I Am Not Dead

I am not dead.

Since I wrote to you last, I have collected $2200 in donations for an auction that doesn't appear as if it will be well-attended. At last count, fourteen people signed up. I've brushed Teddy's and Ringo's teeth daily only to find that plaque still wins. I've separated a friendly dog who has been exposed to kennel cough with no cough so far from other friendly dogs on the trail. The friendly dog is sad.

I've escorted a boy to the doctor to find that he's broken the same bone in the same finger yet again. He does not, it seems, know how to catch a football. I have yelled at said boy for getting all A's except for Art, wherein he was failing. Now, he's recovered to a C. How do you get a C in Art?

I've fed 180 football players and done dishes afterward. Then I've fed 125 Boy Scouts and did dishes afterward. It turns out that I like playing with an industrial dishwasher. I wish my own kitchen were as well equipped, stainless steel everywhere and a floor with a drain that can stand to get wet. Come to think of it, I'd love a whole industrial kitchen, separate sinks for handling meat and vegetables, can-openers that work, knives that are sharp, and a place for everything. I love having a place for everything. You should have seen me working in those kitchens. I could actually see myself being the lunch lady. I could. No laughing.

I've argued with a boy about how he can lose two pair of special-order shoes in a week. Don't leave your shoes in the stands before a game. Don't leave your shoes in the locker room after practice. One pair of shoes showed up, but not before I emailed the coach about missed games due to lack of cleats and, of course, not before ordering a new pair.

I have not cooked well for my own family. Chicken patties, sloppy joes, ham, just ham. Can you imagine having just ham for dinner and calling it good?

I guess we're all tired. I'll see you soon. I promise I'll come back soon.

Thank you for listening, jb

Finding Art in the Air, the Wood, and the Stones

Mike and I took Teddy down to the Snoqualmie Falls tonight. Magic. First, I found Mike's silhouette in the stones. He just happened to be standing there when I saw that the boulder right behind him had his profile. Did he do that unconsciously or did I see what I wanted to see, a face I loved reflected in stone?

Then more magic. The rainbow. Okay, it's true that if you walk down to the falls on any sunny evening, you're likely to find a rainbow in the spray, but it's still magic since I've only seen it twice. I love watching the roiling red mist and on the bottom side, the narrow band of purple haze. It never surprises me that the Snoqualmie tribe holds the falls sacred. There is energy there, pure, clean, and surprisingly powerful.

I wasn't done with the evening's magic yet. Mike had walked downstream while I scrambled around the big boulder to look at the rainbow as close as I could without slipping on the wet rocks. When I followed him back downstream, I got stuck in the sneaker-deep creek that joins the river just below the falls. Wet feet be damned. As I made my way through, I tried to get to the other side through tall grasses, not the kind the grows in your yard, but the kind with wide green leaves that grow thigh-deep in shallow water. I was about to crash through a web with a large spider in it. I stopped just short and there, to my right, was a Pacific treefrog. He held his blade of grass and waited. I leaned closer to see the black stripe that runs across his eye like a mask. I looked at his tiny toes, not webbed, but I couldn't see the disks that helped him hold on. I told him he was beautiful and though I could see he was about to leap to safety, he didn't. He might have let go of a held breath as I passed between him and the big spider web and trundled away to higher ground.

One more. When we went up the other trail, we passed over a large felled tree that had a chunk carved out of it so travelers could step over without having to scramble. Growing there was an artist's fungus - yes, that is it's real name from a book - a large semicircular fan with concentric brown and gray circles drawn onto the top and white as paper flesh on the bottom.

I think I met the artist down at the falls.

Thank you for listening, jb

As Long as He's Having Fun

I've been gone from here. I hadn't meant to be gone so long. Can we just slow things down? There was Nick's birthday, back-to-school business, football practice, end of the summer stuff, and then Nick was actually back to school and my free time was supposed to be free. The only problem was that I went  back to school as well.

Why do I volunteer my time away? I helped for pictures. I did a PTSA finance audit. Why did I agree to help with a PTSA finance audit? I don't want to add up numbers and crap. I just don't. I only agreed to do it because my friend is the PTSA treasurer.

I also agreed to help with meals for Nick's football team. I like feeding kids. I like the feel of the industrial kitchen at the school. It's so clean and efficient. I did dishes on Thursday. I actually liked doing dishes there. I wish my kitchen were set up so I could get water all over and that would be okay.

Next week should be easier. It should. I don't have much planned except for the food for the football team. The nice thing is that I'm not organizing it. I've organized food for 37 people for a camping weekend and that was crazy. I don't want to figure out meals for 158 people once a week. I'll chop vegetables. I'll serve portions. I'll do dishes. I like feeding the kids, but I don't want to organize it.

