GHOST STORIES

Howdy Duty heads

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Sunday afternoon, Michael and I were driving around running last minute weekend errands. I flipped the radio over to NPR to find the Moth Radio Hour playing stories about being haunted and seeing ghosts. I turned the volume up so we could listen closely and we both sort of leaned into the radio. We listened as a man talked about taking a polaroid picture of a ghost and felt our pulses begin to race. Listening to the story sent goosebumps up my arms and I felt for sure the story was going to cumulate to place where I'd want to scream. We were both lost in the tale and a little bit afraid; it was like sitting around a campfire and telling ghost stories. 

When we reached our destination, Michael turned the ignition off and said "I don't buy it. I don't believe in ghosts." I just shrugged. It would be the logical thing for me to agree with him, expected even. There's no scientific proof of ghosts. But there's no scientific proof that ghosts don't exist either. A concentration of electro magnetic waves can give a perception that there is something in the room with you. Molds and carbon monoxide poisoning can make you hallucinate into thinking you did see something. Low frequency vibration can also disorient a person into thinking they felt something. None of the studies on low frequency vibrations, molds and carbon monoxide, and electro magnetic waves have definitively disproven the existence of ghosts. They have just been explanations for strange disturbances. Really, people just want to believe in ghosts. We want to be scared. 

Not too long ago, we were all sitting around the lunch room talking about scary things and I mentioned the Girl Scout Camp murders. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me with confusion. They had never heard of the gruesome murders of three girls at Girl Scout camp in Oklahoma in 1977. A few of them had a hard time believing the story after I told it. It just sounds so much like any of the 80s scary movies we watched growing up. By the time I was old enough to attend camps, this story was the horror story shared around the campfire. It had taken on an unreal quality. The fact that the killer was still at large and the case was still open just added to the fictionalization of the tale. I can still picture a camp counselor holding a flashlight under her chin so her face would be more menacing as she said "no one heard them scream." and "they found their mutilated bodies the next morning." Then another counselor would run out form the woods, wearing a mask and holding a fake machete. "Who's next!?!" Everyone would scream and then laugh because it wasn't real for any of us. 

Except it was real. 

It should be of no surprise that Camp Scott, the place of the murders has become a well known haunted camp. The place never re-opened after the murders and after forty years, the forest has grown up around the abandoned remains of the camp. The ghosts at Camp Scott exist because the story exists. The events happened. Energy released from one place transfers to another. And that is why I believe in ghosts. 

OMEN

Light as a feather

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Yesterday, I pulled up in the driveway on my scooter. The cat was sitting at the top of the drive and as I got closer, I realized he had a snake he was tormenting. The snake turned and headed right towards my foot and I hastily scooted forward out of his way. I am sure he was harmless. He had a square head of a harmless snake, but still. Snakes make me squeamish for some reason. I have been known to easily capture large bugs, lizards and frogs and hold these creatures in my hands, studying them before letting them go, but I have never been comfortable around snakes. They make my heart seize in my chest and my hands shaky. Even the harmless ones. There's something about the way a snake moves and smells that makes me mistrust them. It probably has to do with seeing one too many scary movies involving snake attacks. Some Native American cultures see snakes as symbols of fertility and rebirth. They are harbingers of creativity.

Later that evening, there was an owl in the back yard. We could hear him hooting and could just make out his silhouette as he perched on a branch high up in one of our trees. It is the tree that has me worried because it is the last to grow leaves and first to drop them. I stand at the kitchen window and try to predict how much house it's going to hit when it falls over. That's another story though. One about the pros and cons of home ownership. I sat on the back step, watching and listening to the owl until he finally flew off. I remember hearing some folklore once that seeing an owl in the daytime means that someone is going to die. After J died, I thought about this often. We had seen an owl in the middle of the day after saying goodbye to J and his unit as they were leaving for Iraq. If we hadn't seen that owl that day, J would still be alive. If only it were that simple. Owls are not harbingers of doom or death, but of great wisdom. 

If you are the type to believe in omens, then I have creativity and incite coming my way. If you are my type, you don't believe in omens. The snake just happened to be one of the many of Albus's victims. I am just happy it all was happening in the front yard where Josephine couldn't be involved. She steals Albus's victims for herself. I have walked out into the garage once to see what the animals were up to only to have Josephine look up at me, a small snake dangling from from her mouth like a long skinny mustache. At least this time the cat had some foresight to keep things where Josephine couldn't take it away from him. There have been owl sittings in the neighborhood for weeks now. One guy was even attacked by one while on his morning run through Brookside. I have heard the hoot hoot many time before. It was really not a surprise to finally see the source. My neighborhood is a good one for bird watchers. Just last week I saw the tiniest woodpecker with black and white stripes down his back.

It is just a coincidence they showed up on a day where I had a creative thought and a bit of incite. 

LET'S TALK ABOUT PANTS, BABY

Day 1 is B&W challenge

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Remember back in April when I went to my healthy women's exam and realized that I weighed 180 pounds? Remember how I went into panic mode about losing that weight? Well, I've lost ten pounds since then. Yay! I am now somewhere between what I weighed before Chris died and after Chris died. This should be good news. I should be totally happy about this and I am. I've stopped obsessing and I just work a bit harder at the gym and I'm more conscious of the protein source in my meals. And ten pounds! Wow! That's great work! Really. Well done, me.

Then I went to my closet looking for jeans. 

I own two pairs of wide-ish legged jeans that are that nice dark denim. They look great paired with heals or cute sneakers. I'm pretty sure I wore them at some point in my life or why else would they be in my closet. The tag on one pair of jeans says that they're a size 31. The tag on the other has them at a size 30. The same morning I pulled these jeans out of my closet, I had purchased a pair of skinny jeans on sale at Target. They are a size 30. I decided to try on the other jeans to see how they felt. I thought to myself as I started with the size 31 pair that this was going to be good. These jeans are going to be a little bit big now. I tugged them up to my hip and then looked down at the button fly gaping open over my belly. I grabbed the button with my right hand and the button hole side with my left and started wrestling the two closer together. There was no attempting to even pretend that those pants were going to button. This did not bode well for the size 30s, except I pulled those on and buttoned and zipped them up with out having to hold my breath. 

I have other pants hanging in my closet that are not jeans (also sized 30 or 10 or whatever the hell those numbers mean). I call them summer pants because they are either cotton or linen. They have a bit of flare to the leg and go well with slip on kind of shoes. These pants all come from the same store as where I bought the jeans. It is my favorite place in the world to shop because all of the clothes are so pretty. The place is expensive. Stupid expensive. So I only go in about twice a year when they have their 40% off all sale items special going on. I try every thing on that I am considering for purchase and I basically make a pros and cons list for each item. If I'm going to spend the money, it's going to be on something I am going to wear, not just wish I could wear. So I had to have tried those size 31 jeans on and at the time they fit or at least they fit well enough because I would not have purchased them. 

Cut to last weekend when I decided that I needed another pair of skinny jeans for Fall/Winter. I tried on size tens at Old Navy and they fit, but they weren't long enough. They had every other size in a long but the size tens. Then I went to Kolhs where I tried on everything size ten and finally went to a size twelve. The twelves didn't feel any different in fit then the tens, but they had them in long. So I bought the twelves and tried to ignore that even though I've lost ten pounds and wear a size ten, I had to buy a size up. I keep telling myself that it is not really a size up because the people who are in charge of sizing clothes are assholes. I am convinced they have conventions every year where they discuss the best ways to fuck with women's self esteem. Didn't make it into the workshop on how to make a girl feel self conscious about her butt? No worries. We've recorded the workshop and you can access it online. Don't forget to check out the tutorial on fitting room lighting and how to set the mood for the most unflattering fitting room setting. 

