Archive for July, 2008

Backpack! Backpack!

July 31, 2008 | Give Aways

As I mentioned yesterday, Lands End has offered me one of their fantastic backpacks to offer to you, my fantastic readers. Unlike Dora’s backpack, the Lands End backpack is not bilingual, but it is indeed very cool, very useful and could help you find your way to the magic mountain. Or whatever. I am freely admitting here I haven’t been paying that close of attention to Dora and where she goes.

So let’s see, what kind of hoops can I make you jump through to get a backpack? Hmmm…

Okay. Nothing really to do with backpacks, but leave a comment telling me the worst job you ever had and I’ll choose the worst or most amusing or just some random one to win. I’ll go first since it’s my blog:

When I was 17-years-old, I took a job typing for an insurance company. That was back in the days of carbon paper, which came right after the Bronze Age. So my first day there, I was given this legal-size triplicate form to fill out on a manual typewriter and it had to be perfect. No mistakes. Not even one. Every time I made the smallest typo, I would have to start completely over. White Out wasn’t allowed because it hadn’t been invented yet and we weren’t allowed to use those little chalky white pieces of paper either because this was a mean and sadistic company. By the third time I got to the end of the form and typed s instead of w, I dropped my chin to my chest and closed my eyes and calculated how bad it would look if I started banging my head on the typewriter and would that get me out of work.

The one time I did manage to get to the end of the form without a mistake, the boss lady strolled by, took the form, looked down her nose at me over her reading glasses, looked at the form, looked back at me and then ripped it up with a little too much glee for my taste and then tossed the remains on my desk. So when it came time for lunch, I left and didn’t come back. I went home and cried to my mommy instead. The boss lady called my house looking for me and my mom said she didn’t think I would be coming back. I loved the days when my mommy stood between me and meanies.

Now you’re turn. I’ll randomly draw a name Sunday night and announce the winner on Monday and if you have a US mailing address, Lands End will send you backpack! Yay you!

If you don’t win the backpack and just want one anyway, Lands End is also offering free shipping to US residents July 31 through August 6. Simply enter the coupon code BACKTOSCHOOL and the pin 2382 when checking out at Lands End.

What’s In Your Pack?

July 30, 2008 | Thinkin' Out Loud

One night last week, one of my dear friends from the olden days, Steve Cooper, stopped by for an impromptu visit as he was passing through my neck of the woods.  I love it when that happens — an old friend rings you up and drops in for a visit.  I think we need more impromptu visiting in our society and less scheduling.   So what if I have a giant tent made out of sheets and dining room chairs in my den?  Real friends don’t care.

I haven’t seen Steve for a couple of years and it’s always a treat when our paths cross.  Steve does all kinds of interesting and unusual things and it’s always fascinating to catch up with him and listen to his stories.  For example, last year he walked from the heel in the boot of Italy all the way to Santiago, Spain over a period of six months.  Walked!  He didn’t have hotel reservations, he just let each day unfold, walking from town to town and stopping when he was tired.  Sometimes he stayed in hotels, sometimes he stayed in hostels and sometimes he camped out.   

This trek was something that he had wanted to do for a number of years and last year, he decided that the time was right. He took a sabbatical from his college teaching position, sold his house and put anything he cared about in storage and put the rest in a backpack and got on a plane for Europe.  And oh the stories he has collected along the way and the people he met and the serendipity and the living in the moment!  It seems so much easier to live that kind of life when you are weighed down only by what you can carry.  You can read all about his adventures in his book Six Months Walking the Wilds.

For me, one of the most fascinating aspects of his adventure is this idea of putting everything you own in a backpack.  I try to imagine sorting through my stuff and deciding what to take and what to leave beind.  This week, it’s a thought that I can’t seem to put away.  What would I put in my pack to sustain me for six months? What? A Bible? An itty bitty slim Apple laptop? Immodium? Paper and pencil? A change of undies? Chapstick? Photos? Nail file? iPod?  What?

