tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14863519212649920162024-03-14T01:40:48.157-05:00Plumb tuckered...so very tired..lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.comBlogger213125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-72536497837894619632016-02-12T12:24:00.001-06:002016-02-12T12:24:31.637-06:00New and Improved!At least I hope so!<br />
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I've got swanky new digs over at <a href="http://www.plumbtuckeredout.com/">www.plumbtuckeredout.com</a>. Fancy new blog page, fancy new bio, links to check out my actual book, <b><u><a href="http://plumbtuckeredout.com/books/" target="_blank">The Rise and Fall of a Momocracy</a></u></b>. I hope you love it all!lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-78150150570437526362016-01-04T09:02:00.000-06:002016-01-04T09:02:45.647-06:00I Can Predict Your Future.<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;">
I did one of those online word puzzles today. The ones where you glance over a grid of seemingly random letters and the first three words you see are supposedly the three things your next year will be filled with. I saw "Love", "Money" and "Fun". Hooray! I like all those things! I did a little seated cha-cha, celebrating my good luck.</div>
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Of course, it was completely silly. I don't mean to ruin the internet for you, but those online tests and quizzes predict absolutely nothing. (And, by the way, there is no Santa Claus or Two Week Miracle Diet. Also, if there actually is a non-surgical way to give a middle-aged lady the smooth and taut jawline of a twenty year old, well, I haven't found it. Call me if you have.) This test clearly stacked the deck in the participants favor; all the words were just the sort of things anyone would want to have in abundance. Believe you me, there were plenty of words they didn't include; words like, "weight-gain", "boredom", or "female-patterned-baldness." Also "cynicism" of which I always have, in plentiful supply. </div>
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These should be on our lists. It all should. The point isn't to be always happy--the point is to be alive. To be immersed and aware and vibrating with whatever bag you happen to be carrying at the moment. What would my teenage years have been without braying inconsolably into a pillow while listening to Chicago cassettes on my boom box? Pretty damn dull, that's what. Or college years without scrambling for cash? One of my favorite wintertime memories is of me and a friend, me too broke to afford an apartment with actual heat, laughing as we huddled in front of my open oven door, temperature set to 500, and eating an improvised "spanish rice" out of the only remaining foodstuffs in our collective cupboards; a cup of rice, a shriveled pepper and ketsup. Shut up. It was delicious.</div>
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Life is made up of all of it. And we're so, so much richer for it. At the very least, it's nice that the Universe keeps giving us all these opportunities to rise above ourselves. That's what I tell myself, anyways, when the shit hits the fan. Nope. I'm lying. Most of the time I go straight into my Camille-Weeping-on-her-Bed-of-Flowers routine, but later, <i>later</i>, I remember that I have the option of responding gracefully to life's challenges and resolve to do better next time. So I guess that's something.</div>
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With that in mind, allow me to predict for you, with all the guaranteed accuracy of the internet, what your next year will be made up of:</div>
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Happiness</div>
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love</div>
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loneliness</div>
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joy</div>
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disappointment</div>
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loss</div>
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political commercials </div>
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car repairs</div>
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success</div>
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dental work</div>
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uncertainty</div>
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distress</div>
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debt</div>
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stress</div>
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music</div>
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friendship</div>
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warm socks</div>
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blue skies</div>
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Its going to be a wonderful year and the only three words you really need to get through it are "humor", "faith" and "gratitude". Happy New Year.</div>
lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-35556925407682584782015-12-16T10:19:00.000-06:002015-12-16T10:19:46.908-06:00Going Bananas.<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;">
A dear friend recently gifted me a bracelet inscribed with the motto “she believed she could, so she did.” In the past, my pessimistically superstitious nature wouldn’t willingly don such an item, feeling as I did that to do so would be to court certain failure. But you know what? I’m feeling pretty darn sassy these days and have been wearing it with glee. So many things seems possible, easy even. Like this morning, I was hemming and hawing about heading out for this daily run of mine and I imagined seeing friends over the holiday and having then enquire how the running streak was going. What was I going to say? “I couldn’t do it?” Given that neither of my legs currently sport a cast, that’s a damn lie. I know I can, so out I went. </div>
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It's that sort of certainty that has me feeling so good these days—which, again, given my cynical nature, is darn surprising. I’d always heard the breathless promise that women feel great, fabulous, in their forties and fifties, and had pretty much chalked it up to an old wives tale. I know plenty of crabby women of every age. It just always seemed that the women who were awesome in middle age, were awesome all their lives and the women that spent the previous decades anxious and upset, well, they’re the ones ahead of me in line at SuperTarget, demanding to see the manager.</div>
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But now I’m old. Yup. It happened a couple of weeks ago last Wed. just like flipping a light switch. It was the afternoon I brought home half a ginger chai latte and put it in the refrigerator to save it for the next day. Boom. Old. Since then, I haven’t been able to read a single thing with out my reading glasses, I’ve purchased a woolen peacoat that comes to mid-thigh--fashion be damned-- because my butt gets uncomfortably cold in the winter weather, plus, today I found myself lingering over a grey cowl-neck sweater with the faintest shimmer in the fabric because I found it “snazzy.” The fact that I, Melanie Danke, am feeling happier and less stressed and more confident than I ever have should be good news to all women out there. </div>
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I’ve spent much of my life as that anxious woman, wringing my hands over hypothetically looming doom. I often reference this article a friend of mine read that hypothesized the reason our ancestors flourished over other primates wasn’t our big brain, but that we were more curious, more willing to throw caution to the wind. Let me tell you, up until recently I wasn’t a very curious monkey. I like to stick close to the bananas and my monkey buddies. I’d never even broken a bone until this year and, sure, I broke it smashing it tipsily into the coffee table in my very own living room, but given that I was training for an Ultra at the time, we’re going to call it a training injury.</div>
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But now my appetite has been whetted. The past few years I've done some things that are definitely outside my comfort zone. Couple that with the lesson that, maybe, whether I succeed or fail doesn't have a whole lot to do with my ultimate value as a person, and I find myself eagerly scanning the horizon for new, monkey adventures. I want to test things out, see how far these little monkey arms can swing.</div>
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In the spirit of newness, I’ve asked Hubby to help me to use the power saw. Not that I couldn’t do it, myself, you understand, I just want someone there to call 911. You know, just in case. I’ve decided that the rest of this decade is dedicated to competence. Competence and building all kinds of pallet projects off Pinterest. Becoming proficient with power tools is the first step for both. I don’t think it will be so hard. Besides, I believe I can. And so I’m gonna’. </div>
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lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-71706682450829651842015-12-02T09:59:00.000-06:002015-12-02T10:02:25.438-06:00Doing Time: 100 Days of Running<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;">
I recently read a book on marketing... okay, the first half of the first chapter because, hello, marketing? Snore. But it did bring up the concept of systems. Everybody needs a system--a set method and timetable for getting shit done. Sounds great, maybe. I mean, I love any excuse to make a list--YES! Lets organize this place! Let's organize my LIFE! Scrub the bathrooms on Wednesday, clean the floors on Thursday, lay out running clothes every night then go make lunches for the next day. That kind of stuff sounds wonderful. </div>
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But systems=consistency and I am not particularly awesome at that. Rope me into a daily schedule and in two days, three tops, I am whining like a fifth grader the first week of December, desperately counting the days until winter break. I have no idea how other grown-ups handle the tension between reliable schedules and freedom, but I have to believe it's a whole lot better than I do. Kirk, for example. Kirk never, not ever, has complained about going to his jobs. Not in twenty-some odd years. More than likely that is because he is a mature adult and not because he's trying to make me look bad. (But I wouldn't put it past him. I mean, honestly, not one dang time...? That's just crazy.)</div>
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This is lack of consistency is one of many character flaws I am forever trying to fix. Which is why I decided to follow up my ultra-marathon with a one hundred day running streak. One hundred days of easy running; no worries about time, pace or distance. It should be, I thought, a piece of cake. </div>
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It is horrible. It is ten, no, a thousand times worse than training for long distances. It's like running jail;</div>
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"How long are you in for?" </div>
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"One hundred days."</div>
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Horrible.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 32, no hope of parole.</td></tr>
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I resist and resist, dragging myself out the door, drawn by the singular desire to add one more check to the growing number on the calendar. (Actually, stars. Never underestimate the power of a gold star.) Then, suddenly, out of the clear blue, there's a morning when I feel I could run forever. No pattern to suss out, no possible reason why; on this day I want to run and on so many others, no. I do not. </div>
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But stop running and see what happens. In a month, maybe two, you are back to square one. Oh, that hurts. It is completely unfair that so many of the gains in our lives disappear unless we pursue them relentlessly. That's why I don't lift weights. There is nothing in that activity that I enjoy, other than not having huge, old lady bat wings, and to think that I would have to hoist those weights unceasingly to the end of my days to keep the results...? Forget it. I never liked wearing tank tops, anyways.</div>
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But not everything is solved that easily. It's hard to move ahead on your goals without disciplined forward motion. Too often my trajectory resembles a nap-deprived preschooler--"Ohh! A butterfly!...Squirrel!...Can I have a snack?"--just running willy nilly through the park. I have to believe I could accomplish a great deal more if I had a modicum of focus. Which is the reason for the daily run. It's a small way to practice consistency and discipline. My hope is that I will learn to overcome the mental resistance I'm experiencing. That I will evolve to having zen-like acceptance of all things, a serene, beaming, ecstatic vision of happiness no matter what. Which I admit places an awful lot of pressure on a simple morning jog. But maybe not too much on one hundred of them.</div>
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lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-79100586414051521452015-11-09T09:38:00.001-06:002015-11-09T09:38:47.315-06:00Plumbing the Depths.Let me tell you what's going on at my house right now:<br />
A seemingly routine call to a plumber led to a second appointment and the addition of two more plumbers. They showed up a bit ago in the giant truck. The "take no prisoners" truck. They have already pulled up the carpet of the family room and are busily breaking up the concrete floor while I cower, stress-eating chocolate bars in my bedroom.<br />