In the meantime, I'm drinking too much coffee. For three weeks, I've been waking up before 6:00 am even on days I'm able to sleep. After dropping Nick off, I've been going to a coffee shop and they give me a bigger size coffee than I'm asking for. It's nice, but there's a reason I'm asking for the smaller size.

This is all boring shit, you know. Boring. BORING.

So what else can I tell you about?

There's the waiting. Nick's football practice hours are a suggestion. I can show up on time to pick him up and he isn't done for a half hour. What the hell? I've had parents say that there isn't time to do homework on game nights. Really? He isn't expected to do his homework?

I'm sorry. This is boring too.

Can you see I've been sucked into the machine? I'm volunteering a bunch of my time for an organization that don't have any idea of what I really intend to do with my time. I wanted Nick to get exercise and he is. His calf muscles are showing the lines and form of each muscle these days. His shoulders are wider. His coach said he's as strong as an ox.

But I also want him to get an education. In the long run, he's going to need the education more.

I have to remind myself that this isn't about what I want for him any more. This is about what he wants for himself, with a little bit of mom-wanting thrown in for good measure.

But why did it have to be football? Why couldn't it have stayed karate? Why couldn't it have been swimming or music or art? I get those things. That's one of the challenges of being a parent, isn't it? It's my job to support what he loves, even volunteer my time for it. But football?

I have a boy who is a lot like me in temperament, but who is interested in stuff that is entirely different than stuff I'm interested in. I'm watching a bunch of football these days. I never watched football before. In the afternoons when the kids aren't done practicing, I walk up into the stadium and find myself looking out over a sea of red jerseys and searching for my boy's silhouette. What is he doing? How is he feeling?

I'm not entirely sure he's all that good. He's not experienced with football. I can see that he's not the first to volunteer when kids are called. He stands at the back of the crowd. By looking at his silhouette, I can't tell that he loves it though he says he does. When he finally gets into the car after practice, his chatter is all about bruises and plays and what the coach said. So what do I know?

So far, I haven't been expected to sit through college or professional football games. If I did, I'd pick a player that had Nick's solid silhouette and I'd privately cheer him on. I'd watch for evidence of his enthusiasm from across the field. I'd look for injuries. I'd try to see, after all the years of practice, if it looked like he was still having fun.


As long as he's still having fun, I think, but what about me?

Thank you for listening, jb

Banging Pots in the Early Morning

It has been a hot, dry summer for us and I think everyone, even kids, are ready to head back to school. Football practice starts tomorrow. I'm sure there's an email I need to check with details. Mike is asleep on the couch with a movie on.

Oh, there's another story that I really shouldn't tell you at all. Nick had trouble with a couple of friends who spent the nigh and I really should not tell the story. I'm not willing to take the risk of complaining about people when they might eventually recognize themselves. Even for a kid, it doesn't seem right though they would be least likely to encounter themselves in a middle-aged woman's rantings. Especially for a kid, it isn't right to broadcast mistakes, but I want to complain. I really do.

Okay, you're right. I won't tell all of it. Kids make mistakes and these didn't involve the big three, sex, drugs, or alcohol. So, the whole thing could have been worse. Still, I was so angry that I cried, but not in front of the boys. I'll keep those pesky and most interesting details out of the story.

Here are the basics. Two boys came for a sleepover and did things with food that were revolting. They left gross chunks and splatters of food everywhere, on my carpet, on my futon, on the lamp stand, on the coffee table. Some of it had to have been thrown to get where it was. I could see trajectory.

Who does that in someone else's house?

The funny part of it was that Nick, having tried to keep these boys from doing what they did, didn't get into trouble and was commended for his attempt at doing the right thing. He described how some boys he knows are not disciplined enough and so they behave badly wherever they go and the others are disciplined too much and they act out when their parents aren't around. He told me, yes me, that he was so happy that we were in-the-middle kind of parents. He's also taking quite a bit of interest in our anger. I think he was so relieved not to be in trouble, that we compared his past mistakes as easy compared to what these boys did. It was even better when we said that even what they did wasn't the worst a kid could do. Nick is pleased to know that he's not far down the scale. I've been trying to remind him more often that he's a good kid since it seems as though he needs to hear it. I hadn't noticed that need before, but I did in all of this.

In the meantime, I had to tell the parents of the boys what happened. That was hard to get to. I don't like complaining to people about their kids. Mike's response surprised me. After I discovered it, I stood, furious, in the kitchen and whispered fiercely to Mike that I wish I had his patience. Nick and the offenders slept in the next room. I was tempted to bang pots until they were awake. I was tempted to drive them home at six in the morning. I wasn't sure why I was whispering.

"Well, maybe patience is not what is needed here," he whispered back. It was then that I realized that parents should be involved.

And maybe a little early-morning pot banging too.

