The Race Is Not To The Swift

I could have been an athlete. I was really good at foursquare when I was in elementary school. I ran fast. Could dodge the heck out of a big rubber ball. Was never chosen last on a team. I even learned to go backwards on roller skates with my Girl Scout troop. I had potential, but no one saw it except me. Instead, we went to church and I focused on the piano. But music was never my first love.

Rob was.

Rob was an athlete. It’s the reason I first fell in love with him. Until I saw him hurl a ball and run the bases like the boss he was, I nearly dismissed the quiet, small-statured blonde guy who told me he was from Florida. Florida? Nobody comes from Florida. Its entire population is made up of old guys in ugly shorts on golf courses. You retire to Florida, you aren’t born there.

I was mistaken. Just as I was mistaken about that inconspicuous ball player I fell for. It was his strength and determination that I admired. I’d never seen anyone as humble and confident as Rob. It’s a winning combination that stole my heart.

I wanted to be athletic like him. I love watching baseball and wondered if I could up my own game. Rob bought me my first ball glove and tried to teach me how to develop a throwing arm like his. I played on a women’s church team for one season and threw like a girl, sending an outfield catch soaring as far as second base instead of reaching the pitcher where I was aiming. I caught fly balls against my stomach instead of in my new glove and struck out more times than I ever connected my bat to the ball. Finally, I realized I was better at keeping score in the stands than playing on the field.

You gotta know your strengths.

There aren’t many sports I enjoy watching, but when it comes to an Olympic year, I’m all in. Rob and I both were. From the opening ceremonies until they extinguished the flame at its close, we, like you, loved seeing people push themselves to achieve the impossible. Their wins were ours and we felt their defeats as well.

This morning that was the story for Brody Malone, the USA team leader in men’s gymnastics all-around finals. This is why I love the Olympics. When I turned on the TV today, I didn’t know a single man on that team. By the time the brief competition was over, I was in tears. I guess the glory of sports is supposed to belong to the winners, to the players who have a great day and never fall off of a pommel horse or miss a grab on the high bars.

But I think the glory goes to those who give it their all and still come up empty-handed.

Fifteen months ago, Brody’s knee was destroyed when he fell from a high bar during competition. After enduring three surgeries, there was doubt as to whether he would ever walk normally again. Fifteen months ago it looked like his career was over. Today he competed in Paris as the leader of an elite team of gymnasts. Today he had a bad day, but he’s still walking. His medal chances are in question, but he beat the odds to even be there. The sportscasters said he could have been the face on a Wheaties cereal box, but now someone else’s name will be memorialized instead of his.

I disagree.

I don’t want to discount all the pain and sacrifices the other athletes on his team have endured. I just want to point out that Brody Malone showed us what courage looks like. He’s still the team captain and will finish his race, but it's unclear whether he will get to stand on the podium with his teammates. I know that’s hugely disappointing to him, but that’s not why I was in tears today. I don’t know how to say this because I’m not in his league and it seems brazen for me to make a comparison. But I lost all my dreams after working for them my entire life and I know what it feels like to be down. To watch the world race by, achieving all their goals, celebrating all their victories, while you can barely stand up on your feet again.

That’s what I was thinking about as I watched his Olympic dream fade with every low score that was posted. Sometimes you fall. Sometimes you lose it all and watch helplessly as your dreams evaporate. Sometimes, no matter how hard you work at learning how to walk again, beating all the odds, there will be days when you find yourself on the ground once more and your biggest win is simply standing up.

No, I’m not an athlete. I’m the furthest thing from one. I cheer for Team USA every couple of years from the comfort of my living room and wonder at the enormous price each one has paid for years to make it this far. I don’t think I could have done it. But then again, you never know what you can do or what you can survive until you have no other choice.

It’s not the end for Brody Malone. And as I pay close attention to the stories of defeat in these Olympics even more than the stories of victory, a little flame sparks in my own heart reminding me that I will learn to walk again, too. It’s going to take time. It means I’ll have to pace myself. But however long it takes, I know Rob would be proud of me.

Maybe I have the heart of an athlete after all.

With thanks to Tom Driggers for the great photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: Olympic Spirit | Within the Olympic rings of the Olympic fou… | Flickr

Learning The Ropes

There’s an old man visiting me this week. 

His curly hair is a bit long and he’s missing some teeth but since he doesn’t eat much it doesn’t much matter. He doesn’t mind a cold breakfast, or lunch or dinner. Or leftovers. He sleeps a lot. Lies around the house looking bored to tears, like staying here wasn’t his idea. Because it wasn’t. We don’t have a lot in common, so we don’t talk much. He doesn’t talk at all. 

But he’s another breathing body in the house and that’s a nice change.

He also has an old man sort of problem. Kind of awkward to discuss here but let me just say we’re depending on Depends this week. This is a new one for me. It’s new for him, too, and he’s not a fan. I don’t blame him. At his age, all he has left is his dignity and the adoration of three kids who think he’s the best dog God ever created. Because he is. But the need to walk around wearing a doggie diaper is putting a kink in his confidence and makes him sigh sometimes. Me, too.

I mean, I can kind of relate. Sort of awkward to discuss that here, but I feel his pain in a way that’s none of your business. I’m not an old man or an old dog, but I’ve met some people who think I’m old. Most of them are new and ride their bikes around the neighborhood when school lets out, but some of their parents think I’m old, too. I don’t mind. I don’t even think it’s a criticism. It’s more like a badge of honor.

At my age, I’ve earned every strand of this gray hair.

Rocky the golden retriever is hanging out with me while his family hangs out with other people this week. He’s pretty easy company. He’d spend more time outside if it wasn’t so hot and he wasn’t wearing that perpetual fur coat. So would I if it felt more like Alaska and less like Arizona out there. I know. And no, I don’t know why I live here.

Here's the problem. When you’re a dog, the bathroom is outside. Where it’s hot. I can’t fix either one of those things. Not even if you’re wearing a diaper. When you gotta go, you gotta go, and in his case he’s gotta go outside and somebody’s got to take that thing off before he does. We’ve almost got it down to a science now, if science means repetition but not perfection. Standing side by side at the back door, I count to three, pull open the slider, yank off his impediment, and just like that he’s a free man, running wild across the back yard, au natural the way God intended. 