I’m curious, if you had to carry with you everything you needed, and carry it in a pack and carry it for six months, what would you take?  What?

Clarification: Imagine that it’s just you, not your kid and all their crud, because that makes the game too complicated. I know that’s kind of hard to imagine, but just try.

* * * * *

Speaking of backpacks! The Lands End people have offered me one of their fabulous backpacks to give away, so stop by tomorrow for the details.

Set Your Tivo

Antique Friends, Bloggin' Buddies

Tomorrow (7/31) Oprah is re-running a segment featuring my friend Lysa TerKeurst and her amazing story of an unlikely adoption.  If you haven’t seen it before, you won’t want to miss it. Check your local listings.  If you happen to miss it, you can find it on her blog.   She’s also written a book or two or eleven in case you didn’t know.

Wherefore Art Thou Coppertone Girl?

July 29, 2008 | Nostalgia

One summer day, when I was about four-years-old, I sat in the front seat of the grocery cart as my mom did her shopping.  As she wheeled the cart around the corner, there on the end cap was a giant cardboard cutout of a little girl whose panties were being pulled away by a frisky little dog.  Her backside was exposed for all the world and the local grocery shoppers to see.  And I was mortified.

 

I clapped one hand over my mouth in disbelief and pointed at the offending image in horror with the other.  I was aghast.  I remember my mom laughing, amused at my reaction.

 

I think it is around this age that self-awareness and a sense of proprietary kicks in because I remember being embarrassed, for the little girl in the ad and for me. I remember feeling that I had seen something that shouldn’t be seen. 

 

You probably already know that the ad to which I am referring is the sweet and innocent Coppertone ad from the 1960s.

 But oh the times, how they are a changin’.

 

Last week, Sean and I were in Sam’s. He was not in a cart but walking along side me down the aisle with the books and magazines when all of a sudden we rounded an end cap and he was aghast.  He stopped dead in his tracks.  He clapped one hand over his mouth and pointed with the other at the cover of GQ magazine which was right at his eye level.

 

On the cover of the magazine was not a sweet little toddler and a frisky dog, but Gisele Bundchen who is sitting on a bed, looking a little disheveled and wearing a top of some sort, but nothing else. While the cover was not especially graphic, it was not lost on my son that he was seeing something that shouldn’t be seen.

 

“Mommy!” Sean whispered-shrieked, “Where are her underpants?”

 

I just didn’t really know what to say, and when that happens, I just go with the truth.

 

“I don’t know Sean, but she should put some on, don’t you think?”

 

We kept moving along and luckily he was quickly distracted by the next thing that caught his eye, and we did not have to continue that conversation.  For now.

 

I’m getting old, I know that, but I long for the days of Camelot when the raciest thing in the grocery store was the Coppertone girl.

 

 

Pure of Heart

July 27, 2008 | Faith

This morning, as I sat in church waiting for services to start, my eye was drawn to a chubby little gal wearing ill-fitting khaki pants and making her way down to the front.  I watched her as she bounced from person to person in the front row, wrapping each one in big squeeze-y hugs, the kind that rocks back and forth and doesn’t let go.

 

When the music started, she stood and swayed to the beat, swimming and waving her hands through the air.  It appeared as though she was doing sign language, I couldn’t really tell, but it was glorious the way she seemed to be sewing with invisible needle and thread.  Everything about her radiated a joy that was unfiltered, unmetered, unaffected, unaware.  I thought of how pleasing her worship must be to God, to see her singing praises to Him with her hands.

 

As apparent as was her joy, so too was her oddly shaped body, adult yet childlike, wide-set almond shaped eyes, hands too small and delicate for the body  –  all the tell tales signs of Downs Syndrome.    

 

As I watched her, my mind wandered to the passage in Scripture where Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God.”  Pure in heart.  I couldn’t help, at that moment, to think that He certainly must have meant the girl with the singing hands, and others like her, in whom there can be found no guile.

 

* * * * *

Here’s another observational piece on the sweetness of Downs children in the church entitled “The Purest Voice.”   It was written by my friend Soliloquy back in April who blogs at She Just Had To Say It.  A little insider tip, she’s also doing a Give Away today too, so stop by her home page too and check it out.  