Remember at the end of the Color Purple when Celie opened that pants shop where one size fit all? I want those pants. I don't care that the legs are wide. I'm sure I could wrap them around my ankle and tuck them into a boot if need be. I could make it work. I'm ready to embrace that bohemian side of myself where I wear billowy pants with elastic waistbands. 

MEET ALFRED

Say good morning to Alfred

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My heart is sad for Las Vegas. I have so many crazy happy memories of that place. I was married there! I got my first tattoo in Vegas. Chris and I shared a 99 cent half pound hot dog. We drank a fishbowl sized alcoholic beverage that smoked with dry ice. We played bingo with a bunch of old ladies and had a wonderful time. I'm just sick about the mass shooting that took place there last night and like many of us, I'm shocked and saddened that this is now a common occurrence in this country. We've made zero headway in preventing mass shootings. Shame on us and this government. But that is all I'm going to say about any of it. Instead, I'll turn my focus and maybe your's to something lighter and joyful. Something to take our minds off of tragedy. 

Josephine's toys consists of stuffed animals that the Cabbage has won from a crane game, a female park ranger doll (also stolen from the Cabbage) and some small stuffed animals I got as swag from a science conference. She does have a fox and a little tube shaped dog that are actual pet store dog toys, but Josephine prefers the stuffed animals she's stolen from the Cabbage. I feel real bad for the park ranger doll. She's currently laying naked somewhere in the backyard. Josephine was real attached to a blob shaped stuffed creature that was supposed to represent an antibody. Antibody Annie was one of the swag items I brought home from ASCB last year. She had red troll doll like hair that Josephine would groom. Eventually Antibody Annie lost both of her arms and then last week I stepped out into the living room to see her bleeding stuffing out all over the living room floor. 

We had a small funeral for Antibody Annie. It was not the first stuffed animal funeral that we've had to have this year. Josephine's lost a few toys. One of those toys, we just blatantly took away from her. The little red tube dog has a squeaker and Josephine would sit just out of reach and just chew on the squeaker. Squeak squeak squeak. She really liked to do this while we were trying to watch something on TV. Michael tried to dismantle the squeaker, but it still squeaks. The odd thing is, she has other toys with squeakers, but that is the only one she does this with. It is not even her go-to toy. She would much rather have you throw her knobby ball that has unpredictable landings. That poor ball is barely hanging on. It got run over by the lawn mower and has a big crack down one side. I tried finding a replacement and the closest thing I found was a spiky ball. She will roll her eyes and go after it if you throw it, but it's not her favorite. This is unfortunate, because knobby ball is not going to last much longer. 

I was in Target on Saturday and I remembered Josephine's most recent loss. I thought that maybe it was time I bought her a new toy. Our target didn't have a large selection to choose from, but I did find this really cute alligator. The tag advertised that it squeaked at a level only dogs could hear and I was all "SOLD!" When I got home, I removed the tags and then handed it over to Josephine. She has a tendency to take all of her toys outside and then bring them back in once they've been rain soaked and crusty with dirt. So before I let go, I looked at her and said "let's keep this one inside." She went straight to her dog door with it. I then watched from the kitchen window as she took the alligator on a tour of the back yard. She shook him around just behind the house. Then she walked him over to the back corner where she sometimes watches the cat. Josephine introduced the alligator to the chickens and then she showed him the fire pit before bringing the alligator back inside.

We've named him Alfred and the two of them have been inseparable ever since. Actually, I've never seen her take to a toy as much as she has with Alfred. It's really very sweet. 

MORBID CURIOSITY

Fall

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I opened my Fortune Cookie journal to the first blank page and the prompt for the day was "don't be grumpy! Be grateful!". I tapped the the table with my pen and scrunched my mouth to one side. Isn't this whole gratitude thing something I post about every week? On this day, with a head full of a snot and a cough that just won't go away, I was feeling more grumpy than grateful for sure. Also, I cringed at the sickeningly sweet Pollyanna tale that was going to come out onto the paper. I know myself. Always look on the bright side of life, even when it's a piece of shit. So I wrote a story about a woman named Mavis who started her morning all wrong, stubbing her toe, spilling coffee on her one clean blouse. You know, those kind of mornings that make think you should have just stayed in bed. By the time I had reached the bottom of the page, Mavis was late to work. Her train had been late. She was delayed getting to her stop. As she finally emerged from the station to the sidewalk up top...

I looked at the page and the first and most fitting thing I could think to write was "she looked up just in time to watch a plane fly into the building where she worked." Because sometimes, my thoughts get dark. I mean...it's still looking at the bright side of life. I'm just doing it while eating baker's chocolate. Side note: when I was a kid, we did not have candy in the house. Maybe, if you were super good and the stars where aligned in the shape of a candy cane, you could buy a Hershey bar, but you would have to share it with your sister. And maybe your mom, depending on her mood. I supplemented my candy needs with the occasional spoonful of sugar and baker's chocolate. Bitter sweet is really very palatable. 

Saturday evening we had some of Michael's old high school friends over for s'mores. When Michael told the Cabbage we were having friends over, the Cabbage said "Oh is that funny guy, Chris, coming over?" For a moment I got real nervous. The funny guy Chris that I know is dead. Is Chris haunting the Cabbage? My first thought was not that the Cabbage had gotten the name wrong, but that my dead husband was telling her jokes while she played in her room. I found the idea of Chris haunting the Cabbage to be equally hilarious and infuriating and I looked over at his can of ashes and said "what the fuck, Chris?!?" I was the only one to witness this because Michael and the Cabbage were in the other room. I quickly swept my dark haunting thoughts aside to make room for names of people the Cabbage might actually be talking about. She was talking about Terry. Michael described him to her and she decided that she really meant Terry instead of Chris. He described Terry just as I was getting up to grab a picture of Chris and ask "Are you talking about this guy?!?!?!" Which would have made the whole thing super weird because all the stuff about the haunting only took place in my brain. 

I have read that September tends to be a hard month for people with depression. I still keep telling myself that I am not a depression person. If I continue to deny it all, then it won't be true, but September has been mildly dark. If I'm honest, August wasn't the greatest either. We were driving around town, running errands that seemed meaningless and pointless and at one point I thought about opening the car door and just getting out of the car. In the middle of traffic. While the car was moving. The following Monday, I scheduled an appointment with a therapist because I recognized that it probably wasn't all too healthy to be fantasizing about jumping out of a moving vehicle on a busy street. The therapy helped and I felt like I was making progress in life. I cleaned the basement and threw away loads of garbage. I've deleted the contents on two old computers. I've been writing and working on little projects. Really....things are better. It's just being sick and confined to the couch for a week was a setback. I took a whole bunch of steps forward and then hopped back half way. 

It's been twenty minutes since the last time I coughed or had to blow my nose. I did my cardio at the gym and only had to blow my nose once. I got on my yoga mat for the first time in a week and only had to blow my nose twice. I haven't had to transfer money between accounts to cover bills. I tried a new clearing protocol for work stuff and it worked so well, I lost my samples because they disappeared (Science Magic!). These are forward moving steps. I'm going to buy the rest of the things I need to make my Halloween wreath this weekend and then I'm going to set up Suzanne in her new home out front. And I know those things are going to be huge steps forwards.

GARBAGE

How I spent my Saturday morning.