Just like every two-year-old I’ve ever known.

This morning when he finished his business, he waited for me on the patio while I grabbed a new diaper and met him out there. That’s when I saw them. Seated side by side like two concrete yard ornaments. I don’t know how long they’d been watching us, but from the judgy tilt of their synchronized heads, they’d grabbed the cheap seats a while ago. We had an audience, and they were ready for popcorn and a show.

The judgy sister sheep.

Curious and critical, all at the same time, they barely like one another, let alone anyone else living near their pasture. I could practically hear what they were saying, the cackly old maids.

“What’s she doing to him now?”

“I dunno. Looks like she’s decorating him.”

“What for? It’s not Christmas.”

“Beats me. She has awful taste in fashion. Got any Milk Duds left?”

Sheep don’t have a clue. I wasn’t decorating him. I was wrestling him. Remember what it was like to put pre-folded paper and elastic rectangles on a nine-pound squirming newborn with two gyrating legs? Now picture doing that to an upright, four-legged, seventy-pound hairy Sasquatch who wants to sit on your feet while you finish.

I’ve been to a couple of rodeos. You know the part where the cowboy races on his horse across a dusty arena in hot pursuit of a calf who weighs twice as much as he does, then throws him to the ground and, without help from anyone, holds him there and trusses him up like a Thanksgiving turkey? When he’s finished, gallons of sweat pour out from beneath his ten-gallon Stetson while he throws his hands in the air in victory and walks away exhausted. It’s a weird way to make a living.

That’s how I felt every single time I diapered a baby. And more than once I threw my hands into the air in victory when I was finished. That’s how I feel now with every diaper I strap around the dog. At least I’ve got experience.

He’s a good boy, though. A sweet old guy who tolerates the way we dress him and puts up with my bad cooking. He takes a nap while I watch Hallmark movies and doesn’t mind if I ignore him to pick up my knitting or post another blog. He’s tolerant and just wants a little peace and quiet. In a way, he reminds me of Rob. Who, right now, from the cheap seats in heaven, is giving me “the look.”

Enjoy your popcorn, Rob. Just don’t laugh and point. That’s the job of the sister sheep. And if they keep it up, I’m going to chase them down and put a diaper on them for spite. I may not have my youth or natural hair color anymore, but I’ve overcome those deficits with the only thing that matters.

I’ve got experience.

With thanks to Bruno Pedro for the picture seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: The WireIt logo | WireIt is an OpenSource javascript library… | Flickr

For The Birds

Remember that vast flock of starlings or sparrows or whatever kind of dinky little birds we have here in Arizona that I saw swimming outside a few days ago? Right. The ones at the pool party, doing high dives from the massive ash tree that shades the kids’ trampoline, skipping over the water’s surface like they’re barefoot water-skiers, and wiping out in that huge mud puddle at the end of their runway?

Well, I was sitting here at my desk today, writing my first potentially uber successful future novel while I drummed on the keys and stared out my picture window at the sister goats across the street, when a big shadow passed overhead, blocking out the sun. I looked up at the formerly blue sky in curiosity and, to my amazement, it was obliterated by an entire squadron of starlings all heading north to find another water hole to play in. I assumed.

A strange longing rose up in my chest, and I thought to myself, why can’t I fly through the air like those backyard sparrow things? The answer burst my helium balloon. Because a hawk would snatch you right out of the sky, that’s why.

I’m not kidding. I witnessed it once, right above Katy’s house. We were standing outside together, her family and I, marveling at God’s beautiful spring evening, its sunset sky painted in ever increasing hues of purple and orange when, cue the birds, two dark figures emerged like planes soaring overhead, a smaller one in front with a larger one flying in tandem above it. That must be its wingman, I thought in admiration. Isn’t nature simply beautiful? So peaceful and . . . oh, my God. Did that big bird just eat the other one?

It happens. Right in the middle of your Wonderful World of Disney, the Pirates of the Caribbean get radar lock on It’s A Small World and the next thing you know, everyone in the audience goes home with PTSD as a souvenir. That mesmerizingly beautiful hawk you admired? He’s a traitor. Watching in horror as the raptor closes the gap between himself and his prey, you realize how wrong you were. He wasn’t the wingman for that starling. You’ve been watching an aerial dog fight between the Red Baron and Tweety Bird, only this time being small and cute is what foodies call “an appetizer.”

“Abort! Abort!” you frantically yell, but it’s too late, and you don’t speak bird anyway. It’s over. Your idyllic view is ruined by reality. It’s the call of the wild. The way of the world. Survival of the fittest. Every bird for himself. Set against the crimson and burnt orange backdrop of a fading sunset, the hawk flies away and a solitary feather flutters to the ground below. Bon appetit.

Eewww.

I’d give up on my attraction for hawks except that I remember seeing all those birds trying to drown each other in our backyard pond. There’s a reason we use the term, “bird brain.” Remember how I told you about how many of them keep nosediving into the windows on my house? Until last night, there had never been a casualty. I heard the crash, the loudest so far, but since it was the Fourth of July, I assumed it was a firecracker exploding. The thought crossed my mind it might be a sparrow instead, but either it had to shake it off or else it was time to go meet Jesus. I don't do CPR on birds. This morning, I counted to ten over the lifeless body of a mourning dove lying outside on the ground and credited the Knockout to the living room window. 

It's kind of unfair to the window to put the blame there. After all, it was just an innocent bystander, standing its ground. Frankly, I think it was a successful kamikaze maneuver on the part of the dove except my house didn’t burst into flames.

It's just plain dangerous to be a bird around here. There’s Jules’ cat, Ruthie, who is always stalking them and leaving piles of feathers at our front doors like grisly love notes. You’d sure expect something sweeter and more refined from someone with a name like Ruthie. Then, as I mentioned, there's my house with all of its villainous windows. And hawks are always on the prowl for fowl. For several years, there’s been a tight-knit family of these peregrines house-hopping from neighbor to neighbor, setting up residence in their tall trees. This year they found temporary shelter in Katy’s yard until the eight-year-old boy living next door peddled his little bike, Wizard of Oz style, down the street and up Katy’s driveway, pounding on her front door in agitation. Her twelve-year-old son answered the door.