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And how is your Monday going?<br />
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Initially, I dealt very well with the news. "What are ya' gonna' do?" I told Hubby cheerfully, "It's not as if we<i> can't</i> fix this. We'll make it work somehow."<br />
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I was very, <i>very</i> proud of myself. You see, I have this tiny issue with money in that I don't actually have any. This has led, at different times, to all sorts of emotional theatrics on my part. The fact that I was able to respond with any sort of equilibrium to the initial diagnosis and quote I took as a sign of hard won maturity. Yay, me!<br />
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That was before the sledgehammers.<br />
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Now, whenever they come upstairs to give me an update, I laugh, "<i>HA</i>, hahaha!" It's a jovial laugh with only the slightest tinge of hysteria. They may be figuring the final cost of this in terms of feet of pipe, but I'm tracking it as amount of kitchen remodel lost. "Well, that would've bought a dishwasher and paid to have the floors re-sanded," I say. "Oops, there goes the countertop." The good news is, I guess if we had been truly desperate, we could have gone ahead and retooled the kitchen. The bad news is, I have a nagging suspicion that now we never will.<br />
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Did that sound dramatic? I'm feeling dramatic. I feel like day drinking and then lying face down on the couch and hyperventilating into the cushions. Maybe later--after the chocolate runs out. Right now I'm just going to lie very still and be grateful for credit cards and running water and old, persnickety cats and pillowcases from Grandma's house and warm slippers. I'm going to think thankful thoughts about Christmas Club savings accounts and long autumns, soy milk eggnog, and the fact that my children's love doesn't hinge on my ability to buy them expensive do-hickies. I'm going to contemplate how happiness is not dependent on circumstances and then, when I'm feeling quite like myself again, I'm going to venture downstairs to sneak a peek at the hole in the floor.<br />
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Give me ten minutes. Maybe an hour.<br />
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<br />lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-11835428108024303712015-10-23T10:30:00.002-05:002015-10-23T10:30:58.024-05:00Ultra Countdown.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is happening, people. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is my 50 mile ultra marathon. I'm seemingly pretty chill but that might due to being paralyzed by anxiety.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yesterday was a great day. Yesterday I got up, did yoga and had a shiatsu massage. I love massages and try very hard to get them once every other year or so. Sigh. If I had any of that mythological "extra" money laying around, I'd have a massage once a week....once a day, if I could swing it. I would live in a 500 square foot shack next to the lavish house I gifted to my masseuse, just so they would always be at my beck and call. There is nothing else that feels as inherently healing to me. I honestly believe massage could heal just about anything that wrong with me, be it my Raynaud's, my old-lady hip or my inherent cynicism. Obviously, it was quite a treat for me.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I was celebrating the end of my training. See, yesterday there was no stress. Yesterday wasn't a pack and prep and freak out day. Not a stare-wide-eyed-at-the-sky-yelling-"Stop RAINING!" day. Yesterday I didn't have to worry about oversleeping or falling or being cut from the race for being too damn slow. (A solid possibility.) I rarely feel as content as I did yesterday. Six months of training, for whatever errors and injuries and set-backs, seemed something to commemorate and so I did.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If I don't make the cut off time,<br />it's because of this hill...</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">or this one...</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Or because I fell down this one...</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I was thinking about all I gained over the past months. (Besides eight, stupid pounds I mean, which we are all going to agree is muscle, right?) And what popped into my mind was how often I had to practice silencing that bitchy, inner voice--the one that says "You can not do this thing." 50 miles is kind of a deal. I honestly cannot remember the last time I felt so breathless with the enormity of a task. Maybe in the last, anxious weeks of my first pregnancy. You think you know what's going to happen, because you've done your homework--read your little books, bought the gear, took the vitamins--but you also suspect that you are completely full of shit and utterly unprepared. Dead on to what I feel right now. So full of cautious optimism and simultaneous regret; I didn't prepare correctly, I'm not fit enough, look at me! I'm no athlete! All week I have been simply pushing those thoughts from my head with the same, cold-hearted precision with which I have culled other unwanted brain nuggets; historical dates, election news, and the pressing need to schedule preventative dental care. Whenever I start feeling negative I simply refuse to think about it.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is maybe the healthiest activity I have engaged in during the entire process--learning that I do not need to place any credence on critical thoughts that bubble up through my brain. My brain also periodically tosses out the lyrics to the Lutheran Girl Pioneer theme song we used to sing before meetings back in the 1970s, and I don't spend any time or energy on that, do I? (Actually, I do. It was kind of a catchy tune.)<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I feel in all the "think optimistic" advice floating around out there, this was the part that I missed. How to deal with negative thoughts? Literally don't think about it. Refuse. "Oh my god, I'm as big as a house today." Push that sucker right out of the brain the nanosecond it pops up. Treat it like the sudden apparition of your second grade teacher's maiden name and get on with your day. Discard it without emotion. Decide that self-criticism holds no interest to you. Boring. Like the milling process of Cream of Wheat or calculating compound interest--let it be a snoozefest with which you cannot be bothered. <br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How perfectly marveous! Obviously, it's going to take some practice. I don't always succeed, but it has helped me maintain a pretty positive outlook during training. Like on the day I was running around a local lake and being relentlessly passed by younger, fitter, faster runners. I have been known to not take to that situation well. In the past, there might have been a time, though you can't prove it, that I abandoned my run to sit pouting on a bench because I was so frustrated. This time I managed to dismiss all that negative comparisons. Instead, I focused on the beauty of the lake and the ease with which I ran. I wondered idly how many of these young runners would still be running two decades from now? How many would be looking to run longer and longer distances?<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"I am a goddamn inspiration." I said, and then laughed until I snorted. Yes, it made me look like a lunatic, but, luckily, I no longer worry about things like that.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-55733882226297525742015-09-25T12:52:00.002-05:002015-09-25T13:07:14.682-05:00A Desk of One's Own.<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I don't know why I thought writing a book and simultaneously training for an Ultra-marathon would be a good idea. Perhaps because my parents dropped me on my head at some point, I'm guessing. It definitely doesn't speak to a clear grasp of my personal reality or an understanding about simple time management. Plus, as it shakes out, they are both coming to fruition about the same time which means I am stuck in the middle of a month of anxiety about the outcomes and nothing good has yet happened. Well, nothing but this:</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That, my friends, is my very own desk. I haven't had a dedicated space for writing, <i>ever! </i>And yes, I know, the magazine clippings on the wall make it look like a fourteen-year-old's bedroom and, <i>yes</i>, that is a vision board (Don't judge me--if Oprah says a vision board will get me a kitchen remodel, then vision board it is.) and I admit, it is a little too close to the cat box to be entirely magical, but, sweet mother of Jesus, a space of my own?!! I am in heaven. By my calculations, I have about five hot seconds before the kids start stealing the pens out of the drawer and leaving their dirty socks on the keyboard, but I am going to enjoy every single moment before that happens. I may even get some writing done.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Maybe. Right now it is mostly the place I escape to, in order to eat peanut butter toast in relative silence. Because peanut butter toast fuels the writing process, obviously. I've had three pieces already this morning. (Someone better adjust her toast-to-writing ratio, or my next blog will be brought to you by The Biggest Loser.)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Another plus, though it might not seem to be so on first blush, is that my desk is very close to the laundry room. Here's why that is a good thing; Sometimes you need to pace. Or mull something over whilst engaging in some mindless, repetitive job. Or just burn off a little anxiety, because clearly you have used up every good, creative thought that could possibly be born out of your brain. Right now, for instance, I am 95% positive that I have used up all my ideas and that I am, at this moment, an empty shell of a woman. (Well, an empty shell filled with toast, like a piñata, but you get my point.)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I can mention it, I think, because I know other people feel exactly the same. We readily own all of our faults and errors, but the good things we do...? We feel like we hit the lottery. Rather than name our successes as the inevitable result of our hard work or expertise, we chalk it up to chance. You know, I have been writing since Junior High, and every single time someone comments that they like something I've written, I nearly fall to the ground, limp with relief. "Fooled them again!" I think, so grateful that it has magically escaped their notice that I am a total fraud who can barely string two words together. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And the craziest thing is how very common that belief is. This world is full of generous, brilliant, kind and creative people who not-so-secretly believe themselves to be dull, talentless, under-performing hacks. Who feel like they are clumsily plodding through their days, never aware of the graceful dance we see in their movements. Such a shame. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It reminds me of something I read and passed on to Miss Teen Wonder last year, when she was struggling with the transition to college; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Badass-Doubting-Greatness-ebook/dp/B00B3M3VWS" target="_blank">"Never compare your insides to other people's outsides." </a>Rare is the person who manages to come out of that comparison unscathed. Of course, have enough kids and the Law of Averages mandates you will find yourself living with just such a person. And I do. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One of our twin girls used to worry me half to death. She seemed so needy for attention that I worried she would never have a sense of herself, that her tendency to fling her little body into the spotlight was the result of low self-esteem. Oh, but I was mistaken. I see now that she was merely waiting for the rest of us to get on board with her obvious fabulousness--a trait that, as her mother, I find admirable and only rarely irritating.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She is so comfortable with herself and aware of her many gifts that I think she is honestly taken aback when she enters a room and there is no applause. At least, she wouldn't be surprised if there was. Furthermore, she cannot understand why everyone else does not feel the exact, same way. I often hear her lecturing her more anxious sister about recognizing your own talent and she is very generous in her assessments of others.<br />
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That child's insides match her outsides, no doubt about it. You can bet she wouldn't have waited 30-some odd years to set up a desk. What can I say? It takes some of us longer than others--and if we aren't exactly dancing yet, at least we've turned up the music.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Cha, cha, cha!</div>
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lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-24979071862713801202015-09-09T10:51:00.000-05:002015-09-09T10:51:07.266-05:00It's a Jungle Out There!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