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Saturday morning, I returned from grocery shopping and went straight to work in the basement. I organized the totes that had been pulled from the shelves and riffled through. Michael, when he's on the hunt for something, will open up totes and rummage through them and then just walk away. For ever. I put totes back together, organized old camp gear into one spot, took loads and loads of just plain garbage and placed them in my Bagster bag. When I'd done as much as I could in the basement, I moved to the garage, systematically moving from shelf to shelf and tossing things into a garbage bag. I organized gardening stuff like seeds and bags of potting mix. The animals at one time had nocked over a bag of grass seed and a bag of pebbles. I swept all of this up. Michael showed up just in time to help me haul out the garage garbage pile I had built near the door and to clean off a shelf containing random tools. 

There were two contractor bags full of stuff from our last basement clean out. One of them had stayed down there for so long because it was too heavy for our trash dumpster. It sat there for over a year. Every time I walked down to the basement, my eyes landed right on that bag. It was hard to miss since it was right at the bottom of the stairs. That was the first thing I hauled up the stairs. When I say 'hauled', I really mean hauled because that bag was HEAVY. There was a lot of me talking out loud to myself, counting steps, grunting and sweating, but I got that bag out of the basement and into the dumpster bag. After that, the rest was easy. Suddenly, getting rid of trash, didn't seem so overwhelming. It didn't take long for me to fill up my Bagster bag. The garage is now neatly organized and things are easier to get to without stepping on the wrong end of a shovel or falling into a pile of chicken feed bags. I also have a legitimate laundry space in the basement, where I can walk through with a basket of clothes without bumping into a stack of boxes and trash. The basement floor is clean, so when I drop an article of clothing while moving it from the washer to the dryer, I don't have to re-wash it or throw it away or burn it. The basement floor does not have a five second rule for anything. Now, at least in the area where the washer and dryer are, the floor is clean.

There's still things I need to get rid of, but they are all things that I don't want to throw away. They are things that need to be sold or donated or gifted away. My goal for the weekend was to get rid of the garbage and that is exactly what I did. My goal for the rest of this year and the following year is to remove unwanted and unused things from the house, clean out catch all drawers and never let any of those things make it to the basement. Because if it ends up in the basement, it will be there for the rest of my life. Someday, someone's going to have to come clean out my house when I die or get too old to live there on my own. I want to make things easy for that person. I think of the stuff that accumulated in just the attic of my childhood home. Boxes of papers from our school days, old clothing patterns, wrapping paper, things that had sat up there for so many years that it was now warped from heat and unrecognizable. So much of it was unsalvageable. At the very least I'd like to leave behind a good estate sale and not boxes of useless old mail with mouse chewed edges or carpenter bags of garbage.

At the end of the day, all that will be left to be dealt with will be the furniture, a small closet of clothes, small kitchen appliances, some art work and some nicknacks. All of this makes it sound like I'm planning for my death. I guess, in a way, I am, but really I'm planning for living. I am always thinking about the dirty garage or the gross basement. These things take up brain space whenever I am out doing fun things or sitting still on the couch. I am always thinking "I really should do something about the trash in the basement." Then I let myself get overwhelmed by the amount of work that is going to be involved and I do nothing. So now the filth and grossness has just become a guilt loop that plays always in the back of my mind. Instead of fully just being present in something, I am eighty something percent present and the rest percent thinking about the mess and being overwhelmed by the mess. 

I am stronger than that! I am a doer! When did I forget that? I do not shy from hard work. I tackle. Cleaning out the garbage is just one step towards reclaiming bits of myself that I've hidden away for some reason. It's like I've been in hiding and I don't even know why. Now I'm thinking about the next project that I've been putting off because it seems overwhelming and I'm totally ready to take it on. Look out hedges and over grown vegetation. I'm coming for you next. 

SEVEN

Guess who's tall enough to ride on the back of her dad's scooter?

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The Cabbage turned seven on Friday. I made her stand against the wall to mark her height and then we ate pizza and watched the Cosmos. Her birthday party was on Saturday at a gymnastics place. I was pretty put out with the 'No Adults Past This Line' rug separating the waiting room with the gymnastics equipment. I wanted to jump on some trampolines. There was cake and presents and then we left the Cabbage with her mom so she could spend time with grandparents who had driven in from Iowa to see her. The Cabbage and her Mom met us the next day at the body piercing place. Our gift to her this year was ear piercings.

Michael and I rode our scooters to meet them. We had a few minutes of waiting for the shop to open and the four of us were just standing around talking. The Cabbage walked up to my scooter and hopped on. Erin, her mom, started to tell the Cabbage to get down, but I stopped her said it's okay. Then I looked at the Cabbage and told her not wiggle around too much. We were all kind of looking at her sitting there on my scooter and noticing how her feet almost touched the floor board. Suddenly Michael beckoned the Cabbage over to his scooter and made her climb on. He pulled out the passenger foot rests and asked her if her feet touched. They did! We all did a happy dance (except maybe Erin, because it makes her nervous, she is the mom). The Cabbage is tall enough to ride on the back of Michael's scooter. 

The Cabbage is tall. I think the most fascinating part is that I swear, just three weeks ago, the Cabbage was asking to be measured on the wall. She stood up tall and Michael put his fingers on the wall to mark it. When he looked, he said "Nope...not marking it. It's barely changed since the last time we measured you." The Cabbage pouted. When I marked her height on Friday, Michael and I stood there looking at all her growth and how so much of it seemed to happen in just three weeks. She's grown almost a foot in one year. We are having a problem buying pants that fit her length wise without falling off width wise. She has complained about gymnastics and how she doesn't want to do it anymore. She says the stretching hurts. Part of that is because her leotard isn't long enough for her torso and it ends up in an uncomfortable wedgie up her butt. I went to buy her a new one, but buying a size up wasn't fixing the problem. 

I ended up getting her a two piece set with shorts and a tank. The Cabbage wasn't happy about it, but we had a long talk about how the one piece wasn't going to work well for her body. When she whined about really wanting the one piece, Michael chimed in with "I'm sorry honey, but you're just too tall for the one piece." I immediately corrected him by saying "It's not that you're too tall, Cabbage. You're perfectly tall. These leotards just aren't the ones for you." Michael nodded his head in agreement. "Yes! Cindy's right. You're perfectly tall." I'm being very careful about not attaching negative words to anything about her body and I am increasingly annoyed at an industry that insists that we, even children, are one size number. I am annoyed with an industry that says this particular number and cut of cloth is the average size for all women. This industry is out of touch and ignorant of what average really is. It's hard enough being a woman and trying to figure out pant sizes. Now they have to make it suck for the kids too. 

Or at least for the adults who are purchasing the clothes for the kids.

As a result of all of this, I've taken to only purchasing cool t-shirts that I come across. She has plenty of t-shirts, though she prefers wearing dresses. That has also made things easier because leggings tend to me more forgiving in sizes. She wears a lot of unintentional capris. I leave the shoe shopping up to her parents because I don't understand children shoe sizes. At all. I mean, seriously. Matching a child with a proper shoe size is a MENSA test. Any way.. the Cabbage is growing up and doing big girl stuff like getting her ears pierced and talking about getting rid of her Barbis.

Change happens real fast. 

TILT SHIFT

Future so bright

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I can feel the change in the earth's angle as we start to move into a new season. It is a physical sensation; my body feeling almost heavier as it readjusts to the new angle and shift in gravity. There has even been a few dizzy spells, though that probably has more to do with what is happening in my sinus cavity as a new round of pollen floats through the air. The mornings are cooler with the hint of crispness. That sounds like a wine review. As you swirl the weeks between Summer and Fall in your mouth, you will notice a cool crispness with hints of fresh mowed grass. Hold the glass up to the light and you will see the light filter through in a hazy sort of way as if being filtered through fog. 