“Your hawks are killing our chickens,” the boy exclaimed, “and you’d better do something about it!” Then he turned around and left on his bike, his threat hanging heavy in the air as if we should dispatch the wild creatures or our little dog might be in jeopardy. If we had a little dog.

We dispatched nothing. We’re afraid of the hawks, too. We saw what they did to that poor little starling.

I don’t know. They make flying look so fun. And then there's all that splashing around in mud puddles. But I don’t think being a bird is as wonderful as I once imagined. I know God said he notices every time one of them falls to the ground. But if what they’re known for is falling to the ground, then I’m gonna cross them off my list of things I want to be when I grow up.

I already have both feet on the ground. I think I’ll just stay put and keep enjoying the Enchanted Tiki Room from the safety of my front row seat.

Right here, behind my dangerous windows.

With thanks to Aaron for permission to fly his Disney balloon here. The original photo can be viewed from this link: IMG_1394 | Disney double balloon. Road Trip to Disneyland, D… | Flickr

A Mixed Bag

There’s a pool party going on next door in honor of tomorrow’s American birthday. Everyone in the neighborhood was invited, including me, but there are a couple of reasons why I couldn’t make it. For one thing, it’s a hundred and thirteen degrees in the shade right now and I’m allergic to furnaces. Also, I’m pretty busy right now turning into a recluse. Introverts at pool parties mix like oil and water, to coin a terrible analogy. Nobody likes swimming in stuff like that.

I don’t want to be a recluse. It seems to come with the territory though, that and loneliness. But I’ve been told I don’t have to view things that way. I can find a new story to tell as there are plenty of ways to reframe my perspective. For example, I’m learning to be my own best friend. I’m finding out who I am without Rob. I’m noticing details in the world around me and spinning them into blog posts. Stuff like that. And it gives me lots of time to eat chocolate.

That might be the reason I’m turning into a recluse. Too much chocolate.

There's still plenty of funny in my reclusive world. I just have to look a little harder for it from inside these air-conditioned walls. Today as I sat in my recliner, I read a book written by another widow about the disastrous foray she took into the world of online dating. What a nightmare. Just reading it is keeping me on the straight and narrow, except for that chocolate addiction. But she’s funny, our stories of loss are surprisingly similar, and I’ve got a bag of Dove milk chocolates sitting beside me keeping me company.

You know what’s fun about Dove chocolates besides letting them melt in your mouth? The “silky smooth promises” written inside the foil wrappers. Every couple of pages as I read the author’s struggle to fill out a profile for herself, I picked up another Dove chocolate and decided I’d never expose my soul like that online.

Oh, yeah. Well. Anyway.

“Things I could never live without,” she was asked. “My late husband,” she wrote. I loved her already. She wasn’t gonna get any dates that way, but I knew we could be friends if our paths ever crossed. “Write your own fairytale and be your own hero,” my chocolate therapist wrote. Of course. Table for one and you don’t have to share.

“What are you looking for?”  “A time machine to take me back to when my husband was alive,” she answered. You go, girl, I thought, unwrapping another blue foil with its milk chocolate treasure. “Don’t let anyone dim your light,” Dove agreed. You gotta be you. No one does it better.

It’s a pretty good read. I already knew from watching her interview that she gets a second chance at love in the end, but reading about all the frogs she had to kiss before a prince showed up is entertaining.

I stared off into space, through the sliding glass doors, and out to the pasture beyond. Dan and Katy’s irrigation came in last night and the grass in my front yard and theirs plus everything in the back is a collection of ponds as gallons of water absorb into the thirsty ground. Judging from the arrival of feathered friends, the birds eye view from above must resemble Minnesota, the land of ten thousand lakes.

Earlier, glancing out my bedroom window, I counted at least forty sparrows having their own pool party in a large puddle near the kids’ trampoline in my daughter’s backyard. Now, I spotted one of the neighbor’s white chickens at the far end of Katy’s pasture near the old chicken coop. She was having the time of her life. It was like she’d found the holy grail of bugs and worms out there, rescuing them from floodwaters where it appeared they were doing their best not to drown.

They weren’t drowning. There was no time. In front of our feathered opportunist, a feast of celestial proportions was laid out for her, and she was getting her fill. Also, I suspect she’s an introvert, too, and was escaping all the splashing across the fence in her own yard.

I went into the office and sat at my desk. In the front yard outside my huge window, a snail vine flourishes against the gate beside my back wall, its little purple flowers balanced on wandering tendrils backlit by healthy green leaves. Jutting up from the ground in the middle of its flowering expanse is a tall weed I would have pulled out by now if not for my fear of furnace-like heat and an allergy to wasps. That weed ruins my view and my perspective. But standing tall like it’s doing today, I’ve seen a steady flight of tiny little finches or starlings or something the size of hummingbirds, but without the humming, land delicately on its stalk, pausing mid-flight to snack on it.

Who knew there was something to appreciate about tall, obnoxious weeds? The birds fly in low like a jet on approach, snag the weedy stalk with their landing gear, and hang on while it lurches back and forth like a ride at an amusement park. They make it look like fun to be a bird.

Across the street where the goats coexist with a herd of chickens and baby chicks in the neighbor’s back pasture, their hens tiptoe through irrigation lakes of their own, like they’re afraid to get their feet wet. Kind of like I do when I forget the front yard is a muddy bog every two weeks like it is today. Irrigation is the entire reason things are green in this little oasis in the desert, though, and I cannot tell you how happy that makes this weary desert dweller.

I’m so tired of the heat. It keeps me trapped in the house, playing snoop dog while I spy on the livestock outside who’ve learned how to survive in these temperatures. Sometimes I escape in my truck—and by ‘sometimes’ I mean three or four times a day—just for an air-conditioned change of scenery that won’t bring on heat exhaustion. I’m an A/C hopper. Hold my breath and jump inside the truck. Hold my breath on re-entry into the garage and run back inside the house.

