Laura Egland

Hey, You GUYS ....

2011-08-17T20:27:00.000-05:00

Hola!

¡Buenos dias!

Come esta?

¡Mui caliente!

Oh, crap.

Now I've backed myself into a corner, because what you read there is pretty much all of the Spanish I know.

Sorry. I didn't mean to lead you on.

Were I Robert Palmer, I would tell you I didn't mean to turn you on.

But I'm not Robert Palmer.

And I don't speak Spanish.

I hope we got that cleared up.

I also hope you have a song stuck in your head at this point.

So why did I summon you here?

To invite you to a party!

Wait.

That's a lie.

After the Spanish Robert Palmer business, I realize I need to be careful here. Respectful of your trust.

I want to ask you to come on over to my other, much more active blog, and follow me there.

Pack your bags!

Grab your passport!

Get ready for a good TSA gropin'!

We're off to 365 Snapshots!

For ease of navigation, I'm goin' old school and presenting the link in plain web English:
http://365snapshots.blogspot.com/

I'm looking forward to seeing you there.

¡Gracias!

(Well would you look at that? I DID have one more up my cerebellum's sleeve!)

A Worthy Cause ... AND Cheesecake!

2011-07-23T21:56:00.002-05:00

OK, So Here's The Deal ....

2011-06-16T00:47:00.000-05:00

I can't write here right now.

I know, I know ... transparency.

I lied.

Well, maybe not LIED, per se.

Or maybe I just lied to myself.

Things are ... uh ... squishy in my house right now. I need to find a great job and SOON, and that whole money thing riles up something worse than Hagrid's Fluffy in me. It's not a good feeling, and since I refuse to whine in public (oh, my shrink is going to LOVE this) I'm shuttin' 'er down for a while.

I'll start posting again one day, just not today.

Of course, you're always welcome to comb through the archives. This is a good place to start.

When you're done there (or if you've got crazy mad multi-tasking skillz), please join me over at my photo blog. It's a place I don't feel pressured to keep tidy or explain very well. Some days I have words to go along with the images, and some days I don't. Some days I use a good camera, and some days I don't. Some days the photos are good, and some days they aren't. 'Just depends.

I've learned that I need to express myself in some way, and for me, blogging is a great solution. But when words weigh too much, I find photos feel much better. So, you know ... it's something I can do. Something I can handle.

See ya on the other side, mi amigos!

Foiled Again

2011-05-25T12:32:00.002-05:00

Ladies, you know how some days you just don’t feel pretty? Noteworthy? Like a freakin’ super model?

Right. I know. Some of us have those days more than the other kind … the good kind. The kind of day where you KNOW you are crackalackin’, lip-smackin’, dingo-ate-my-baby delicious.

For me, yesterday was (finally!) one of the latter variety.

I looked GOOD, y’all.

Clearly, the planets aligned, because the hair was just right, the eye makeup went on as it should, the girls were hiked up to their proper position, and no grunting occurred when the jeans were zipped up. Glorious!

Apparently though, all that gorgeousness comes with a time-related price.

I left the house in a rush, heading to lunch with a friend. (Hi, Chris!)

Now let me tell you something about Chris: the man is a punctuality ~~freak~~ stickler.

Seriously. Tardiness does NOT fly with him. His scorn, while moderated by his Scandinavian roots and therefore undetectable to those not familiar with the signs, is palpable if you know what to look for. (As innocuous as it sounds, Scandihoovian scorn is to be avoided, trust you me.)

So I sped.

As I zipped in and out of interstate traffic, a cute fella in a nice car took advantage of my mad Nascar skillz and tucked himself in behind me. I’m sure he figured I would get ticketed, rather than he, should we be caught.

As I exited, so did he. A stoplight impeded our progress, and I took advantage of the pause in motion to repair a poor lip color choice made before the final wardrobe change of the morning.

As I pulled out my gloss, I noticed cute driver guy watching me with what I took to be a flirty grin on his face.

Well then. Looking for a show? Here ya go, big fella—enjoy!

I proceeded to take my time doing the sensuous gloss application, complete with an arched eyebrow for emphasis. You ladies know what I’m talking about. It’s bullet-proof as long as you’ve got all your teeth and no signs of lettuce or legume skins stuck anywhere.

The light turned green, and I scurried straight on through the intersection as driver guy made a left.

I was smug: I looked good, I’d gotten to lunch on time and I’d come off as desirable in the eyes of a complete stranger whom I would never see again.

Then I glanced down at my dashboard.

And it hit me: cute driver guy wasn’t grinning at my obvious hotness.

Oh no, he was laughing at me.

'Turns out my left blinker was on the entire drive.

The Unmasking

2011-05-25T11:23:00.001-05:00

When I began this blog, I masked the players—well, the human ones, anyway—in nicknames.

It’s bothered me ever since.

It felt fake, inauthentic.

GACK.

So now that the BoyRD is eighteen and graduating high school, I’ve asked the various people I hang out with if I may use their real names when I post, and they’ve all graciously agreed.

So here it is:

The big kid towering on the left? That’s Mike. Or Michael James. Or Monkey Pants. The BoyRD is actually a nickname we’ve had for him for years. It’s based in my husband’s addiction to nasty canned pasta. I won’t go into detail here, but suffice to say the stuff makes me gag. It does, however, make for a mighty adorable nickname.

And the tall guy on the right? That would be KittyDaddy. His Mama named him Lee. KittyDaddy is also a legitimate moniker; the man never had a pet until he met me, and since I couldn’t be without a cat in the house, he was (initially) forced to become a cat person. Now, I can’t imagine he would ever choose to be without feline companionship again. (I would like to officially go on record with a great big, "told you so!" at this time. Thank you for your understanding.)

So there you have it. That's my son and my husband, revealed.

Say hello to my tall, tall friends ....

Call Me Crazy

2011-05-24T02:41:00.000-05:00

I don't always have time, or--let's face it--the gumption to write.

I do, however, find myself snapping at least one photo a day. Sometimes it's on my mobile phone and sometimes with my digital SLR. And when I'm feeling cuh-razy I'll actually use my Flip!

Thus, I have created yet another site to share those photos. I've enjoyed other folks' "year o' photos" postings on the various social sites we enjoy in this modern age, and have chosen the same time frame for this project.

Will I update daily? Maybe not.

I will, however, take a photo of some sort every day, then upload them by date to the site as time--and that darned gumption--allow.

Hop on board; it's bound to get interesting!

And really? Thank you for coming along for the ride. I love having you here.

Duuuude ...

2011-05-17T19:47:00.001-05:00

Sweet, what does mine say?

(Five points for the movie reference.)

It's cuh-razy busy around here as of late. And when it's not, I am trying to impress every sight, every move, every sound and each and every scent (well, maybe not EVERY scent) my only child has to offer and pack them safely into my memory.

That's right, the RD is graduating high school.

I know, I know ... we've got months before college starts. Don't ... (hic) ... get ... me ... (welled-up eyes) ... started. (wail)

Y'all, he has access to a vehicle.

And a job. (sniff)

And a life (hic) outside of MY home.

He's going to pack up his stuff. (a single tear escapes, coursing down my cheek)

Store some of his stuff. (snot flowing)

And go to college. (WAIL!)

To what far-flung land is he traveling in pursuit of his dream in technical theatre, you ask? Moorhead State. Yup, just across the river in Moorhead, MN.

WHUT?

(defiantly wipes nose on shirt sleeve)

Don't look at me like that. He's. My. (limb-shaking breath) BABY.

I'll try to keep my keening to a minimum.

The graduation party is this weekend. Actual graduation is next weekend. Mix in there family visits, putting the house on the market right after graduation and avidly looking for my next awesome employer, and well ... yeah. Duuuuuude. There's a lot going on.

While I'm off being super woman, I offer you two more pictures from our trip out West.

The first is the Boy RD being accosted by a five year-old. We went to visit some adopted family (you know, the kind you've known since their parents were THIS big and you love the whole brood like they're your own?) and this guy took one look at the 6'2" RD and decided he needed to take. Him. DOWN. Note the look of, "are you sure about this?" on the RD's face. And the RD's hat head -- it's so RD! Also, note the little dude's brother in the background, waiting for bloodshed. Such a good brother.

This next shot is of pie. Why pie? Because pie is good. DUH.

Suh g'on now, git yerself some puh. It's good fer ya!

Arizona -- The Mobile Phone Photo Tour

2011-05-09T21:47:00.001-05:00

When Dad had a heart attack just over a month ago, I flew to Arizona.

I didn't know if I'd be able to put it all into words; that was a task just too daunting to consider. Instead, I snapped photo after photo on both my mobile phone and my "real" camera.

Let's get started on your own personal tour of the trip from departure to return, shall we?

I noticed this as Kitty Daddy dropped me off at the airport, laying in the passenger pick-up/drop-off lane here in Fargo. It was the first time since getting the call that I remember having a total "real life" moment where my mind wasn't going over and over and over the condition of my Dad. It also made me look at KD and say, "Did I pack my toothbrush?"

Little sister, H, and her saint of a man, D, flew in to 'Vegas from North Carolina about a half-hour before I got there from North Dakota. The first thing we noticed? It was warm enough for us to wear sandals! (Sorry if you're one of those anti-foot folks. Not having to wear socks and boots is a big deal when you live in the freaking tundra. You learn to embrace nearly-nude feet!) (Guess who has translucent skin and two thumbs? That's right! THIS GUY!)

This was the room Dad was in at the CVICU. In deference to his privacy, I won't be sharing details of his condition when we arrived. I will, however, tell you that it was one of the most terrifying things days of my life. I think he got me back for any of those times he had to rush to MY side at a hospital. (That is my reflection on the right; little sister H's man, D, sits next to me. This was his first time to meet the family. That man made the best of a shit situation, and I will always be grateful to him.)

On the first morning, I went in with coffee for my sister, and immediately abandoned that idea to go find a camera. How could you see THIS and not think, "this needs to be on the internet"? There's also a photo somewhere of D's arm around the dog, because he woke up and found a warm body next to him, only to discover that warm body was quite furry. Turns out H. had gone to the shower and Jake, Dad's big ol' Heinz 57 dog fancied a snuggle. I'm telling you, D put up with a lot on this trip.

H & D (and sometimes Jake the dog) got to snuggle, but I was on my own. That is, until Dennis came home. Dennis is Dad's roaming kitty, and he showed up every so often just long enough to say hi, catch 38 winks and run off. He has that little boy kitty body and high, squeaky voice I'm a total sucker for. We bonded.

I made breakfast. This is a baked French toast dish to which I added blueberries after consulting with my foodie buddy Chris back in Fargo. (HI, CHRIS!) We decided that berries would hold up to the heat and brown sugar. Holy cow, was I ever glad we thought it would work because it. Was. AWESOME. (I should tell you Chris is a blueberry ~~whore~~ fan the likes of which you have never seen. It would not surprise me at all to learn he's got a blueberry burger in development. He's like that.)

Two days in, Kitty Daddy and I decided to bring the BoyRD out. I needed one of my boys with me, and it made the most sense to send out the RD. Even under the circumstances, it was some of the best time I've ever spent with my son. To pick up the RD at the airport in 'Vegas, we had to cross the Colorado River, formerly over Hoover Dam. But guess what? The bridge is done! Here is the one shot I got of it. (It rained later in the trip, ruining more chances for photography that trip.) I have no idea who those people are. I say we refer to them as Larry, Mo and Curly. Hey, Curly? Nice wedgie, dude.

Somewhere during the week, I realized the RD is an adult! Needless to say, that meant he bought a lottery ticket and scratched his way to ... nothin'. I'm assuming he learned his gambling-related lesson.

Being in Kingman, AZ, I figured I was in for culinary blech for a full week. Much to my delight, my childhood friend, Theresa, brought us to a sweet little coffee shop downtown that had carrot/ginger soup! Talk about feeling like I was back in civilization. (HI, THERESA!)

One day, the RD and I drove up to the Hualapai Mountains. It was a lovely afternoon, but we'll save the pictures from that trip for another day.

Shucks, we missed it!

I was able to take my son places I used to hang out as a teenager. Many an evening hour was spent solving the world's problems on this beach as a teenager. I went on to work at this hotel/casino in Laughlin when the RD was a small boy, and the poignancy of being there with him wasn't lost.

THIS is where Kitty Daddy and I met. No, really -- that exact spot.

And when we all lived together, this is the apartment complex pool we used to go swimming in. Boy RD was about four years old and he would beg Kitty Daddy to "go slimmin'?"

I did have one afternoon to myself out there. Needless to say, I took my butt straight to a Sonic. Ahhh, cherry limeade. I love you like no other.

As the RD & I were driving back to 'Vegas to head for Fargo, I took this cloud break to mean the storm was over.

Thus concludes the mobile phone photo tour. I'll show you what we came home to in the coming days.

Wherever you are, be glad of it.

Whomever you're with, make the most of it.

Time is short, life is fleeting.

Live it.

Glad to be here with you,

Mama Laura

GO BLOBS!