 

A Tale of Two Dogs or A Dog With Two Tales

July 25, 2008 | Silliness

Dog Tale #1

By Antique Mommy

 

Sunday we hurried home from church, looking forward to the meal that we knew Papa George would have waiting for us.  As we came to a stop at the intersection of a busy street, my mother-in-law Cleo, who was in the front seat, spotted a little Yorkie (little Yorkie is redundant, I know) wandering dangerously near the street.

 

“Oh I’ll bet someone has turned her out!” cried Cleo. “Look how skinny she is!”

 

“Should we stop and get her?” I asked from the backseat.

 

But just as quickly as the little dog had appeared, she disappeared.  She had scampered off and out of sight.

 

“She probably lives around here,” said Antique Daddy with absolutely no concern. “She’s probably headed home.”

 

No one agreed with him, no one meaning Memaw, Sean or me. We were all certain the little Yorkie had been abandoned and was about to starve to death.

 

Nonetheless, she was not to be seen, so we went home to eat our Sunday dinner.  As we were sitting around the table, the little starving Yorkie came to the door and peered in hopefully through the glass. 

 

I jumped up from the table, not willing to dismiss this as a coincidence. Clearly God intended for me to look after that dog as twice He had put her in my path.  So I let the Yorkie in and she made herself right at home.  I picked her up and tried to get a look at her collar, which was kind of hard to do because my face kept getting in the way of her tongue. The only number on the tag was the vet’s number, which I called, but of course, the vet was at home eating Sunday dinner with his family, so he didn’t answer the phone at his office.

 

Papa George’s Schipperke, Missy Ann, was not so keen on our uninvited guest, so I put Little Miss Yorkie outside on a chain, just outside the front door with some food and water.  Yorkie looked to be amused and bewildered at this act of charity. Or maybe that’s just how Yorkie’s look all the time, I don’t know. 

 

Twenty minutes later, an older gentleman pulls up out front looking for his Yorkie. Yorkie recognizes her owner and wiggles and wags and bounces on her back legs and waves her front feet.  The older man pads up the front walk in his house shoes, breathing heavy.  He is quite obviously relieved to $ee his Yorkie.  The old man and the Yorkie exchange kisses and hugs.  He thanks me kindly but tells me that she runs off from time to time.  But always comes home.

 

The old man tucks his Yorkie under his arm, heads down the walk and gets in his car.  I watch them drive away.  I sigh as I head back into the house.  I returned to the table and my now cold food knowing that I had left the world a just a little bit better than I found it before lunch.  And my heart swelled just a little.  On that Sunday I was not just a mother, wife and daughter — I was a humanitarian and rescuer of Yorkies not in need of rescue.

 

(Cue epic music theme from Gone With The Wind.  Fade to black.) 

 

Tale #2

by Antique Daddy

 

We saw a skinny dog on the way home from church, probably headed home.

He came to the door while we were eating. His owner drove around looking for him and saw him tied up out front and came and got him.  The end.

 

 

Moo-chas Gracias Graco

July 24, 2008 | Thank You Notes

Last month, I wrote a post about our run away MaGoo car and Jon DeHart, a daddy blogger over at Graco liked it and gave me the Graco Monthly Nod, which was not only a great honor but according to the email, also included a “small” prize.  The small prize turned out to be, indeed, small.  Small and adorable, yes? 

I just got these in the mail today!  These are itty bitty 1×3 business cards from a company called Moo over in England.  They have tons of fun stock images to choose from or you can upload your own as I did.  Unfortunately, my camera distorted the color so you can’t see that it exactly matches the background to my blog.  I love’em, I do and can’t wait to give one to somebody.

Thanks Jon for the nod and Graco for the Moo cards!

Rainbow Days

July 23, 2008 | Makes Me Sigh, Thinkin' Out Loud

Every afternoon, at precisely the same time, a rainbow appears on the door to my laundry room for just a few fleeting minutes.