Come to think of it, I do a pretty good imitation of a chicken, inside and out.

The birds have disappeared and I reach for the Dove bag again. “Chocolate now. Stress later,” the foil promises. I’d vote for skipping deferred stress, but there are still three or four more months of summer left for us so it must be true. “Smile like you found twenty dollars in your pocket,” another bite urges. Well, since the bag of chocolate is running low, twenty dollars would come in handy about now. “Manifest it and you’ll make it happen.” In case you lost count, that was the fifth Dove I stuffed into my mouth. I’m manifesting another couple of pounds on my frame as we speak. I probably ought to put this bag in the trash and slow down on the chocolate therapy. Is it too late to start a diet today?

Okay. One last piece. “If you don’t start today, you’ll regret it tomorrow,” my nemesis warns like a coach at a Weight Watcher meeting. In full on rebellion, I snag the final chocolate in the deflated bag of temptation. “Confidence starts with you,” it reads.

I’m not buying Dove chocolates anymore. They're too judgy. 

Chopped

Have you noticed that it’s hard to find three funny things a day? Yesterday’s funny didn’t happen until I was almost ready for bed and decided to watch clips of the presidential debate. That’s enough comic relief for an entire week. Laughter is awesome but it’s keeping me awake at night.

So, I’m upping the ante. I’m calling it a win if I laugh out loud three times a day at other people’s humor instead of putting so much pressure on my funny bone. If I can find one funny thing on my own daily, that should be plenty.

With that in mind, I did the unthinkable this morning and cooked a meal for myself. I used to love cooking and baking and making healthy foods from scratch. Now I don’t. You can add cooking to the long list of things I loved to do before Rob died that have landed in the dumpster now. Turns out that’s super common. As a popular grief coach puts it, “Every corner of my universe has been affected by this enormous loss. Nothing feels the same now. I have to unlearn almost everything I thought I knew and relearn a completely new way.”

I knew this was true instinctively, but it was so weird when I first noticed it. Especially the cooking thing. When you’re grieving, it’s important to get enough rest, water, good food and exercise. These are also the last things you want to do when you’re grieving.

As a result, my new microwave is threatening a coup and fast-food employees working the drive-thru know me by name. This is not good, and I have the extra pounds to prove it.

Still, you have to find a win wherever you can. I was headed out the door with my purse over my shoulder this morning to get another sweetened iced coffee with extra cream and probably a couple of baby donuts as a chaser when, hand on the doorknob, I stopped and asked myself, “Is that really what I want? Is that really what my body wants?”

Sometimes a superior kind of laziness wins out over a basic version, and I make a better decision. I knew that in the time it takes me to drive to Dunkin, make my order on a Saturday morning, and come back home, I could have scrambled some eggs with all the extras, browned up some potatoes (from a bag – I’m not a gonna be extreme here), and enjoyed a hot breakfast in peace. Good food, nourishing food, food I already own and have already paid for.

The cheapskate in me won out and I put my purse away. I’m not sure it was my best decision.

I pulled out the bag of ready-to-cook hash browns and put them into my new non-stick skillet. I covered them with foil to speed things up and then—here’s where you may want to look away—nature called. It was serious.

Now, I know it’s a bad idea to leave a pan on a hot burner to cook while you make a pit stop in the bathroom, but I don’t have a choice anymore. I don’t have someone in the house I can yell to for backup in the kitchen. It was a risky move, I’ll admit. I’ll also admit it just now occurred to me that I could have turned the burner off for five minutes. See? At my age, the synapses are misfiring, and dicey behavior overwhelms common sense more often than anyone needs to know. No, I didn’t fall down in the bathroom, hit my head on the granite countertop, and wake up in a room filled with smoke while a herd of firefighters carried me out into the yard. How embarrassing. You have such an imagination. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, just that it didn’t.

I made it back to the hash browns in time to turn them over, nicely browned, and began to work on the eggs. All scrambled up in a bowl with salt and pepper and lots of onion powder, I did my level best not to make a mess. This is the main reason I don’t want to cook anymore—I don’t want to clean up after myself. I don’t want a dirty stove top or island or dirty dishes in the sink. I don’t want crumbs on the floor or any evidence at all that life is messy. When I pick up supper from Chick Fil A, like I did last night, the dishes go right into the trash and there’s nothing left for me to do except turn on Netflix.

The hash browns all finished, I planned to use the same pan for the eggs. To save on dishes. I picked up my shiny new non-stick skillet, tried to put half the stuck-together potatoes onto my plate and the rest into a bowl for tomorrow, and dropped them on my clean counter instead because nicely browned browns don’t want to stop holding hands with each other. The pan was hot, the potatoes were hot, they slid out of the non-stick skillet as slick as snot and covered the counter from end to end. Frustrated, I left them there to think about what they’d done.

Drippy, eggy fork in my left hand, bowl of liquid breakfast in the other, I realized I’d put an empty hot pan on a still cooking burner without any oil or food in it. I also had no more hands available to fix this problem and I didn’t want to put anything down because everything was drippy and eggy and I didn’t want to make a mess. Smoke was coming up from the new, empty pan. I had to do something. I set the bowl of eggs down and grabbed a rubber spatula to slice off a pat of butter for the pan. Half the stick of butter stuck to the spatula, which is too much even for me, but my left hand was still holding the drippy egg fork.

Why God didn’t give us four hands instead of two leaves me inclined to believe in evolution instead of divine design.

I put the fork down on the counter, which was desecrated by potatoes anyway, picked up the fork I’d set aside for eating my breakfast, and quickly fixed the butter situation. The butter hit the pan like an ice cube in an angry volcano and before I could pour in the eggs it began to bubble and burn. I sighed, gave the eggs one last whip with the drippy fork and, with both fork and bowl in my left hand, poured in the yellow liquid anyway. I’ve heard browned butter eggs are chic. And here is where I made a costly error and was reminded again of why I don’t want to cook anymore.

I’ve lost my mojo.

