilant now. This morning there was no traffic and there was no kid. In fact the ride to work was pretty easy except for when that cop pulled out into traffic and every one slowed down to twenty five miles an hour in a thirty five mile an hour zone. You are not going to get a ticket for going the speed limit people! I didn't even get one for practically running that super yellow light and I was right behind the cop. 

Then I realized it's Summer. No school. There's still some light in skies when I go to bed and there's light when I get up in mornings. It has finally decided to stop being monsoon season around here and I have to water the plants. The weather app says it's going to be ninety degrees on Thursday. Ninety! I'm toying with the idea of surprising Michael and the Cabbage with a cheap inflatable pool. Last night, I watched Josephine chase a firefly around the backyard and I thought that maybe it was time I smelled like bug spray and sunscreen. Then we could just hang out in the backyard chasing fireflies together. My legs are covered in mosquito bites already. I wore shorty shorts yesterday and blinded every one in the grocery store with my winter white legs. 

It is all glorious. 

I'VE GOT POISON IVY AND A HAMMOCK STAND

Project

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 5 likes

I don't really know how the poison ivy thing happened, but there's a very large patch of it on my upper right side, near my arm pit and a small patch on my left arm. Or it's shingles. I don't have time for a doctor's visit right now, so I've been coating it with hydrocortisone and taking Benadryl at night. This hasn't gotten me very far so I've made time to see the doctor today. Also, my last entry makes me sound depressed. Maybe I've been in a bit of a funk. I am not great, but I am OK. I've been doing a lot of just going through the motions these last few weeks and I find that writing the depressing stuff makes me feel better. A little sunshine wouldn't hurt either. 

My brother and sister-in-law were here this weekend and we spent Saturday doing all of the things. We went to breakfast at Randy's favorite place. We went to the City Market and looked at all the things. I got a coconut to drink. The Cabbage jumped around in the bounce house. Then we went to IKEA where we didn't look at all of the things, but just a lot of the things. I ended up with a new rug for the bedroom. Then we saw that they had a hammock stand for $70. Michael still feels really bad about me crashing to the earth in my hammock last year so he said "We are buying that stand!". Except they were completely sold out. I asked one employee if we could buy the display stand and she said "No!". I pouted. Then Katrina went and found a manager and the next thing we knew they were pulling the hammock off the stand and wheeling the hammock stand over to be re-priced so we could take it home. Because Katrina is a badass. The stand only cost us $50 because it was a display item! The take home lesson is if IKEA has it on display but not in stock, take Katrina with you.

Another thing we did this weekend was take all my pictures that I had taped to paper and hung around my work desk and turned them into two lovely collages. They're stuck to two different rectangular canvases which makes them very portable and easy to move. Not that I'm planning on moving again after the new space is finished, but you never know. I ordered some things to get going on an album to deal with all the pictures I have filling up drawers. Those things have arrived! So now I need to get moving on that project. See how productive I'm being? And I haven't even started the prednisone pack the doctor is going to prescribe for this poison ivy.

Today I rode the scooter and it's been ages since I've been able to do that. I didn't even need a jacket and I'm pretty sure I have a few bugs in my teeth from all the grinning.  

NOT AT THIS RATE

I'm stuck. Stopped up. Creatively constipated. It's not just words. I'm always stuck in writing. Nothing new there. Sometimes I just type letters in no particular order in hopes that when I look at it later, I can unscramble it into a sentence. I think this is an actual writing technique. It for sure explains a lot about my poor, poor grammar. Sometimes it works and sometimes I delete a lot of words and sometimes I don't even write any words. Most times. Most times I don't even write any words. I'm hard pressed these days to tell you about my mundane lack luster life. I bought a new 8"skillet, the last one I'll ever buy because it came with a lifetime warranty. I bought a new iPad because half my apps stopped working on my old first generation iPad. Sunday, I reached behind a box in the garage to grab what I thought was going to be another baby bunny only to realize by the flapping wing against my arm that it was a bird. I'm probably more tired of the stories about what Albus has brought inside than you are. 