2011-05-05T14:10:00.002-05:00

I have been honored to know quite a few folks who have taken part in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure events all across the country. It touches me. It inspires me. And it reminds me of a story:

My older sister, J, had her own car then and didn’t need rides to school in the morning, but the baby of the family, H, and I were still in need. Mom would drive and H would sit in my lap, both of us sharing a single seat belt. (What? Like you never took a road trip lollygagging in a wheel-well or in the back window of your Dad’s car in your childhood? Puh-lease.)

I in sixth or seventh grade, and H in kindergarten or first grade made us both old enough to get ourselves ready in the morning, but Mom still ran down the check list to make sure nothing was overlooked.

One morning, as we backed away from the house, Mom started the checklist:

“Teeth brushed? Deodorant? Homework? Locked the door? Refrigerator is closed?” and the like sang out in call and answer fashion, my sister and I dueting on each “yes ma’am!” answer.

This morning, though, Mom must have wanted to keep us on our toes.

“Front door locked?”

“Yes ma’am!” we cried out cheerily.

“Shoes tied?”

“Yes ma’am!”

“Bras in place?”

Silence met her query as I swiveled my head to see if I’d heard right.

With a sly grin, she met my shocked gaze and we both erupted into laughter.

Little H, however. Did not.

With great concentration, she was held open the front of her own shirt, surveying things.

“No bra,” she said very matter-of-factly, “I don’t have boobs. I just have blobs.”

Please visit the Race for Life to donate, volunteer or enter your own race. GO BLOBS!

The folks at Susan G Komen do not know who I am. Nobody is giving me so much as a pink ribbon to post this. It's just that, as it turns out, I have boobs. And I hope to for the rest of my life. I hope you do, too. Rock on.

THAT Is What I'm Talkin' 'Bout!

2011-04-22T00:18:00.001-05:00

I just stumbled across these folks while checking out Frozen Music Studios' Facebook page.

Their mission moves me.

Please, go check them out and spread the word!

http://www.unseenministries.net/

Frozen Music Studios isn't payin' me. She probably has no clue I called her out right here in public. Unseen Ministries has no clue who I am ... yet. Y'all keep yer panties unwadded; ain't no consideration bein' handed over by nobody, no how. Word.

Unexpected Beauty

2011-04-19T21:27:00.000-05:00

Heather over at Dooce raved about this, and I thought she was maybe on the loony juice, but alas—I stand corrected.

Sheer beauty.

That sigh you just heard was me, because by the end of the clip, I realized I was holding my breath. And that hug at the end? That was a REAL hug; none of this bro-hug bullshit. Gorgeous.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go dance to something beautiful and unexpected.

(Heather? Since I so presumptuously used your first name here, you are welcome to just unceremoniously start using MY first name should we ever meet.)

It's A Small World, After All

2011-04-15T22:44:00.002-05:00

A recent conversation with a friend examined what we decided is the outright coolness of being alive in this time and space. (HI, CHRIS!)

He described having a moment of realization as he simultaneously ordered coffee from Africa, ate a banana from South America and talked, delay free, with a friend thousands of miles away on a device smaller than his hand. He said that moment struck him as amazing and thinking about how effortless it is now, what the founding fathers would think.

I’d have to concur.

I just had a moment of my own.

Sitting in my recliner, I was struck with a craving for apple crumble. Never having made something like this, it used to be I’d spend at least an hour combing through my recipe book collection before following a reasonable candidate word-for-word.

The web has changed that, though.

I can’t remember the last time I cracked open a book for cooking advice.

Now, I visit P'Dub's Tasty Kitchen and All Recipes online, search for their two or three highest-rated offerings, scan the reviews and tweaks readers have submitted, and in ten minutes I’m in the kitchen—creating an amalgamation of ideas from around the world right here in Fargo, ND.

The apple crumble turned into an apple-blueberry crumble, and next time we’ll use more flour and less butter.

Despite these needed adjustments, though, I think even Martha Washington would have asked for seconds.

Back In Black

2011-04-11T17:57:00.002-05:00

Thankfully, I’m not actually wearing black. It’s just the song that popped to mind when I reached around for a post title indicating my return to the flooded upper Midwest.

Dad is better. Lots better, in fact. He’s home now and improving daily. I won’t tell you anymore; because he’d be mortified to find out I’m talking about him to anyone, much less in a public forum online.

Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and love over the last ten days. I encountered so much of these that at times I was overwhelmed. I know darned good and well there are people I didn’t get back to who wrote notes, email and texted, but I have to tell you …. I practically needed a PBX system to keep up. I apologize if you’re one of the un-returned. I can’t thank everyone enough.

Re-entry into “real” life has been odd.

I spent ten days at the hospital in the desert, at my father’s house and showing the BoyRD around one of the towns I grew up in.

At one point, I realized he and I were having lunch in the very same restaurant in which I first met the folks I almost gave him up to for adoption. I probably looked like I got hit with a 2x4 upside the head. Lord knows I felt like it.

Other ghosts stomped around that town, that county, that part of the world in general.

All the times I ever drove up to Hoover Dam find solace in its massive concrete presence.

Any of the evenings I spent hanging out on the beach at Harrah’s in Laughlin with friends, solving the world’s problems.

The afternoons spent tromping around the Hualapai Mountains, escaping the heat or just getting closer to God.

The hours and hours spent futzing around the wash near our house as an elementary student.

The hospital my Dad was in is the same my son was born in. The same his father died in.

It was sobering.

Sobering to not only visit the same old places, but to finally put the feelings I had assigned them into order. I didn’t like myself when I lived there so many years ago, and my impression of that area mimicked my memories. The sobering, or clearing of my own mind, allowed me to finally put those things in the past, where they belong.

And like me, those places and things have changed, too.

Hoover now has a giant bridge over it, bypassing the Dam for those who need to get where they’re goin’ instead of braking for pedestrians, or more to the point—saving wear and tear on an extraordinary national monument.

Harrah’s feel has changed, as has the skyline we used to stare at while lying in a beach chair. I don’t know how to describe that one. Maybe it’s just because my perspective has changed.

The Hualapai’s aren’t as big as I remembered. And the park I used to drive to is now behind a fence you’ve got to pay to get into. Once I got over my initial shock, I was impressed with what they’ve done with the area. Even the teepees they erected (HA! I said, “erected”) are cool.

That old wash’s path has changed. The giant bush I used to play inside of (no, really … it had “rooms”) might just be dead. There aren’t as many rocks. There is more debris.

The hospital has added on and has an amazing VCICU staff and doctors. I’m still stunned by how impressed I was by them. That’s a thank-you note in the making, I tell ya.

I got to introduce adult BoyRD to folks who were there before I even guessed I’d have an RD to brag about, were there when he was born, and, and even after his birth as I struggled to discover and become Me.

There were texts from people far away who knew me back when. There were calls and emails from people who only know me from Fargo. All full of love. All like gifts from God himself.

And now I’m back in Fargo.

The snow is gone, replaced instead by floodwaters. Our basement is wet (nothing new; it happens every time the water table gets ridiculously high) and Amos is still a butthead.

The love carries forward, though. And for that, I am forever grateful.

Proof of His Absence

2011-04-03T01:12:00.003-05:00

As the date of Dad's heart surgery approaches, we girls are staying at his home.

It's beyond odd to be here without him.

The lack of his physical presence is always at the forefront. We’re here because he’s in the hospital; it’s not like it’s something we forget.

Recent days have a hodge-podged, temporary sense of normalcy to them. It’s like my brain seizes upon things from everyday life which run parallel to the happenings of now and clutches them tightly—a link, however tiny or mundane, to it all being okay. I have coffee at home every day, so the sheer act of making coffee every day here in my father’s home, even without him joining me, ensures that all will be well. If I hear a song I know he’d like, I fill in everyone around me, “Dad would love this.” No moment passes where his presence is not somehow inserted.

It's as though just speaking his name heals his body, strengthening his heart and acting as a substitute until he can be here in person. A reassurance or promise of a return to real normalcy.

Then there are the things that jump out in seemingly innocuous moments, insisting on being noticed: proof of his absence.

The change from his pocket, still lying on his dresser.

His pipe, cold and singular on the kitchen counter.

The jeans and shirt he would have put on when returning from work.

His truck, with his favorite radio station tuned in and waiting, engine cold, devoid of its driver. (My little sister insists I point out the dirt and bugs are NOT how Dad left it; she drove it down to see Mom and is going to return it to the shape Dad insists on keeping it in before she heads home.)

Or George, who just doesn’t understand where Dad could be hiding.

George has had enough of his Dad being gone, and will tell anyone who listens of his insistence that Dad be returned immediately. So things can return to normal.

Amen, brother George. Preach on.

Be Careful What You Wish For (LANGUAGE WARNING)

2011-03-30T18:53:00.002-05:00

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Hell. Damn. Shit.

I've been whining pretty heavily the last few days. About the WEATHER, of all the fucking things in the world to be pissy about.

It's cold here. There's still a cubic shit-ton of snow on the ground. And I've been complaining about it. Angry, even.

I've been saying to anyone who would listen in the last 24 hours that I've been looking at cheap flights to just get the hell out of here, to anywhere with sunshine.

I even was joking with my neighbor when I saw her at the grocery store this afternoon that I'd do pretty much anything to get to somewhere warm. Anywhere.

As I was putting groceries away, the phone rang.

It was my Dad's wife.

Dad had a heart-attack at work, died twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and is now in surgery.

That's all we know.

And now I'm booking a flight to get to AZ.

Shit.

A Short But Heartfelt Love Note

2011-03-30T13:33:00.001-05:00

Dear Dunkin' Donuts,

Your Dunkin' Decaf makes my tongue's toes curl.

Honestly, until I met you, I had no idea my tongue even HAD toes.

I'm so glad you came along.

You warm me. You comfort me. You make me sigh deeply in contentment and promise to do crazy things like laundry, more writing and even (dare I say it?) painting the family room.

I love you.
Laura

When Speed Reading Goes Awry

2011-03-28T12:35:00.000-05:00

They said, "Dipper," I saw "diaper." And was horrified.

Mea culpa.

Winter Storm

2011-03-26T21:35:00.002-05:00

Living in Fargo, you get used to the weather.

Kind of.

Blizzards in March, Mother Nature's final wintery stand, are not uncommon. I've gotten to the point of welcoming this last dumping of snow, knowing that we just need to get through the Red River's crest and all will be normal again.

This year's March blizzard was a doozy. It was nice enough to layer ice and graupel before frosting the whole thing with about eight inches of snow. Shoveling this stuff was a near-impossible task. Machinery was the only cure.

Thank God for my boys.

The BoyRD and TheBestFriend attacked our sidewalks and driveway with a snowthrower. The RD had to first break into the hard crust, followed by TheBestFriend with machinery.

From my warm roost, it looked like this :

I wish I would have thought to grab the video camera for this. The racket the snow made was, in a word, alarming.

Of course, it was no more alarming than the thought of having to go out there and kick some graupel gluteus all by my onesy.

I know what you're thinking.

And don't worry.

I bought them pizza.

SAD much?

2011-03-16T22:57:00.001-05:00

I've been busy.

OK, I'm a liar. I wasn't busy. For a long time. Like two months long. That's a long time when the average temperature was about 20 below, not counting windchill.

I started going to a therapist, I was so un-busy.

She took one look at me and sent my ass to a psychiatrist ... or maybe he was a psychologist. I have no clue. She just wanted to get me to someone who could diagnose any clinical bidness that was happenin'.

He said I was depressed.

No SHIT, Sherlock.

Specifically, though, he said seasonally depressed. I nodded sagely and said, "Seasonal Affective Disorder."

No. He repeated, "Seasonally DEPRESSED."

Hmmm. OK, fine. Maybe that's the case.

Then I came home and looked through the photos I've snapped over the month prior to this appointment. Gee, Doc -- maybe you're right!

Here's what I've been up to:

I watched the Oscars with Bob. Well, I watched the Oscars. Bob took a nap. I think my
Facebook friend, Fred, said it best when he wrote, "All in all, I think the James Franco
animatronic puppet was the best part of the show." Oh, Fred. That STILL makes me laugh.

Then I watched Craig Ferguson. In my jammies. A shocking turn of events, I know.

The BoyRD made a WalMart run. This is how he remembered what pit stick to buy for me.

I was then forced to bathe and put on fresh jammies.

I read the new Pyschology Today in bed. I was wearing jammies then, too. There was an
article called, "Hey, Laura -- you might wanna get your ass out of bed and see some people.
We know it's as cold as the face of the moon, but really ... you gotta get out and mingle,
girl." I thought it was odd the article had such a long name, but it had some good points.

So I put on seventeen layers of clothes and drove to a meeting. It's March,
and the roads still look like this. Damned winter.

The meeting was at a restaurant. I asked for an iced tea with sweetener. They brought me
this rock candy on a stick business. I gnawed on it, giggling like a loon the whole time.
CANDY! Needless to say, it was totally worth getting out of the house. BONUS: I got
a really enjoyable freelance writing gig out of it.

Then 'Ria called and said, "Hey -- you wanna set my hair on fire?" Uh ... do I? DUH!