I also lost my fork. It slipped out of my hand and into the skillet of eggs where, before I could blink, it disappeared into a pool of bubbling yellow. Chic browned butter eggs are one thing, but omelets aren’t supposed to come with a fork cooked into them. I grabbed the rubber spatula which was no help at all in rescuing the fork because—rubber. The fork fell in again and I had to leave it there to cook while I put the empty mixing bowl in the sink, and when I came back my scrambled breakfast was nearly set. I snatched the drippy egg fork from its resting place on the potato-covered counter, wedged it under the superheated scrambled egg fork in the pan, and in one quick flip watched it fly into the air, do a triple reverse backward twist and slide down the lower cabinets just before it hit the floor. I gave it a 7.9 for style and returned my attention to the eggs.

The kitchen was a disaster area. Egg was all over the counter, running down the side of the cabinets, and pooling a bit on the floor, but not too much since half of my omelet was still attached to the hot fork. The butter dish, smeared with a rejected slab of butter, needed to be washed now, and the stove top was splattered with an overspray of oil from the potatoes and yellow drips from my sloppy egg maneuver. The sink was filled with a pile of dirty dishes not even seen in the kitchen of Chick Fil A, and there were dots of ketchup all over the island from a bottle that I forgot was nearly empty before I decorated my hash browns.

The food was delicious. And it was free-ish. And hot. But it wasn’t worth the trouble or the nutrition.

I watch a lot of cooking competitions on tv, but not once have they ever given credit to the people responsible for damage control in the kitchen. They barely even show you the pile of dirty dishes in the sink or the way the counters have been desecrated in the process. I want to see a show where dishwashers compete to see who makes it through without dropping a dish or getting chopped. Now that's something I can aspire to.

Honestly, though, I don’t want to cook a meal for one and have to do all the clean up, too. It’s not satisfying anymore. If you’re gonna destroy something as clean and organized as a tidy kitchen, you should at least have an audience to applaud you for the effort and tell you the food tastes good.

The only way to keep the mess to a minimum without trying to serve a cheesy fork omelet to yourself is to pick up your purse and head to McDonald’s where Buffy recognizes your voice in the drive-thru and keeps your debit numbers on speed dial. They even have a trash can in the exit lane where you can deposit all your used dishes.

Now that’s what I’m talking about.

With thanks to Mike Mozart for proof that cooking isn't for everyone. The pic seen above can be viewed in its unbroken state at the following link: Broken Eggs, by Mike Mozart of TheToyChannel and JeepersMe… | Flickr

Finding The Funny

Sometimes it’s hard to find the funny, especially if you’re not in the mood. I was hoping funny would find me so I wouldn’t fail on my second day of this challenge, but things were feeling a little forced. I’ve won a couple of awards in Toastmasters for humorous speeches, but I quickly learned that if the audience isn’t ready to laugh, you ain’t gonna be funny. There really is a thing called ‘energy in the room’ and I struggled to find it today. Maybe our outside temp of 113 degrees was to blame. There’s not much to laugh about inside a furnace.

I was determined, though. You’ve got to make finding funny its own special kind of treasure hunt on days when life feels too serious. On a good day, funny will fly right into your face where you can’t miss it, like the time I was offering a glass of grape juice to my cousin and it slipped out of my hand. The glass landed straight down on the table in front of her, which was a pretty good save. For the glass. But Newton’s First Law of Inertia states that an object at rest will stay at rest unless the object is acted upon by an unbalanced external force. I played the part of the unbalanced external force.

See, the grape juice had been resting inside the glass until the glass hit the table, and the effect was the same as when a kid jumps out of a tree and onto a trampoline. The contents of that glass, twelve ounces of purple grape juice, hit my cousin full in the face and it was several minutes before she recovered from the shock and the rest of us stopped laughing long enough to hand her a towel.

I actually still feel bad about this incident, but we were both homeschooling and this was our science co-op day, so it all turned out for the best, I think. At least I learned about gravity and my cousin learned to get her own beverages when I'm around.

See? That kind of funny catches you off guard. I wanted to find off-guard funny today, but I think it was too hot outside. Even planet earth was in a foul mood this afternoon, and who can blame it? Four hours east of here, high in Arizona’s beautiful White Mountains, a friend of mine lives in the little, scenic village of Greer. People escape to Greer for months every summer when they find out about the weather there. “It’s raining and 69 degrees,” my friend texted me today, “but I shouldn’t tell others that.” I always forget how lovely it is there. So hard to believe paradise is that close when there's sweat running down your back. "Yeah, you probably ought to keep that to yourself,” I responded. “You don’t want to get TP’d in the rain.”  Four hours from here. Which is apparently the actual physical distance between heaven and hell. I still might go toilet paper her yard.

So, funny had gone into hiding and I had to get out and see if I could find it. There wasn’t much in my email’s inbox to fall back on, and I realized I was gonna have to at least take a drive around the block and put myself in the path of good material if I wanted to squeeze out a chuckle somehow. I decided to go wander around a Home Goods store and either look for inspiration or discover something I suddenly couldn’t live without.

Right away I spotted an amazing table that would look spectacular on the patio of my crazy friend’s house in Tucson. She needs this in the worst way. It was a two-foot tall plaster sailor with a bird on his head and an empty tray held out in one hand. Ugly as sin and a real statement piece. The statement was, “I can’t wait to see the look on your face when I give this to you.”

Don’t go feeling sorry for her. She torments me mercilessly. Outdoing each other with horrible gifts is the foundation of our friendship. She once gave me a huge, painted styrofoam hand that she decorated with fake poinsettias and a photo of herself. It rose up out of a worn-out gift bag looking like a Halloween nightmare. She made me open it inside Starbucks so there’d be witnesses to how depraved she is, and when I did, two customers next to us came over and gushed about how beautiful and unusual the present was. Later I found out she bribed them to say that stuff. I thought they were just crazy like her, but she’s in a league of her own.

I really wanted to get that little nautical decoration for her, but I left the store empty handed today. Home Goods’ price tag for the tacky sailor was a hundred dollars! There is no accounting for taste, but I don’t have to pay for it. She’ll have to buy that ugly table herself.