Actually, it was the change in the light that I noticed first. For the past few weeks, the house has been dark when the alarm goes off and I go and wake Michael up to get in the shower. Even after he's out of the shower and it is my turn, the sky outside the window is still dark. The sun has just crested over the horizon by the time I pull out of our driveway and head to work. I've noticed a shift in the angle of the sun as I do my morning loop outside and the way it filters through the tall decorative grasses that are planted around the place. Usually there is a layer of dew and as you pass by a particular decorative grass, the sun hitting the dew drops makes it look as though the grass is tipped with diamonds. The sun, as I walk back towards the building, is so harshly bright in my face that I have to walk with my eyes almost closed.  

My mind whirls with ideas as I walk, tugging my sweater up to zip it. I think of all the things that I want to do now and into the next year. I want to get started before the bell starts to toll for the end of the year. I imagine cleaning out everything in the basement and the house. I imagine the possibilities of being able to pack up all of my belongings into one vehicle. I mentally start taking an inventory of all the things stored in boxes that I never use or even look at. My mamaw's china. A box of childhood toys. Five boxes of elephant figurines. My thoughts move from the things in the basement to the garage, past the old bicycle I would like to get rid of and into the house where I think of the drawers and cabinets of things that do not serve me. I feel such an urge to remove everything that I almost order a dumpster. 

The idea of getting rid of everything makes me feel instantly happy. It tops the list of projects that has formed in my brain. Step 1: Get rid of most of all my possessions. Step 2: Organize what's left. Step 3: Start a yoga class video series. Step 4: Make a Halloween wreath out of baby doll heads. The wreath idea came out of my idea to fill my decorative lantern with doll heads for Halloween. Last year I did floating pumpkins. The Cabbage is vehemently against my Halloween decorative ideas for this year. My Halloween decorating ideas are about the only thing that I am excited about for Fall. So, doll heads are happening. As for the rest of the stuff on that list, I don't know. We'll see how I feel when I have a weekend free and clear enough for me to put my foot down and say "This is what I am doing THIS weekend! Don't try to stop me!"

Most people look forward to moving into the Fall season and all of those traditional Fall related events like football and turkeys. I see it as my last chance to get things done before the cold weather sets in and I don't want to leave my house.  

RAMBLE RAMBLE

Peace

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The other day I met with a woman about the possibility of teaching in her new studio. I didn't really know what I expected out of the meeting but once I got to the studio and sat down to talk with her, I felt horribly unprepared. She asked me questions about my teaching style and about my past teaching experiences. I explained that I used to teach a lot of classes for someone with a full time job. I told her that I had moved to KCMO about six years ago for a new job and that I decided then to take some time off from teaching while I got used to a new city, new job and a new life. Then she asked me to teach her a twenty minute yoga class, twenty minutes of a class I had not prepared to teach. No plan. Free style teaching. I taught the best impromptu twenty minute yoga class I could teach after almost five years of not teaching. 

Let's face it. It was a rusty class. I went with a basic class I would teach to a not so experienced yoga student with a few simple rounds of sun salutation, followed with a warrior series of poses, some seated postures, a twist and some alternate nostril breathing. When I was done, the woman sort of nodded her head and said "okay...ummm...I need to think about a few things and then I'll let you know." I knew that I had just failed this audition. She did say that she really liked my teaching style and that I sounded very knowledgeable. Her body language said that she found me boring and not to her taste. I rolled up my mat and headed towards the door. The yoga teacher for the class that was about to start had just showed up and so the studio owner introduced us. That teacher said that she really liked my ear piercing. I told her 'thank you' and then I started rambling on about how it was new and I had been totally unprepared for the sound it would make when the needle went into my ear. These words were falling out of my mouth even while I watched the woman's face twist into a look of horror. I just couldn't stop myself. Then I looked her in the eye and said "I have no idea why I am sharing this information with you."

I slapped my palm against my forehead as I walked back out to my scooter. What the fuck was I thinking?!?! I couldn't for the life of me figure out what had just happened back there in that studio other than I for sure know that I am never going to hear back from that studio owner. I reran the interview/audition over in my brain while I scooted home. I had said nothing about moving here with Chris. I didn't breathe a word about him and the illness that led to his death. I left out the whole part about me being a widow.

I did that on purpose for a number of reasons. I hate that look of awkward pity that comes across a person's face when you tell them you are a widow. It is human nature to spout some sort of condolence, which always comes across as forced. Death throws people off leaving them at a loss of what to say in response to it. I am not one to play the widow card to garnish pity and favor. In fact, favors from that kind of pity feels like the worst kind to me. Another reason for avoiding the subject is that I don't want to give off the impression that Chris is the reason I stopped teaching. Actually, now that I really think about it, he'd probably be really disappointed in me for not teaching. 

So, instead of mentioning a late husband, I decided to talk about the sound a needle makes as it pierces through the cartilage in your ear. I'm not sure why I couldn't have stuck with something as basic as "I carried a watermelon." I had to just dive straight on in to grotesque.  

BECAUSE OF YOUR AGE

Piosonberry

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I have a doctor's appointment coming up in a couple of weeks to see how things are going with my cholesterol medicine. To prepare, I had to have some blood drawn for my visit and while I was in the lab, the technician handed me a cup and said "your doctor has also requested a urine sample." I let me lip frown to one side when the technician said this. I had not prepared for a urine test (not because of drugs). I had prepared for the blood draw by doing a twelve hour fast. I only had a little bit of water that morning to wash down my vitamins. I looked at that cup and thought I would be lucky if I could give them a teaspoon. Also, I looked at the cup and the three vials of blood they took from my arm and got a little nervous about all of this testing business. When I voiced this nervousness to Michael, he said "It's probably just because of your age." which made me kind of want to shove him down a flight of stairs.

I say 'kind of' only because I do not have the energy to care for his invalid ass. 

I am not an old person! Forty one is not old! Maybe it's a little bit old. I have noticed that there's an increase in the white hairs on my head. There's a grouping of white that is starting to form a streak through my bangs, but I think it is pretty cool. It's like having highlights without going through the process of getting highlights. But we all know that graying hair is not indicative of age. Sure there are days when I feel like an old woman. I look at the things that have happened to me in my life and it seems like all of it should not fit into forty one years of life. This makes me feel older than my actual years and disappointed that I am not really all that wiser. Then there are the days when I crawl out of bed to the tune of my cracking joints and I have to gimp my way to the bathroom and think "Jesus! Have I been abducted by aliens and returned to earth as a hundred year old woman?" Then I look out the bathroom window toward the skies and beg them to come back and get me and return me back to my supple youthful body. 

As if I have ever had a supple body.

I'm still very much young. I speed to work every day on my scooter. Last week I performed a perfect cartwheel with out incident. In fact, just the other day, I had a total childish impulse to steal something from Target. Our Target could use a little feng shui help in the area of their front doors. When you walk in the doors, the shopping carts are immediately to your left. Four steps across from the carts is that area where they have all those dollar items of kid things and crafts. Immediately to the left of the shopping carts are the exit doors. See...it seems like I've already cased the joint. To replace your shopping cart correctly back in any kind of order out of the way, you have to walk back through the dollar section. On Saturday, I paid for my items in the self check-out line and then pushed my cart towards the door. I paused and looked around at the already scattered carts and decided that I was going to return my shopping cart to its proper place in the cart corral. Then, as I passed a rack of various dollar craft items, I had the most sudden, intense urge to just grab something and stick in my shopping bag. I thought, very matter of factly, "I'm going to steal something." 