I spent my afternoon off weeding my husband's gardens while he was at work. I think that means I no longer need to purchase him an anniversary present this year. I also drank his beer while I did it, which falls under the "spoils of war" category, I believe, or possibly, "while the cat's away..." </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For various reasons, the end of summer got away from him and his gardens ran amok, took on a sort of mad ferociousness. It looks like a radioactive experiment gone awry out there--any second a giant garden toad is going to thunder out of the depths and terrorize the neighborhood. We have kale plants that come up to my waist and as much as I love green smoothies, I can't imagine that I will ever find a use for it all.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You need to understand that this is a particularly laudable and unselfish action on my part. I hate gardening. No. More than that. I loathe it. I loathe the feel of dirt. I loathe the jolt when a particularly creepy crawly thing makes it presence known. I absolutely hate reaching my hand into a deeply overgrown area. (What's in there? Frog? Snake? Displaced raccoon bent on revenge?) I'm also not fond of sun, heat, sweating, or the feel of gardening gloves. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When I was younger, the slightest summertime infraction would get me sent out to the garden to weed. Horrors! We lived in the country, surrounded by pine forest which, in the summer, meant aggressive deer flies absolutely committed to sucking you dry, usually by burrowing through your hair to your scalp. I can still feel the crunch from pinching the life from them and then sliding them down my hair before tossing them to the ground. Gross. Plus, the dirt was really, really sandy and really, really full of slugs. I have to give my mom kudos, I’m not sure how she got anything to grow there—especially considering the incompetent and sullen help she had to work with. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I’d like to think that my technique has improved a little bit over the decades. That I remember to pull the weeds out from the roots and not just hack, resentfully, at the stuff visible above the ground.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Like I said, I'd like to<i> think</i> that. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Still it was better than nothing. Although, dangerous, nonetheless. See, there I was, weeding the rose bed when I started pulling out....carrots? </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"How odd," I thought. "These plants sure do migrate." But then I stopped and reconsidered. Because I am married to exactly the type of man who would plant roses and carrots together on the grounds that, "the sun is better over there." </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is why any foray into the garden is dangerous for me. Before long I am exasperatedly demanding that he stop planting the broccoli and the zinnias together and -BAM!- I'm back to having the garden be my job. Which would be terrible. My garden would be so much worse. And by that I mean it would be lawn. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So happy extra-early anniversary, darlin'. You keep planting your wacky Mad Hatter gardens if that's what makes you happy. I picked those carrots for you. And if you find that you are out of beer, it wasn't me. I think the giant garden toad drank them. </div>
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lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-48404557936801649672015-08-09T16:34:00.001-05:002015-08-09T16:34:33.212-05:00Good-bye Summer! No, really. Vamoose!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 11px; white-space: pre;"> </span>I just realized that school starts in a mere two weeks--can I get an "Amen?" I love my children, you understand, but that love is ever so much less complicated when they are somebody else's problem for eight hours a day. Yup. Less complicated and a whole lot less yell-y. During the school year my house is messy because we are so very busy, which is understandable. In summer my house is messy because my five offspring apparently believe my second job is to wait on them as a handmaiden does the Queen of England. Nightly I screech, "What happened to this house?!!!" only to have each child lazily survey the devastation and offer only the blandest look of indifference. One morning as I was heading out to actual, gainful employment, I asked Little Man to complete a job that would have taken five minutes, ten minutes, tops. In complete seriousness he threw down his toast and exclaimed, "Great! My whole day, ruined!"</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is what I am working with, people. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I could probably handle it all more gracefully, if I weren't already handicapped by the season. This year's admirably cooler temperatures notwithstanding, summer remains my least favorite time of year. In the first place, I am ill-suited for any of the frolicking summer-time activities others seem to enjoy so much. I have no interest in swimming, or tanning or gardening. Organized sports bore me to the point of violence. And biking? We all know <a href="http://plumbtuckeredout.blogspot.com/2015/07/take-my-bike-please.html" target="_blank">how I feel about biking</a>. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This year, during a trip up north, my sister took me and my kids inner-tubing for the first time. A genius move, I thought. Tubing would seem to side step any normal pitfalls of summertime activities: no coordinated effort required, no rules to follow, sanctioned alcoholic libations as evidenced by the offer of a special inner-tube for your beverage cooler...You would have thought I would be a natural. Unfortunately, I seem to lack even the barest coordination required for lying passively in an inflated circle of plastic. Thus "tubing down lazy river" sometimes looked an awful lot like "careening violently into half-submerged and spider infested tree branch" and later like, "nursing a sunburn on par with an industrial accident." God bless my sister for her patience. She is a competent, vigorous sort and no doubt wonders how she ended up having a pale and tubercular Victorian shut-in as a sister. If we were literary characters, she would be Heidi, all apple-cheeked and glowing good health and I would be Clara, clutching my afghan as I recline, wanly, on the divan. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If it can even be deemed possible, my eldest daughter is even worst than I -- which brings me to another reason summer needs to end. Miss Teen Wonder is home from college, and I swear to God, no parent should ever have to live with their child at this age. At least, not mine. She is currently sleeping in the basement and my whole and entire focus on days she does not work is to get her to come up to surface level. I'm not certain if I'm raising a daughter or a mole. When I do manage to drag her up into the the sunlight, she stumbles around like a hungover starlet at the <a href="http://la.curbed.com/archives/2013/06/a_totally_incomplete_history_of_trouble_at_the_chateau_marmont_1.php" target="_blank">Chateau Marmont</a>, demanding someone fetch her sunglasses and a sparkling water. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I feel responsible, like maybe my own, oft repeated distain for summer has seeped into her brain and squashed any healthy impulse she might have to scamper off and enjoy the sun-soaked weather. At this point it's probably too late for her. She's spent too many years watching her mother spend entire summer afternoons downstairs, in the dark, stretched out directly under the air conditioning vent watching <a href="http://mashable.com/2015/07/16/x-files-new-footage/" target="_blank">The X-Files</a> re-runs. "Do as I say, not as I do" is a sketchy argument at best and my expression of bliss and total contentment on these stolen afternoons pretty much destroyed any bit of credibility I might have had on subjects related to fresh air and sunshine. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Clearly, if I am going to save the rest of the kids from a similar fate, I have to be an example of someone who, ugh, enjoys summer. I think I'm going to give tubing another try; it’s clearly my best chance for developing some sort of outdoor interest. Next time I'm going to accept the offer of a beverage tube, though. It'll give me something to do while I wait to be freed from the tree branch.</div>
lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-63043516613889748092015-07-23T19:36:00.000-05:002015-07-23T19:36:17.571-05:00Take My Bike, Please!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One of my very least favorite activities is biking. Which is weird. You’d think it would be right in my <i>wheel</i>house (ha!)— Environmentally friendly, the fresh air, the kick-ass feeling of arriving at your destination under your own power…and also? Cute baskets! They are like purses, <i>for</i> <i>your bike</i>! And let’s not forget, despite being shrouded in snow twenty-seven months of the year, Minneapolis is the <a href="https://www.redfin.com/blog/2015/05/most-bikeable-cities.html#.VbFSllw-CV4" target="_blank">number one biking city in</a> America. (Suck it, Portland!) We have absolutely lovely trails and paths dedicated to bikers, one of which runs from the end of my street directly to my place of employment. So I keep trying to like it. But I don't. I hate it. I'm the person who is forever two-seconds away from running into a parked car because I'm cranked around in my seat, checking the back wheel which I'm certain is flat because -Sweet mother of God!- why is this <b>so hard?!!</b> I tell you what, last Sunday I ran 12 miles and I would rather do that any day of the week than bike the thirty minutes to work. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Take this morning, for example; it was a coolish summer day. Not too hot, not too windy, perfect for biking. I packed up my work clothes and my lunch and my coffee in a backpack and set off. I got all of ten feet before I realize that, yes, the back tire was in fact flat. So I threw up the kickstand, put my backpack in the basket and went to get a bike pump. Of course my hateful bike tipped over, dislodging the lid on my coffee cup and flooding the bag with all that sweet, sweet coffee. This necessitated a panicked repacking of all my work necessities. I pumped up the tire and set off. On the way a large-ish bump sent my mason-jar-packed lunch flying. Smash! My beautiful summer salad all over the street. At this point I have no coffee, no lunch and it's too damn late to go back and get the car. Also, my bike’s particular geometry is such that it's prone to picking up large rocks, sticks, and branches. Today it picked up a rock and shot it so forcibly out the chain guard that the rim was dented in the exact correct position so that every time I rotated the pedal it hit the guard and sounded exactly like a bell gong. Every. Single. Time. That wasn't annoying <i>at all</i>.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I arrived at work hot, sweating profusely, and with a caffeine headache hovering around my right eye. I pounded the counter with my fist. "Why do I continue to do this to myself?!” I demanded of my coworkers who looked at me as if I had blown a gasket. And they were right. I spent the entire ride home sullenly glaring at the other bikers and preparing this list:</div>
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<b>Reasons why Biking is the worst.</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1) <span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">The sitting.</span> As a runner I feel a deep distrust of any exercise that happens in a chair. I know, I know…that sounds so insufferably superior, especially since a casual ride to work makes me feel like my heart might explode. (The whole damn ride must be uphill, there is no other explanation.) So let me just amend it to say that if I <i>was</i> going to exercise sitting down, it wouldn’t be on a seat engineered to replicate the most painful wedgie I ever experienced. Get with the program, bike seat scientists!</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2) <span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">The gear.</span> I am absolutely gobsmacked every time I putter down the bike path on my creaky old bike and see people going no faster than I in $80 jerseys and aerodynamic helmets. Really? <i>REALLY?!</i> Why do 8 out of 10 amateur bikers feel the need to outfit themselves as if they are about to join the Tour De France? (This is completely different from all my running paraphernalia. I NEED all that stuff. Need it, I say!)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>3) <span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">People who shout "On your left!”</span> As they pass. This is not a courtesy. This is the surest way to send me careening into the retaining wall at the side of the bike path. I get it, okay? You’re faster than me. <i>Your grandmother’s </i>faster than me. That kid on the Big wheel? Faster. Now shut up and let me hate this ride in peace. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>4) <span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">Biking hand signals</span>. Sir. That thing you are doing with your arm? I have no idea what that is.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>5) <span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">Bikers Who do not follow the rules of the road.</span> Dude. When you blew past me, through the red light, you scared me half to death and I'm <i>on a bike</i>. When you shoot past me and I'm in the car? Well, it makes me want to call your mother. You are biking with the same laissez-faire attitude toward your safety as my youngest son and the last time I caught him biking like that, I grounded him for a week. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>6) <span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">And take off your headphones while you’re at it!</span> You are going to get yourself killed, I swear to god. </div>