I read an article recently, maybe in this month's Yoga Journal, that listening to the sounds of nature helps with creativity. This was followed up with a series of creativity inspiring asanas which were a bunch of hip openers. In the yoga world, your hips are the luggage that carries all your troubles and grief and stress. Emotions. Emotional luggage. That's your hips. I feel creatively stunted most of the time and since hip opening poses are easy for me, I can only assume that my luggage is broken. The latch is busted so that it just hangs open with both sides of the case full of shit spilling out all over the place. I just spent the last thirty minutes listening to the sounds of the forest and twenty minutes of listening time wasted on nothing creatively smart on the internet. It is taking me days to write this entry. 

It's not the blogging I'm all that concerned about though. Blogging ebbs and flows. I have brief glimpses of ideas for things that don't even make it to paper these days. I need to do some creative things with printed photos because they're starting to pile up. I was thinking of an old school photo album. I'm not the scrap booking type, but I did see myself sitting down each evening and writing a bit of something next to each picture. Anyone follow Ali Edwards? I picture creating books like that, not nearly as creative or elaborate as Ali's, but neatly telling a story. Then I worry it will just be one of those things in the stack of things on my end of the coffee table. There's two coloring books sitting there with a set of colored pencils that have been sitting there for ages, untouched. I mean, not completely untouched. I did pick them up when I was cleaning on Sunday and considered finding them a new home before setting them back on the coffee table. Leaving them out at least gives me the illusion that I'm going to pick up a book and color. 

Maybe that's what I need to do with those pictures. Maybe I need stop stashing them in different desk drawers and just leave them out on the coffee table. At least then I'd have the illusion of doing something creative with them. At the very least, the clutter would drive me so insane that I'd have to do something with them.

Like put them back in a drawer. 

CAMP SCIENCEHIPPYCOMMUNE

How I spent my day

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 3 likes

I'm sitting on my little twin sized bed in my shared room inside a cabin that holds three other rooms. The talks this morning are all mRNA and transcription, a topic that makes my eyes glaze over. I took this morning off. I walked all the way down to the beach where I saw a dozen different kinds of birds and a washed up horseshoe crab. The wind was cold coming off the water and when I finally made my way back inside, my cheeks were a rosy pink. This is my last day of the conference and it has been a surprising experience. My brain is full of new science stuff, so full in fact that I think some of it is leaking out my ears. 

I don't talk about work here. It's pretty much one of the first rules of blogging to never talk about work. Today, though, I think I'm going to break that rule just a tiny bit. In the last year, my job has changed in a good way and I didn't even realize that I needed that change. When I finished graduate school with my masters degree, I was at a loss of what to do next. I knew that I was done with school and that a PhD was not my future, but I had no idea what I was going to do. I took a job in a sequencing facility and did factory science for a couple of years. I found the job to be tedious. There was no creativity required, just skillful pipetting and I started looking for other options. That's when I met Margaret and Philip and I went to work in Margaret's lab. I spent the next nine years playing. My work challenged me and fostered creativity and a passion for science that had been squashed, really since graduate school.  

Things changed after I left Margaret's lab. I lost the creativity and passion and work just became a job, a way to pay the bills. Even the new fancy pants job lacked the creativity and passion I had had before. But then this last year, our department was restructured and I went from just doing a job to doing work that once again challenged me and fostered creativity and passion. I didn't even realize those things had been missing from my current job until I attended this conference this week. I have learned so much and have been so inspired. Of course the setting for the conference helps too. It's basically a scientist commune with cabins and a garden. It's a place where scientists can bring their families for the summer. There are these black and white pictures dotting the walls of the bar depicting BBQs with James Watson manning the grill and a framed display of bar napkins full of scientific doodles. Margaret told me this place is rich with history and I long to hear stories of Summer's past.

You should imagine me at age eight when science was becoming a thing for me. It was 1983 and we sent Sally Ride, the first American woman, into space. My dress up game was an over sized white shirt that became a lab coat and I studied grass and rocks with a magnifying glass. Everything science was so exciting, so fascinating. I stood in awe of the discoveries. Cindy age eight has never really gone away. That fascinated excited girl still exists, she's just been sleeping for the last few years. I went to this conference not knowing what to expect or even if I was smart enough to be there. The last thing I expected was to see eight year old Cindy again, but that's what happened. I went all the way to a science conference in New York to wake up an eight year old Cindy. Long way to go for a wake up call? Maybe, but totally worth it. 