Just walking across the black asphalt parking lot ruined the good mood I’d almost managed to find, and I climbed inside the oven I call my truck, sat down on a melting leather seat, and turned on the air conditioner full force, sucking in overheated air for a minute until the compressor found its stride. Buckled in, I threw it in reverse, and watched in my backup camera as a woman in a shiny, new Navigator sitting in a parking space on the row behind me did her level best to meet me by accident right outside the Home Goods store. In self-defense, I put my Tahoe in drive and pulled as far forward into the empty space in front of me as I could so the woman wouldn’t succeed and ruin my bumper. She never turned her wheels. She just kept coming at me like I wasn’t there or maybe she assumed I was slowly pulling straight out so she didn’t have to do some fancy maneuver like using the steering wheel to steer.

At the last minute, she changed direction and drove away from potential disaster, oblivious to the fact that I was anywhere close instead of in Greer in the rain where I belonged. Mumbling to myself, I made it out to the main street through town without further incident, only to have another little Zippity Doo Dah try to hit me from behind again. You know, when someone rear-ends your vehicle, it’s always seen as their fault, but that’s no consolation when you lose your mode of transportation.

At this point, Mama had had enough. “Siri!” I yelled above the roar of my air conditioner. “Make a note!”

“To the jerk who nearly ran me over on Ellsworth Road and to the lady who tried her best to link bumpers in the parking lot, better luck next time. I know it’s not very Christian for me to hope you each get flat tires, but I’m still a work in progress so don’t expect too much from me just yet.”

I don’t know if I found funny today or just did the best I could with what I had, but some days are like that. If I’d had the patience to watch the debates tonight on TV, I’m certain I’d have found plenty of rich material there. I’ll settle for an ugly plaster table and a full glass of grape juice, though.

I don’t think I could handle any cow pies today. 

Today's Funnies

My new personal challenge is going very well for the first day. All I had to do was write down three things that showed up in life’s inbox that made me laugh. The sun is calling it a day as I write this evening, and it’s been a pretty good day for humor. I’ve collected my quota times two. That means tomorrow is covered, so I can be an Eeyore if I feel like it.

It’s hard to choose which of the six to write about. Maybe I should update you on the Platypus Sock Company which offered me five bucks to keep their lousy products instead of returning them for a partial refund. I accepted their lowball offer, an email they ignored, and the next day they upped their ante and offered me eight instead. Three more dollars was tempting, but their insecurity was suspicious and, deciding that communication isn’t their strong suit, I let it go. Until this morning. Today they sent me an email requesting a review on their product. I nearly sent a link to the scathing critique I posted here, but I don’t need any more trolls following my blog, so I condensed my feelings and told them what I really think about the way they scammed me out of fifty bucks. When I clicked “Send” I got an immediate reply. They offered me 13% off my next purchase in appreciation.

I’m not sure how to interpret that.

I mean, they’re foreigners so maybe they don’t realize that the number 13 is never up to anything good over here. Don’t you think that’s a weird percentage to offer anyway? Ten or fifteen per cent off I could understand, but thirteen? Maybe I should hold out for more. If I turn them down today, they might offer me fourteen tomorrow. Stay tuned. This is getting interesting.

My email was filled with inspiration today. I have a credit card with a clothing company that I pay off every month. Their clothes are so overpriced and poorly manufactured, though, that it’s been easy to let that zero-balance ride lately. Last week they notified me that if I continue to expect paper bills from them, they’re going to charge me an extra fee.

Well, that’s a first. I don’t understand this. It’s not like this country wants to save trees anymore. There’s some comedienne doing ads on tv now who calls herself a “paperologist” and shames people in public for using plastic bags or buying food that comes in plastic containers. I wish the government would make up its freaking mind. Ten years ago, we were all branded as entitled consumers for choosing paper over plastic even though those were the choices given to us. Today we’re labeled as selfish pigs for filling up landfills with free packaging that will never self-destruct. If you don’t want us to use plastic, stop making it. Starting with credit cards.

Back to that email. The entire message read, “Your credit card is ready for your next purchase.” Like it’s an obligation or something. Or worse, a privilege for me to charge a bunch of overpriced clothing that’s just going to fall apart in my dryer. This is shamefully self-promoting, if you ask me, but it did make me laugh. And that’s all I was looking for.

For today’s final contestant, I’m settling on rogue chickens. I love chickens, from a distance. I don’t want a pet chicken because they feel creepy when you pick them up, and also dogs are pets, chicken are dinner. But they’re hilarious in person. They look even sillier than me when they run, like their arms are tied behind their backs, and they’re so fidgety. What’s that about? Unfortunately, they also taste good raw if you’re a pesky coyote, so when the last of Katy’s pastured fowl passed away recently, she drew a line in the sand that excluded any more chickens. She’s also tired of chicken poop in the pasture which, I’ll admit, is smelly and disgusting.

But now there are no chickens back there to make me laugh. There are two funny looking sheep out there who you’d swear are goats until you gaze into their eyes and realize they’re not looking back at you with a demonic stare. Goats are creepy. Sometimes the sheep are entertaining, but the pasture looks so empty now without the menagerie that once lived there that it makes me sad. Just another reminder that life changes against your will.

But tonight, while I sat watching tv and occasionally glancing out through the patio doors at the pasture beyond, I was surprised to see two bright, white, fluffy chickens wandering around in Katy’s vibrant green pasture, strutting their stuff like they belonged there. I knew this had to be a miracle. Katy wouldn’t have bought two full grown birds without telling me. Nobody sells full grown birds anyway. If you want a chicken, you gotta start from scratch. So to speak. Ain’t nobody got time for baby chicks around here anymore. I know I’m not raising them. I’m retired.

Upon close inspection, especially considering their alabaster white feathers, I surmised that these were visitors from heaven, miracles flown in from the sky or, more likely, dropped from above. I know that’s probably a real downgrade for angels, being forced to show up in the form of a chicken, but God’s ways are not our ways. He knows I love chickens. I texted Katy in excitement. “There are two huge white chickens in the pasture!” “I know,” she wrote back. “They belong to the family behind us.”