Something about putting 'Ria in mortal danger clicked with me. I accepted that getting
out and about here in the tundra is really a necessary part of mental health -- even
when it's cold enough for an Eskimo to say, "screw it" and go to Florida. But I digress.
The next morning, I decided to find breakfast through a window. And I saw evidence of a THAW!

It made me happy enough to try eating beets. They taste like dirt. I liked it.

The end. You may be seated.

On Being Rejected (By Software)

2011-03-15T19:11:00.003-05:00

There is nothing like having a Microsoft® product throw its hands in the air and declare in a snit, "I have NO idea what your feeble-ass mind is even TRYING to spell."

It may have something to do with the fact that I "hear" this in my head in the voice of an puffy, overly-coiffed Southern woman with perfect, judge-y teeth, who then stomps away, hair bouncing, girdle compressing everything into the very sausage-look she's been trying to avoid since adolescence, but it makes me instantly crazy.*

Angry crazy.

Crazy angry.

So much so that when faced with "no suggestions" in the spelling dialogue box, I have been known to give my monitor a double flip with a TWIST.

You know, to get the point across.

No suggestion at all? Ruh-huh-huh-eallllly, Word? HAL would have known what I'm tryin' to say here. For Gate's sake ... GOOGLE even knows what I'm trying to freaking spell!

(sigh)

What can I say?

Microsoft Office and I have a very complicated relationship.

* For some reason, I can also tell you this fictional spelling judge lady smells like stale coffee and years-old Emeraude. It makes me wonder if I've blocked out an angry-teacher memory.

My Happy Plate

2011-03-14T11:12:00.002-05:00

I have a plate in my cupboard that makes me smile every time I see it. Catch me on the right day, and it even has the power to make me cry. Yes, that’s right, cry. Weep. Snivel. Blubber. Bawl. Sob, even.

Odd to be connected to something as commonplace as a plate, is it?

Probably not, once you know the story.

I've had a connection to our local March of Dimes "Bowls for Babies" event in one way or another over the last five years or so.

It started when I worked at a local ad agency and met a woman who would become one of my very best friends. She worked on the account team, and I was a production manager. We worked closely on many, many projects for her clients. One was—you guessed it—the local March of Dimes.

That first year, we were able to provide pro bono work for the Bowls for Babies event. Only ever having heard of March of Dimes through television spots, I was excited and proud to watch my team create a great logo, followed by a whole bunch of collateral for the local organization administration and then the event, itself.

I don’t know if it was fate what we would call it, but shortly thereafter, C. had her twin boys way too early*. If it weren't for the years of commitment to funding of research by the March of Dimes, they might not be with us today.

If I thought the March of Dimes was cool before, I am now a life-long fan.

My favorite fundraiser will always be Bowls for Babies.

Local artists, art-students and a whole lot of "regular" people paint bowls and plates or mugs to be used at a soup-luncheon fundraiser. Individuals and businesses purchase "raw" bisque for a small fee (which I believe in part becomes a donation,) and a local paint-your-own-bisque shop owner donates her time firing the finished pieces. Then local gourmet chefs pull out all of their soup and bread stops, donating time, resources and unspeakable deliciousness to the event. Participants make a donation at the door and are granted entry. Once inside, they peruse the unique and often entertaining tableware to take home before enjoying a fresh, hot lunch and a whole lot o’ visitin’.

Two years ago, I attended my first Bowls for Babies event here in Fargo. Appropriately, I did so with C. There must have been close to 1000 bowls and plates to choose from.

Hundreds and hundreds of men and women from all walks of life waited patiently to snake around the display tables, survey the fragrant offerings and find a table. Local celebrities, brand new moms, veteran fathers … everyone was there. (And by “everyone”, I mean, “I sat next to the mayor and his wife.” HI, DENNY!)

I had a wonderful time. I got to hang out with C. I got to see a LOT of babies. I got to have lunch with the mayor.

But that was just the surface stuff.

I got to see my community in action. I got to see the faces of those who have lived real, throbbing, gut-wrenching fear … and still had a little person to hold. It made me think of those who have lost children. Of those who love someone who is no longer with us in physical form. It simultaneously lifted me up and filled me with sorrow.

So yeah, it’s a plate. It’s got a little wear and tear, as much-loved objects often will.

But it’s a plate that’s come to represent love, endurance and mostly, faith.

There are initials on the back of my favorite plate. MJ, whoever you are, thank you.

* In early 2008, C. wrote her first-hand account of the boys’ birth and first few years of their lives for NDSU Magazine. I was the one she called to proofread it. It was perfect. Not only in its tone, grammar and punctuation, but in the gift it brought me. We had been good friends through all of those years, but seeing her words on the page made me once again realize what a blessing that woman is. Not just to me, but to her family and everyone she encounters. To read the article, please click here.

Today's Lesson: The Other Woman, The Third Party and Our Accidental Perpetrator Heroine

2011-03-08T20:47:00.002-06:00

Newsflash, people!

It turns out the lyrics to Naughty By Nature's, "Hip Hop Hooray" are, indeed, naughty.

I know—this stuns you. I, too, was all, "whu? Whu? WHUT!?"

This lyric safety announcement is brought to you by someone who may or may not have spent the last oh, I dunno ... SEVENTEEN years singing this song whenever someone uttered even the tiniest of, "hooray"'s within her hearing radius.

Until today.

When "she" did so to another woman of about the same age who had just used the magic word in a tiny cheer of self-affirmation.

And the other woman looked HORRIFIED.

The other woman ACTUALLY. PHYSICALLY. RECOILED.

The accidental perpetrator instantly felt ashamed. But didn't know why. And had to ask.

And the other woman said to her, "Lau--" "Lady, do you KNOW the rest of that song or were you one of those kids who actually listened to country and just heard the 'everybody say hey, ho' part and decided it was an anthem for the gangsta ages?"

Our ~~accidental perpetrator~~ heroine's brain danced. It zigged. It zagged. It finally admitted the truth.

"Uhhh. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much how it went down."

(Clearly, our heroine used "went down" as her final stranglehold on the much desired "street cred" she'd heard so much about.)

It was then the third party cleared his throat.

The third party, standing next to the other woman.

The third party sporting a stiff, white collar.

The third party with a BIBLE cradled in his left hand.

"Is that the "graffiti on your kitty" song?"

Other woman rushed to answer, eyes cast to the floor.

"It is, Father."

The third party again cleared his throat—clearly uncomfortable—and shuffled his feet as through relying on his toes to detect and point the way to the nearest exit.

"Right then. I wouldn't sing that song to just anyone either."

So there we have it.

Learn something from our heroine, 'k?

If:

a) the priest knows the lyrics are dirty; and,

b) the band's name alludes to their own bad-ativity, it's safe to assume these are not the songs you're going to want to sing to random strangers based on the use of the word, "hooray" in their vocabulary.

You're welcome.

Er ... I mean: Our heroine says, "You're welcome."

A Few of My Favorite Things

2011-03-07T00:32:00.009-06:00

circa, one-meeelion years ago

A million years ago, I was a fifth grader. I sat next to Paul Miller most of the year. (HI, PAUL!)

OK, maybe it wasn't a million years ago.

Maybe I exaggerate.

OK, for sure I exaggerate. I graduated high school in 1991; feel free to do the math.

Our teacher's name was Mr. Capes. I want to say his first name was Ed, but that might be cloudy. Let’s face it—as a fifth grader, I just called him “Mr. Capes”.

He was my first male teacher, and I remember being a little freaked out about that.

It turned out just fine, though.

He recognized that I was a ~~smart-ass~~ bright child, and, save the one paddling he was forced to give me (I’m reasonably sure it involved the lobbing of an ill-timed f-bomb), we got along swimmingly.

He figured out pretty quickly that I loved to be right, and would take advantage of this fairly often during open reading. He’d let me sit on a stool at the front of the class while he sat at his desk, presumably grading papers, as the other kids took turns reading aloud. My role was to facilitate the turn-taking and proper pronunciation of words as we worked through books like White Fang and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. That is to say, I’d give my fellow students two attempts at a word before I blurted it out for them.

Now, in my memory, I was gentle. Nurturing. Knowledgeable, but not all knowy-pants*.

I have met myself, though, and I’m pretty damn sure it didn’t go down like that … which might just explain why RoseMarie Wilder seemed to want to kill me on a regular basis.

Pretty much every day in Mr. Capes' class brought the noon ABC Radio News and the Paul Harvey Show.

To this day, if I hear the ABC-radio brass intro, I wait to hear Mr. Harvey’s voice. (I cried when I learned he died. I was sitting in my car in a grocery store parking lot. It was raining, and tears coursed down my face as I sat there, thinking about all of the wonderful things I learned from his show and what a loss the world had just endured.)

We’d listen to the noon news, then The Rest of The Story, and Mr. Capes would quiz us about the things we'd just heard. (“Page three!”) Those who got the right answer the fastest got candy thrown at them. I gained a whole extra butt cheek that year.

Fifth grade brought many lessons: I learned how to properly protect an egg during a parachute drop, how to make candied apples, how to cover books in clear contact paper to protect their covers, and how to grow alfalfa sprouts in paper cups. (My fifth-grade palate was impressed when he served those sprouts on saltines atop a pillowy bed of American-flavored Easy Cheese. So fancy!)

One day, Mr. Capes went around the room, asking the class what our favorite numbers were.

I scoffed. Loudly.

I rolled my eyes as though already a teenager.

When he got to me, I refused to play. I told him I didn’t have one. He wanted to know why.

“It’s stupid. It’s like having a favorite COLOR. There’s no point. It’s not like your favorite pet. It’s not even alive!”

I can’t imagine (uh HUH) why he would have been exasperated with me at this point, but he very clearly was.

“Just PICK one!” he demanded.

Not to be forced into anything so ridiculous, I did. But on MY terms.

With a Tony-worthy sigh, another dramatic eye roll and one massive gust of an exhale, I said, “Fine. One million, four-hundred thirty-six thousand, two-hundred twelve … point eight.”

Poor Mr. Capes.

He stood there, staring at me, gaped mouth.

As an adult and a parent of a ~~smart-ass~~ bright child myself, I can say with a certain degree of surety that he was either a) plotting my death or b) picturing me as a cute, sweet toddler … to save himself from plotting my death.

“WHAT?” he hissed, lunging toward me a wee bit and shaking his head as if to clear any waxy build-up from his ears.

“One million, four-hundred thirty-six thousand, two-hundred twelve … point eight.”

“That’s the one? THAT’s going to be your favorite number?”

“Yup.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

The red in his face faded back to a non-cardiac-emergent color as he exhaled slowly through his mustached lips. His next move was brilliant—he managed to not only save face, but to challenge me, as well.

This guy had my number, after all.

“Alright then. If you can remember that number for a week, I will buy you a Tab.

A Tab? YES!

(For those of you who don’t remember Tab Cola—it was super awesome. It was dark, cold, bubbly, certainly toxic and most appealing—came in a pink can. PINK, y’all! MODELS drank from pink cans!)

I didn’t commit to a lot back then, but I committed myself to this.

Yes, you read into that properly.

A week passed, and I got my Tab Cola.

And to this day?

My favorite teacher: Mr. Capes.

My favorite drink: Iced tea, no lemon. (What? Tab was only awesome when you thought cool people drank it.)

My favorite number: 1,436,212.8

UPDATE: All these years later, I found a jewelry maker who created a piece showcasing my favorite number in copper, my favorite metal! Come on over to 365 and check it out!

* "Knowy-pants" is a term coined by one Tammy Swift, the funniest woman I’m lucky to know. If you’re smart—and I know you are, 'cause I don't hang with no dummies—you’ll make yourself a cup of coffee, unplug the phone, ignore the kids and go read everything she’s ever written.

My Greatest Fear

2011-03-03T11:34:00.000-06:00

Laugh Until You Cry, Then Keep Going

2011-02-20T14:14:00.002-06:00

I want to share with you something that made me laugh uncontrollably.

As a self-diagnosed control freak, (ain't nobody else gonna diagnose this bidness!), I don't use the word "uncontrollably" lightly. The mirth this particular post brought forth from me was volcanic. Full-bodied. All-encompassing. In a word, EPIC.

Even now, hours later, the merest whisper of a thought of this story sends me into gales of jocularity. My belly hurts from laughing, and my cheeks are tear-streaked.

Props to Becky (HI, BECKY!) for sending the link to me. I may be one of the few folks on the planet who hadn't heard about this wondrous collection of illustration and storytelling, and now want to make damn sure you know about it, too.

Without further ado, I give you .... "The Party" on Hyperbole and a Half.

Hyperbole and a Half is all Allie Brosh. I've never met her, but I think she deserves a park named after her.

The 'Stones Said It Best

2011-02-19T01:46:00.002-06:00

You can't always get what you want,
but if you try sometimes,
you just might find,
you get what you need.
- The Rolling Stones, "You Can't Always Get What You Want"

So I haven’t really, actually written in a while.

Something happened that shook me.

I was let go from my job.

I questioned my worth. I questioned my intelligence. I questioned the reason for my existence.

Here’s the thing, though. Don’t feel sorry for me. Lord knows I did enough of that for myself and anyone else who maybe needed a little pity party action at the time.