THIS IS HAPPENING

I caught a fairy

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 1 like

I woke up Sunday morning and turned on the TV for CBS Sunday Morning and got nothing. I down graded our cable plan weeks ago to just high speed internet. We knew this was coming, but I just didn't think it would be so sudden and dramatic. We have to hook up an antenna to get the local TV channels. In the meantime, I ended up watching CBS Sunday Morning through the CBS News app on the Roku. When the show ended, I sat on the couch with my coffee mug and thought "now what do I do?" Turns out I've been devoting a lot of my Sundays mindless watching crap on TV and when I no longer had over three hundred channels to scroll through, I didn't know what to do with myself. 

I really have to pack. I've really done nothing but clean the trash out of my backpack and I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Cold Spring Harbor to attend a conference on nuclear organization and function. I keep saying this to myself over and over because I think that maybe if I say it enough times I'll actually be smart enough to attend this conference. I am feeling intimidated by my conference selection. Then I remind myself that I am not presenting a talk or a poster. My whole job is to go and learn. Relax and learn! That's really about all I can do. It's in a pretty isolated area and is very much a sleep, eat, conference kind of conference. I'm still a little anxious about it and I am having a hard time planning out my wardrobe because I don't understand weather. But also because I'm not just packing for this conference. 

I am also packing for a few days in Maine. Friday morning, I'll leave from the conference to meet Talaura at JFK . From there, we'll fly to Portland Maine where we plan on Thelma and Louise-ing (minus the dramatic suicide) up the Maine coast. My goal is to eat a scallop the size of my hand and take some pretty pictures. Maybe I'll work on acquiring a Maine accent. It's moose season, so I'm expecting to see a moose and I might even step into Canada. I've packed my passport. Hey! That's one thing I've packed. I'm still trying to figure out how to pack shoes or what shoes to even pack. 

I don't really know what if anything is going to happen in this space this week. I may get a chance to tell you about the AIDS Walk and how it rained like usual, but then the sun came out just as we all started to walk. I may mention something about how we had to pick something we all wanted to watch from Netflix and the Cabbage saw the Anamaniacs and said "Oh, I love the Anamaniacs!" This is probably my most favorite thing she's said in forever. I don't know. I don't know if any of those things will get blogged about. It all depends on free time and brain power. I just thought I'd give everyone a heads up in case a week goes by without me posting here and the few readers I have get all worried about me. Don't worry about me.

I AM

Instagram photo by Cindy Maddera * Apr 16, 2016 at 11:11pm UTC

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 4 likes

The Cabbage looked at her reflection and confidently declared "I am beautiful!" I marveled at her confidence. I don't think I have ever looked into a mirror and made such a declaration. More like "good enough", "that's as good as it gets", or my personal favorite, "that'll do pig. that'll do." There are four mirrors in this house: two on the wall in the bathroom, one handheld one in the shower and the little Frozen one that the Cabbage keeps in her box of dress-up clothes. That's the one she's looking into when she makes her declaration; her dress-up clothes are strung out all over the living room floor. I'm lounging on the couch, pretending not to notice while half watching some show on the Food channel. But I notice. I notice and the whole thing sits down hard on a nerve and bothers me. It bothers me for days. I keep picking at it like a scab in my brain.

It bothers me on several levels. I can't narrow it down to just one thing. I don't want the Cabbage to be attached to beauty, but at the same time I berate myself for mentally thinking that she shouldn't declare her own beauty. Of course she thinks she's beautiful. She is and everyone tells her that she is all the time, even strangers on the streets. I just can't get over the ability to declare one's self beautiful. Bold, conceded, brash. But then again, I wasn't doted on the way the Cabbage is doted on. I didn't have grandparents that were close or cared all that much. Those people who did dote, I didn't believe or trust. When I was really young and had long hair, my dad was the only one patient enough to brush it without making me scream. I would sit in his lap and he'd brush the tangles out of my hair and tell me I was beautiful. I thought it was my hair. My hair was beautiful and when I cut it all off, I lost my beauty. 