I did NOT steal anything, but the urge to do so was so shockingly intense. It was the most compulsive urge that I still can't believe I walked out of there without slipping something into my shopping bag. Something is cracked in my brain or maybe I'm just in a place right where I'm all "fuck it!" I just don't care. Crap...I just realized that's not a youthful feeling. Teenagers care about everything. I don't really care about anything. Well, that's not really true. I care about what I can do in my neighborhood to fight racism; I'm calling my local community center to see about teaching a yoga class there. I care about the environment and equal rights. I care about the masses of uneducated, misinformed Americans because their ignorance led to the election of Donald Fucking Trump as our president. But apparently I don't care if I get caught stealing a dollar item from Target. At least, that is what my brain was telling me on Saturday.

Maybe it is because of my age. Because of my age, I care very little about what others think of me. Because of my age, I have a little bit more wisdom. Because of my age, I'm becoming a klepto. 

WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY

Backyard concert series @kingcardinalband

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When we got Alexa, we also signed up for Amazon Music. I spent a couple of days creating a playlist of artists I like to listen to. It is pretty Neko Case and Josh Ritter heavy right now. I am really terrible at remembering band names and who sang what. I have thrown in old favorites like Sting and Morrissey, as well as newer favorites like Arcade Fire and My Morning Jacket (Jim James has made my list of guys who have hair that I want to run my fingers through. I can see a whole photographic series of my fingers tangled in famous hair). My playlist is odd. Just the way I like it.

I remember being very disappointed in my musical choices on the radio during my teenage years because I didn't listen to mainstream music. I wasn't a snob about it. I just preferred bands that didn't get a lot of radio time because they were different and obscure. There was a college station I could barely pick up on the radio. They had an alternative music show that aired on Friday nights at midnight. I would set my double tape deck to record the show and then play the tapes over and over. As an adult, I just listened to NPR all the time with the exception of the brief years of The Spy, an alternative radio station out of Stillwater. It always made me wonder how it was that a band like the Flaming Lips could be born (and reside) in a state that doesn't listen to them. Internet radio came along and changed everything. I now have access to the artists of my youth as well as new sounds in alternative music. 

I tend to get caught up with one artist at a time. I remember buying a new album from someone and listening to it over and over. At that time, in this moment, it was the only music I wanted to hear. I am known to do the same thing with food. Ask my mother about poached eggs every day for a month. I fixate. Recently, I was fixated on the National and Michael hated them. Hated them. If we were in the car and one of their songs would come on, he'd turn it or make fun of it. Michael and I don't share the same taste in music. His playlist is old country and folk and 1980. I pulled the National from our joint playlist and soak them up when I'm on my own. Matt Berninger's deep voice hits me somewhere near my breast bone and I am reminded of sulky teenage moments. If I had heard his voice as a teenager, I would have spent my days imagining that his voice was indicative to his love making skills. Matt Berninger is the guy I would have followed around from gig to gig in hopes that he would notice me. Really notice me. 

I switch back and forth between stations recommended to me because of my recent music choices and the playlist I am creating on my own. The recommended stations are a nice because they introduce me to something new or remind me of artists forgotten. Just the other day I remembered to add some R.E.M. to my playlist. I remember having my first fairly grown up conversation with my brother over the song Losing My Religion. R.E.M.'s music always made me feel like I should be trying harder for something good like the environment and human rights. Beautiful and at time haunting, their music made me feel all things. I added them to my playlist and then started to wonder why they're not still around. What ever happened to Michael Stipe? He's got a really long beard now, does sculpture art, and still dabbles in music.

If you're curious.  

The Cabbage is all the time asking me what kind of music I listen to and I am always at a loss for words. She doesn't understand what alternative means. Occasionally I will point out a song and an artist and tell her "this? this is important. pay attention." I'll turn up the radio and start car dancing and singing, to which she rolls her eyes. If she learns anything from me, hopefully she learns that the unconventional is cool and that sometimes you have to listen outside the radio. 

IT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING FROM STAR TREK

So...this happened

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The Cabbage turns seven in September and she wants to get her ears pierced. We told her if she could go the whole summer with wiping her own butt and washing her hands EVERY time, we'd get her ears pierced. Michael said "If she can't keep her butt clean, then she can't keep her ears clean." I feel like that sentence needs to be cross stitched and hung up in the bathroom. Or any where. It really does apply to most every thing in life. If you can't keep your butt clean, you can't keep your ears clean. I say it in the voice of Louisa. Well, any way, it has been ages since the last time I heard her yell through the bathroom door that she needs "help getting the poop off." Yes, this is a phrase I never ever dreamed that I would hear in my own home. Children are a blessing. 

So the piercing of the ears is going to happen. We all had this big discussion of the best method for getting her ears pierced. Her mom, Michael and I have all had our ears pierced with the gun. I think I am the only one of the three that had problems with their ears afterward. When my ears finally healed, I had a hard time wearing any earrings unless they were plastic or a high grade metal. I couldn't just wear anything I wanted. If I did, my ears would swell up and would be red and angry. I finally gave up, removed my earrings and let the holes grow back. Many many years later, I wanted to wear earrings at my wedding so I had to get them re-pierced. My niece-in-law, Melissa, worked at Claire's at the time. She re-pierced my ears again with the gun. It was very painful, but I have not had a problem with earrings. At least that I know of. I wear the same silver elephants every day. 

Since then, I have learned a lot about piercing techniques. After I had my eyebrow pierced, I realized that needle piercing are much better than a gun for a number of reasons. The needle causes less damage to the tissue, while the gun tears more tissue. The guns are not disposable and it is really next to impossible to get them really really clean. This can lead to infections. If I had it to do all over again, I would have my ears pierced with a needle and not by a gun at the local Walmart. Michael had one ear pierced with the gun, but had let it grow back. He wanted to get both of his ears pierced and I convinced him to get it done with a needle and The Cabbage wanted to witness the whole procedure before actually getting her ears pierced. Monday evening, we all went to Supernatural Body Piercing for a family outing. You know what they say? The family that pierces together, stays together. Or not. Never. No one ever says that. 

Michael got both ears pierced with these tiny little earrings that look like freckles. You can't even see them when you're looking at him straight on because his beard hides them. I decided to get a daith piercing in my my right ear. There is a belief that this kind of piercing can alleviate migraine pain, though it has not been medically proven. In fact studies on this have come back with inconsistent results and doctors suspect that the piercing is a placebo effect. I did not get a daith piercing to alleviate migraines.  My migraines stopped when I drastically changed my diet, stopped eating meat and preservatives and got on a consistent yoga routine (this worked for me, maybe not for you). I got a daith piercing because I wanted it. I think it looks kind of badass. In fact, now I stand in front of the mirror in the mornings with my head turned to the side so I can see that piercing and I give myself a little pep talk for the day. "Cindy, you are a fucking badass!" I almost believe it. 

The Cabbage witnessed it all and she thinks she is ready. Clay, at Supernatural, did our piercings and I cannot say enough good things about him. He gets gold stars alone for just the number of times he changed his gloves and he always removed those gloves correctly. He also had an excellent bedside manner. Actually, all of the staff at Supernatural are pretty phenomenal. The girl at the front desk was kind and patient and seriously on top of things, which is impressive considering the number of customers in the shop. It was busy. They seem to stay busy and she flowed right on with it. We will definitely be back to see them in September. In the meantime, I will just be over here, looking in the mirror at my ear while practicing my rebel punk stare. 

YANK YOUR CHAIN

Weightless

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The torrential down pour from last week has just about everyone stressed about their basements. We are part of that group, but we were lucky because our basement has only a few leaks. Our neighbors'  had about two feet of water in their basement. Most homes in Oklahoma do not have basements, which blew Michael's mind when I told him this. "WHAT ABOUT ALL THE TORNADOES!!!!" I explained that we either stood outside watching the tornado, we sit in a bathtub while wearing a helmet or we stuff ourselves into a closet. Any way, I know nothing about basements. Every time I see water in the basement, I want to throw up because I think it is going to cost us a million dollars. Some people are like "basements are awesome!" while I'm all "basements are a hole that your whole house can fall into!"