Thank you for listening, jb

A Spooky Dog at the Faire

We went to the last Saturday of the Midsummer Renaissance Faire in Bonney Lake today. It was the first time we'd ever been there in cool weather. It was mostly great, eating meat pies and turkey legs, watching people in their exceptional and sometimes half-hearted costumes, watching magic and juggling and jousting and sword-play. It was mostly great, except ...

Teddy got spooked by the sound of distant cannons. Okay, I didn't even hear them at first but his dog ears did and he was constantly reminding me with a hard tug which direction the car was parked. That dog could get me home in a thunderstorm. Most of the time he's light on the leash but tonight, my hands are sore and I wished more than once that I didn't have one of those nylon ribbon leashes. Actually, I wished more than once that I hadn't brought him or that it was actually cool enough to bring him back to the car. I never did see where they were shooting off those cannons, not that I would have gone near them with Teddy on the line.

I didn't know what to do. He slipped his collar twice and tried to crawl under tent flaps until I found a man with a riveter who punched a row of holes in his leather collar. Teddy wasn't happy when I tightened that thing around his neck and wrapped the leash around my waist as ballast against his straining. He calmed himself down when we stopped for a show and he crawled under us in the bleachers. He just needed a tight spot to hang out. After that, we watched a number of shows. We liked the rat show, Cirque du Sewer. She's got the cat trained to play in the rat show! It was a good show. And as we sat on the bales of hay, Teddy crawled under our knees. I spread my skirt out over him to make a tent around him. That did the trick and afterward, Teddy sniffed hello to a few dogs and saw that they weren't shot through with cannon-fire so he relaxed a bit. Then, there was a bakery woman with beautiful tarts and pies and a friendly dog. Teddy found he could be social again. Sometimes I really miss eating junk food. These baked goods were beautiful sugary things, bound to kill me with their sweetness. When I die, I want to die of key lime tarts, if you don't mind.

Really, I'm not going to bring Teddy to the fair next year. It's just easier than trying to calm him. I've heard that if you ignore fearful behavior, it'll go away, but my hands hurt and it's not worth retraining him for something we do once a year. It wasn't like bringing him to a Fourth of July celebration, but it was enough.

Plus, Teddy ate junk today. He was too quick for me to see what things were before they went down the hatch. I'm just hoping stuff doesn't come back up in the middle of the night.

By the end of the day, Teddy learned the trick of being in a tent of my skirt and we watched the jousting show in relative peace. We were seated right behind the queen's chair. Teddy tucked under my skirts and looked out from under the queen's chair at the horses and people playing games on the field. Most of it was relaxed play and lots of cheering except that one horse freaked out when his rider pretended to fall off and he was suddenly riderless. Teddy knew just how that horse felt, like the world was coming to an end and cannon-fire was approaching on the horizon.

Thank you for listening, jb

One in a Million

I found the perfect pocket rock the other day. Why is that important? I'd really like to know why I saw this unassuming rock lying on a beach full of rocks and I knew in an instant how it would feel in my hand. It was like love at first sight, on a smaller scale of course.

I hate to tell you, but I like the feel of this stone more than the polished worry stone I bought when we went to visit my family. I like it more than the heart-shaped glass a little friend found for me at a garage sale. I like it better than the round white stone a friend brought back for me from a white beach in Ireland. I might even like it more than the rock I've been carrying in my pocket for the past three or four years, the one that's polished smooth from so much worrying, the one that Nick gave me, the one that is black with red veins running through it. I suppose I still love the stone Nick gave me best, but there is so much potential in my new pocket rock. Two or three years will tell the tale. I've been carrying Nick's pocket rock that long.

I tried to hand the perfect pocket rock to my friend on the beach at the moment I found it but it didn't strike her as perfect so I tucked it into my own pocket before she lost it among the multitudes of stones. When I got home, I showed Nick, but he held it in the wrong hand and I knew, though he loves a good pocket rock, that this wasn't his perfect fit. It is decidedly a left-handed pocket rock, being wider on one end for grip and having the perfect spoon for my left thumb. I even tried to get Mike to see it's perfection.

Nothing.

How is it that three perfectly sane people who knew me could not feel the beauty of this stone?

Now, I'm about to admit that I have a problem. It isn't often that I end a walk without a rock in my pocket. My mother sent me a crystal bowl when Mike and I got married and I filled it with my favorite rocks. When my quilt group came for my turn this year, I moved a bunch of my found rocks outside as if they belonged there. 'Cleaning.' I hate cleaning. When I turn out my pockets at the airport, there is always a rock with my keys and my wallet. The dryer often tumbles a rock or two. A couple of years ago, a friend introduced me to a Zentangle class and we doodled on found stones. So now, I have two or three piles of stones in the house waiting for me to doodle on them. There are doodled stones in every house plant. There are stones on windowsills.