After that, I was the chunky one, the smart one, the overachiever, the busy one. Lisa Simpson. I remember walking with family friends down to the swimming beach at the lake we camped at every other weekend. I was thirteen and our friend Rena, part of the village of women who raised me, mentioned that I was slimming down. I said "thank you, but I could still stand to lose a few more pounds." She responded with a very stern "no, you most certainly don't." My mother's silence during all of this told me that she also believed I needed to lose a few more pounds. My mother's silence on anything positive about my body would be the fuel to push myself to do more, exercise more, eat less. Pretend to eat the food on my dinner plate. One small milkshake and five french fries for lunch. If I did x amount of this, I could eat y amount of that. Eventually I wouldn't care if I ate y amount without doing x amount of whatever. Eventually I wouldn't care if I was beautiful or not. Eventually I would realize that it's not my face or body that makes me beautiful. 

Yet, it would be nice to look into a mirror and be able to say confidently that I am beautiful, instead of seeing all the things I need to improve on or that giant pore on my nose. If I had to really narrow it down, if someone forced me to put my finger on it,  and describe what exactly it is that bothers me about the Cabbage's bold declaration, is that she can so easily say it about herself. She believes it when people tell her she's beautiful. Where I question everything, she just accepts it and I look at this five year old and wonder how she does it. How does she just accept and believe? Here is where I prove that I am ill equipped to raise a good and decent human being because here is where I admit to you that there is a part of me that wanted squash her belief that day. Maybe not squash it, but discourage it. This flashes briefly across my brain and I know it's not my voice saying it, but I know who's voice it is, which makes me wince slightly. I don't want to be that voice and in fact, refuse to be that voice. Instead, I let her be the teacher. I let the five year old be the mother. I stand in front of the mirror, clench my fists and just say it. I am beautiful. 

And I almost believe it. 

I'M FAT

Instagram photo by Cindy Maddera * Apr 19, 2016 at 11:28pm UTC

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 3 likes

My friend, John, told me after turning fifty, that fifty was great. He said it was the year he turned forty that was the worst. He said he came down with some mysterious illness that left him unable to leave his couch for weeks. He said he thought he was dying. I rolled my eyes at him because we had that kind of friendship where I could roll my eyes at him and I just assumed he was being dramatic. Sort of like when a man has a cold kind of drama. I was insistent that forty was going to be amazing. I mean look at how well I take care of myself! Just the yoga alone should make forty feel like the new twenty.

Then I bent over to put shoes on after a yoga class and I couldn't get back up. This seemed to start a ball rolling for weekly doctor visits, starting with the chiropractor, then there was my women's health visit and a couple of dentist appointments. Finally last week, I got around to getting a blood draw so I could follow up with my doctor about my cholesterol, which I talked to him about yesterday. For the last year I have been taking two fish oil pills a day. I stopped cooking with ghee and I don't put cheese on my tacos on Tuesdays. As a result my triglycerides went from 294 to 303. Yup. It went no where. Except up a little. Though my doctor said that wasn't a significant increase. Because there was no change, he said I could stop taking the fish oil and start taking Fenofibrate. He also mentioned maybe doing a scan of my heart in six months if the Fenofibrate doesn't seem to be working. 

My doctor said that when he sees high triglycerides in patients, there's usually a family history. When he asks me about family history, I have to shake my head and say "I don't know". I don't know specifically. At least three of my extended family members in Mississippi have had some sort of bi-pass, double bi-pass surgery. I just figured that this probably had something to do with their diets. There were many visits where I didn't see a vegetable on the table that wasn't gray green and swimming in butter with bits of pork floating around it. Turns out, their diet for sure may not be helping, but it's not entirely the reason for their heart problems. That's just my mom's side of the family. I seriously have very little specifics regarding the health history of my dad's side of the family. My paternal grandfather died from lung cancer, but he was a smoker. My paternal grandmother died from complications from type II diabetes and old age. This is the same woman who regularly ate a thick slice of poundcake, toasted with butter on it for breakfast. Type II diabetes was not a surprise. 