Sean was the first one to notice it.  We stood and admired the rainbow as it dipped and danced its way across the door with some invisible partner.  But as quickly as it appeared it began to fade.   Within a few seconds it had dissolved completely and was gone.

The next afternoon, the rainbow arrived again just as quickly and as quietly as it had the day before.  We played in it, dipping and waving our hands in the shimmering waterfall of color.  But before I could get the camera, it had slipped away again.

The next day, we were expecting it and quickly traced its route back through the breakfast room into the living room where the sunlight was slipping through the pine trees in just the right way, through the windows and past a crack in the shades in just the right way and then through a prism of glass on the coffee table. In just the right way. And all of that because the sun was positioned over the earth in just the right way. 

It seems to me that that is the way it is with remarkable and beautiful things in life — rainbows, flowers, children — the rare and impossible come together in just the right way at just the right time, golden for just a bright and shining moment, and then gone.

In a few months, the earth will tilt imperceptibly, but in just the right way so that the leaves will begin to turn brown and flutter to the ground and the sliver of sun that peeks through my living room windows and past a crack in the shades will look elsewhere, through different windows.  And this season of afternoon rainbows will be over.

And another remarkable and beautiful season of life will be on its way.

Blue Berries

July 22, 2008 | Parenting Gone Awry

Saturday morning, after breakfast, I scooped Sean out of the barstool he was sitting in at the breakfast bar and spirited him off to the kitchen counter to wipe blueberry goo from his face and hands and legs before he ran off to spread blueberry goo throughout the kingdom. 

As I carried him around the breakfast bar, he clasped his sticky blue hands behind my neck and wrapped his long legs around my waist and tried to plant  bluberry kisses on my nose which I pretended to rebuff. 

I looked into his blueberry blue eyes and thought about how I used to sit him on the counter in a blue feeding chair and sing silly made-up songs to him to get him to eat.  He would laugh a toothless laugh and then open his mouth wide like a hungry baby bird.  My spirit would float up to the ceiling as light as a feather to think that I had made him laugh.

Now he feeds himself and my made-up silly songs annoy him more than amuse him. 

At that moment I was hit by that invisible chest crushing blow that I sometimes get when I realize that I am no longer a new mom and he is no longer a new boy.  That season of our lives is over.

I plopped him down on the counter and began rubbing blue residue off his hands and face and legs with a wet washcloth.

“Oh Sean,” I sighed, “I’d like to put you back in my tummy and do it all over again.  Only this time I’d do it better,” I said.  “I know what I’m doing now.”  I allowed myself to retreat to a quiet place in my mind as I scrubbed and imagine the joy of doing it all again and the mistakes I wouldn’t make.

Just then the air was pierced with a jarring yelp.

“Ow!” he screamed. “Stop rubbin’ Mom! That’s not blueberries!  That’s my boo boo!”

I had rubbed a little scab off his ankle and it was bleeding.

Huh. Whadya know. Looked like blueberry goo to me.

Or then again, maybe I still don’t know what I’m doing.

We’ve Got A Lot In Common

July 20, 2008 | Faith

In June, while I was at the She Speaks conference in North Carolina, I saw a video on the work that Compassion is doing on behalf of impoverished children throughout the world.  If you keep up with Sophie and Shannon and Melanie, as I do,  you probably already know about it.  

Now, in case y’all do not know, I am not a cryer.  You could cut my arm off and I would not cry.  It is very hard to jerk a tear up out of my crusty old cynical heart.  I learned not to cry when I was left alone in a hospital when I was three-years-old and since then, it is almost impossible to make me cry, even when it is appropriate for me to do so. I am damaged that way.

Yet.

Two minutes into this video I was weeping big ugly snotty mascara-runnin’ snorting sobs. Ugly. Another good reason for me to avoid crying.

When they turned up the lights, I walked directly to the Compassion table and handed them my credit card.  The sweet gal manning the table, asked me to pick a child. I closed my eyes and shook my head. “No,” I told her, “I could never pick. You pick for me.”  And so she did.