That. Job. Was. HARD.

Like really, really, really hard.

Not the “gee I can’t figure out a solution to this logistical issue,” or “my brain may explode from the challenge” kind of hard, either.

It was the single most emotionally destructive job I’ve ever done. I have no idea how teachers, counselors, nurses, coaches and anyone else involved in public schooling does so for any length of time.

Y’all, I had no idea how much abuse and neglect was out there. Kids go hungry, go dirty, go uncared for every day and for no apparent reason. Mom has a fresh manicure and freshly colored hair, but her first-grader doesn't have any money in his milk account, can't say his alphabet and doesn't know who--if anyone-- is picking him up after school?

I cried or at least became teary on a daily basis. At one point, a colleague told me I was going to have to “toughen up.” That was like a slap to the face. Why, in the name of all things holy, would I WANT to toughen up? No, no … if I was going to be there, I wanted to be as open as I could be. I wanted everyone around me to feel the love.

Don’t get me wrong—angelic, I am not. There were days when my love volume was turned down so far, I didn’t even know when I’d hear it again.

So about two weeks before “the emancipation,” I prayed:

“Lord, I know I told you to use me. I’m down with that, but this is just too painful. I don’t know how much longer I can do it. Is this really where I’m supposed to be? Am I supposed to be suffering to offer a little love to 800 kids and their parents and even in those opportunities often come up short? Please, show me what it is you want me to do. And God? You’re going to have to make it obvious.”

Let me bunny trail here for a moment to tell you that about six months ago, I declared a hiatus from any of the work I’d been doing previously as a workshop facilitator or from any intuitive work.

Back to the linear story: two days after that prayer, I got an entirely out-of-the-blue email asking me to present my workshop to a women’s leadership 35 Under 35 group here in Fargo.

The next day, an email asking to do readings for a group of women celebrating a wedding.

The next day, a phone call asking for a private reading.

How these people found me, I have no idea. I took down my website, wasn't advertising and really was just blogging and on Facebook.

Less than a week after that first phone call? No job.

FASCINATING.

The worst part for my ego is that I’d been here before. I got laid off from what was (at one point) my dream job in the fall of 2009. I saw that as opportunity, but never really full-on acted on it. So here I am, eighteen months later, unwanted and with nothing to show for the year I didn’t work before I landed the job at the school. Add that to the shame pile.

The last month has been hard emotionally and mentally. I wrapped myself up in shame, self-hatred and fear. Anything I’ve put out there during this time has been a false, brave face. This leads to this: the question of authenticity.

This is the fourth (I think) blog I’ve done, and by far the most authentic one yet. What it lacks, though, is complete transparency.

That scares me.

It scares me because I’ll have to actually show you who I am. And if you’ve met me in person, you know this blog is indeed me—but the cleaned-up, generally happier version. The me I want everyone to think I am all the time.

If you know me in person, however, you know I don’t ask too many people over, because my house is almost always dirty.

You know I curse like a sailor.

You know the dirtier the joke, the better.

You know I am addicted to television.

You know I can be snide or catty.

It’s my own imperfection I grapple with the most.

I believe in the perfection in the imperfection in humanity. I believe everyone is exactly right where they need to be in order to learn or experience what their soul needs to. I believe our flaws as a human being are the most endearing, most beautiful thing we can share with one another. I believe love is, indeed, the answer.

I teach this, I preach this, I coach this. I am often guided to use this message to extend grace, but often would ignore the opportunity to extend it to myself. As though somehow, I didn’t deserve it.

But I can’t do that any longer. It’s exhausting, and it’s taking its physical, emotional and mental toll. Enough. It’s time to practice what I preach. We teach what we most need to learn? You’re damned right we do.

When I pull my head out of my butt long enough to look around, I find I have a veritable treasure trove of evidence surrounding me that exude the very presence and, in many cases, personification of grace itself.

A multitude of people await to extend a helping hand … a high five, a shove upward, a nod, a shared belly laugh, a towel to wipe the sweat, a different perspective, or my personal favorite—acceptance. It makes me wonder how long they’ve been standing there, just waiting, like patient angels.

And so here I stand in front of you, revealing my imperfection. Flashing my flaws. Tentatively extending myself the grace I see as so vital to extend to others, and for what very well may be the first time in my life, accepting the grace of others to me.

The most immediate grace for me is knowing I'm not alone in this feeling, in this fear. But I also know it's not real. The fear is something I created. I made it up. And then I held it close for so long I started to believe it.

So, dear reader: I know you’re out there. Just as afraid as I am. And believe me, I know. I get it.

But it's time.

It’s time to learn to be gentle with yourself. Remember that grace is just as much for you as it is anyone else. And trust that you're being given what you need.

And I'll do the same.

Mobile Update

2011-02-19T00:22:00.002-06:00

Winter sucks. Let's just address that immediately. I live in what I am told is the fifth coldest city in America. "Why?" is the oft-asked question this time of year. Rest assured, however, that in three months' time, I and everyone else around here will have forgotten these weeks of nastiness and be all high on Fargo and the Red River Valley all over again. It's what we do. Well, that and sandbag in between.

I have a great camera with a flash that's stuck and really not a very clear understanding of how it works in the first place. I also have a mobile phone with a camera that's pretty much always on me. Good 'nuf, I say! Let's see what I've captured, shall we?

'Ria ~~made me~~ invited me to go to South Dakota on Super Bowl Sunday. Since my favorite football team is generally whichever one isn't playing, I agreed. It was pretty fun, actually. Well, fun if you're into car sickness, winter weather only the Great Plains could stir up, and did I mention car sickness? I shouldn't complain. That girl is a good time. In fact, she passed my "we can get married now" test ... the road trip. She's even a good driver! And that's a good thing, because the roads were crap:

I got to see where she grew up. You find out a lot about a person when you see from whenst they came. Apparently, that woman is as pure as the driven snow, completely without a defined horizon, and may or may not have a dead deer leg sticking straight up. Wait, maybe that's a fence post. I dunno. I was busy trying not to barf in 'Ria's nice, clean car. Not being able to tell the difference between ground and sky was a new experience for me. I know my equilibrium appreciated it.

Amos got caught snugglin': (Points if that made a Jane's Addiction song drop into your mental jukebox!)

I got together with girlfriends to make Valentine's cards:

There may or may not have been wine, queso and cheesecake involved. We decided it was classier to keep the sticker on the wineglasses. Of course, if one has eyelashes like these, one can do whatever one wants with a wineglass. At least, that's what I decided when I snapped this photo:

Speaking of classy, here's one I made: (HI, KELLY!)

We celebrated the second birthday of our nephew, The Little Man. Amos insisted on helping with the early stages of gift-wrapping:

Lucky for us all, we were able to convince kitty he should stay home and guard the box rather than attend the party. Honestly, I don't think that much cute should be in one room. I mean seriously, LOOK at these two:

We had to keep the lampshades away from Uncle Kitty Daddy. 'Makes you wonder what he's hiding under there, dudn't it?

Finally, I want to tell you I wasn't the only one gettin' my crafty on for VDay. The BoyRD made me a little somethin'. Clay in the Oaxacan style, this guy melted my heart the moment I saw him. His name is Jorge. Say hello to my little friend:

Until next time .... consider yourself hugged!

The Envelope

2011-02-04T00:34:00.002-06:00

I am comfortably nestled in with a group of folks studying, "A Course In Miracles".

At one of these gatherings we were discussing the idea of not seeing anything as it is now; that every thing and every person we have contact with, we interact with based on our past experience with that item or individual. It was during this discussion that Jenn Bergen from Infinite Choice Consulting shared a story that gave me a great deal of perspective on the concept. It rolled around in my head for weeks, and when I next saw Jenn, I asked her to share her story here. Being the lovely human being she is, she agreed. (Thanks, Jenn! I would have seriously jacked up your story, probably inadvertently adding creepy clown shoes or something.)

Guys? Jenn.

Jenn? Meet the gang—I know you'll get along famously.

'Take 'er away, darlin'!

A funny thing about first-born children: We try so hard to do everything “right”. Everything from toys to foods to interactions.

My husband and I had stocked our daughter’s toy room full of the newest toys. She was our first child, and we were desperate to make sure she was never lacking for anything we could think of. We wanted her to have all the “right” toys.

On her first birthday, we received an incredible lesson. We had spent countless hours and effort making sure her birthday was perfect. All the people we could think of that would want to spend her special day with her, with gifts, cake…..

After she had opened all the gifts that well wishing friends and family had graciously brought, we watched her become mesmerized with the plain white envelope that one of the birthday cards came in. She spent hours playing with the envelope. She ignored most of the toys and became entranced with this dumb envelope. After a few days of my husband and I being entranced watching her play with this envelope, we started to worry. “Is something wrong with her? She spends hours playing with this envelope!” we would say to each other. Now this is where the lesson came into play.

To us, envelopes hold a singular purpose: to send and receive things. But to our daughter, it held so many possibilities. She spent hours putting things in it, folding it, putting her hands in it, putting it on her head, putting it on her feet, closing it and opening it, the list went on and on. She saw it as a purse, mittens, shoes, a book and what ever else her wonderful little mind could create. To us, it was still just an envelope. The phase with envelopes lasted at least 6 months. While I didn’t see the lesson at the time, I filed it away.

Then our second child came along, and her favorite thing in the world was bags, paper especially. Any size and shape—just as long as it was a bag. I thought “How cute, her purse obsession was obviously genetic.” My husband thought “OH NO! Her purse obsession has started already!!!”

We weren’t as worried about the fascination with a non- toy object as we were with our first. But we still put our label and singular use for the bag on her and the bag(s). They are just meant to carry things. But to her, it was something to play peek-a-boo with, a bed for her stuffed animal, a house and again, the list went on and on. And again, my husband and I didn’t see the lesson at that time.

By the time our third child came along, we were completely comfortable with the idea of how little toys truly mean and how much kids enjoy real-world items. My son’s favorite object was a paperclip. It was his gun, his keychain, his whistle, his work. Again, we limited the possibilities and didn’t see the magic that took place in our house not once but three times.

The magic was completely understated and easy to miss, but incredibly profound when we decided to see it.

The lesson we missed was discovering the magnitude of possibility that lies in everything we encounter. If a child, with their limited experience of the world, can see and examine everything with such wonder, what are we able to see? What if we started looking at everything as a child would? What could we create out of our ordinary “everyday” world? What could we see and do with experiences that were once limited?

It took 3 amazing kids and twelve years, but I think we are finally starting to enjoy the possibilities of the envelope.

Proof of the Living

2011-02-03T01:13:00.002-06:00

OK, so I'm not dead. I figured we should address that first.

Some stuff has happened, and I'm struggling with how much to share. Just give me a moment; I'll be back.

In the meantime, let's do another peace offering, shall we? That's right, kids -- it's time for mobile picture gallery fun!

Our windows may be in serious need of replacing, but then where would we see such beautiful ice work?

Oh, right. This is North Dakota. There will be many an ice artwork opportunity!

Nothin' more unsettling than trying to pee in a public restroom while Wall-E's cousin watches from above. Thanks, Starbucks, for making sure my toilet time would be well-illuminated in the event of an emergency!

My honorary nephew, G., watches out the window for Daddy comin' home from work.

Conquering Carrot

Soon, my friends, soon. Hang in there. I know I am!

Rolling Stone Strikes Again

2011-01-22T16:45:00.002-06:00

I don't know if the placement of the mailing label scares or intrigues me?

The Basics On The Magical Bean

2011-01-10T19:54:00.005-06:00

OK. I know not a lot of people go all glittery-eyed when they talk about coffee. I understand, albeit on a purely logical level, that not everyone even likes the stuff. I can comprehend, though it pains me greatly, that some folks choose other forms of gluttony to turn to in times of both joy and pain. I, my friends, am not one of those people.

So when someone asks me why their coffee tastes like the underside of a monkey's butt, or if there should be a ring like that around their carafe, my pulse speeds up and I swing into action. Of course, it could be the Starbucks Via I just mainlined, but that's not what we're discussing here, is it?

The conversation came up last week, and since it's one I jump into with such verve, I figured maybe it's time to just post what I know already, for the love of Juan Valdez.

If you're suffering from acidic, thick or just plain nasty coffee, let's start by looking at three things: 1) your pot; 2) your water and 3) your bean.

First thing you're going to want to do is run three--yes, THREE--pots of straight white vinegar through your machine. Use fresh vinegar every time, and follow the three rounds with two of fresh, cold water. If you can use filtered water, even better. (We have a Brita filter jug thingy in our fridge. Being the child-genius I am, I call it, "frig water".)

While the machine is still steaming hot, remove the filter basket so that you can see the spout or holes where the water drops from the machine onto the coffee.

Using a couple of paper towels or anything you don't mind staining (perhaps your teenage son's favorite t-shirts he keeps leaving in the hallway, four inches from the dirty clothes basket?), wipe the area the water comes out of until no traces of ick (and there will be ick, I assure you) remain. If you've never done this, you may be in for a rude awakening and will probably start to make this little procedure a regular weekly thing. (Your tongue will thank you.)