We would like our basement to be a livable space and recognize that a wet floor is not conducive to our basement goals. All of our research says that the first thing we need to do is some landscaping. Over time, houses settle and sink, creating a moat all around the foundation. This is a perfect place for water to flow into when it rains. The idea is to pile up enough dirt around the house to make a slope so that water can flow away from the house. We have not started this project yet because it is going to be a big project involving a few truck loads of dirt. The idea of it actually makes me slouch. I barely keep up with weeding the vegetable garden. Also, other than the garbage hydrangea and the banana plant, I am not the kind of person who plants ornamental stuff. Landscaping means planting crap to make things look nice and I am not thrilled with the idea of the constant upkeep. 

Second to landscaping, the next thing to help keep water away from the foundation, is to make sure that the gutters are clean and that the water flows easily out the down spouts. This sounds easy enough. Clean the gutters. We do this a few times a year. We hate it and it is gross, but we do it. The problem is that there is a section of gutter right at the corner above our front stoop that doesn't drain properly even when it is clean because it is angled higher on the wrong end. So water just fills up there and pours over the side, the water creating a large puddle in front of the house. I mentioned this to my friend Sarah and she said "We had that problem!" They fixed it by installing a rain chain that directs the water into a rain barrel. That sounded easy enough, so Michael and I decided that this would be our first step to water proofing the basement.

And we have learned a whole lot about rain chains.

You know those really fancy decorative rain chains that you see in the magazines? Don't buy those kind. Yes, they are pretty and they give you the illusion that you will build a beautiful zen garden around the rain chain. If you buy this kind you will be spending around sixty to eighty dollars for something that will not guide water as much as it splashes water EVERY WHERE. You know what works? Chain. Actual linked chain. Michael took our fancy rain chain back and exchanged it for a different fancy rain chain. When that fancy rain chain did the same thing as the first one, we just hung some chain to see what would happen and it was perfect. Michael is taking the second fancy rain chain back today and buying some length of chain. We are pot committed now because there is a sizable hole drilled through the gutter. 

The rain barrel is about the only part of this project that was easy. We didn't want to, nor could we, spend $130 on a plastic barrel with a spigot. Also, those barrels where too big for the space where we need it to sit. So, Michael made us a rain barrel. We bought a medium sized plastic pot, like the kind you'd plant one of those palm plants in. Michael used the drain pan that normally would sit under the pot for a lid, drilling a hole in the center for the rain chains. Then he drilled a hole in the side and installed a spigot. Easy peasy. We attached a hose to the spigot and as long as I stay below the rain pot, I can water the plants in the front yard. We can also just drag the hose out and let the water drain down the front yard if the rain pot starts to get full.

Landscaping and gutters and flooding basements are all things that make me question home ownership. The air conditioner in the living room has also started to make a weird noise. I do not want to replace this with another window unit, but we are not in a position to finally instal a central air unit. Hey Hard Place. I'd like to introduce to my new friend, Rock. The more money we dish out for home repairs, the more I feel like setting the house on fire. After talking to my neighbor about his flooded basement, I get the feeling that he feels the same way. A couple of weeks ago, part of that same tree that split and landed across my backyard fell on his car and totaled it. He's been asking around for estimates on getting the rest of the tree cut down before more of it falls down and kills someone. He rubbed his hand over his head as exclaimed at the cost and how that tree gives him nightmares. I just nodded my head in agreement. 

They lie to you about home ownership being part of the American Dream. It's really part of the American Nightmare. 

'CAUSE SOMETIMES WE'RE TEENAGERS

Fireworks

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Michael and I are incompatible sleepers. I think I've mentioned this before. Chris and I were the same way, though I was less afraid of sleeping next to Chris. Michael has long arms that flail. Any way, one of the many secrets to a successful relationship is separate bedrooms. People are rude and cranky when they don't get a good night's sleep. They also tend to direct that rudeness and crankiness towards the person who caused them to not get a good night's sleep. Michael and I have our own bedrooms. Michael's room has a window a/c unit. Mine does not. During the Fall and Winter, we have sex in my room. During the summer we have sex in his room. This system works well for us. 

The thing that throws a wrench in all of this is the size of our house. We are a two bedroom house in desperate need of a third bedroom. The Cabbage and Michael have been sharing his room, which is fine for now, but the Cabbage is quickly approaching seven. She needs her own space. Yet, despite this, we hem and ha between moving and just making this house work for us. That's because normally the Cabbage is only with us every other weekend. During the summers we have her Monday through Friday every week. This, of course, is usually the time when we start talking about adding on to the house or moving to something bigger. Talaura said to me once that midwesterners are spoiled on space. I couldn't agree more. It is one of the reasons for the hemming and hawing.

This summer Michael cleaned up the basement and basically recreated our living room in the basement with our old couch. He's arranged all of our not-sure-what-do-with left over furniture into a sort of comfortable den. He's got the old TV hooked up to our old Roku and he's placed the a rug down on the floor. There's a side table and a lamp and he's stuffed pillows into a ductless vent that just happens to be right next to my bed to reduce noise. Before, I could hear everything in the basement. (One time I woke up because I could hear a rabbit being tortured by the cat and I swore it was happening in the living room because the sounds were so loud. It was all happening in the cat's dungeon.The cat is a jerk.) Michael's made it really quite comfortable down there and because it is a basement, the temperatures are relatively ambient year round. This is kind of important because a.) Michael is always hot and b.) that part up there about our seasonal sex habits and how there is currently a six year old residing in the bedroom with an a/c unit. 

So the other day, I asked Michael if he thought the basement was cool enough. He looked at me and asked "Cool enough for what?" He can a be bit slow on the uptake sometimes and when he saw the look I'd given he said "Oh!...OOOhhh! I don't know, but we should find out." We told the Cabbage that we were looking for 'important documents' in the basement and then hurried down the stairs while tugging off clothing and giggling like teenagers. Then we soon found out that though we were acting like teenagers, our bodies are not as nimble as a teenager's. There was a lot of "how about.." "yeah, what about..." "wait...no that's not going to.." "maybe if you move..." "CRAMP!" Also, the basement is still kind of a dirty basement. At one point, I touched the wall with my fingertips and then immediately regretted it. So then all I was thinking about was my contaminated fingers. When we were not trying to figure out the logistics of what we were doing, we would have sudden pauses where we would whisper "wait! did you hear that?" and "is that the dog or the kid?" Then we would be very still while we listened for pounding foot steps indicating a child headed in our direction. Turns out the thrill of getting caught does not just apply to being caught by your parents in the basement.

We emerged some time later after finding those 'important documents', Michael with a twinge in his back and me with a sore shoulder. Michael is more determined then ever now to really make that basement work for us and has started talking about futons and some sort of curtain/wall system. Just as long as his vision doesn't include velvet paintings and lava lamps, I'm game. 

OKLAHOMA IN KANSAS CITY

Hey @mistikae we're seeing that band you told us to go see. #annieoakleyband

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Misti sent me a message last week that a band they know was going to be playing in KCMO on Friday and that we should go see them. I had heard Misti talk about the band before, but I didn't really know their music. My first thought was to blow it off. Lately, as in the past year or so, I finish a week exhausted. Really, by Thursday I am already thinking about naps and wondering why moving my body is so difficult. When Friday rolls around, I just want to go home and not move from the couch. So the idea of going to a concert on a Friday or doing anything on a Friday sounds totally unappealing. It is also really really hot here. We've been seeing a hundred degree temps with 60% humidity. It's like walking around in a steam bath. I love it but I don't want to move around in it. I just want to sit naked, but wrapped in a towel, with a drink in my hand. No sudden movements.