Oh. Right. I always forget that chickens fly, even over fences. No matter. Real chickens are better than angelic ones anyway. I’d feel sorry for an angel if he was forced to peck the ground for bugs or run away with his wings in the air while escaping from a territorial sheep, which is what happened tonight in the back pasture. It's just not dignified. That bird was airborne in a matter of seconds and barely made it safely over to her side of the tracks before Esther came charging at her again. Esther is the mean sheep. Even I stay out of her way. The other bird was no help at all to her fellow fowl and did nothing to come to the rescue because chickens are chicken. I’m not really sure what happened to her, but since I don’t see a pile of white feathers out on that bright green grass where the sister sheep reign supreme, I think she’s okay. If not, then she’s flying free like an angel, which is what I thought was going on in the first place.

So, there you have it. It doesn’t take a lot to make me laugh. Humor is everywhere if you know where to look. And if you don’t, just check your inbox.

See ya tomorrow. 

Cheap Medicine

My favorite kind of blog to write is a funny one. And if you get my sense of humor, you are my tribe. My people. My lifeline. If you don’t get my sense of humor, that’s ok. I might need more practice.

I could be a lot funnier if I wasn’t always so worried about offending people who recognize themselves inside my stories. But these are the only stories I know. I’m not that good at making things up, and what’s funnier than real life anyway?

In the last three and a half years since Rob decided living with Jesus would be less stressful than living with me (don’t be offended – I’m just stating the obvious), I’ve tried a variety of ways to cope with my grief. I’ve crossed a few things off the list because they don’t appeal to me or come at too high a cost, such as taking up drinking or driving off a cliff, but some of the more socially acceptable options are things I’ve explored. I met with a counselor every week for almost three years until one of them retired (suspicious timing) and the other one got to yawning a lot while I was talking. It seemed like we both needed a break at that point. Looks like I not only wear out friends, but also professionals.

I’ve read trusted authors and questionable authors and wasted a lot of money on books that Goodwill sold for more than I originally paid for them. I’ve lost a lot of sleep staying up late while I watched YouTube videos about the afterlife and listening to the sad stories of other widows/widowers. (Some people are really a downer.) I also found one or two women who had useful things to say. I joined a writing group for grievers which was profoundly helpful and resulted in a long-lasting friendship still going to this day. That was a win. And recently I’ve joined a one-year program via zoom where I meet with other widows for validation and pick up some useful tips on survival.

I’ve eaten too much and drunk too little water. I’ve tossed out retail therapy because there’s no one around to admire my good taste or complain about my spending habits. However, online gadgets arrive regularly at my front door, are usually a waste of money, but are also a great source of blog inspiration. I’ve depleted a few friends, no condemnation to those on hiatus, and made a couple of new ones who probably question their common sense when it comes to including me in their circles. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words, cried more tears than that, and driven my new truck nearly into the ground trying to hang on to the thing Rob and I enjoyed most in life, seeing the country and being with loved ones.

But my heart still hurts. And I still stand in an empty room where, from time to time, I cry out, “Where are you?” Because I can’t visualize the dimension where he lives now, and God won’t let me take a peek. Rude.

Advice is everywhere on how to survive life after loss. Some of it comforts, some of it is garbage. Author and counselor Megan Devine (“It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok”) spent years telling brokenhearted women how to overcome the loss of their spouses, utilizing all the techniques she learned in higher education. But the day her husband drowned right in front of her, she threw out all her books, shut down her counseling practice, and came out on the other side with an entirely different view of what does and doesn’t work. Experience made the difference, so I feel qualified to have a strong opinion about grief as a widow even without having a college degree.

Free advice abounds, which saves me a lot of money but is sometimes only worth the price I paid for it. I’ve been told to focus on positive energy. Distract myself. Stay busy. Start dating. Remember the good times. Be thankful I had Rob for as long as I did. Find meaning in my loss.  Change the subject. Help out the less fortunate. Get my eyes off myself. Keep his memory alive. Do yoga. Stay mindful and present. Practice meditation. Trust the Lord. Find a job. Stop complaining. Get more sleep. Make exercise a priority. And fresh air. And water. Clean up your diet and eat healthy food.

It’s more exhausting trying to get over my grief than to simply live with it.

I am a list person. I journal a lot and probably post things on my blog that I shouldn’t. But there are lists I don’t love, like the currently popular practice of gratitude journals (gag me). I can’t. I’m grateful for butterflies and sunsets like everyone else, but no. Just no. I don’t make lists of my faults and old wounds and burn them in the fireplace, either. (I don’t even have a fireplace, which helps.) I don’t set goals or read inspirational books about overcoming. (Who needs that kind of toxic positivity?) I’m not a self-helper. Some would agree and go so far as to say that I need a lot of help. Hard to argue with that one.

But I love to laugh. And last week I ran across an idea for keeping a list that finally appealed to me. Every day write down three funny things you notice.

I love this one. Everything is funny. It’s not too hard to find funny things. The challenging part is paying attention and maybe helping out the funny with your own little spin on it. And the other part, mentioned at the top of the page, is having the courage to point out funny things about being human. I’m up for the challenge, though.

This I can get in to. This is good medicine. This lifts my spirits and helps me process pain. Every humorist, or as Garrison Keillor calls it, “the business of humoristicism,” (even spellcheck didn’t recognize that one) finds the source of humor in personal pain. Ta da! I qualify again.

Keillor offers a few insights about the way funny works. Funny takes us by surprise. He said comedy is about absurdity and conflict and irony. Awesome! Permission to rub my hands together in glee and go for it.

fingernails on a keyboard . . . clickety clickety click . . .

the hum of a cheap, off-balance, overhead fan . . .

crickets chirping in boredom. . . .

I can’t think of anything.

But I will. I’m starting that list today. You just watch. I’m gonna be funny from now on, lift myself up from where I’ve fallen, and find my groove again. And even if, when the dust settles, I’m the only one still laughing, I’ll feel better. I’m not the only source of funny. I’m just one of the gang.

Find your funny somewhere. I promise you—it will save your life.

It’s saving mine.

Tears

“Is she strong?” someone asked about a widowed friend.