Aside:  Normally I am very suspicious of these kinds of organizations, but their overhead is as slim as the side of a ruler. Impressive.  My money goes to my sponsored kiddo and her family.  I like that.

The child chosen for me (aren’t all children chosen for us, really?) is just a month older than Sean.  Her name is Monserrat (cómo hermosas!) and she lives in Bolivia. I keep her picture on my desk and send up tiny prayers for her when I glance at her little face off and on throughout the day.  

When I got home from She Speaks I showed Sean her picture and tried to explain to him that we were going to sponsor her and pray for her and generally just try to keep up with her for as long as she needs us.  Then I pulled out the globe and showed him where Bolivia was and then I had him find Texas.

As he drove his finger from Boliva to Texas he exclaimed, “Oh hey! BoWivia is pink and Texas is pink!  We’ve got a lot in common!”

Indeed, we humans have a lot in common.

Me Too on Et Tu

Recommended Reading

Et Tu is a former atheist who converted to Christianity, specifically to Catholicism.  She writes beautiful, well articulated, thought provoking posts about matters of faith that feed both my soul and my mind.  As one who has stood on both sides of the divides, her voice is deeply and richly authentic to me. 

This morning, I especially enjoyed this post.  No matter where you stand on matters of faith, Et Tu is good reading. You’ll probably want to add her to your Bloglines if you haven’t already.

VBS

July 19, 2008 | Thinkin' Out Loud

Sean has been to several VBS’s this summer.  For those of you like me, who until several years ago did not know what VBS stood for, it’s Vacation Bible School. 

Well into my 30s, I had never heard the term VBS.  I was raised Catholic and we did not have VBS.  We never really had B or V.  We did get a lot of BS. But that’s another story. Or a whole lot of stories actually.  (Yet I embrace my inner-Catholic school girl, I do. She is me.) 

About ten years ago, at my previous chuch, someone threw out the term VBS and I asked “What’s VBS?” and everyone looked at me like I was the dumbest Martian from Mars.  That made me feel great!   Clearly, I wasn’t in “the club” and didn’t know the lingo.  Coulda used some of that Grace! Grace! Grace! (flick fingers three times here) that my friend Lysa talks about.

So suffice it to say, my knowledge of VBS could be put into a thimble. But I’m learning. I’ve even helped out at one. 

Maybe because we live in a metropolitan area where resources are plentiful, the VBS’s we have been to thus far have been extravaganza’s. The amount of effort and energy expended to put on these broadway style plays and interactive classes is — well, astonishing.  Sean has loved going to them and I think it’s fantastic that so many adults are willing to give their time and money to make that happen for so many kids.

Yet.

Something in me pines for small.  And intimate.  Something in me longs for a VBS experience that is just a group of ladies, cardboard and paperclips. 

Bigger might be better.  But small is nice too.

I Never Met A Spotlight I Didn’t Like

July 16, 2008 | Narcissism

That’s not entirely true, there have been a few spotlights I didn’t care for.  Like the time in first or second grade when Sister Edwina made me stand up in front of the entire class and read a note I was trying to slip to Natalie that detailed how cute I thought Brain Murphy was. (He was cute). His name is actually Brian, but the note said Brain.

Anyway!  I’m in the 5 Minutes For Mom Spotlight today. If you have nothing else to do, you can go over there and read it.

Antique Shopping

Antique Junk Drawer

I was in downtown Tuna last weekend and one of the things I like to do when I am there is to browse the antique stores.   I’m always searching for a ceramic donkey planter.  I find aimlessly wandering in and out of the stores to be a very relaxing way to pass an afternoon.  And it’s just fun to see stuff - dishes, furniture, toys, etc. - that I recognize from my own childhood.  I’m not super big on antiques,  I like them and appreciate them, but by no means am I a collector.