So I totally surprised myself when I suggested to Michael that he meet me at work on Friday so we could scooter over to the Brick for dinner and a concert. It helped that this band, Annie Oakley, was playing an early show and that the Brick has vegetarian chili dogs. With Fritos on it. And tater-tots. Any way, the food was good and music was nice, which made it all worth tolerating the heat. Annie Oakley are so young, but they have a beautiful sweet and mature sound. Their mom is their manager. I introduced myself to her while the girls were setting up and talked about how small the world really is and how we knew Misti. After the show, Michael and I bought a couple of stickers from them to put on out scooters.  Michael and I rarely have an opportunity to have dinner and see a show. I have gotten choosey about going to concerts partly because of the price of tickets these days, but also because I know I would be going alone. Michael and I don't really listen to the same kinds of music. He's never even heard of most of the bands I listen to. We both can agree on alternative folk (sort of). 

I had forgotten how enjoyable it is to listen to a band in a small intimate setting. It was nice to go to a local bar and hear some sounds from my Oklahoma home.

GRIT

Treat

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I have moved just far enough North for the people in this area to refer to me as 'the southern girl'. They look to me to explain grits and butter beans (two things that don't come easy up here). We stopped at a restaurant near Lincoln's birth place where I ate a plate of sides, two of those being butter beans. It was heaven. I've been to a couple of places here that make an attempt at making grits. One place served up a bowl a grits with a slice of American cheese slapped on top. They called them cheesy grits. Sweet tea is something I am also expected to know a lot about, even though I was weened off of the tooth rotting sugar tea in my teenage years. 

The thing is, I've never considered myself to be southern. Yes, I was raised by parents who are southern. They were both born and raised in the middle of Mississippi as were both of their parents and those before them. Honestly, I don't know how far back the Graham and McCool line goes in that area. I could very possibly be unfortunately eligible to be a Daughter of the Confederacy for all I know. I would be very interested to know if we are any relation to the Reverend Sylvester Graham, the inventor of the Graham Cracker. Dad used to hold up a Graham cracker and ask "What is this?" and then after you said "it's a Graham Cracker!", he'd say "No! It's MY cracker!" Then Dad would laugh and laugh like he'd just told the funniest joke. He was the King of Dad Jokes. I was raised by people who were very southern, ate molasses on their biscuits and hamhock in their collard greens. 

This only makes me southern by proxy. I've never considered Oklahoma to be part of The South and I think this is a universal way of thinking across the whole state. Oklahoma is The West. The Frontier. The land of Indians and Cowboys. We are a hardy bunch, built to withstand tornadoes and dust bowls. Yet we can stop and ponder at a hawk making lazy circles in the sky (wink wink). Every single one of us who were raised in Oklahoma have at one time re-enacted the Land Run and performed the musical, Oklahoma. Friday nights are for high school football and Saturday nights are for rodeos. We've eaten loads of Indian tacos and Frito Chili Pie. Ice cream comes from Braums (though I think they're being boycotted right now for wanting to tear down the HiLo, which they should not be tearing down). Most importantly, we know that the best, most sweetest watermelons come from southern Oklahoma. 

I say this because I just ate the blandest watermelon, the third one I've purchased this year. Someone please mail me an Oklahoma watermelon. 

RUGS

New rug

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The living room rug was the same rug that sat under the dining room table in my childhood home. It is a large braided rug of different shades of blue. Maybe there is a glint of yellow here and there. That rug has to be at least the same age as I am. I don't remember a time when it was not in that house. The braided mix of blues are twisted into my memories just as tightly as it is woven. I think there was a time that this rug was in the den or maybe the living room. It moved around the house depending on my mother's moods. Mostly though, I remember it under the dining room table, the place my family would gather around every Sunday until one by one, us kids flew the nest. The dining room table remained the central gathering place for holiday meals and birthday celebrations and just regular visits, but the frequency of gatherings changed as our family shifted like tectonic plates, forming continents of our own.

I don't know the circumstances of how that rug came to be free right around the time Chris and I moved to KCMO. Mom had put a new rug in the dining room ages ago, but still held on to the blue braided rug, moving it around rooms. Any way, we moved with hardly any real furniture and needed a rug. Mom gave us the rug. Just another piece of hand-me-down home furnishing. I am the Peter Pan of home furnishings. I didn't buy my first couch until my late thirties and even then it was more of a love seat than a couch. Up until then, couches and bed frames and even some chairs where all pieces that friends or family had grown tired of and replaced with something new. Between hand-me-downs and thrift store finds, our house was a miss matched quilt of mid century modern, industrial and 80s style. This Peter Pan has started to grow up and buy her own furniture. Sure a lot of it has come from IKEA, but at least I have put more thought and care into the pieces Michael and I have purchased. Now our style is more mid century IKEA. I still have the metal office credenza that we use for a TV stand partly because I still really like the hidden storage and partly because it is the heaviest piece of furniture on the planet. I was barely able to move it far enough from the wall to paint and even then, I moved it just enough to fit myself and a paint roller. If we one day turn this house into a rental, that credenza will be part of the deal. It stays with the house. 

Our house is morphing and changing. Michael has cleaned out and set up a space for himself in the basement. The Cabbage has six cubes of toys in the bookcase now. Her clothes have taken up one of the large drawers under my bed. That draw needs to be lifted slightly when pulled out so as not to catch on the rug. Catching on the rug causes the screws in the front of the drawer to come loose and eventually the drawer falls apart when being pulled open. I got fed up with putting the drawer back together once a month and took all of her clothes out of that drawer. I gave her two drawers in my dresser. I've spent the last two weeks constantly opening up the wrong drawers in search of my own underwear. I decided that it was time that the Cabbage had her own small dresser, so Michael and I made a trip out to IKEA to see what our options were. We picked out a dresser and then headed down to the first level where I got distracted by the rugs. It was decided that after we had touched every single rug in the department, that we would move the yuck brown rug from the dining area to Michael's new set up in the basement and the living room rug to the dining area. Then we would put a new rug in the living room. 

We rolled out the new rug yesterday. We placed old dumbbell weights on one edge to flatten the end that wanted to remain curled from being rolled into a tube for so long. The weights are lined up along the edge like a fence. Michael and I stood on the hardwood looking down at the new rug. Josephine laid down just on the other side of our 'fence'. We joked about how long it would take her to get out. It is different. I am still getting used to the idea of it in that space with the old rug moved to the living room. I walk across the new rug with my bare feet and notice how different it feels compared to the old rug. The old rug has been worn smooth. You cannot feel the braids in the rug. The new rug has texture to it. You can feel the individual cords that make up the pile of it. It feels nice under my feet.

My house has become our house. It is more layered and textured. A mix of controlled cluttered chaos. A mix of us. 

THOUGHTS

I don't know what's happening here

3 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "I don't know what's happening here"

I have some thoughts on some things from lately, but I don't really feel like writing about them. Some of those thoughts have to do with Okja, the new Joon-ho Bong movie on Netflix. This is not for kids. I love and hate this movie all at the same time. It is an important commentary on corporate food production and it is at times exciting and sweet and bitterly heartbreaking. It does have a happy ending, but dear lord, the things you have to see before the happy ending. There's a scene with Jake Gyllenhaal that makes me truly hate him. Not just his character, but him as an actor for playing that character. Joon-ho Bong has a talent for creating beautiful stories full of bittersweetness. Michael has been seriously questioning his pork eating habits. He's been reading and has discovered that pigs are smarter than dogs. This movie may have closed the deal for him. 