Run one more pot of clear, cold water through the system.

Now you're ready to make a pot.

I love, adore, would roll around in ... who are we kidding, HAVE rolled around in ... a roast called, "Highlander Grog". It's sweet but not in the beginning, it's deep, and it will someday change the way the world drinks coffee. For my budget, I am in love with the Cameron's brand I get in the "grind yer own" section of my local supermarkets. I'm guessing it's the rum that calls to me.

To the best of my knowledge, you can't buy a decaf version in any local grocer's, but I do know that Luna Coffee on University in Fargo will happily make you a decaf batch. They've even been so sweet as to make a half-pound batch for me, God bless them!

Now if you're married to the decaf and just want to be able to pick something up at the store, invest in a nice orange bag of Dunkin' Decaf. I have yet to visit a local grocery store here in F-M that doesn't carry it. Shoot--the Safeway in Ephrata, WA had it.

Always try to buy whole beans. (Unfortunately, the Dunkin' comes already ground, but I forgive it due to it's tasty nature.) Get yourself a cheap $12 grinder and grind your own beans in small batches. Keep what you've ground in an airtight container. I love the OXO line they carry at Kohl's.

Don't let the coffee sit under used grounds. The bitter part of the bean really gets cranky and likes to drip acid into the pot.

Don't let a fresh pot sit directly on the burner. If it takes you a while to drink it, consider investing in a good thermos or airpot. Even better, get yourself a brewer that keeps the coffee in a warming tank.

If this doesn't improve your coffee enough to make ya happy, take it one step further and buy yourself a French press. The one I linked to is an 8-cupper and that's a lot of coffee, but you'll get the idea.

The French press doesn't keep stuff warm, but it takes less than 5 minutes to make a pot, it's kinda like doing a science experiment, and the method makes for some seriously tasty, foamy, brown crema -- and that's what you want! Make sure you follow the directions (which are SUPER easy) and you'll really taste a difference.

Finally, if you're willing to drop a few bucks, I highly recommend a Keurig. Call me snotty, but I am not a big fan of any of the pre-loaded, disposable k-cups, always choosing to grind and brew my own with a "My K-Cup." I love that they even sell this thing -- it's like they know who I am.

Phew! That's a lot of coffee information, isn't it? It's all tested by yours truly. I love coffee and am passionate about giving everyone who wants one, a chance to discover a love for it as well.

Just remember: good beans, grind your own, fresh, cold water, don't let the acid drip in and clean that spout thingy. Play by these rules and folks will stop over just for a cup o' yer joe.

As Martha would say, that's a good thing.

KittyDaddy, on "The Who"

2011-01-06T22:30:00.000-06:00

Me: Are you the one that likes, "Teenage Wasteland"?

KD: Yeah. I like their popular songs ... you know, the ones CSI used."

Things That Make Me Say, "Whu?!"

2011-01-04T22:49:00.002-06:00

I try to not rant here. I try not to rail on Facebook. My general rule of posting is pretty much, "Try to not bitch too much."

I try to keep it positive, funny, and heartwarming.

But some things just stick in my craw. It ain't all puppy kisses and unicorns fartin' glitter up in here, folks!

Here are some brow-furrowing, eye-rolling, grumble-inducers as of late:

- Why is texting and driving so darned dangerous, but police officers are expected to drive and use a computer? I saw two different squad cars today, and both times, the uniformed drivers were doing the drive 'n glance as they steered with one hand and typed with the other. If you're from the Fargo-Moorhead area, you know how crazy this is given current road conditions.

- Can't Mantracker see the camera crews with the "prey". Seriously. What horse poop. The saving grace? Mantracker is hot!

- Low sodium SPAM tastes exactly like its presumably salt-lick-crusted counterpart. (Yes, I know this from first-hand experience.) Why not just make it lower sodium to start with? Those poor Hawaiian folks. They probably have to keep a hose by their bed at night, just to keep all that salt from mummifying them as they sleep.

- Why do parents write me notes to excuse their child's tardiness, citing their own parenting failures? ("Please excuse Janie's tardiness today. For the eighteenth time this month, I forgot to set my alarm!") Number one: this is NOT an excusable reason. Your child's tardiness still goes down as unexcused. Number two: that smiley face you drew not only does nothing to get this infraction excused, but it also makes me wonder if you dot your i's with hearts. Oh, yup. Sure enough ... right there on the "i" in "Janie". Oi vey and an eye roll.

OK, that's enough.

Let me leave you with a school story:

I heard running in the hallway at school early this afternoon.

Engrossed in the task in which I was performing, I didn't glance up until a blur appeared--and then quickly dissappeared--in my periphreal vision. Someone had the audacity to run in the hallway ... right past my desk! To make it worse, the little buggers were giggling.

Ah, fer pete's sake.

I hauled my butt outta my chair and took off through the teacher's lounge, hoping I got their trajectory right.

aHA! I got 'em.

An unspeakably cute kindergarten boy and girl were "racing" with the library book cart their teacher had trusted them with.

"You GUYS!" I stage-whispered after them.

They stopped dead in their tracks.

"Turn around," I instructed in my very best, "you are SO busted" voice.

They did, looking properly terrified.

We have three rules in our school: Be safe. Be responsible. Be respectful.

I took a step toward them, reproachful look on my face.

"Bonnie and Clyde*," I started, "What are the rules in my school?"

Stares. Big, sweet, adorable as baby kittens blue-eyed stares.

And then a lip quiver.

"We wewen't bein' vewy good."

"Well," I said, nodding with concern. "you certainly weren't making very good choices. Is running in the hallway--and with untied shoes, Bonnie!--very safe?"

"No!" Clyde volunteered quickly, "and it's not vewy 'spectful eever. We aw sowwy Lowa!"

Needless to say, when you're that darned cute, you get away with just a warning.

* Not their real names.

That Boy Just Ain't Right

2011-01-02T23:40:00.002-06:00

This cat scares me.

Look at him. Tell me you don't see it. I defy you to tell me this look doesn't make your blood run cold for a nanosecond.

This look is only where it started.

It progressed to him putting his ears back and swatting back when we tried batting him off the table.

Then one night, after an evening of terrorizing humans and fellow felines alike, it was decided Amos should spend a night in the clink. The pokey. The hoosegow. That's to say, the basement. Of course, we live in a four-level split, so we refer to it simply as, "the down-down".

Now before your undies get all twisty, you should know our basement is fully finished, complete with drywall in the main room and carpet. Shucks, there are even fire exits. It's more like, "Club Fed", really. There's heat for a giant main room and the laundry/utility space. There is food, water and a potty place only Famous uses. (The Bob prefers to do his business out of doors, like a true kitty-gentleman.)

So down he goes, and we all--Bob included--enjoy a quiet, peaceful night. Nobody poking us in the sternum at 5am, requesting breakfast. Nobody snapping our eyelids like window shades at 5:45am suggesting breakfast. Nobody clubbing us over the heads with a 9-iron at 6:30 demanding. Breakfast. NOW.

It was bliss.

I wish I could tell you I took a picture of what I found when I opened the basement door.

It was something you truly needed to see to believe.

It about gave my amygdala whiplash.

Mental warning flags trumpeted, "Be afraid. Be VERY afraid!"

When the door opened, I scanned the room for Amos. He was in his customary down-down spot, curled in the BoyRD's desk chair. (Picture Dr. Evil as a striped domestic ginger kitty.)

"Good morning, Baby Kitty," I cooed to him. (I suffer from a delusion that if I speak sweetly to him, he won't bite my ankles, then run away giggling. A theory that has yet to be proven consistently correct.)

Usually, if he's been exiled to any degree, he rejoins society with a "mmmddrrmmp" and a quick nuzzle before demanding food.

Not this time.

This time, he met my gaze coolly, choosing to remain in the chair.

Puzzled, I scanned the room, looking for evidence of some sort of incarceration-related retaliation.

I didn't see anything, though. No shat-upon sweatshirt, no shredded book, no toppled shelving. That is, until I looked down.

And there it was. Inches from my feet.

My eyes bugged out a bit. My jaw dropped open a tad. My mind fought for control because there was just no WAY this was possible.

An abandoned screwdriver lay in the threshold of the door.

A tool.

Sweet mother.

I calmly asked each of the men in the house (Bob included; don't want to leave any possibility out, you know) if they had used a screwdriver in the down-down or anywhere else, for that matter.

My investigation revealed bupkis.

In an unspoken bid for our collective sanity, we decided to forget about it. It was just too creepy to dwell on.

Time, as it will, wore on.

Some months later, Famous was perched on a his stool in the kitchen.

When we got him, the only thing the people we got him from really said was, "He's REALLY motivated by food."

We used this knowledge against him and trained him (with said food) to sit on this stool if he wants treats in the kitchen. Often, if we're doing something in another part of the house and he decides he could use a little snacky-poo, you'll hear him thump-a-bump on up to his stool, then announce his presence at the treat place via high-volume vocalization. (Lord help the things on the counter if you don't go fetch His Majesty something, either. It's like living with a furry little mobster. I swear, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to wake up with the head of a My Little Pony under the sheets next to me.)

Where was I?

Oh, right. The kitchen stool.

So I'm in the kitchen, prepping dinner with a lot of peeling, chopping, slicing and dicing involved. It was like a freaking Ginsu commercial up in there.

This sort of activity takes place directly across from Amos' stool, and he often watches the proceedings from his roost, hoping to catch a morsel tossed in his direction.

This night was different though. He usually only watched with mild interest, often choosing instead to ~~stare at~~ hone his telepathy skills on the bag of Whisker Lickin's resting on the counter space in front of my workspace.

No, no. THIS time, he watched my knife work with keen focus. He watched me julienne. He watched me core, peel and chop. He watched me skin, butterfly and score. I felt as though he were taking notes.

I shook it off. I mean, REALLY, he's a cat. What could he possibly DO?

And then, I got a glimpse. The next day, as the BoyRD and I were rushing out of the house way behind schedule, Bob darted between the RD's legs and out the front door.

Bags flew and coats billowed in a (thankfully) successful attempt to keep our bodies upright. As I do in this oft-occurring circumstance, I threw a furtive glance around the house to see where Amos was. He likes to take advantage of these moments to squirt himself out the door to the outsides, a place he is strictly forbidden to enter.

This time, though, he wasn't there trying to weasel his way out the door.

He was, in fact, on the kitchen counter. His front leg raised, his little paw-fingers curled, the little bugger was--I swear--trying to grasp a handle from the knife block.

I stopped for a moment, staring gape-mouthed at a sight I surely wasn't seeing. The BoyRD's voice broke into my stunned brain, "Mom, let's GO!"

I ran out, trying to shake the image from my mind, locking and slamming the door behind me.

That image haunted me for weeks.

I showered with the bathroom door latched. I read with a squirt-bottle by my side. I slept with my door firmly shut.

But like many images do, it faded over time, slipping from memory until what I saw became vague ... gauzy, even. And soon, it was just a story I told. Something to make people laugh. The fear eased away, slowly dissipating into nothingness.

Until today.

Today, I was folding laundry in front of the dryer when it occured to me the litter box may need to be changed. Mid-sock matching, I glanced over.

I saw it there, next to the box.

Is that what I THINK it is?

I stepped closer.

Yes. Yes it is.

A scientific calculator.

I don't know what that cat is up to, but I'm pretty sure it's no good.

Thank goodness he doesn't have thumbs.

Foiled Again!

2011-01-01T21:54:00.001-06:00

We've been pretty much housebound for the last three days. Or maybe it's two. I don't now. It feels like fifteen.

I could leave the house. Technically, most of the roads are plowed and it's not like 16 below has kept me inside before.

I just don't WANT to go outside. It's bone-biting cold. The plows made a mountain at the end of the driveway. I really don't want to break my three day streak of having warm toes.

That, and it rained before it snowed.

There's still a shiz-ton of ice underneath everything. I'm talking specifically about sidewalks. And the last time I fell, I walked wonky for three weeks afterward. Not good.

So I stayed in.

KittyDaddy invited me to go to the movies.

I declined.

Not only could I not stomach the idea of having people around me chew popcorn with their mouths open, kick my seat and stage-whisper at crucial moments, but the thought of putting on another layer of clothing, followed by a final layer of outerwear was just too much.

I sent him on his way. Besides, I wiggle like a two-year old. Going to a movie is KittyDaddy's favorite thing. I knew he needed restoration just as much as any of us and figured he didn't need me wreckin' it for him.

Having just had guests for two days, I had a litany of things staring me in the face, chanting my shortcomings in breaths of dusts and piles of stuff. My martyr cape unfurled and billowed in the wind.

I'll do laundry! I'll clean the kitchen AGAIN! I'll blog! I'll start those pajama pants I bought the material and pattern for two years ago! I'll write my grandmother a letter! I'll solve the energy crisis! I'll take down the Christmas decorations!

There it was -- the Christmas decorations! Something I haven't been already doing for the duration of the blizzards and would feel pretty good having accomplished in a reasonable time frame for the first time in ... uh, yeah. Probably EVER.