One of things I find that I’m drawn to lately are antique linens, which kind of disgusts my mother-in-law Cleo.  She does not understand why I would pay good money for something someone else has blown their nose into. Yet I do.  Here are a few of the hankies I picked up recently.  Any ideas what I could do with them other than, um, stick’em in a drawer?

I guess I could have ironed them before photographing them.  I wish you could see them in person - very retro and very charming. You would love them, I know you would.

This blue and red hankie is one of my favorites. Love the color combo.  Would love to do a powder room in these colors and motif.

These are some aprons I picked up.  My Godmother Rose always wore aprons and maybe that’s why I love them so much. The apron on the far left looks stained, but it’s not - it’s actually perfectly starched.  Kind of makes me want to put on some pearls, high heels and get out the vacuum.  These aprons are much more charming in real life. I have to take the resolution of the photos down to 72 (from 300) so my blog will upload them and it seems to drop the charm factor as well.  Don’t know what to do with aprons either. Ideas?  No matter, it’s enough just to posess them.

I also like to collect the odd plate which I use, sometimes to display on a wall or in a cabinet or on a tiny easel, sometimes to hold a bar of pretty soap and sometimes, yes, sometimes even on the table. Because I am so very creative.  This is “Old Granite” by Johnson Brothers.

I fell in love with these two little pewter bunnies just waiting to hold up a candle. $5. Currently sitting in my kitchen window where I gaze upon it with affection.

I bought this little expandable Mexican box for the boy because I knew he would dig carrying it around and stashing stuff in it.  And he does.

And it came with about 12 big heavy duty plastic forks and spoons which will no doubt make their way out to the sandbox.  Which is better than my silverware, yes?

Do you antique/garage sale? What kind of stuff do you look for?  And what is the psychology behind what you buy?  Maybe we should do a carnival and show our wares.

Sorry Troy

July 15, 2008 | Antique Embarrassment, Nostalgia

True story.

 

Back in the early 90s, I attended a taping of a television sports talk show featuring Troy Aikman and some other sports caster type fellows whose names I don’t remember. I know nothing about football and it would not even be possible for me to care less about football than I already do. Yet there I was with Troy and the boys talkin’ football.

 

For those few of you who know even less about football than I do and need clarification before I go on, Troy Aikman was the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys football team back in the day when Wham was popular.  Don’t ask me what a quarterback is. It’s beyond my scope. 

 

At any rate, I found myself at the taping of this local television sports show. The set was designed like a sports bar, ala Cheers, with Troy and the sports caster guys sitting at the bar, having a faux few and discussing football like it was foreign policy or something of real importance.  I, along with a number of other people, were seated at small tables like bar patrons, all of whom happen to be eavesdropping on Troy like he was E.F.Hutton.

 

At one point in the taping, Troy was to look in the camera and read a sentence off the cue card. I don’t remember exactly what the sentence was that he read, but it was something like “And we’ll be right back.”

 

And so Troy read the sentence, albeit a little stilted, and everyone applauded mightily.

 

Except for me who involuntarily laughed and said dryly, and apparently a little too loudly, “Oh boy.  He can read.”

 

And then Troy turned and shot laser beams out of his eyes at me, singeing my eyelashes just a little.

 

Now, two things here.  I didn’t really mean it the way it came out.  It just struck me odd that we were applauding a college graduate for reading a sentence that any second-grader could read. It simply amused me.

 

The second thing is that I hadn’t really intended to say that outside of my head. Sometimes there is a mix-up between my tongue and my brain and that happens - the tongue does not get the memo that the message is proprietary, for internal distribution only.  Sometimes my brain threatens to fire my tongue, but the tongue has tenure and so it’s a problem. (See James 3:1-9) 

 

So, all that to say, “Sorry Troy. I think you’re swell. And a great reader too.”

 

It’s never too late to say you’re sorry and just now I really needed to get that off my chest.

 

 

 

Beware Of Boys Bearing Dandelions

July 14, 2008 | Memaw, Snips And Snails

We were in Tuna this weekend and went to church on Sunday morning with my mother-in-law Cleo.

After services, Sean and I went outside to wait for everyone to make their way out to the car.