Depends on what is meant by strength. Does that mean her heart is an erect wall, able to withstand life’s storms without bending?

Then, no. She’s not strong. She bends. Children love to be encircled in her soft embrace.

Maybe she’s as strong as the cadence in a bass drum, its beat constant at the rear of the band, compelling all the other musicians to march on, keep going, never pausing to rest.

            No. She’s not strong like that. Her broken heart beats a syncopated rhythm now that confuses the rest of the band.

            Will she give up?

            Sometimes.

            Will she long to be with him?

            Always.

Will she be changed in the fire?

No doubt.

            No doubt.

I think strength is a paradox. A woman in labor writhes in pain while her body takes her down a dangerous, frightening road. From the outside, her cries may make her appear weak but as new life emerges, it’s her submission to forces beyond her control that reveal what strength looks like.

I once watched Arizona’s Salt River flow with such intensity it took out a bridge built to span its width. Three times the normal amount of rainfall had filled reservoirs to a dangerous level, and if there was no immediate relief Coolidge Dam would burst. But when authorities released record amounts of pent-up water into the swollen river, it flowed with such force it took with it everything in its path, including that new bridge. Yet, the alternative would have been more deadly. By letting the pressure off, catastrophe was averted.

Was the dam strong?

            Yes.

It was also vulnerable. It does no good to pretend there’s no risk when pressure rises.

Does a tree bow in a storm?

            Yes. That’s how I know there’s storm outside—I see how punishing the wind is. I notice how its leaves shake, and the branches react. But I never question the strength of the oak.

“Is she strong?”

            She will bend in her storm, this friend of mine.

            She’ll cry a river of tears again and again, releasing the pain which will fill her heart - again and again.

            On windy days, she’ll feel shaken, even unstable, to those who watch and wonder. She may think her world is spinning out of control.

            But that’s the illusion of vertigo.

Her heart is broken. She is ravaged by a fiery loss. She may not recognize her world anymore and, on some days, not even herself.

            But she will not fall.

            God is within her and He will help her.*

Is she strong?

            No.

            But she knows Who is.

 

 

*Psalm 46:5

All In

We lingered for a while after our coffee grew cold and crumbs were all that remained of an afternoon treat. Heart to heart, we leaned in to the unknown and shared the space where certainty flees and fear feels like shame.

“We live in the boonies,” she said. “If we get sick, there’s not much in the way of good medical help.”

I nodded, remembering. It was on our list when we moved to our mountain dream. Find a good doctor. And a dentist. Have it all in place as soon as you can. But we weren’t sick, and our checkups were up to date. There was time.

Another friend, ten years older than we were, told us it was too late for he and his wife to go after that cabin in the woods they always wanted. He said at their age, despite how active and healthy they both were, they needed to live close to hospitals now. I scoffed at that. No way was I going to let a hospital’s address determine mine. We’d go for the dream and figure things out.

We always figured things out. Going all in, we did it together. But this time we lost it all. I guess Rob won the prize. But I lost everything. I even lost my ignorance.

I’m still figuring things out, but now I have to do it without Rob here. Of all the things I’ve learned the hard way, the one that is the most crippling is a personal awareness of how fragile life is. How easily a strong, healthy man or woman can be brought to their knees by a disease, a virus, an accident. How quickly strength deserts you while you fight for your life.

It makes me afraid. I hate to admit that, and yet remembering how much I wanted to join Rob for months after he left us, I see now where a bit of healing has happened and the normal instinct of wanting to live has returned. It’s the fear of death that makes me aware of how much I value life. It's such a paradox. But also, after having lost so much when I lost Rob, I find myself fearful of losing again, and remarkably aware of how easily it can happen.

I thought I was the optimistic one in our marriage, even though I was more of a worry wart than Rob. He was the bravest man I’ve ever known, but his pessimism kept him from simple things like making a phone call. “What if they’re busy?” he’d say, postponing the effort to find out. “What if they’re not?” I’d respond. “You won’t know until you make the call.”  Or, "What if it doesn't work out?" he'd ask, wishing I'd leave well enough alone. "But what if it does?" I'd answer.

You won’t know until you try. You won’t know if marriage is a good idea unless you make the commitment. You won’t know if children are fulfilling and the best thing on planet earth unless you become a parent. You won’t know if the next house is better than the one you still hold a mortgage on unless you change addresses. And what if, after you take the risk, you end up with an armload of regret, eyes turned back to the city you left behind, forgetting all the things that propelled you forward?

"What if?" It’s paralyzing, isn’t it? Like Lot’s wife in the desert, turned to a salty statue, unwilling to take one more step forward and away from what she could not hold on to, she stands immobile, a monument to regret. And the irony there is that, either way, no matter which way you choose, regret comes along for the ride.

This is not the life I imagined. It’s not the dream we went for. It’s unfamiliar and scary and I feel so guilty that things turned out this way. The “if only’s” torture me, making me forget that only hindsight is 20/20. Where for decades we were one, now I’m all that’s left of us. And I feel frozen. The hard-earned experience I’ve gained, where the blinders are off and I can see clearly how short life is and how little control any of us really have, is both a blessing and a curse. There is nothing I could have done to save Rob’s life. I don’t have that much power. I found myself face to face with the one thing Rob always said was inevitable—we are all terminal. Allowing myself to go free from the torment of self-blame is a relief. It was not wrong to follow our dreams.

Now I am faced with another future—living in the liminal space between what I wanted and what is left to me, “fighting for a life I cannot see,” as a wise woman recently said to me. I stand on the precipice of forward motion, trying to decide if I can let go of what was and untether myself enough to move forward, or if I will allow the salt of my tears to cement me to this ground where at least I know what to expect.

It’s a strange choice unlike any other I’ve ever faced before. I wish Rob was here to talk to. But if he was, I wouldn’t have this choice to make. What I am slowly learning is that, while I feel abandoned, I never have been. God is for me. He is in me. He is holding me.

We’ll figure things out together.

With thanks to Lionel Roubeyrie whose wonderful photo is seen above. The original can be viewed from this link: Bet | a simple poker party | Lionel Roubeyrie | Flickr