And so I went about the process. Unwinding miles and miles of garland from the banister upstairs. (FYI: I now have an intimate knowledge of why my husband hates the stuff. Light bulb!) Separating balls by color and getting them into their proper containers. Deciphering the origami-like status of the box the star goes in. Ferreting out the stuff I really don't want any longer, trying to remember who gave it to me so I didn't offer an ownership opportunity BACK to them. Discovering that we had left pumpkins (PUMPKINS!) in the window from Fall, and finding a place to fit those bad boys in the already-full containers for that season.

Not even an hour and half later, I was done. The BoyRD and I looked high and low, searching for any leftover tidbits of holiday cheer. We agreed there was nothing else to be packed away and, with Amos lending his weight atop the final Rubbermaid box, we clicked the lid on with a grunt. Phew!

Feeling smug that we'd pulled it off in its entirety before the return of KittyDaddy, the BoyRD went off on his merry way and I sat down at the computer, intending to surf around and see if I could find some sort of inspiration for a "don't be down, it's only fifteen to twenty more weeks of ~~shitty~~ winter weather!" centerpiece for the dining room table.

And that's when I saw it.

No freaking way.

Leave it to (albeit stuffed animal) cats to be the impetus for my yelling a most unsavory word in an otherwise peaceful house.

It's funny what seeing something will do for total recall.

Received as a Christmas gift, these little kitty dudes were perched right where they were placed upon our return home from the family holiday gathering.

And no kidding? They might just stay there.

Let's just say it's all a part of a new year of acceptance.

A Peace Offering

2011-01-01T14:22:00.001-06:00

I thought I'd offer you some photos I snapped while we were apart. Forgive the paragraph and photo orientation inconsistencies. Blogger is being a bizzo.

This was one particularly peaceful night. Just lights, Eminem and me. Lovely.

I know what you're thinking. "Where's the tree?"

Yeah, there wasn't one. Mostly because of THIS from last year. Damned cat.

It snowed.

But it's okay, because we're playing this.

(They had me from, "outrageous".)

Naturally, there has been card playing as well.

I'm going to set my own pants on fire here and tell you the high score was mine. HA! Just typing that made me laugh. I rarely win at cards. Now, if points were awarded for trash-talking ....

My friend Derek from St. Cloud (which I think might very well be what his ID says ... "Derek from St. Cloud") took this shot on the side of the road in one of the I states. (Iowa? Indiana? Illinois? Ississippi?) KittyDaddy is in love with all things windpower, and Derek was nice enough to give me the file. My friend Miss M. has some mad framing skills and BAM! it's a Christmas present.

Every year, I like to read this book. A couple of years ago, I even read it aloud to my family. I think you should read it, too. Aloud to YOUR family would be even better. Heck, under the right circumstances, I'LL read it to you and yours. And fair warning: this book will make you laugh AND cry.

(Remind me to tell you sometime about how I almost had lunch with Dave Barry.)

Amos, ever vigilant, made sure KittyDaddy shoveled everything the way it outta be. What a good kitty.

May someone watch over you as closely and be just as happy to see you come back in the door.

It's A Real Fear, I Tell Ya

2010-12-31T21:11:00.001-06:00

Forgive me, friends, for I haven't blogged in ... uh ... more days than I dare confirm, lest guilt descend upon me like rotten tomatoes at a Hanson concert. (I can't actually confirm Hanson concert thing, either. Let's call it an educated guess.)

I say we ignore it, like an ill-timed passing of gas among classy folk, and move on.

Wait. Maybe not.

I have a confession: I'm just not sure what to blog about. That's not to say I am at a loss for words. That happens so rarely there is an actual statuette given to anyone causing such an occurance. They're expected to give a speech. There are snooty desserts on tiny plates. It's a production, really.

Speaking of productions, I am becoming frequently more and more tempted to stop updating Facebook and start doing the full version of my tiny, compacted to however few words F'book demands one limits one's post to here instead. But that would involve mobile blogging and I have a VERY real fear about mobile blogging.

It's not that I may accidentally curse (HA! Yeah ... THAT'S something I worry about ), unwittingly expose a major political scandal (Dick, anyone?) or even mistakenly upload a photo of Laverne and Shirley looking particularly good in a new brassiere (that's NEVER a mistake).

No. Those aren't the reasons at all.

Now, before I divulge the fear, I need you to understand the sheer force of this thing. It makes my heart race. I involuntarily grind my teeth. My left eye twitches as though I'm being forced to listen to screamo. I want to hurl. Things tighten in my body's effort to not lose control. It's TERRIBLE.

Here's the thing, people: mobile blogging in the form I have available given the technology in my hands ... oh, lawsy, this may kill me even saying it. IT DOESN'T HAVE SPELL CHECK!

I know, I know, that's not a big deal to a lot of folks. But for some God-forsaken reason, all of my domestic control issues I clung to when the BoyRD was a wee child have migrated to this issue.

I no longer clean things in my bathrooms with a cotton swab. I no longer sweep my kitchen after every meal. I no longer do much of anything domestic in the cleaning, maintenance and organization department. Ask my husband. He'll tell ya.

I do, however, compulsively spell check. In the grocery store, I'm the jackwagon telling the customer service counter they have something spelled wrong. I'll email people I've never met to point out an oopsie. I curl my lip and try not to cry when I see their, they're and there used incorrectly.

Not that things don't eak by. They do. I am, after all, only human. And don't ya know I've decided punctuation is something I can use in my own style.

But I try. Holy crap on a cracker, do I try. No kidding, I spell check stuff THREE times before hitting publish.

And yet things happen all day long that I find amusing. They're short. Maybe four or five sentences. All things I'd love to tell you about and invariably forget before I next have a moment.

So that's that. In a nutshell, I've not been blogging because I am a horrendous control freak.

Forgive me, friends, for it's been weeks since I've last blogged.

The Boiling Point

2010-12-07T23:59:00.000-06:00

If you've not been there yet, it's high time you meet my friend, Lou.

So we've not actually met in person. It doesn't matter. I don't need to hug her in person to know she's a good and true person. To know she's a dedicated mother, devoted wife, loving daughter, doting sister and all-around great gal.

Tonight, however, Miss Lou reached the boiling point. (Similar to Mr. Gladwell's point, but a little to the right. Or maybe the left. I dunno. I'm directionally challenged. If you ever ask me for directions, QUESTION EVERYTHING I TELL YOU. I live in North Fargo and--I'm not making this up--once inadvertently sent someone to Canada whilst directing them to South Fargo High School. Mea culpa. But I digress.)

Back to the Lou-ster. (Surprise, Leah -- a new nickname!)

She's had it. Had it with the hurtful, nosy and just plain rude interactions that often arise in human relationships.

Had it with knowing the "right" thing to say twenty minutes after the right moment has passed. Had it with people over-stepping their bounds, much less even seeing those boundaries to begin with.

We've not talked details, but I like to think she has also had it with the idiots in this town who politely STOP at the top of the on-ramp merging onto the interstate rather than adjusting their speed LIKE DRIVER'S EDUCATION TAUGHT THEM TO DO AND COMMON SENSE WOULD DICTATE. Then again, she lives in South Dakota, so maybe not. I like to think I'm not alone on that one, though.

So she wrote a rant. A gorgeous, from the gut, fingernail-splitting from pounding the ever-lovin'-snot out of the keyboard, the cat was probably hiding, still used her nice words, still acted like an adult and didn't name-call rant. And I thought, "YEAH. Good for you, honey. Let 'er rip!"

It's such a rare occurrence for Lou to flip her lid on her blog, that it triggered a memory of a story.

It must have been the late 80's to mid-90's.

My girlfriend's Mom was a flight attendant for an airline with a hub in a Southern state sporting an unusually large population of good ol' boys. You know the ones. Car dealership ownin', snakeskin boot-wearin', cigar-chompin', scotch-soaked, butt-slappin', rump-pinchers in ten-gallon hats. But because they were paying, regular customers, any antics in which they partook where endured.

So it's the same flight this aircrew makes most of the week: the Southern city to Chicago and back. Twice a day. It's the flight-of-choice for the good ol' boys to get their game on in the Windy City.

On this crew is my friend's Mom, (we'll call her Mom) Mom's friend, who we'll call Janie, and another attendant or two in addition to the crew in the cockpit.

Mom and Janie were working the same section of the cabin, with the same group of passengers they'd been hauling on this route for over a year. Just as scotch-soaked and rump-pinchin' as ever, these ol' boys were clearly not going to be behaving any better than they had on any past flight. They, in fact, had decided in the last weeks to add, "lewd comment-makin'" to their repertoires.

As Janie checked seatbelts and overheard compartments, she endured slaps, pinches, squeezes and swats ... now liberally peppered with salacious comments, suggestions and requests.

And then, all of a sudden, she didn't.

One swat, or maybe one suggestion too many, and Janie reached her boiling point.

She whipped around, slapped that man in the face, told him he needed to sharpen it, carve spikes into it, stick it where the State of Texas would never find it and give it a 360-degree turn. Twice.

Janie then proceeded to stride the aisle like a catwalk, thrusting her finger in the faces of stunned but guilty passengers who had spent the last year contributing to this Mt. Vesuvius-like explosion.

Peppering each of these digit-to-the-visage encounters was one simple phrase:

"F. You."

Except, of course, she didn't abbreviate that first word.

Up the aisle, one passenger at a time.

"And F you, and F you, and F YOU, and F .... "

You get the picture. I like to think that with each step, a wisp of smooth hair came out of her chignon, her eyes grew a little wilder, and somehow--magically--her fingernails became longer and longer until they resembled blood-red talons.

Then she reached the cabin where she threw open the door with a vicious twist of the in-door knob thingy.

One giant step in, and a pointer-finger in the face of the pilot: "F you."

To the first officer: "F YOU."

And then, utilizing TWO fingers to execute the oft-ignored "multiple destination point", to the other two crew members in the cabin, "AND F THE TWO OF YOU!!"

I hear it took three crew members to restrain her.

I heard they had to strap her into a jump seat until they got to the closest airport.

I hear she lost her job.

I heard she'll never work in the airline industry again.

But DAMN, I bet she felt better.

The Reason I Believe

2010-11-29T22:50:00.000-06:00

It must have been about four of five years ago or so.

A favorite little person and I were having an "Auntie Laura and Peanut" date.

At the time, Peanut was at that stage between toddler and little dude, small enough for a full-on carseat, but big enough to speak broken English fluently. (I know at first glance this seems like an oxymoron, but spend some time with a human being of this age and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.)

So we're west-bound on I94 through Fargo. P'nut is strapped into the driver's side backseat, feet a-kickin' away, singing "Lime In The Coconut" at the top of his little lungs. Every time the song would end, he would holler, "AGAIN!". Naturally, I would oblige.

About two and a half plays into the song that is clearly the only song in the world worth listening to, he says, "Hey, Auntie Laura?"

"Yes, sir?" I dutifully reply, pressing the mute button and angling the rear-view mirror to get a better view of him.

"Auntie Laura," he continues in one giant breath, little feet still bopping up and down in tandem, "do you 'member that time I was big and you were big and we were friends and I had a big blue truck and you had a kinda blue but not blue car and we would stop on the road and say hi and I love you and we were friends?"

Laughing at the magnificence of his imagination and sheer length of this sentence, I snorted out a, "No, Peanut, I sure don't."

The feet stopped moving. His jaw set. Our eyes locked in the mirror.

"Uh, yes, you do."

"Uh, no, I DON'T." (I'd like to tell you he was the first to take it up a notch. Sadly, that would be a lie.)

"YES. YOU. DO."

"OK, let me think," (I'm not dumb. I caught the tone in his voice, and it completely belied the size of his body. This boy meant BIDNESS.) "Uh ... no. I'm sorry, buddy, I just don't remember."

A sigh issues from the back seat.

"Yes, you do," and then a short pause before, "LIME IN THE COCONUT!"

And that was that.

Puzzling, but it faded away as many things do.

Six months later, in the middle of telling a my son a story, it hit me.

"... and your Dad drove a big ol' Bubba truck he named 'Baby'. She was, I think, an '84 Ford F150, blue with huge tires ...." my voice trailed off.

A lump in my throat the size of Missouri suddenly discluded breathing, much less speaking, from possibility in that moment.

Swallowing hard, I continued, "... and I drove a gun-metal gray LeBaron," (blue, but not, but kinda; 'sound familar?) "he would be coming home from work as I would be leaving, and we would stop in the middle of the street to talk for a minute and tell each other, "I love you."

Turning to my son and throwing the last of the memorial flowers for the year into the river, I went on.

"Your Dad and I would always say, "I love you" to one another. Even after we broke up. Even up until the last time we talked before he died. Every time. Even if we fought, we still said it."

It was the anniversary of Kevin's death and each year, the Boy and I had our ritual of remembrance.

I shared the Peanut conversation with him a few days later.

And the next year we stopped doing our annual ritual. It was the BoyRD's idea. He said it had been long enough and that we needed to move on.

And so we started in a new direction.

Peanut hasn't given me another glimpse into his soul in the quite the same manner since that late winter day so many years ago.