Sean spied a dandelion growing in the church yard and bent over to pick it.

He brought it to me and said, “Here Mom, hold out your hand.”

He very carefully laid his golden gift in the palm of my hand.

“Why thank you Sean!” I said, my heart all aglow.

“Don’t moosh it,” he called over his shoulder as he ran off, ”It’s for Memaw.”

Oh.  Okay, sure.  I knew that.

Beware.  The suspect shown above is armed and dangerous, using dimples and dandelions to target the elderly and unsuspecting.  Was last seen in a church parking lot running off with the heart of a woman who appeared to be of advanced maternal age. 

 

 

Another 5 Minutes

July 12, 2008 | Uncategorized

Chances are, if you enjoy parenting blogs, you are already familiar with the wildly popular site, 5 Minutes for Mom.

The lovely ladies who run 5 Minutes for Mom have started several new 5 Minutes sister sites and one of them is called 5 Minutes for Parents.  They asked Stephanie Precourt, who is a crazy lady, to be the managing editor. Stephanie has 3 little boys and a little girl on the way, writes for four different blogs – AND THEN took on the role of managing editor.  See? Crazy. Or highly efficient and emotionally stable.  Just thinking of juggling all that makes me whimper just a little.

Anyway, Stephanie asked me, along with some of my favorite bloggers,  if I’d like to be a contributing writer to the new site called 5 Minutes for Parenting and of course I said yes.  You can go here to meet the other lovely ladies and then you’ll see why when I had a chance to be in such fine company I couldn’t say no.  I won’t have a post up until the end of the month, but in the meantime there is already some good stuff up to read.

Go check it out and put in your Bloglines and Google Readers. Pretty please.

 

 

TV - A Vast Wasteland, But Now With Crabs!

July 10, 2008 | Silliness

I don’t watch much television. 

 

I’d love to look down my nose and proclaim that I’m above investing my time in the vast wasteland that is television and that I spend my time reading classic literature instead, but that would be a lie.  Unless you consider Little Critter classic literature.

 

No, the reason I don’t watch much television is because apparently I’ve got time management issues.  I don’t have time to watch TV.  I want to watch TV, I want to join in the conversation about what’s going on with Jim and Pam at The Office or who Simon is ripping to shreds, but I just don’t ever seem to have an opportunity to park it in front of the television.  By the time I get my tribe fed and bathed and in bed, it’s way past prime time.  And if my tribe is not in bed, there’s no watching TV. There are only interruptions interrupted by interruptions with a lot of swashbuckling and explosion sound effects in between interruptions. 

 

And yes, for the record, I know of this Tivo thing, but we don’t have it.  We might like to get Tivo but unless someone breaks in our house and installs it for us, we’re not getting Tivo because in order to get Tivo we would have to make a decision to get Tivo and then where to get Tivo and is Tivo better than something else and then there would be months of research and spread sheets and comparison shopping until such time as Tivo became obsolete.  Which is why we still have VHS.  We are not in the technodark due to lack of money, but due to our lack of ability to make a technodecision. 

 

So then.  By the time I get to sit down and watch TV it is well after prime time and what’s on always seems to be The Deadliest Catch. 

 

Ergo, I have become addicted to The Deadliest Catch.  While all the cool kids are watching Lost and American Idol and The Office, I’m watching men out at sea in need of a bath and a shave. 

 

True to my nerdy form, I never seem to be in on what everyone else in the country is talking about around the water cooler.  Back in the 90s while the rest of the country watched that new show, ER with Dr. Ross and Nurse Hathaway, I chose to watch Chicago Hope with uh, can’t remember. ER is still on (although it is a very sad and tired show that jumped the shark so many seasons ago) whereas Chicago Hope lasted about two seasons.  That’s me — always on the trailing edge of what’s hot and happenin’. 