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7) <span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">Those god-awful helmets</span>. Dear lord, the ugliest hats I ever saw. Whenever my kids (rightfully) call me a hypocrite for insisting that they wear helmets while I have never even owned one, I tell them that when they are grown-up they can make all the foolish decisions they want. Besides, if they were really as concerned with my safety as I am with my hair, they would have already bought me <span style="color: #cc0000;"><a href="https://youtu.be/CMAhptqk-4Q" target="_blank">this</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Despite the grumpiness virtually dripping off this post, I'm going to continue biking. It's good for me, dang it, it lowers my environmental footprint and there is no reason for me to be so unreasonably crabby about the whole thing. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Eventually I'm going to have to warm to it... or at the very least, I couldn't like it any less, so what do I have to lose?</span></span>lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-73819886211365043352015-04-16T11:59:00.000-05:002015-04-16T12:30:33.680-05:00The Sunshine Rules<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
It's come to my attention, embarrassingly late in the game, that I am living with a real-life spiritual master. Forget running off to India, to study, cross-legged, at the feet of a maddeningly serene yogi. No need to attend a silent retreat run by a wise and beatific elderly nun. Here, in my home, I have discovered a soul who seems to have unlocked the secrets to eternal happiness and oddly enough, this soul resides in the body of a thirteen year old girl. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It must be the inner turmoil brought on by the past few years that finally opened my eyes to what was right in front of me. Closing my business, ushering Miss Teen Wonder off to college, losing my much loved Grandmother, the looming realization that -to paraphrase Meg Ryan- I'm going to be fifty... <i>someday</i>; all these have left me, wandering in an internal funk, constantly asking the question, "What the hell am I doing with my life anyway?" And there, dancing, most often literally, around the periphery was my daughter. Let's call her "Sunshine." </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sunshine is half of the amazing duo-- the twin girls-- in the middle of our family. She is tiny, but sturdy, with a laugh that seems far too big for the bitty body she inhabits. She has a thousand watt smile and hair as big as her heart. She is up for anything, always. When I grow up, I want to be just like her.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I'm not sure how she has managed to amass such an affinity for happiness and contentment at such a young age. She is, as I mentioned, a twin. Perhaps rather than splitting the DNA down the middle, each girl received total possession of a few gifts. Her sister is fiercely competitive (a trait Sunshine has not a trace of) and if she stopped rolling her eyes at me for even a second, I suspect the resulting lack of equilibrium would cause her head to wobble right off the stalk, so perhaps there is something to this theory. Or maybe it is because her mind is unencumbered with tedious minutia... for example, the practical application of volume. That, <i>perhaps</i>, when one is trying to put a sizable amount of left-over soup into the refrigerator, one <i>might</i> choose to use, say, a large container, rather than roughly twenty-seven half-pint mason jars. When I open the refrigerator doors and spy a sea of tiny glass bottles, all containing the same, exact substance I feel as if my brain might explode. It doesn't bother Sunshine one whit. She'll cheerfully rummage through the lot, looking for the mustard or the last bit of salami, happy as a clam. I don't think she has an idea that there is any other way to be in the world. And that is my new directive as her mother-- to make sure that she never does. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My other goal is to study her like a lab rat. To learn what she so effortlessly knows. Here is what I've sussed out so far: </div>
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<b>The Sunshine Rules</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1) Happiness isn't (or shouldn't be) dependent on your circumstances. The fact that you are awake and breathing is cause enough to break into song. Sunshine wakes up happy. Is she headed to school? To run errands with her dad? Spending the day cleaning her room? It's all good. Happiness for me is much more conditional. The answers to the questions "What do I have to do today?" "Do these jeans still fit?" or "Are we out of coffee?" affect me far more than they should. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2) Music is magic. Sunshine is never NOT singing, hence she moves through the house, not with the determined head-down, goose-stepping march of her mother (I've got things to DO, people!) but with a perpetual shimmy. If you are accompanied by your own soundtrack every waking moment is a dance party. Plenty of spiritual traditions give credence to the uplifting power of certain audio vibrations-- I just didn't imagine that the Demi Lovato songbook was, in fact, a hymnal of sorts. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>3) Be a cheerleader. Now this is something Sunshine and her sister share. They are unflaggingly, unceasingly, <i>unerringly</i> supportive. They are never --listen to me, now-- never, <i>not ever</i>, jealous. If something good happens to the folks around them, they are as happy as if it was happening to themselves. Check out Sunshine's Facebook page. If you post any good news, any at all, "My baby just turned one!" or "Loved this movie!" or "Delicious lunch with friends." Sunshine will not just "like" your post, you are getting a string of emojis, the likes of which you have never before seen. Who doesn't feel on top of the world when she responds to your new profile pic with, "You are GORGEOUS!!!!!! (kissy face, kissy face, heart, heart, winking cat, heart, high five, cat high five, thumbs up)" It is my favorite thing in the world, and one I have already started using, my own self. The fact that you do not have such enthusiastic cheerleaders in your life, well, I just feel plain sorry for you. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I don't know if any of this is helpful to you, but I feel as if my own life gets dramatically better when I remember to follow The Sunshine Rules. I've read literally hundreds of books dedicated to unlocking the secret of a happy and contented life and none of them have been as effective as Sunshine's effortless wisdom; Be happy where you are, sing a little song and encourage the people around you. Enlightenment in three, easy steps. Use them if you'd like-- we'll be here, cheering you on.<br />
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lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-74694421712382598792015-03-12T12:31:00.001-05:002015-03-12T12:31:25.840-05:00SUV:1 Hubby:0<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
Let me start this off by saying, first of all, that Hubby is fine. However, last night I was greeted at the door by several wide-eyed children, gesturing silently, but furiously, at their father. Apparently, they had not quite recovered from the sight of him being escorted out of a squad car, because he had been struck by a SUV while riding his bike after work and needed assistance to get home. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He, despite being battered and unable to bear any sort of weight on his wrist, is adamant that he is a-okay. He didn't even take today off work. Idiot. I'd be off for a week, reclining dramatically on the couch, you know, next to the front window where the light is most flattering. "No, no.... don't worry about me," I'd be saying, before requesting that, if it wasn't too much trouble, could someone pretty please bring home some chocolate peanut butter ice cream and also, be a dear and fetch me a blanket before you go. And this month's issue of Vogue, please and thank you. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Actually, that's a lie, since I never would have been hit at all. This whole episode underscores how differently Hubby and I maneuver through the world. Hubby was 100% in the right with this accident. He was hit where our local bike boulevard crosses a busy street. He was in the crosswalk, you know, the one with the overhead flashing lights and a sign that says "<b>State Law: Yield to Pedestrians and Cyclists.</b>" Needless to say, the driver did not. Yield, that is. Hubby was stuck hard enough to make me rethink my devil-may-care, no helmet wearing ways. (I KNOW, okay? But I'm nerdy enough on my own, thank you, and many days this hair is all I have going for me.) But herein lies the difference: Hubby is not angry he was hit, exactly, but he is FURIOUS that his right-of-way was not respected. I would never have entered the crosswalk in the first place. Not if there was a car within half a mile of the thing. Assume that the car will stop for a bike? Of it's own volition? No, WAY, buddy. I'm not putting one pedal in that crosswalk. Not if I had the right-of-way and was pulling a cart of air raid sirens and floodlights. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is super typical of us. Hubby moves through the world in an unencumbered manner. He pretty much assumes things are going to unfold as they should, which allows him a cheerful confidence about the whole thing. He is absolutely flabbergasted if they do not. I, on the other hand, am much more <i>vigilant</i> about the whole thing. It's not that I think things WILL go wrong, I just know that they might. Like, we're both enjoying the movie, but one of us has made damn sure she knows where the emergency exits are. It requires a certain amount of energy, yes, and perhaps speaks to a lack of trust in the Universe in general, but then again, only one of us got hit by a car. So there's that. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Luckily, this isn’t the kind of difference that causes any sort of rift between us. I tend not to notice it, except for those times when I have to ask him to please stop trying to murder our children each time we cross the major street a few blocks over. (Again with the right-of-way! Cars do not necessarily stop for pedestrians! Not even though it’s, technically, the law. Please cease filling the children’s heads with such nonsense!) On the contrary, I suspect that we are good for each other. Sometimes, I just need a break from formulating contingency plans and “what ifs.” At those times, it’s nice to decide to relax a bit and trust that, well, if Hubby isn’t worried about it, neither am I. For my part, I like to think that I’ve saved his life on several occasions. My staunch refusal to budge from the curb when within eyeshot of a motor vehicle may annoy the crap out of the man, but he’s never been run down on <i>my </i>watch!</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the end, I’m so dang happy to be able to write that the only casualty last night was his bike. He’ll be back riding to work as soon as we get a replacement and his wrist heals. Please watch out for him while you're driving. He <i>does</i> have the right-of-way, you know.</div>
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lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-9897494773347114252015-01-27T14:59:00.000-06:002015-01-27T14:59:32.808-06:00Don't Argue with the Fortune Cookie.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I'm suffering a complete crisis of confidence today. I'm wrestling with the type of writer's block that doesn't just make writing difficult, it makes you question the justification for your very existence. An hour and a half in and I was pretty much beating my head on the table because nothing I wrote was any good. (Bam!) In fact, nothing I have ever written has been any good. (Bam!) I have absolutely nothing interesting or important to say, and NEVER HAVE!! (Bam! BAM!)<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I do not know how other folks deal with these feelings. I tried a tactic that has worked for me in the past; Chinese food and diet coke. Indulgent and, at the very least, I thought I could count on the MSG/artificial sweetener double whammy to calm me down, hopefully to the point of requiring a nap. But, nope. Sometimes the anxiety is just too much to overcome. At least the caffeine allowed me to focus....<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>...Focus on my stupid husband who's clearly to blame for my current, emotional distress. God! If it weren't for him and his constant, stupid encouragement I wouldn't even be attempting to write a book! He's all, "You're so great, you need to do this." and "I think you shouldn't work too much, because it's much more important that you have the time to write." It is a fucking NIGHTMARE, I tell you what!<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Also, he has this crazy idea that since I am unsuited for most work (Seriously, he's right. I've been known to throw a temper tantrum just upon hearing the words "team building exercise." It's kind of limited my career options.) he believes that writing, at home, alone, in my pajamas is basically the only way I will cheerfully embrace the work week. An interesting hypothesis, but let me ask you; DO I SOUND IN ANY WAY CHEERFUL, AT THIS MOMENT?