But he always tells me loves me.

No Thanksgiving Thursday

2010-11-25T00:30:00.001-06:00

We have something more important than Thanksgiving to observe today.

There will be no turkey. No stuffing. No sweet potatoes or corn soufflé. Zero pumpkin pie.

Instead, we'll be having a meal from my mother's recipe stash: goulash, coleslaw, garlic bread and our friend Mama I's brownies.

I know what you're thinking. And no, we're not Communists.

We are celebrating something much, much more important than Thanksgiving, my friends.

The BoyRD's birthday.

Specifically, his EIGHTEENTH birthday.

Eighteen. Adult. (see: makes his own decisions like "I want goulash and coleslaw for my birthday)

Eighteen. My baby. (see: towers over me by an entire foot)

Eighteen. Kill me. ('Knife to the heart sounds about right.)

The child who can make my heart soar and break. Simultaneously.

The child who taught me what it means to love someone more than myself, and simply to love myself.

The boy whose wavelength is more often than not the only one perfectly attuned to my own.

—————————————————

Eighteen years and some months ago, I was surprised to discover that my decidedly directionless life now had marching orders.

It was, in a word, tumultuous. It was physically the worst thing I can still imagine. Emotionally, I was debrided daily.

When I discovered I was pregnant, his father and I were already broken up. Drama, and lots of it, exacerbated by youth and ignorance, ensued.

I was living with my mother. Before the child made his appearance, I would also live with my Dad and a family friend, then back again to Mom.

During that time, my body was subjected to tortures never expected. Hyperemesis for the duration of the pregnancy meant I couldn't go two hours without barfing. So much barfing, in fact, that I tore the lining of my throat repeatedly. Stretch marks from mid-thigh to armpits that itched so badly, I scratched until they bled. Raging girl-infections made appearances more weeks than they didn't. Physically, it was hell. And I was all of eighteen years old. I knew everything and nothing.

I heard about a family in Phoenix who wanted to adopt a baby. My parents and the RD's father all agreed that this was a good idea.

I met the perspective family. I spent time with them. They were lovely people. Heck, I wanted them to adopt ME. I told them okay, they could have him.

And then I just couldn't do it.

I spent Halloween weekend of 1992 on my grandmother's back porch just outside of Las Vegas. She kept bringing me iced tea and let me alternately sleep, pee and just sit ... always refilling my glass. And then, on the last day, she brought me a photo album I'd never seen. These were the generations I had never met. Those who had "come over". Great grandparents, great uncles, great-great aunts. All people. Real people.

Hour after hour I spent sitting in a chair looking out at Nanny's beautifully kept backyard, desperately straining to see into the future. As it turns out, I couldn't see a future without this child I carried.

I did what was, at the time, the hardest thing I had ever done. I told those beautiful, intelligent, wealthy people, "no".

I can still feel the pain in that woman's voice. I can still hear her pleading with me to come to my senses. I can still, eighteen years later, feel the carpet on my legs as I sank to the floor—my swollen, aching, miserable body quaking with guilt, fear and the most intense feeling of relief I'd ever felt.

I have never once regretted that decision—not for even a sliver of a nanosecond.

Sometimes now in the early morning when he's still sleeping, I crack open his bedroom door. I just want a moment of listening to him breath. I try to go back in time and remember when he used to sleep next to me, his tiny body curled into the curve of mine. I want to remember every instance he chose hanging out with me over doing anything else. I want to go back to the time we made eye contact and he smiled and laughed at his Mama for the very first time.

But those things don't come back. Instead, I watch him snoring and send up a silent prayer of thanks for this child.

I pray for wisdom for him, and then some for me.

I pray for patience for him, with a healthy dose for me.

I pray for compassion for him, everyone he comes in contact with, and remind myself of what that means.

I pray for joy.

For strength.

For perseverence.

'Funny how these things work. Deciding how to go about telling you all of this brings to the forefront all of the things I've learned because of him, from him, about him and about myself.

And here I was thinking I'm the one who gave him life. Silly me.

Son, I love you bigger than the sky AND the comet. Thank you for being mine. Thank you for being you.

A Thanksgiving Miracle

2010-11-22T22:01:00.000-06:00

I fell on an iced-over puddle in the garage.

Dropping in obligatory slow motion, I thought to myself, "Self," I thought, "You are going to pee upon impact. Chances are good you'll also break something. No physicist is required to conclude that your broken, unconscious body will be found adhered to the garage floor by a sad, frozen slurry of your own urine and tears."

I don't know what happened then. I don't know if the laws of physics ceased to apply, if an invisible hand cushioned the impact, or if my long-dormant cat-like reflexes sprang into action, but I realized I was on the floor with no perceivable broken-ness...save my dignity.

Clearly, a miracle.

May your week be full of mind-blowing ninja moves, unseen forces coming to your rescue and, as always, dry pants.

The Call

2010-11-10T23:10:00.001-06:00

I got the call tonight. The one every parent dreads:

BoyRD: Hey Mama. Whereya at?

Me: I'm at the house. What's up?

BoyRD: Well, first, let me just say, everybody is o--

Me: Holy balls of bat shit, Monkey. You got in an accident? You're okay? (grabbing keys, finding shoes, turning off appliances) You sure you're okay? Positive? Who's the President? When's your birthday? Everybody is okay? Who else is there? Where are you?

BoyRD: I'm at Main and 4th. Yes everything is definitely okay. I was pulling out of the parking lot and she clipped me. She says she's okay. She's really nice. I told her I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I am. She's calling the police. We're okay.

Me: I hear TheBestFriend in the background. Was he with you?

BoyRD: No, but he came back.

(Have I mentioned I love TheBestFriend like he's my own?)

By now four blocks down the street, heading to the scene, admonishments of, "get her information, give her your information, don't leave the scene, be polite or I'll hurt you, and you sure you're okay?" administered, I started to breathe.

I could tell from his voice that while riddled with historic amounts of adrenaline, he was really and truly fine. This knowledge was underscored by TheBestFriend's voice in the background at it's usual calm, cool and collected pitch. I heard no one screaming and no sirens wailing. All I could do now was not get into my own accident.

It got me to thinking. How many times had I done this to my parents as a teenager? How many calls had they gotten? How many times had they heard my name over the scanner before even getting a call? How many nights were they wondering where on God's green Earth I was in the days before tracking devices and cell phones?

I did what any cop's kid would do.

I called my Dad. And I apologized. (Mom? I'll be calling you tomorrow. I knew you were at church.)

When I got there, introductions were made, hands were shaken and vehicles inspected.

Then we spent the next hour standing outside in 45 degree weather, visiting and laughing with the nice lady the BoyRD met by accident. This is Fargo after all, it's how we roll.

And yes, he really, truly and honestly is okay. Humbler, I think, but definitely okay.

Well, Hello to You!

2010-11-10T22:44:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure how long it's been there, but apparently Blogger.com has some pretty spanky tools. One of them is the "stats" tab. It was there I discovered some visitors I wasn't aware of:

I'm going to dismiss the US as a given. I mean, heck ... I LIVE IN NORTH DAKOTA.

Canada? Slovenia? Germany? Brazil? Russia? Denmark? UK? India? South Korea? I'm so pleased to have you. Please, know you're welcome and come again. Maybe next time I'll clean up first. Oh, who are we kidding? I'll do no such thing. We're friends, after all ... my dirty clothes are your dirty clothes! No, wait ... my dust is your dust! No, no ... wait. Uh ... yeah. I need to go clean something.

Mmmmm, SPAM (Or: A Peak Into the Human Side of Facebook)

2010-11-07T22:38:00.000-06:00

I would have REALLY liked to have been at the Facebook home offices when this page was born. I image it went something like this:

A young man--let's call him Joe--in a seemingly endless cube farm, is hunched over his keyboard. I'm not sure why, but I see him as just starting to bald, and unless he regularly uses a hand-mirror to check his crown, he doesn't even know it yet. Sporting a band tee under an open button-up and second-hand skinny jeans, he's got Apocalyptica thrumming away in his earbuds. The overhead fluorescent lighting casts a ghastly pall on the framed photo of Hunter S. Thompson on his fabric wall.

He's finally been given a job all his own: write the privacy settings page for applications, games and websites. He really wants to knock this one out of the park. If he can do this, he might just be able to land a status update or two on the "about" page. He'd be on his way to tech-literati greatness.

The only problem? He's stuck. He doesn't quite know how to marry the tech-jargon of the times with an accurate description of what these particular apps do. Joe acts as any good writer in this situation would. He takes a step back and analyzes the what, when and why.

"Well," he muses, absent-mindedly reaching for a now warm can of Mountain Dew. "They can sure be salty, and some of them seem to be comprised primarily of pieces and parts from rather unidentifiable sources. I really only look at 'em when there's nothing else that appealing. But what IS that? What do we CALL it?"

Stymied, he untangles his limbs from his ergo-chair and heads to the head writer's office.

Sticking his head in, he says, "Hey Ed, I need a word!"

Ed (obviously, he's the spitting image of Ed Asner) kicks back in his chair, leather patched-elbows at his sides, arms folded over his chest and considers our young writer's problem and observations.

"Well, kid," he says, taking his pipe from his mouth. "Seems to me, you've got something spammy there."

And thus a word is born.

MAN, what would I do without Facebook?

Be sure to use, "spammy" in normal conversation, kids. I know I will!

Words Are Funny Things

2010-11-07T01:14:00.000-05:00

I'm having a hard time reconciling some things I see at work with what I have chosen to believe about people in general. I know I've mentioned my struggle to strike some semblance of balance between work, home and friends, and this subject matter is one that creates an incessant feeling of being pulled, or at least forced to peer, into something dank and dark. Totally off balance.

I just about blew a few weeks ago. There were going to be smatterings of brain matter, heart strings and tears for a quarter-mile radius ... and that was if it was a still day.

By the time Thursday night rolled around, I had a heck of a week at work under my belt, (remind me to tell you about parent-teacher conferences sometime), the BoyRD had taken off that morning for his first college visit 950 MILES AWAY and I taught a particularly emotional class that night. Dude, I was SPENT.

With a terrifically understanding boss, a day o' time built up and an opportunity to take care of some family stuff, I took Friday off.

For what was supposed to be a day of respite, it dawned a tad early. Some friends I don't get to see as often as I'd like were meeting for coffee and dip me in pig poop if I was going to miss it.

It turned out to be the best thing I could have done.

I drove a pick-up truck to a tidy, upscale coffee shop ... while listening to country music. It was like my past and my present were doing a happy little do-si-do. That, in and of itself, was healing.

Then there was the weather. You know those perfect, sunny, crisp fall days that practically sing, "Alleluia" all by themselves? It was one of those.

And while those things were sweet, the best part was at the coffee shop.

I didn't have time to shower, but instead added an extra layer of deodorant, brushed my teeth and washed/moisturized my face. Honestly, I'm not even sure I was wearing clean underwear.

Self conscious of my physical shape, I slinked in and was greeted the same way they always greet me—with love.

Driving away from that morning's coffee, I was restored. My soul nurtured by the smiles, hugs and laughter of friends, I was able to allow my shoulders to drop from near-ear elevation, my back and neck to loosen and my stomach unclench for the first time in weeks.

Most importantly, I was reminded--as I often am in the presence of these folks--of who I am, what I believe, and why.

I drove away thinking about who these people are to me, and how inadequate words can be to describe them and what they mean to me. The only word I can think of with any precision—and this is based in shear definition-- is, "friend", but in comparison with my experience of who these group of people are, it falls flat.

When I consider those I have cultivated relationships with over the years, and look around at who I am surrounded with now, I can't help but be pleased.

These people are, individually, awe-inspiring. As a collective, they become something else. They become a net, a solid sheet, a concrete bowl of support, love and--most importantly to me--genuine acceptance.

These are the people I can be myself with. The ones I adore for being themselves with me.

Adore may come off as a big word, but I spend a great deal of time thinking about this, so hang with me here a second.

I do, indeed, adore them. Cherish them. Celebrate them. Worship the very ground they walk on.

They bring me a solace I’ve found nowhere else (and believe you me, I’ve tried some comfort sources, kids.) They know with usually one word that something is awry and don’t give me peace until I spill all of it, usually in a volcano of ick and filth, never flinching when the grime hits their shoes and my language is peppered with such vile words a sailor would squirm. They laugh at the ridiculous, the nerdy, the obscure and obscene things I think up. They ask with interest about the things I concern myself with, and listen with love. And somewhere in this mess, reciprocation occurs.

These are the people who have taught me how to truly be a friend.

They meet for last-minute dinners, they sit around fire pits, they take road trips, they squeeze in coffee dates at otherwise preposterous hours and show up to help out with the crappy jobs I just can’t bring myself to do alone.

They send texts just to make me laugh. They send pictures to make my jaw drop. They call just to sing a bit of a song because they know I’ll get it.

So no, I can't call them friends. It's just not enough.

And in that space of lack, I find a full and joyous echo, filling my heart and resonating in my soul.

Here’s to my friends. To those far away and near, newer and around since dirt was invented, those I see daily and sporadically, those tied by blood, and those bonded by love and laughter:

I don't have the right word to describe you, but that doesn't matter.