So while my family has talked about heart disease and diabetes as in "hey, so and so went in for bi-pass surgery today", they have failed to mention specifics. If cholesterol shows up elevated in a blood test, they have high cholesterol. I've learned that we can't just say high cholesterol because even though triglycerides are not a cholesterol, they get lumped in with the cholesterol. I have made this mistake as well. My cholesterol levels are fine. In fact, my HDL (good) cholesterol is near perfect. Triglycerides are a different fat. They are fats that are converted from unused carbohydrates. It's what happens to those calories you eat, but don't burn and they can lead to heart disease, not to mention that high triglycerides fall into a group of metabolic syndromes associated with dementia and Alzheimers. Here's what makes things interesting. I do not have a super rich carbohydrate laced diet, nor one that is high in fats. I do not eat more calories than I burn. In fact, most days I barely eat enough calories at all. I exercise. That wheel of fat around my belly that I never seem able to get rid of is just a genetic predisposition to hold onto unnecessary triglycerides. 

So I'll take my Fenofibrate because it specifically targets triglycerides. Maybe I'll actually finally lose that wheel of fat I'm always complaining about. I don't know what I expected out of age forty really. Maybe more confidence in this body. Maybe a more laze fair attitude. For some reason I didn't think about the physical side of forty, just the mental side of things. Turns out forty is going to be the year of preventative maintenance. It's the year I start taking a prescription to prevent heart disease and dementia even though those things sound like something someone in their mid fifties should be more concerned about. Well, I've always been ahead of the game and early for everything. Ten minutes early is on time. I still believe that forty is awesome. 

WISHY WASHY

Stairs to an imaginary house

"Stairs to an imaginary house"

Last week, Michael and I were walking the dog through the neighborhood when we noticed a house on our street for sale. It had just come onto the market. It was so new in fact that when we tried to find it online to see how much they were asking for it, we couldn't find it anywhere. The next day, I went hunting for it online again and found it. Michael had been doing the same thing because we texted each other about it at the same time. It was just the right size with three bedrooms and a finished basement. The backyard was fenced in with a good privacy fence and was just as big as our current backyard. The bonus part was that it was across the street and three houses up from ours. We could just walk our things over. All of a sudden we were making plans to see this house and scrambling around to see if we could possible scrape together enough money for a down payment. 

Before everyone gets super excited, I will tell you that we are not buying that house. It sold in minutes. Seriously. It went on the market on Tuesday and they had three offers by Thursday, but it did tell us a few things about how we really feel about our house that we live in right now. It is obvious we'd like more space and it's obvious that redoing the basement is not going to be the answer for that space. The minute something goes on the market that has just one bedroom more than what we have now, we go crazy. Particularly if that house is cheap! The other thing this experience told us is that we are a lot better off financially now then we were a year ago. That part surprises me because I have credit card debt. Woohoo, lots of credit card debt. I mean, maybe less than the typical American family, but enough to make me wince. Despite this, between savings and scrimping here and there, we could have scraped up just enough for a downpayment. The part that wouldn't have been easy, though we could have made it work, would have been making mortgage payments on both houses until we got my house rented. 

The important part is that we could have made it work. It would have been tight, but possible. It would have been easy once my house got rented because the money we would get from rent payments would pay both mortgages. We just didn't want to be depended on this for obvious reasons. So this set us into tightening our belts mode and looking a little bit closer at how we spend our money. I down graded our cable to just internet. This will save us sixty dollars a month. I cancelled my Ipsy subscription which will save us ten dollars a month. I was really only using about half the things they sent me anyway. Michael had already gotten us new car and house insurance that lowered our insurance bill by twenty dollars a month. I adjusted my Square Space account to save us another hundred dollars a year and I am now buying cheese at Aldi because it's cheaper there than at Trader Joe's. I did not buy that linen shirt I saw at Target that was covered with tiny elephants, but I did splurge on a couple of new outside chairs for around the fire pit, so...We needed those!

The idea is to put ourselves in a position to not have to scrape funds together whenever we see a house on the market that we are interested in buying. And I don't think it will take us long to do that, which is so crazy grown up to me. I still watch House Hunters and think "HOW DO THEY HAVE SO MUCH MONEY TO BUY A HOUSE!?!" It's always some super young couple too. It's hard for me to imagine that we are capable of owning a bigger house. Except we are! 

Well...almost.