<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You know what would make me cheerful? Giving up the whole idea and dancing around the house to Matt and Kim while eating the entire hunk of leftover chocolate cake from the kitchen. Sounds like heaven, in fact. What is the plan here, anyways? Write the stupid thing and put it out there, where only one of two outcomes is possible;<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1) people read it which would be horrible, as everyone could see the utter folly of my writing, or;<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2) nobody reads it. Also horrible.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then, just as I worked myself up to a fever pitch and was ready to hit "delete" and make a break for freedom, I cracked open my fortune cookie and, no lie, this is today's fortune;<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Your life will be prosperous if you use your creativity."<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sigh.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Back to the salt mines....lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-60362098506109266482015-01-12T14:03:00.001-06:002015-01-12T14:03:32.794-06:00Sentimental Horsetwaddle.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With a decided danger of sounding like Garfield, the cartoon cat, Mondays, ugh. Am I right? Normally, I don't raise too much of a kick about them, as my workweek is a bit skewed and Monday, to me, is actually my second day off. <i>Tuesdays</i>, though....<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Today, however, is rough. I am exhausted. Let me give you a little tip; if you happen to stumble upon a cache of home movies at 11:00 at night on a Sunday, do NOT, for the love of God, put one in the computer. Not even if they aren't labeled terribly clearly and you just want "a quick peek", you know, for organizational purposes. They will inevitably be of your children at a wee, heart-squeezing age and you will be compelled to watch them all until you are weeping into the hem of your bathrobe and bleating "Sunrise, sunset" into the darkness. You will toss in your bed, filled with a determination to clutch them to your maternal bosom at first light, showering them with kisses and assurances that they are the most precious, special lights on the whole planet, before falling into a fitful sleep....<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>....only to wake the next morning to their abrupt demands for a clean sweatshirt! A check for the field trip! and criticisms of the hot breakfast you have uncharacteristically provided. Before long you will dash to your bedroom, lean your back against the door and wonder aloud how long, exactly, until these monsters leave for school?!!<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is the most perplexing and exhausting mystery of my adult life. Nothing else requires as much energy as navigating this pull toward and away from the joy and demands of parenthood. The children on those videos? Oh, my heart! They are perfect. I sincerely hope heaven is just one, big squishy couch where we can flop, piggy pile style and watch <u>Bear in the Big Blue House</u> and <u>The Muppet Show</u> for all eternity. I can not imagine anything better. The longing for those past days makes me a tad weepy, I will not lie. So why, then, do I forget, seemingly every blessed moment, that these children, the ones RIGHT HERE, are the very same people? Still as precious. Still shining as bright. Still filled with all the potential and love that I remember beaming out of their faces when they were oh, so little?<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Of course, I didn't know it then, either, did I? Or, I did, but I would forget, same as now. How many grocery store temper tantrums, sleepless nights, and defiant battle-of-wills did it take in any given day to inoculate me against their charms? What a dope I am. Boy, are we lucky to have each other, no matter how many clean sweatshirts I have to schlep down to the laundry room to get. In cases like this, I always think of a time a few years back. We were in Ethiopia, riding through the countryside and my oldest son turned to me and said;<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Mom. I'm doing it all wrong. We're just sitting here and I should be like this; AAAAAAAH! (flails arms overhead) AFRICA! AAAAAAAAH! (flails) AFRICA!!!!!"<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No, kid. <i>I'M</i> doing it all wrong. Every damn day I should be "AAAAAH! My freaking fabulous, fortunate life!!!!!" But for whatever reason, we humans don't seem to be wired that way. Probably there is a good reason. If we allowed ourselves to be overcome with the tender fragility and miraculousness of our lives we probably couldn't get on much with our days. Undoubtedly bills would not get paid. Very possibly commerce would grind to a halt. There is a chance our hearts would flat-out explode. I guess the best we can hope for are these periodic moments of lucidness, when we are filled both with an overpowering love and a profound sense of loss, reminding us, just for a second, that amidst the toast crumbs and lost mittens and bank statements, something fairly wonderful is going on.<br />
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<br />lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-73224626671811177332014-12-15T10:27:00.000-06:002014-12-15T10:27:15.708-06:00All Work and No Running Makes Lanie a Crabby Girl.I have been having a terrible time running for the past month. For the first time ever, I am dealing with a real injury and it is not going well.<br />
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At first I thought I had an annoying and reoccurring cramp in my calf. I couldn't get past a mile without having to turn and limp home. Which didn't stop me from attempting to get on with the running, already! Every couple of days I'd head out, make it as far as the parkway and be forced to turn back, swearing mightily the whole time. This went on long enough to become embarrassing, as I proved myself to be more than a little slow on the uptake. When I'm feeling generous, I remind myself that I had no previous experience ever with a sports injury. I spent my entire young life attempting to get OUT of physical activity, thank you very much. And besides, I <i>was</i> employing my entire knowledge of rehabilitation, which was limited to the phrase I'd heard so often in the movies-- "Walk it off."<br />
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Oddly, this didn't seem to help at all.<br />
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"But I'm being so good," I argued, "so reasonable. So conscientious."<br />
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What I meant was that I had swapped my high impact running for stair climbing and lower body strength training and extensive stretching. Eventually, a friend who has a long history of athletics clued me in that I didn't have a cramp, I probably had a torn calf muscle.<br />
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Hey! Guess what is terrible for a torn calf muscle! Stair climbing and lower body strength training and extensive stretching, of course.<br />
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The whole thing is making me so darn crabby. Hubby thinks I should just simmer down. To him this is just a natural and inevitable occurrence. Between you and me, if he tells me one more time that this is normal for "people our age" I am going to smack him with my running shoe.<br />
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"I am not bound by everybody else's poor genetics!" I holler back, aware as I say it that it sounds ludicrously naive, but aware too, that on a deep level I believe it. I still feel largely invincible, as if I am going to sail through the second half of my life with exactly the same vigor and enthusiasm and glowing good health as the first. There is a chance that, with this attitude, the next several decades are going to be a string of disappointments, but for now I refuse to accept it.<br />
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And its all starting with this stupid calf muscle. Grrrr. Apparently I can use the elliptical and the rowing machine. Which is just ducky. For fun, guess the two machines at the gym that I pretty much hate. Yup. The elliptical and the rowing machine. I also hate upper body weight training which I am, of course, free to do.<br />
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Underscoring the whole experience is the fact that Kirk and I are supposed to run a 10k on New Year's Day. The way it looks now, I won't be running much at all until then. I can only imagine that it's going to go brilliantly, but someone better alert those Alpine rescue St. Bernards, just in case. You know, the ones with those wooden kegs of brandy around their necks? Tell them to make mine a double. I'm going to need it.<br />
<br />lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-76937841439414812852014-11-23T17:58:00.000-06:002014-11-23T18:00:20.490-06:00Tony Bennett Saves the Day!Okay, I confess. I was just listening to Christmas carols in the car. I know. I KNOW, okay? It's too early. But you see, I am coming off of this hormonally induced and barely repressed 48 hours of rage. The kind where, from the outside, I look pretty much normal, but inside I am all bubbling anger, just waiting for someone to pop that champagne cork of doom. And when they do....? Imagine a soda can in a paint mixer-- Ka-BOOM! A veritable geyser of obscenities and spittle.<br />
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So I am sitting in my car, minding my own business, which mostly involves taking deep, supposedly calming breaths and repeating an appropriate mantra ("homicide leads to prison....homicide leads to prison...") while waiting in line at the car wash. Twenty five minutes later ("homicide leads to prison...") the door finally rises. Hurrah! My turn at last! Except the woman ahead of me is one of those who parks themselves under the air dryer, hoping to extract every last droplet of water from the surface of their vehicle.<br />
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Folks. I appreciate that this maybe has some merit in the dead of winter-- you don't want to take the chance of your door or keyhole freezing shut. (Plenty of pieholes I'd like to see frozen shut, though. Sorry. I'm still so very crabby.) but it was 44 degrees. Pardon me for saying so, but come the fuck <i>on</i>! Just move the crappy Corolla already. I swear to god, if I had a smaller deductible on my car insurance, I would just plow through the car wash at forty miles an hour and push them out, Mad Max style.<br />
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Ka-boom.<br />
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Anyhoo, when I gave an exasperated yell and smacked my head in frustration against the steering wheel, I managed to change channels on my radio. So it wasn't like I went<i> looking</i> for Christmas music. Tony Bennett randomly started crooning "Silver Bells" from the stereo and I just.... left it.<br />
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I react to Christmas carols much like Pavlov's dogs responded to bells. Deep, deep in the core of my brain, the opening strains of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" mean something good is going to happen. (Especially if it's the Muppets doing the singing.) I have forty-five years of associating "Feliz Navidad" with good food, yummy smells, fun times with family and presents. Not much can interfere with that wiring. I've been working on those neuro-pathways since I was a baby. Forget deep breathing, four bars of "Oh Holy Night" and I can feel the stress leaking out my toes.<br />
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How nice to find out that this is true, even when life hands you some significant changes. We're missing some much loved family members this year, and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to dig up much holiday spirit. But that was before Tony Bennett tapped into the well of conditioned responses in my brain. If we're lucky, life is long and we have so many, many memories to draw upon. We never celebrate just one Christmas. We are marking and remembering and living the expression of all of them--The one when Grandma and Grandpa gave me a pair of pearl earrings. All the years Mom let us eat the entire, foot-long Santa Claus cookie after dinner and I was so full I had to lie on the floor to finish it. The first year with a baby. The year Kirk and his dad set the turkey on fire. The first year without Grandpa. Without Grandma.<br />
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Every year adds another memory to the day, another ornament to the tree. This is the first year Miss Teen Wonder must travel home for the holidays, as a college student and arguably an adult. Her siblings will follow, one after the other. With any luck, someday there will be grandbabies. (Do you hear me, children? LOTS of grandbabies.) Each holiday will be different than the last, with a rotating cast of loves gained and lost, different circumstances, different trees....<br />
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And I will celebrate them all. Because even though I am with my almost-grown children this year, they magically remain every age they ever were. They are still the same footie-pajama wearing children, struggling against sleep, straining to hear footsteps on the roof. And more miraculously, so am I...Even if I seem to be nothing more remarkable than a middle-aged woman singing along to the radio in a car wash.<br />
<br />lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-53773878329789788842014-10-14T17:23:00.000-05:002014-10-14T17:23:06.238-05:00Happy Anniversary from a Lucky Lady.As of today, I have been married 19 years. It seems like a deal. Especially if you add the word "happily" in there, which is after all, the goal, right? "I have been happily married for 19 years." Wow.<br />