This habit of doodling on stones is meditative. It does make me happy when I end up liking a pattern I've drawn, usually emphasizing something the stone held to begin with. When I don't like my results, I toss the poor rock back into a pile of rocks by the river or into tall grass where it can recover and grind my insult away against other stones. I've intentionally left other doodled stones, a blessing of sorts, at places I love, at my trails, at the river, on an ocean shore, at my son's schools and dojos and fields and pools.

The stones never stay where I leave them. Sometimes I look for them when I come back through and they always disappear. I like that. Once, I found one of my stones in the home of a friend. What are the odds? Well, since this friend walked the same trail I did on occasion, it wasn't that much of a stretch.

But the most important part is choosing the stones. I would swear that they choose me. One minute, I'm having a perfectly sane walk on a rocky trail and the next, there's a sweet stone, just aching for me to pick it up. Right now, I'm collecting flat round stones. I used to collect red ones or green ones. Then, I went through a long stretch of finding wounded stones that had healed. I may not be the only crazy person in this world because I recently learned that the healed stones, the ones with lines all the way through them, are called wishing stones.

I never made a wish on my wishing stones, but I have meditated over them. I have carried them miles with me before depositing them somewhere new. Geologists be damned.

Usually, my found stones lie among thousands of other stones, but something makes me single them out. I've given up prying a stone out of a tight spot. If a place is going to look weird when I walk away, I don't want to disturb it. Some of my trails are nearly paved with stones embedded in mud. I leave these alone. It's a stone that's been uprooted, that has hung alone at the edge of a trail or been kicked loose by someone on the trail ahead of me that captures my eye. My stones have a hopeful sense about them, one of art and traveling and love and wondering where a soul might end up.

These stones find me.

My perfect pocket rock found me too. It is safely ensconced in my left pocket. I can reach in when I need tangible reassurance and it is there.

Strange, right? I told you I had a problem.

Thank you for listening, jb

Zip Thrills

Well, I'm here to tell you that the ziplines are about exciting as I expected. I love safe adrenaline surges. I love jumping out of trees. What I didn't manage was to simply leap. Every time, I sat down into the harness first, felt the safety of it, and then pushed off from the edge. I never managed to leap, that leap of faith, that sense of letting go, losing control. I consider my way to be the recliner method, not the young hip adrenaline junkie method.

I'm not sure I could make myself jump out of a perfectly good airplane, not even with a parachute on my back, not even in tandem. I want to try some day, but I'm not sure I can do it.

I did zip though and I didn't scream too much. The best zip at Canopy Tours NW is the one at the smaller tree, the tree that swayed. It was a tall tree too.

The funny thing, the thing I didn't realize whenever it was my turn, was that I had a death-grip on the locking carabiner that clipped me in and the backup line with my other hand. I am a true fan of redundant systems, especially when my life is connected to them.

So, each time I finished zipping, as the guy settled me back onto the platform and began to unhook my lines, he gently reminded me to loosen my death-grip and take hold of the cable on the tree.

I had to laugh every time. I hadn't realized that my grip was that tight. It was so tight my hands ached the next day. They even ached two days later. As an old woman, I want to keep working to maintain my grip. I don't want to be the old lady who has to wait for four days until somebody comes to visit to ask them to open a jar of pickles. Ziplining was very good for that future jar of pickles.

There was another benefit too. See, I've been more and more dizzy since my pregnancy. I can get dizzy in a swing, looking at an optical illusion, and standing at any edge. Roller coasters are a riot but so was the ziplining. I don't fall or lose my balance, but I'm much more dizzy than I ever was before.

The cool thing was that I got an additional zippy feeling in the backs of my knees when I stood on the step after I had zipped. I stood watching everyone and looking down below and there it was, not quite as strong as actually zipping, but jangling my knees and belly anyway. It was there when I leaned over the rail to spit into the abyss. It was there whenever I moved away from the rail toward the edge of the platform even a little bit. It was there whenever I put my back toward that edge, even if the rail was in my hand. Free adrenaline spikes, little ones, but it helped make the whole thing more exciting.

The strongest adrenaline surge was when the guy sent Nick on his way and right after he leaped, the guys yelled, "No, wait ..."

It was a joke. I realized it the second time he did it. I told him that he'd just given me the biggest jolt he could have given me. It told him that the mom jolt of adrenaline isn't as much fun as the others, but I was still laughing so he kept laughing too. He didn't do it to Nick again though. Good thing. I think my heart might have stopped.

Now, I just need to go to the fairs and ride some roller coasters. Eventually, just standing on the ramp to the roller coaster will be a thrill.

Cheap date, but I still know how to have fun.

Thank you for listening, jb