I've also been thinking about all the negative comments left on Patton Oswalt's engagement announcement. People talking about how fifteen months is just too soon for a widower to move on with their lives. These are the kind of people who have no idea. They are the type to say "I just can't image." in response to your tragedy. Every time someone would say that to me, it would take all of my willpower to not snap back with "I hope you never have to imagine." I mean really. Who sits around and imagines what life would be like if the person you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with just up and dies? The people leaving those comments are just thoughtless. Michael moved in eighteen months after Chris died. I love Michael but there is not a single day where I don't think about Chris or remember something about our life together. I could go into a long, drawn out tirade over the whole thing if I didn't think I was preaching to the choir. 

The other night, Michael and I decided to buy an Amazon Echo. I've been thinking about this for some time. There really is no need for an Echo. It would just be fun and I have plans for the Echo. I think I can tell the Echo where I've put important things, like pictures and documents and teeth. The Cabbage lost a tooth at our house not too long ago. We had to play tooth fairy and Michael wanted to keep her tooth. We put it in an elephant creamer in the china cabinet. I really like the idea of saying "Hey, Alexa? Where did I put that human tooth?" and then hearing Alexa respond with something like "You placed the human tooth in the elephant creamer." Most likely I will just be asking Alexa to play that funky music all the time. Michael is slightly concerned that we are willingly setting up a spy in our home. I rolled my eyes at this and said the spies are already in our home because of our phones. 

The scale at work says that I've lost ten pounds. The scale at home has me holding steady at 174, meaning I've only lost six pounds. I like the scale at work a whole lot more than the home scale. I have not tracked my calories in two months. I'm moving faster in my workouts. I'm eating cottage cheese for breakfast and Greek yogurt for a mid-afternoon snack. I am trying to care less. This post has gone from tragic to comic. You can thank Nora Roberts. She was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on Saturday. When asked about writer's block she said "I don't believe in it." She said that you just kept writing even if what you were writing was total crap because as soon as you stopped writing, you broke the habit. Then you're screwed. I'm paraphrasing but not by much. 

Any way this is why you're getting a weird post about depressing movies and where I hide human remains. 

THIS WAS OUR WEEKEND

Sunday

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

Saturday morning, I got up, went to Heirloom for a breakfast biscuit and wrote in my fortune cookie journal (something I have not done in a really long time). Then I went to a yoga class were I sweated profusely and couldn't clasp my hands behind my back (which I can totally do) because my sweaty fingers kept slipping. After class, I went home to get Michael so we could go grocery shopping. We then took the long way around to the grocery store, stopping at Terry's to pick up Michael's hat, then the library, then some lunch, then another library, then, of course, Target, and finally Trader Joe's. We did not have any plans other than a backyard concert later that evening, so we felt free to lolly gag. 

I put together a lovely picnic basket and Michael picked out a couple of bottles of wine. We loaded this into the car and headed towards Liberty for the evening concert. As we pulled out of the driveway, Michael said "Hey, would you read the invite for this again to me?" I pulled up the invite in my email and started reading "So and So would like to invite you to a backyard concert on August 5th. We are fortunate enough to be on the living room tour of Denver based alt-folk band King Cardinal..." "Wait. Can you repeat that first sentence?" "You mean the part where it says that the concert is August 5th?" Then we drove around Kansas City for the next two hours, stopping to look at houses that were for sale and stalking neighborhoods. We went home and spread our picnic out on the coffee table and ate brie and smoked salmon and horseradish hummus while watching Glow. 

The next morning, I woke up sore from yoga and one side of my nose clogged. My allergies have been through the roof horrible lately. I am taking allergy medicine, but it is only partially effective. CBS Sunday Morning was mostly reruns, so I opted to take advantage of the cool of the morning to clean up the garden beds and reclaim our back steps from the encroaching crab grass. An hour later I came inside, sweaty and covered in grass and ready to claw my skin off because I was so itchy (see allergies above). I decided to do something that I hadn't done in a really long time. I filled a bowl with sea salt and scrubbed myself with it in the shower. In yoga teacher training, we learned that salt was a good way to clean your aura. We all know how I feel about energy bodies and auras, but it did make me feel better. Seriously better. I'm not just talking about my itchy skin either. 

I spent the rest of Sunday finishing up laundry, watching Okja (which I am still processing and a little haunted by one scene in particular), putting clean sheets on my bed, updating my my hanging pictures and reading. I got a book from the library that needs to be returned in twelve days. In my brain that means it has be returned tomorrow and so I have to read all of the pages RIGHT NOW!

What did you guys do this weekend?

THE GREAT SPARKLER

Our neighborhood sounds like a war zone

5 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Our neighborhood sounds like a war zone"

I am not sure that I will ever really get used to the firework situation that happens here every July. I did shoot off fireworks when I was a kid, but we lived outside of any city limits. It was not illegal, just highly frowned upon (mostly by Dad). You certainly did not set them off within city limits. I know of some cul-de-sacs who would pool their money every year to pay the fine for shooting off illegal fireworks, but I never witnessed the firework displays like I have seen here in my current neighborhood. For one thing, most of the fireworks from last night are not even sold in the state of Oklahoma. Every year since I have been here, a public service announcement goes out reminding people that fireworks are illegal. Every year the PSA is ignored and my neighborhood ends up sounding like a war zone and a smokey haze fills the sky. I don't mind. It is probably the only time of year where I am winning our game of Gun Shots or Fireworks (I pick fireworks every time).

Michael bought the Cabbage a whole bunch of fireworks yesterday. We walked around inside a big tent full of all kinds of fireworks picking out satellites and tanks and ground blooms. Of course our bag filled up with sparklers and snaps too, as well as some fountains and missiles.  Michael noticed a large display of the bigger fireworks, the kind you drop into a provided canon. They were on sale. So we ended up with three of those. At one point I had to leave because I could hear my Dad talking so loudly in my head about the money we were literally burning. He would also go on and on about the mess they make and how we had to be sure and pick up every scrap. Yet he never prevented us from buying them. We did have to roll the pennies we saved over the year, but he always threw in a few extra dollars. 

While I stood just outside the tent, I started thinking about the time Stephanie and I worked in a firework stand on the east end of Collinsville. That was the summer my nephew, Kolin, was born. He was early and sick and would only end up being with us for a few short weeks. I would get up in the mornings and drive to the hospital in Tulsa where I would put on scrubs and disinfect my hands up to my elbows just to go into a room to look at him. Then I would take J somewhere. We'd go to the mall or a movie. Someplace other than the hospital. Then I'd drop him off and head back to town for my shift at the firework stand. Stephanie and I spent most of our time at the stand trying to stay cool. We would sit in our lawn chairs, with our feet up on the counter and I would tell her about that morning's hospital visit. Then she would tell me about the crazy dessert stuff our boss had left for us to eat. 

One night, just before closing, a group of drunk guys pulled up in their pick-up truck and stumbled out. The swayed up to the counter and then started pointing at different fireworks with their lit cigarettes. "Whud about that one? Whuts that one do?" Steph and I took turns explaining the fireworks while reminding them to put their cigarettes out. They bought a small bag's worth of firecrackers and moved on. We both sighed with relief. Mostly though, it was a boring job, but a good distraction for that summer. We would be really busy for ten minutes with a flurry of people and then we wouldn't see a soul for hours. On the last night we were open, we had to do inventory. The owner could send back all of the unopened packages of fireworks and get his money back for them. We had to go through everything and tally up what was left, packaged or not packaged. Anything not packaged was ours for the keeping. Steph and I had an amazing 5th of July fireworks display. 

Our backyard fireworks display was pretty impressive. We even had an intermission because of rain. Still, I don't think it tops that 5th of July Stephanie and I had.