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I have never once, in all honestly, regretted it. No buyer's remorse. That's amaaaaazing. I've regretted every decision I've ever made. I regret spending money on shoes and sweaters that I never wear. I regret bringing home the one cat that was impervious to all attempts at litter box training. I regret not taking shop class in high school, despite my dad's vehement attempts to make me, because, oh my god, the money I could have saved on this slangy shanty of a house. I don't even want to talk about the white carpeting.<br />
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But marrying Kirk....? Best decision ever.<br />
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I hope he feels same, though there is daily evidence that he could have, in fact, done better. I've grown crankier and ever chubbier with the years, which he interprets as "funnier" and "more voluptuous." A more responsible spouse would have him checked for dementia, but I know when I've got it good.<br />
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It's lucky for me that he is so attracted to my inner beauty, because, let's face it, the outer beauty is fading fast. Which I am fine with...mostly. I staunchly hold the belief that women are allowed to get old, goddammit. If you have any sort of problem with grey hair, saggy bellies or crows feet, just keep it to yourself or I will be forced to lecture you mightily on the inherent value of women while shaking my fist in the air.<br />
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Metaphorically, I mean. I gave up raising my arms above my head on my last birthday. Crows feet are one thing, but my "angel wings" (as we call the general underarm area) aren't anything I feel like inflicting upon the unsuspecting. I will not even wave hello anymore. If I see you across a crowded room, you are getting a jaunty sailor salute or maybe two thumbs up, elbows held firmly at my side. Which is just the kind of thing Kirk doesn't worry about at all, thank God.<br />
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So here's to the next 19. If I am extraordinarily lucky, we will be just as contented then, as we are now. And if we are, I'm throwing one heck of a party. You're all invited-- just stop by and say, "Hello."<br />
<br />
SAY it to my face, I mean. Because it's my party and I won't be waving back to anyone.<br />
<br />lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-28872257750289338982014-09-25T15:07:00.000-05:002014-09-25T15:07:00.500-05:00Luckily, I have a PhD in Awesome.Because I am officially having a mid-life crisis I went on-line to print out a copy of my college transcripts in an attempt to cobble some sort of workable degree out of that mess. Given the terrible and unrelenting march of time, I was unable to access them easily and had to call University Tech Support for backup.<br />
<br />
"Well, let's just see what the problem is," said a nice man on the other side of the phone who, thankfully did not sound twelve-years-old, or whatever age college students are nowadays, "What was your computer password when you were a student?"<br />
<br />
I snorted into the phone, quickly recovered and informed him that when I went to college I, in fact, brought along an electric typewriter so....computer password? Not so much.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, we got it all smoothed out and with my new password was able to print off page after page of my collegiate history.<br />
<br />
"Holy smokes," Hubby said disbelievingly, "I always assumed that you were joking when you talked about how many credits you had!"<br />
<br />
Here's the thing, I was in college on and off for eight years. I was excellent at college. <i>Excellent</i>. What I was terrible at was graduating.<br />
<br />
"You took Chorus for three terms? Technical Theater? Ballroom dance?! PIANO?!"<br />
<br />
"They were electives!" I huffed, defending myself.<br />
<br />
"Should we count up your electives?"<br />
<br />
I put my head on the table. "No."<br />
<br />
So, electives I got. What I don't have is any math or science. Utilizing my blinding charm, I managed to bluff my way into upper-level Women's Studies and Lit classes (which are NOT required for graduation) despite having never taken the pre-requisites (which totally are.) I took enough art classes to fulfill the requirements for a Studio Arts degree and then withdrew from my senior project THREE TIMES. Out of a total of 200+ credits, I managed a two year Sign Language Interpreting degree and I don't even DO that, anymore.<br />
<br />
I paid those student loans off for YEARS. I think we finally got rid of them when we refinanced the house, so in reality, I'm <i>still</i> paying them off...dumb....dumb...dumb....<br />
<br />
My only solace is that this is not a mistake Miss Teen Wonder will be able to make. If you tried to do some bone-headed move like that now, you would never get away with it. Right around your third year, when you logged into the registration website and chose <u>Glass-blowing</u>, <u>The History of Cinema</u> and <u>Personalities in Pop Culture</u> (all classes I would have taken, if given the chance) alarms would go off, metal security doors would automatically lock and you would NOT be allowed to leave the room until you signed up for your upper level Statistics and Science with a Lab.<br />
<br />
I am so depressed.<br />
<br />
I was hoping that I had three, maybe four classes left to fill in the gaps and I could skip out, degree in hand. Now it's looking like I'd have two or more solid years of full time classes to take-- the terrible, boring classes I always avoided. Karma is just kicking my butt, here.<br />
<br />
On the upside, my electives are finished.<br />
<br />
Hubby doesn't think I should do this, anyways. He thinks I should just "be" a writer. You know, like you do. (Waves hand breezily.)<br />
<br />
He is completely ignoring the fact that I already have an ideal system in place for my writing: I write things, read them to Hubby and then toss them into a pile at the side of my bed. Perfect. Maybe I'll be that like that woman who, after she died, they <a href="http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">found thousands of brilliant photographs</span></a> in her apartment. Or, more likely, my kids will just scoop the papers up and drop them, unread, into a dumpster.<br />
<br />
Sounds perfectly fine to me. Frankly, it's much easier to face rejection when you're deceased. And even better, you NEVER have to take Intro to Biology...with or without a lab.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-41727810939195449212014-08-25T09:17:00.000-05:002014-08-25T09:17:20.017-05:00A letter to my daughter as she packs for college.<br />
<blockquote style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;" type="cite">
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<div class="" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 0.825em;">
Little girl, I have good news and bad news.</div>
<div class="" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 0.825em;">
Bad news: I will never do your laundry again. Not even if you move back home between semesters. Not even if you break both your arms. Now that you are an adult it is time you knew, there is no laundry fairy. It is me. It has always been me and you need to understand that beneath this 44-year-old chest beats the heart of a young person who hates doing laundry just as much as you do, now.</div>
<div class="" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 0.825em;">
And speaking of clothes, I will also not be purchasing underwear for you. Never again since you started buying those fantastical, lacy little bits of nothing which would give your dad a heart attack if he ever did laundry. Which he does not. That's good news for you, but not so great for me.</div>
<div class="" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 0.825em;">
On a brighter note, I will try, oh so very hard, to keep this stubby little nose out of things that are not my business. Once you leave my house, I will add you to my own, personal "framily" plan; if I wouldn't say it to a friend, I won't say it to you, my family. So if you come home and proceed to drink 1.5 litters of Pepsi 15 minutes before bedtime... well, mums the word. Dad agrees. Just know you are KILLING us, silently, in our hearts, with your disregard for your health. And if I sigh, dramatically, and lay prone on the couch, a pillow over my eyes so I do not have to witness you give yourself diabetes, remember that you are our eldest and we are unskilled at having adult children, thus prone to both mistakes and hysterics.</div>
<div class="" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 0.825em;">
Other good news; feel free to leave your clothes everywhere, all the time. It is your roommate's problem, not mine. Punch away on your phone all you want. It is not my business if you burn through texts like popcorn at the movies and give yourself astigmatism staring at that tiny screen all day and night. </div>
<div class="" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 0.825em;">
Bad news; you'll be needing to find your own phone plan.</div>
<div class="" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 0.825em;">
But the best news, the very best news, is now that I don't have to concern myself with any of it- with your laundry, your tidiness, your grades, or whether you made it to school on time- I get to just enjoy you without having to teach you a blessed thing. And that is wonderful news for me. Because you are funny and thoughtful and energetic and smart. You are wonderful company and I am looking forward to having such a stellar woman in my life. Just my rotten luck that you have to go and move out of state to make it happen.</div>
<div class="" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 0.825em;">
And that is the worst news of all.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-15081691883253464042014-08-17T19:04:00.001-05:002014-08-17T19:04:58.409-05:00A Severely Abbreviated Photo Diary of the Great American Roadtrip.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDcdSG51SC5qRQItU5fzaFRb6ujYAMS5B9hXEQO59j67jO7Sc0_1lverXT2KlAlPcT-it_pTc5Iw4dOhk9i116GuuqX0oBtk41rTS58gAUrVntI-zy3oZ_MFnvSn2bK9gg8K7B0CBFDvw/s1600/27290107.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDcdSG51SC5qRQItU5fzaFRb6ujYAMS5B9hXEQO59j67jO7Sc0_1lverXT2KlAlPcT-it_pTc5Iw4dOhk9i116GuuqX0oBtk41rTS58gAUrVntI-zy3oZ_MFnvSn2bK9gg8K7B0CBFDvw/s1600/27290107.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Twelve suitcases,<br />and <i>still </i>not enough underwear...</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5EIrUlXjuDlhfbgtyOcPONEUgbRuOjTH3FN7ZPQlT37KPya5oj1r74wzOUzm5er4egxE_RfI31RmtJ-_SGzoha7z5XyukuvWKDprF8yRkw5qyXA0aM4aQIp2UmtxWJC1yWTpA5sxPGGY/s1600/27290058+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5EIrUlXjuDlhfbgtyOcPONEUgbRuOjTH3FN7ZPQlT37KPya5oj1r74wzOUzm5er4egxE_RfI31RmtJ-_SGzoha7z5XyukuvWKDprF8yRkw5qyXA0aM4aQIp2UmtxWJC1yWTpA5sxPGGY/s1600/27290058+2.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Driftwood lean-to.<br />Better than a fancy pants beach sculpture, anyday.</span></span> </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs67tPnrCCJq02WSKdcNhyphenhyphenBCcXN-4OMWCnixVwLQb1OPLGKdyhPXPAc4cpn4flXQldFgqpHuMZqgdEp6jyZHwRKnHok73Qy6YhiB_VlYZG3nBzK9zNYpylYqc7C0GX5DnHeGtyQVkPjBo/s1600/27290112.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs67tPnrCCJq02WSKdcNhyphenhyphenBCcXN-4OMWCnixVwLQb1OPLGKdyhPXPAc4cpn4flXQldFgqpHuMZqgdEp6jyZHwRKnHok73Qy6YhiB_VlYZG3nBzK9zNYpylYqc7C0GX5DnHeGtyQVkPjBo/s1600/27290112.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Still smiling.<br />(But its only day three.)</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCAPpUWgB0G46o3UaJrEcYKYN8vq8xOXJZQ8W_RCLNvF1iir0umSKw2G7PsuoZYtzmcCiYe6K8V9rXPz3dHr2H_GhAzvfLVqqRdmTXbw0CHQNDYPvwH8CYUzDDFtoh2D4fz8TUiAGpKQ/s1600/27290152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCAPpUWgB0G46o3UaJrEcYKYN8vq8xOXJZQ8W_RCLNvF1iir0umSKw2G7PsuoZYtzmcCiYe6K8V9rXPz3dHr2H_GhAzvfLVqqRdmTXbw0CHQNDYPvwH8CYUzDDFtoh2D4fz8TUiAGpKQ/s1600/27290152.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We snagged the good seats on the ferry.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimbT1WFCCrNV7ucAWzcmjwiVa9pfaxJErInuwvU614wbKCI9pSzi68pcnrLb3q8zg1GdR6TQdQa6epUyEjN02DuDyRFg0yV2wI-DdeT8hF_HzXBuVvub5_MF0ZMtqoIjvy2hrYB16XwvE/s1600/27290173.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimbT1WFCCrNV7ucAWzcmjwiVa9pfaxJErInuwvU614wbKCI9pSzi68pcnrLb3q8zg1GdR6TQdQa6epUyEjN02DuDyRFg0yV2wI-DdeT8hF_HzXBuVvub5_MF0ZMtqoIjvy2hrYB16XwvE/s1600/27290173.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Beautiful.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKj7DtUyqSszdw6KsyFFKb9AffWaH7zAhUgQKOL9BI6wVNo18F1TtZ4A0loUF2kfOhQeKOn5rzpb0OoOs-kyBR7x1a-XFKMVQHCPHolS9l5Kkv_MJNqdnPZe8Lfg6xgprAVy9ctBb43E/s1600/27290174.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKj7DtUyqSszdw6KsyFFKb9AffWaH7zAhUgQKOL9BI6wVNo18F1TtZ4A0loUF2kfOhQeKOn5rzpb0OoOs-kyBR7x1a-XFKMVQHCPHolS9l5Kkv_MJNqdnPZe8Lfg6xgprAVy9ctBb43E/s1600/27290174.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Even better.</span></span> </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQenMeUxM8FxSFSuOYItC_d8tPzv1i2TDeeskrR5OHbGkER09XQwJiwTAWYkAoJbBFAJ0UaXY_T4UH1o73mxQOw9hyphenhyphenpnDe-XCfC1hF-Q9IeBU1CMqhZR3hFWE8fR_3VPh7xJPb7NEETSc/s1600/27290185.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQenMeUxM8FxSFSuOYItC_d8tPzv1i2TDeeskrR5OHbGkER09XQwJiwTAWYkAoJbBFAJ0UaXY_T4UH1o73mxQOw9hyphenhyphenpnDe-XCfC1hF-Q9IeBU1CMqhZR3hFWE8fR_3VPh7xJPb7NEETSc/s1600/27290185.JPG" height="218" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Swim, swim, swim!