 

That I am so invested in a show about crab fishing is perplexing given that it takes so very little to make me seasick.  Seriously. One time AD took me to a lovely bayside restaurant in Sausalito, one that sits out on piers over the water.  He made sure we were seated at a window table so that we could hold hands across the table and gaze out upon the water. About halfway through the meal I was so green that I had to go outside and lay down on a park bench.  All that to say,  watching the fishing boats rise and fall, and dip and sway in the swirling and churning icy waters, even on the small screen, makes me a little green.  In fact, just typing that sentence made me a little queasy – yet I can’t turn away from my crab fishermen.

 

I don’t know what it is about that show that is so captivating.  It is just this sexy combination of soap opera, danger, roughneck bad boys and um, crabs.  I pathetically know all the names of all the boats, the crews, the captains and how many pounds of crabs they have caught and how they are ranked among the other boats.   When I drive by Red Lobster or peer into the seafood case at the grocery store I wonder if those crabs came from Sig’s boat, The Northwestern or maybe Phil’s boat, the Cornelia Marie.  And then I wonder how Phil is doing with that blood clot and why can’t Phil and his sons get along  b’cause I know deep down they really love each other.

 

So yes, while the rest of gals are swooning over Jim’s unkempt hair and the way he mugs for Pam and the camera, Sig is my TV boyfriend.  Jim sells paper, but Sig – he drives the boat. 

 

 

 

 

 

You have Jim at the office.  I have Sig. He drives the boat.

 

 

The First Real Day of Summer

July 9, 2008 | Always Real, Snips And Snails

Monday was the first day that really felt like summer to me.

 

Not summer in the sense that the days are hot and long, but summer in the sense that the days are carefree and unencumbered by commitments and obligations — like summer was when I was growing up.  Sean was in a half-day summer camp for the month of June and Monday was the first day we didn’t have anything official on the calendar.

 

To celebrate the beginning of our summer, Sean and I decided to escape the heat and go to a local bounce house for a playdate. 

 

While I enjoy getting together with other moms and kids, I was secretly thrilled that it would just be the two of us — that we could selfishly do our own thing without having to consider anyone else. I was looking forward to not sharing my little boyfriend with anyone else. 

 

When we got to the bounce house place, we stashed our shoes in a cubby hole and ran from house to house, sliding and bouncing and pretending to be lost in a jungle or climbing a mountain.  But then I noticed there seemed to be another little boy tailing us.  I asked him what his name was and he told me Batman.  Batman had set his cap to be Sean’s friend and stuck to us like bubble gum on a sidewalk on a hot day. He followed us from slide to slide and house to house.  At first Sean was not very interested in having Batman for a friend, but his persistence paid off.

 

Soon enough, the two of them paired up, slid down the slide together and then ran off in some secret little boy cooperative.  I slid down after them and watched them as they scampered towards another bounce house. Sean stopped midway and turned back to see me sitting at the end of the slide.  I gave him the “Go on, I’m fine” wave.  But he ran back anyway.  “Mom I’ll stay here and play with you,” he offered.

 

“No, you go ahead,” I encouraged. “I’m going to rest for now.”  Which wasn’t a lie. I fanned my face with my hand to convince him to go on with Batman.

 

He searched my face for the truth.

 

“No really, go,” I said cheerfully.

 

“Okay,” he said and then zipped off to join his new friend.

 

I have worried about him as only child of older parents.  I have worried about him learning to interact and engage with other children.  It hasn’t come easily for him.  It did my heart good to see him make a new friend.

 

At the same time, as I watched him disappear around the corner, my heart broke just a little bit to have my playmate stolen away from me on the first real day of summer.

 

 

 

Out Of The Mouths Of Critters

July 7, 2008 | Always Real

Last night, Sean and I were laying in his itty bitty bed reading a few books before bedtime.  One of the books he chose was this Little Critter book.  

After I read the title, I pointed to the critter in the wheelchair and asked him if he noticed anything different about him.

He studied the picture for a second and then said, “Well yeah! (duh) “He’s a rabbit!”

I laughed to myself.  Four-year-olds are so authentic.

His answer was better than the correct answer.

Now, bonus question: Does anyone know what species Little Critter is?