<br /><br /></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKh2dc3AsLCI2WzN10pmnR5PGokpYNBUAEb3GGT9LDKTxpHJl8gjg7DvbFLX1lJHCF5O03Kb2SFyNJOQ80a8AVAVxOXtCaJbOhPkb47qX96Ke7T0lD0CeM-noobn0F8uuXS3VnRvOkI4/s1600/27290065.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKh2dc3AsLCI2WzN10pmnR5PGokpYNBUAEb3GGT9LDKTxpHJl8gjg7DvbFLX1lJHCF5O03Kb2SFyNJOQ80a8AVAVxOXtCaJbOhPkb47qX96Ke7T0lD0CeM-noobn0F8uuXS3VnRvOkI4/s1600/27290065.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Saw this face more and more<br />as the trip wore on.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_h7mDRli25PpWOKca37zfRRrAis9MHGxYYXTnGysy3ZMPFfrvfaRnOmTurEc7pvTw83BSyabicoh-Sg7qPJkM1RfLxamYywZ3RVilXptVRYOFO1kFg1DZlzYr8fRquQ1It0Kho-PJM7k/s1600/27290233.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_h7mDRli25PpWOKca37zfRRrAis9MHGxYYXTnGysy3ZMPFfrvfaRnOmTurEc7pvTw83BSyabicoh-Sg7qPJkM1RfLxamYywZ3RVilXptVRYOFO1kFg1DZlzYr8fRquQ1It0Kho-PJM7k/s1600/27290233.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The magnificence of Niagara Falls!<br />At this point, we're all so tired, no one cares.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFL1-irChdz89EdMQ6KeVuFL5F734lihfg4e0NA3hyphenhyphenjs9Mb0ZSxhDVncR-lwc7TIb7SHjsc7picvsThDbR7VHO1C9UwWrO_qNo57PIw4PIqdbEPOrXX2VLAl3IM46YUe5I_mlt0miY-s/s1600/27290269.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFL1-irChdz89EdMQ6KeVuFL5F734lihfg4e0NA3hyphenhyphenjs9Mb0ZSxhDVncR-lwc7TIb7SHjsc7picvsThDbR7VHO1C9UwWrO_qNo57PIw4PIqdbEPOrXX2VLAl3IM46YUe5I_mlt0miY-s/s1600/27290269.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Holy Hannah, we made it to New York state!</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja3Z5tnF99wg98oHk6Ukanbio2Ci0PFZFC6-y9v9aMvlCQZds-kFZjgftAjLLbcev1UzfhuHglx_viBWlI4q0-tHCj3SyGr4EEFfxI1fnpQu2sBlipWqfBzNstQu33E9BAg-Wk589HYVI/s1600/27290330.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja3Z5tnF99wg98oHk6Ukanbio2Ci0PFZFC6-y9v9aMvlCQZds-kFZjgftAjLLbcev1UzfhuHglx_viBWlI4q0-tHCj3SyGr4EEFfxI1fnpQu2sBlipWqfBzNstQu33E9BAg-Wk589HYVI/s1600/27290330.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Same to you, goat.<br /></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbI2Pot2LMjRL7uB1TjwP2_dNCl4iIBIb8NeVmMy1dZbP86mz-yWpVe1j3k0C0vnS_6AENfy2OP0FeJ474Ory1XpbdG9-RgFh5RKCdlYkPkWmljwm4q9PEeplEqWqniR1i0wZa7jin8tg/s1600/27290334.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbI2Pot2LMjRL7uB1TjwP2_dNCl4iIBIb8NeVmMy1dZbP86mz-yWpVe1j3k0C0vnS_6AENfy2OP0FeJ474Ory1XpbdG9-RgFh5RKCdlYkPkWmljwm4q9PEeplEqWqniR1i0wZa7jin8tg/s1600/27290334.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Evil Rooster.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pYunvxOPgcw7jEokx6Op6tH2ZT4MG1OQNnsdYUVyFImmW8oQjEp3ACuBna4SVGpFioM_2UVv-mB5LFxb_zbhlfpE4kqe5OPUOCcM04G_j96QdAYNyq95zX72X1stKYsPn7-R-JSCnQQ/s1600/27290286.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pYunvxOPgcw7jEokx6Op6tH2ZT4MG1OQNnsdYUVyFImmW8oQjEp3ACuBna4SVGpFioM_2UVv-mB5LFxb_zbhlfpE4kqe5OPUOCcM04G_j96QdAYNyq95zX72X1stKYsPn7-R-JSCnQQ/s1600/27290286.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Cousins!</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthJgEvb0RzNaFTzxfH2iZiWqvt3ZaKqbfs4UB3FUDuS4iN8Q2QR35ByY4gSYYTJCykDSQZuIP0FOp2xO8cLZFUzND0lm3jDHWMEEvDMnfBydpb4pq9LOIjHo2lCrqiUJy2xgXZE1RW0M/s1600/27290307.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthJgEvb0RzNaFTzxfH2iZiWqvt3ZaKqbfs4UB3FUDuS4iN8Q2QR35ByY4gSYYTJCykDSQZuIP0FOp2xO8cLZFUzND0lm3jDHWMEEvDMnfBydpb4pq9LOIjHo2lCrqiUJy2xgXZE1RW0M/s1600/27290307.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So, twelve people walk into an ice cream store....</span></span></td></tr>
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<br />lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-66373167511456292422014-08-09T13:35:00.002-05:002014-08-09T13:35:28.439-05:00Days 1-4; The Agony and the Ecstasy.<div>
Day One: </div>
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Day one is officially a success! We headed north, to Duluth, to pick up my sister and her husband before spending a day basking in the sun on one of our much loved Lake Superior beaches. Each of the Northern Wisconsin beaches we frequent has it's own character and quirks. Port Wing has an exceptionally large quantity of driftwood. Inspired by the bounty, folks have dotted the landscape with driftwood sculptures and tepees. Following their example, my eldest son and his Uncle constructed a simple, but effective lean-to; not terribly elaborate, but perfectly positioned to provide a bit of late afternoon shade. </div>
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Meanwhile, not 100 feet from our happy-go-lucky group, an intensely focused father directed his children and wife in the creation of a twenty-foot long loch-ness monster, it's serpentine length rising from the sand.</div>
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"Overachiever," I sniffed.</div>
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"Those poor kids," sympathized my sister. We are both stalwartly against any beach activity that smacks of organized effort. (Except for picnics. Good picnics don't just happen, you know. Nothing is worse than a dry peanut butter sandwich, gritty from errant sand, which is, incidentally, what my family will be choking down in a few, short days.)</div>
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We then had an in-depth debate about whether or not I should put on sunscreen. Decision? No. I had put on a long sleeve shirt and we had compared our lilly-white legs, musing on the odd, but seemingly genetic condition that left us unable to tan on our legs, no matter what. Besides, we had the lean-to.</div>
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Surprising to nobody, I'm sure, my upper thighs burned to a fiery lobster-red. I spent the evening wishing for a couple ice packs. Luckily, I am easily distracted and between the fortuitous margarita happy hour special at the Mexican restaurant located in the parking lot of our motel (!) and an evening showing of Sharknado 2, I was sufficiently contented and fell into an exhausted slumber, having convinced myself the radiating heat was "comforting" and not really "excruciatingly painful." </div>
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God bless tequila, anyways.</div>
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Day two:</div>
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Continuing my life-long record of never learning a lesson from anything, ever, I woke up early and decided to head off for a long, loping run along Lake Superior. I returned two hours later, with a sunburned back to match my legs. Alas, tequila isn't a legitimate breakfast beverage, so I couldn't medicate this one away. Sigh. </div>
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This was a long driving day, from Ashland up to Sault St. Marie. A trip made longer by the southernly detour we had to make, in order to swim in Lake Michigan. Amazingly, the kids were adorable to each other the entire route, although that may have been the effects of lunch-time pasties (old timey meat hand pies!) and repeated stops for ice cream. </div>
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Once we got to our hotel, we saw that AMC was airing Jaws, (which everyone is pretty much required to watch whenever it is on TV) the viewing of which elevated today to the "practically perfect" category of road trips.</div>
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"This vacation isn't nearly as awful as I thought it would be," marveled Miss Teen Wonder. </div>
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Day three:</div>
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What benevolent God has taken us under his wing? Today was another loooooong driving day. Due to what Hubby terms a "late start" we had to hurry our little clan across Ontario to South Baymouth in order to make our ferry reservations -- or be stranded on the wrong side of Lake Huron. (In the children's and my defense, no jury would agree that 10:00 AM is late whilst on vacation. 10:00 AM is barely late in normal life.... Or at least it shouldn't be.)</div>
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Rather than beat each other to death with empty Sprite cans in a car trip grudge match, the kids took prolonged and repeated naps, waking only for chunks of Canadian candy and, what appears to be our secret weapon, ice cream. </div>
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The ferry ride was beautiful, although attempting to drive our car up the steep upper deck ramp was terrifying enough to move both Little Man and myself to tears. Luckily, we could sooth our souls with giant bowls of poutine. (Fries, cheese curds and gravy...?!! Do the Minnesota State Fair people know about this?)</div>
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Our rented house turned out to be delightful and mere blocks from the ferry launch. Delighted, we collapsed into the living room floor and watched crappy reality television far into the night. The house was charming and we are so, so grateful to have a break from the road tomorrow.</div>
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Really. This trip is PERFECT.</div>
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Day four:</div>
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Today is the day WE PULLED THIS CAR OVER! Hubby went so far as to unbuckle his seat belt and make a move to GET OUT OF THE CAR in an effort to quell The Great Backseat Rebellion of 2014. Air conditioning vs open windows has become the major conflict of our time and subtle negotiations are on the brink of collapse. </div>
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All we had for lunch were those aforementioned gritty peanut butter sandwiches and no beverages. We had a bag of something called "BBQ Ringalos" but as soon as we opened them, our eldest son tossed one to a nearby squirrel. Big mistake. Within minutes we were beset upon by fuzzy little scavengers, prompting us to eat the rest of our meager lunch in the car. The Lake Huron beach was too shallow and crowded to our increasingly persnickety tastes and the Bruce Peninsula National Park is home to nine - NINE - varieties of snakes, though thankfully the only one we saw was non-venomous.</div>
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It probably would have been nice to know that before I jumped into the poison ivy to get away from it.</div>
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None of this mattered, however, because of the magical Grotto and Indian Head Cove beach. The grotto is an underground pool. To access it you have to descend a rocky cliff, which can be difficult, especially if you are a slightly balance-impaired middle aged woman and a scaredy cat, to boot. </div>
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But it is so worth it. There just aren't many opportunities to swim in clear water, underground pools in Minnesota. Or at least none that I know of. Though my medical condition (the aforementioned scaredy-cat-itis) prevented me from diving off the rocks into it's freezing cold depths, I did swim a bit and was so happy to have even stumbled upon this amazing place.</div>
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If you manage to scale the rock wall again, Indian Head Cove is just over the hill and it is BEAUTIFUL. The water is a dream, blue and pure as the Carribean, but cold. Perfect for taking a quick dip and then sunning oneself on the rocks. (Probably next to one of those many, many snakes, but it's best not to think about that.)</div>
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Tomorrow we head out with a three prong agenda: </div>
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Swim in Lake Ontario</div>
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See Niagara Falls</div>
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Get Kirk to Buffalo in time to eat wings in his much beloved Duff's Restaurant...</div>
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But I wouldn't mind staying just one more day at the cove....even with all the snakes.</div>
lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-87251605291431912402014-08-06T21:28:00.000-05:002014-08-06T21:28:32.891-05:00And Away We Go!Well, this is it, the Frauenheim Dankes are hitting the road. With an eye to our daughter's eminent departure for college, we have planned the VERY LAST ROAD TRIP WE WILL EVER TAKE, ALL TOGETHER.<br />
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(...sniff...)<br />
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Two full weeks of togetherness; riding in the car together, eating together, staying in tiny hotel rooms together, spending every single minute together.... The hope is that this will be our final hurrah and cement a lifetime of happy memories.Yup. It will either be that or the kids will drive us to the brink of madness and make the prospect of losing one to college sound like maybe the best idea ever.<br />
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The kids are not thrilled. To them it sounds like torture. Especially since the best their Dad and I can offer is that we get to swim in all the Great Lakes! Whoopee! Super fun, right guys?<br />
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"You know, we'll driiiiiive for a while," we say cheerily," and then we'll swim, swim, SWIM!" Both of us pantomiming little doggy paddle motions and smiling from ear to ear just to demonstrate how very fun it will be. It doesn't help their mood at all when their dour expressions cause us to burst into laughter and then chant, "Swim, swim, SWIM!" ever more maniacally to each other, because, <i>hello</i>, disgruntled children are <i>hilarious</i>.<br />
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In truth, they have reason to be skeptical. Frauenheim Danke vacations are often rife with disaster. Like the year we spent Thanksgiving in a Motel 6 because our minivan broke down. Or the year we based our summer vacation around a trip to the cranberry bogs. Do you know what happens in a cranberry bog in summer? <u>Nothing</u>. Seriously, not a thing. I squandered precious vacation time to drag my kids to gaze at an empty field. They still totally give me shit about that. <br />
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Then there was the day in Ethiopia that we drove hours and hours in pouring rain to see these very special and beautiful lakes only to find the road we had chosen was impassable. Back we went to the beginning and back out again, on a different route. We scaled a muddy mountain trail surrounded by locals who were doing their very best to keep these dumb Americans, who clearly have the common sense of a cabbage, from slipping off the side of the trail and cracking their dumb American heads. When we got to the summit, lo and behold, the fog had rolled in, obscuring the entire valley. Our poor guide was clearly distraught, but we all burst into laughter. How to explain to him that, truly, this was more or less what we would've expected from any outing involving our family?<br />
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As a result, we're pretty darn good at forging ahead when things go wrong, which is lucky for us, since this vacation is starting out under a definite pall. Last week, my sweet, accomplished mother-in-law passed away suddenly. I think Hubby is just now getting over the shock of it. But like I said, we're good at forging ahead and so maybe this will be the vacation when we are a little subdued and remember to hug and kiss on Dad an awful lot. That'd be a good memory, right? Better than a cranberry bog in summer, anyway, but then again, most things are.<br />
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<br />lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-85384232612476516442014-06-25T07:13:00.001-05:002014-06-25T07:13:26.600-05:00Obviously, This Post has no Photos.Our race photos arrived in my inbox today. Photos taken by a multitude of professional photographers, stationed along the marathon route, either crouching at the side of the road or lofted high above the course, documenting our 26.2 miles from the bucket of a crane.<br />
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In every one of his photos, my husband looks strong and lean, handsome and athletic. He appears, to all the world, a <i>marathoner</i>.<br />
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In every one of mine, I look like a troll who crawled out from beneath a bridge. Or at least, as someone who should reconsider ever appearing in public wearing a tank top again.<br />
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The strong, dedicated athlete who lives in my brain never put in an appearance. The veteran marathoner who ran speed drills and hill repeats, who studiously counted protein grams and worked on core strength...? She never showed up, either. In my heart, I am a gazelle, fleet-footed and strong; in my race photos I am a chunky, middle-aged woman with frightening posture, lumbering toward an uncertain finish.<br />
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I want you to know, I ran a spectacular race. No, it wasn't the fastest or, clearly, the most photogenic, but I ran cheerfully for five hours. I enjoyed every bit of the Lake Superior shoreline. I never once turned on my ipod and I was never once tempted to quit.<br />
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In the past, I have had to expend a tremendous amount of energy beating down a mental chorus of doubt and despair, fending off the thoughts that I will never, ever finish, that the whole endeavor is foolish and that I would really, really like to quit.<br />
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This time there was only one, clear directive, "Run faster."<br />
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And I did. I sped up, slowly and consistently, throughout the race. My last mile was my fastest mile--who does that? Never me before and certainly not that lady in the photos, if one were to judge by the visual record.<br />
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It's a good reminder, isn't it? We never can tell, to look at a person, what's going on beneath the surface. We are not privy to their inner lives. We think we are seeing a bus driver, a lawyer, a waitress; never realizing that underneath they are a novelist crafting a new world, or a passionate lover of latin dance.....<br />
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Or maybe, a long-time runner who, having seen her fair share of crappy race photos in the past, had the good sense to pose for a picture BEFORE the race.<br />
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In that one, I look adorable.lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-14149951768762426562014-05-04T14:08:00.000-05:002014-05-04T14:08:58.895-05:00Shhhhhh...... Just between us.<br />
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Have you met my husband, yet? He's super. A good man and a good father. (Don't ask the kids- they don't know a blessed thing. They think anyone who makes them fold laundry and eat the food I prepare for them instead of just subsisting on spicy Cheetos and Dr. Pepper is some sort of child abusing monster. Hubby believes his job is to raise them to be healthy, happy, ethical adults and also to protect me, their mother, from the constant stream of begging and demands for my attention. Good job, honey! Keep it up!)<br />
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He has also, admirably, become more environmentally conscious as he has gotten older. Awesome. Again, good job. I love him and respect him and would never, ever keep anything from him...<br />
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Except maybe this.<br />
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His environmental action has coalesced around eliminating plastic. Laudable goal. Yes. We could all stand to reduce the amount of plastic we consume. <em>However...</em><br />
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I recently stumbled across several blogs from folks striving to become plastic free. <strong>Free. From. All. Plastic. </strong>Which, do not misunderstand me, is flat out awesome. Peruse their posts and the herculean task they have taken on becomes apparent. No plastic beverage containers, obviously. No liquid detergent. No powdered detergent, if it comes with a plastic measuring cup. No kleenex. (little plastic window on top.) No stretchy, moisture wicking running clothes. No milk- cow, soy or otherwise- in non-glass containers. (That film isn't wax, folks, it's plastic.) No disposable pens. No shampoo. No hair gel. No obscenely delicious salted dark chocolate almonds in the handy, resealable bag, even if they are vegan. <em>No wine with plastic corks.</em> Nothing shipped or stored or wrapped in plastic. Look around you. All that stuff? NONE OF IT.<br />
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Holy cow.<br />
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Let me say right off, that they all, to a person, have noted that you can't avoid the stuff 100%. Gonna' buy your pinto beans in the bulk section of the grocery store and put them in your own, reusable container? Guess what they were shipped to the store in? Right. A great big plastic bag.<br />
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Still, they are striving to do the very best they can, against a staggering reality and I think that is amazing. Amazing and depressing and daunting. Especially when it is pointed out that every thing ever made out of plastic still exists.<br />
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I need to lie down.<br />
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The reality of how much of the stuff is floating around out there is exhausting to contemplate. If Hubby so much as catches wind that there are folks who have managed to go so hardcore, my life will become roughly one zillion percent more difficult. As much as I am working to reduce our own plastic footprint, I'm not sure I'm ready for the headache of canning my own tomatoes (metal cans being lined in plastic) pressing homemade tofu and making my own deodorant--especially since the entire U.S. aspirin supply is tucked away in tiny, plastic bottles.<br />
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But maybe I can sort of eeeeeaase into it-- which really isn't like me at all. Normally, the challenge of something like this grabs me and I am <i>ALL IN, BABY!</i> This one, however, buckles my mind in the sheer enormity of it. Back-to-back marathons seem more possible. Building a time machine out of rubble seems like it might work, comparatively. So here's the plan:<br />
I'm going to pick five things that I can find non-plastic alternatives for. And when that gets absorbed into our daily habits, I'll pick five more. It seems like such a small amount that you kind of wonder if it could possibly make any difference. Then you multiply five by 52 weeks in the year, and -BAM!- 260 plastic items NOT added to the floating seas of garbage in the ocean. Then 520, then 780.... Maybe somewhere in there I'll actually let Hubby in on the plan.... But not until I find dark chocolate salted almonds in a glass container and a wine box with a biodegradable liner. </div>
<br />lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486351921264992016.post-12529624386399444762014-04-11T09:52:00.000-05:002014-04-11T09:52:07.710-05:00And You Shall Call Me The Gray Enchantress!My son begs me daily to dye my hair. Apparently, he is having none of the "aging gracefully" attitude I am trying to embrace and the white stripes which have started to bookend my face verily annoy him. Personally, I think they make me look rakish.<br />
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"Mom." he begins, all high-school seriousness, "you HAVE to dye it... You are too young to have gray hair."<br />
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"But, darling," I always counter, "if I dye it, how will people know that I'm a super-villain?"<br />
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"At least stop pulling your hair back, then. It's not so bad when you leave your bangs down."<br />
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"What?! And cover the temples of doom? Never!"<br />
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I don't know, I strongly suspect that this little plan of mine is going to backfire. Rather than encouraging my kids to resist this hateful world of anti-aging creams and silicone injections, they might just take in their crazy, decrepit old mother and run for the cosmetic interventions as fast as they can, using their college funds to bank roll eye jobs and Botox.<br />
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And it's not as if I don't understand the impulse. The other day I caught a look at myself in the mirror and realized that cute is on its way out. (Actually, cute might have vacated the premises quite some time ago.) I understood that I cannot count on any sort of residual attractiveness to engender warm feelings in others. No conversations started simply because I looked like a pleasant person.<br />
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"Lady," I admonished, "you had best take up a very interesting hobby."<br />
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The pisser is, I couldn't think of any! Right now, I have all the hobbies I want-- eating, napping and watching tv shows from the seventies on Netflix. I'm too damn tired for anything else. This does not bode well. Especially since time is rapidly running out.<br />
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I had breakfast with my peeps the other morning. ("Peeps" being the sort of word I love to torture my kids with-- like "totes" and "YOLO." Children are so intolerant of blatant uncool-ness, even if it is intentional. It makes it easy to torment them. You should try it.) One friend was updating us as to the state of a new, neighborhood cafe and it's sadly inattentive and careless young staff. Then she mentioned that she had a dentist appointment and I chimed in with a fascinating tidbit about a freakishly dangerous bug I managed to contract, when suddenly I stopped, looked at the table and asked;<br />
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"Wait a minute. Have we just been comparing medical problems and complaining about the sorry attitude of young people today?"<br />
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Then we burst out laughing.<br />
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Holy smokes, that sneaks up on you easily. In the blink of an eye, "Where's the party?" morphs into, "Where's my reading glasses?" "I'm gonna' hurl!" has become, "I gotta' pee!"-- which, when I think about it, is probably a lateral move. If I'm going to become the sort of interesting, wise and tough old broad I aspire to, I need a plan and fast! Quick! Before that cruise ship has sailed.<br />
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So I need a new hobby, is what I'm saying. I need to be an expert at something other than cheap red wines and Gilligan's Island trivia. Less along the lines of the care of feeding of house cats and more like giant metal sculptures I weld in the back yard. Or Bollywood dance, which I am seriously, seriously considering. In a pinch, I could always fall back on super-villainy. I've already got the hair.<br />
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lanie@ plumb tuckeredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11066132161935719808noreply@blogger.com0