I love you. Thank you for being you.

Saturday Morning

2010-11-06T11:54:00.000-05:00

I usually try to grab one of the weekend's mornings all to myself. While everyone else is sawing logs, I like to read, have breakfast and roll around in a cup of coffee.

Since a picture tells a thousand words and my camera phone was handy, I give you ... Saturday morning.

Of course, once folks hear me shuffling around and Amos starts playing (which raises quite the ruckus, I assure you), they start to rise as well. And that's when Bob's favorite time of day ensues: a lap nap on KittyDaddy.

May your day be filled with the things you love to do and the people--furry or not--you love to do them with.

As I Lay Me Down To Sleep

2010-10-29T22:20:00.001-05:00

I snapped this (again from my phone) last spring along 4th St N in Fargo. I looked over at a stoplight and there he was. We ALL should be this darned happy.

As I drifted off last night, I was jolted back to wakefulness by a deep and sudden belly laugh.

At first I was startled, but then not so much. Turns out, it was me.

This image had surfaced to my consciousness in what I like to think of as the pre-sleep slideshow in my brain. (I tell myself everyone experiences such a thing, then it's not worrisome to me at all.)

May your brain amuse itself similarly.

I love you. Goodnight.

When Thinking Meets Action

2010-10-26T22:57:00.001-05:00

As I've mentioned here and to every single person who will listen, I'm working on the balance thing. Not the beam kind, though. That would just make me dizzy and I'd fall down. PLUS, ain't nobody needs to see all THIS in one a them 'tard thingies. You're welcome.

I've been thinking a lot about all of the things I have to do, but haven't. You know that feeling. It's constantly moving, constantly knotting your back and neck muscles, incessently whispering, "you're less than" messages in your ear.

I took my own advice tonight and took a a look at my "adding to my angst because they're not done" list that have, well, added to my angst--and decided tonight was the night to bust a nut and get shiz done.

One of those things was, "clean the photos off of my phone already for the love of all things holy and/or covered in chocolate".

I've decided that instead of a proper post, in lieu of freaking out over getting the right words (do you have any idea how much I wanted to be funny and say, "write words" there? Do you? DO YOU?), cross-checking the right words and then editing all of those words down to do a real post, I'm opting for a picture recap of this evening. (One more thing you can thank me for? No photos of my before OR after laundry piles. Again, you're welcome.)

First stop after work was the grocery store where I encountered this little beauty. Read closely. That must be some REALLY good creamer.

One of my purchases this evening was dried bay leaves for beef stew. This lid thingy propped up on the bottle came firmly affixed to this bottle. It makes my brain hurt.

Too embarrassed to share the "before" photo, I'm giving you the second glimpse (Hi, Kelly!) of my freshly cleaned dining room. I've had that tablecloth for over five years. This is the first time it's been on my table.

Done with cooking and cleaning for the night, I wandered downstairs, plopped in my recliner, kicked off my slippers ... and found THIS. Oh, Amos.

And finally, something to calm my nerves after dealing with the red-headed feline. This is from a walk KittyDaddy and I took along the Red River of the North back before Old Man Winter was being such a schmuck.

Thank you so much for coming by. I hope you've enjoyed the "Tour of Laura's Phone Photos". I know I have.

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

2010-10-20T18:57:00.000-05:00

(Amos typed the title. I'm leavin' it.)

"Come on," my husband said, rising from the couch, "let's go to the store and get stuff for EZ's meatball recipe. It's my turn to bring treats this week." (The unspoken statement lurking there is, "And I'm a man, so I need meat!")

What the man clearly doesn't know is that the kitchen must be cleaned before any cooking commences. HA! Joke is on him.

Hey.

Hey.

HEY!
Why is he pulling on my feet?

Sheesh.

The Things Rolling Around Upstairs

2010-10-17T22:45:00.000-05:00

I've had some stuff going through my head these past few days. In no particular order, a few of them are:

- The word, "friends". It seems so innocuous for something that means so much, don't you think?

- Construction hard hats. I don't know why. It's just an image that keeps surfacing. A white one, specifically. No logo, just the hat. And seemingly new, or at least clean.

- My baby moving on with his life. It's heartbreaking. Heartwrenching. Crushing. And yet it's what I raised him to do, right? He turns 18 on Thanksgiving Day and graduates high school in the spring. Life is rushing by, and frankly, I'm having a helluva time with it.

- What to do after BoyRD goes to college. Hasn't this whole time, this whole (almost) two decades been all about getting him here without ever really having to fully look at me and my own life? Ruh Roh, Raggy.

- My neighbors have their Christmas lights up. They put them up BEFORE they put up their Halloween stuff. I can't decide if we should just say, "well, they DO work in retail", or if I should put up my Valentine decorations.

- Heroes and heroins and how we maybe have them pictured all wrong. How they're all around us, and we don't even know it. How being a hero doesn't mean having a cleft-chin and constantly doing amazing thing, but more about stepping up in a moment--in a flash of time-- and making a difference in someone's life. Maybe not even in a life-altering way, either. Some days, I think just being polite qualifies.

- The caramel cheese puffs someone brought to school last week. You know that caramel puff corn we eat by the handful around the holidays? Yeah, like that ... but with poofy Cheetos!

- Why Joan Cusack is in EVERY SINGLE John Cusack movie. Is there some sort of invisible Siamese-twin syndrome nobody talks about?

I hope this look into my brain contents hasn't been too messy.

I'm willing to bet, however, that your brain operates in a similar fashion.

See? You're not alone.

And knowing THAT helps me remember that neither am I.

Allegedly Speaking: His Name Is My Name, Too

2010-10-12T22:18:00.000-05:00

Waaayyyy back in the day, I worked at a big resort hotel/casino. OK, really it was a casino/hotel. I say this because the casino brought in fourteen bazillion-gillion times more money than the hotel ever did.

Located in a resort-town along the Colorado River bordering Nevada and Arizona, this place had 1,600 rooms, four restaurants, three bars, two pools and a separate smoking and non-smoking casino. Not huge by Vegas standards, but certainly nothing to sneeze at out in the Mojave Desert. Summer and holiday weekends would find us and the other nine or ten hotels on the strip at 100% occupancy. That's a lot of people chasing the big one, lemme tell ya.

Those holiday weekends were something else. 15,000 people packed into the casino, wallets open, cleavage exposed, drinks in hand. Narcissism and a hefty dose of any one of a myriad of addictions coming together to create an energy like nothing else I've ever experienced. Standing in the heart of the casino floor, you could feel the electricity, always as though you were just on the cusp of something big. Something huge. Like something was about to happen if you just had one more. If you just rolled one more time. If you just let it ride. It was hard to not get swept up in it.

It was one of those holiday Friday nights, right in the middle of the casino floor when a man I admired spit on me and changed my life.

His name was John Jeurgensmeyer. (Needless to say, every time I saw him, I sang to him ... John, Jacob, Jeurgensmeyer Schmidt .... ) He was the casino manager on duty. I was the guest service manager ... and since the hotel manager had gone home for the weekend, John was in charge of the restaurants, bars, security and casino, and I had the hotel, bell, valet and the rest. I had looked up to him for years. He was intelligent, witty, funny, and darned good at his job. And this was the first time I was going to impress him.

Nights like these, you dressed the part. This night I was sporting my large and seriously in-charge early-90's hair, black eyeliner, dark lipstick, and a black business ensemble with high-heels ... all topped off with a red power-blazer. I am reasonably sure that blazer had shoulder pads. I. Meant. Business.

Fifteen windows open at the front desk. A line so long it was being worked by two cocktail waitresses. Bellmen sweating, valets running and anxiety running high. In the middle of it all, the GSM phone rings. In the middle of tracking down a lost best-man ("no ma'am, I can't give you a key to that hussy's room even though you know he's in there"), assuaging a man's fears about not being recognized as a high-roller, ("yes sir, $1,200 certainly is a wad of cash to have spent since Tuesday, but our high-rollers typically throw down upwards of $200k a weekend.") and trying to convince housekeeping to do something--anything-- to get 21866 back into service after that bride decided to pour champagne all over the mattress (wouldn't rose petals have been a better choice?), a clerk hollers, "Laura--John's on 6854 for you!". We make eye contact. She gives me the, "you're gonna wanna take this" call.

'Turns out we had a scammer among us.

This fella had been kicked out of every high-class, middle-class and scraping-the-bottom casino in Clark County, and now he was in our house.

It took us a while to figure it out, though. He hadn't been to our little town yet, so we'd only seen faxed copies of his booking photo. Remember, back in '93, fax was pretty much the only way to send a photo and laser printers must have been at about 8 dpi, even on a (then) state-of-the-art model.

This guy had tipped us off, though. He was a jerk at check-in and threatened one of my crew, had tried to tell the bell desk that they lost one of his bags, and goosed a cocktail waitress.

And now he is trying to pull a fast one on the boys in the casino.

Security has him downstairs, but he's spinning so many yarns that nobody could tell where the truth lie.

No hard evidence of cheating or card-counting, but all of the old guys had a suspicion. And when the house's money is on the line, a suspicion is good enough.

Back then it took two managers to 86 someone--John ... and me.

This is my moment. This is the story that will get back to the big boys; the guys that make decisions. I am going to show him that I can see the big picture. That I am a company ~~man~~ babe. That I can see through the bull of any shyster. And that even though I'm known for finding humor in pretty much everything, I can be tough when the occasion arises.

So John and I stand face to face on the casino floor. The band is blaring. The slots are ringing at an unearthly decibel. People are alternately laughing and yelling ... and usually not alternately. It's barely controlled chaos.

We stand inches from one another, otherwise we'd never hear one another.

As he's asking me, "Whaddya think? He's got no car and nobody's got a room for him. We don't have know that we have enough to call Metro and get him arrested. Do we kick him?" As he enunciated that last "do", it happened:

A tiny ball of spit catapults itself from John's Magnum PI mustache, travels in an arch and lands ... smack on my bottom lip.

SPLAT

It nestles into my L'Oreal Red Rhapsody lipcolor.

Holy sweet mother of what am I going to do now?

I couldn't wipe it. I didn't want to embarrass him. Besides, we're talking red lipstick on a lily-white face. The smears would be unbearable. I couldn't fake a thoughtful finger-press to the mouth--we were standing so close I would have elbowed him right in the solar plexus. And I sure as heck couldn't (barf) lick it off.

And then I realize something.

I can no longer hear the band.

The clinking of ice cubes in glasses, of watches and rings colliding with tables as die are thrown, of dealers barking out dollar amounts, colors and numbers, of cards shuffling, of slots spinning, of revelers laughing and losers groaning all slid away in a single thought-filled moment. I couldn't even hear John.

To this day, I have no idea what he said when I didn't answer. I have no idea how I replied. I'm sure we booted the jerk-wad out, but have no recollection of signing anything, being a part of the escort party or even the rest of my shift.

I don't know for sure it was that precise moment which slowed my charge for gaming/hospitality greatness, but I do know that shortly after that I just didn't see the point any longer. I know that in those last few months, it was all I could do to not start shouting at strangers and coworkers alike, "Don't you see we're feeding on the problems of these people? I am NOT making the world a better place by being here!"

Four months later I left and got a job at an eye doctor's office. I learned important office-y stuff like how to sit most of the day, how to read lens prescriptions and (possibly most importantly) about Kona coffee and the power of vanilla creamer.

Years have passed, and every time I gleek, I think of John.

Just today, in fact, I spit on someone.

I didn't get embarrassed, though.

I just told myself that maybe it was life-altering spit.

Funk To The Rescue

2010-10-12T20:15:00.000-05:00

A new coworker of mine, P., hates Tuesdays.

By his reasoning, there's no end in sight, his tummy is still weird from whatever he consumed over the weekend, and he feels like he's not slept in a month.

I understand. Totally. And I really dislike that feeling. And P. makes my day, so I wanted to help. And anyone who knows me knows before they get to the next paragraph what my fix was.

Music, of course.

But music alone begs the next question ... what kind? It took a few minutes, and I weighed the options, wanting to be sure. This isn't something one should take lightly, you know.

I arrived at funk.

Funk is my go-to genre when I need something to latch on to, something to pull me up from the doldrums ... something to deliver me to a different place altogether.

So I made P. a top-ten playlist. Yup, that's right -- a mix tape! This being the year it is, however, I've put it on my flashdrive and will toss it at him tomorrow at school.

Ladies and gentlemen? I give you in no particular order because narrowing it down to ten was hard enough ... Laura's Top Ten Funk Songs:

It's Your Thing - Isley Brothers
Give Up the Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker) - Parliament
Brick House - Commodores
Give It Up (Or Turnit Loose) - James Brown
My Feet Can't Fail Me Now - Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Superstition - Stevie Wonder
Kiss - Prince
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) - Sly & The Family Stone
Will It Go Round In Circles - Billy Preston
I Wish - Stevie Wonder

Funk it up, folks. I know I am.

Balance Is Elusive

2010-10-10T22:57:00.000-05:00

I am trying to find some balance between the new job and the not-so-new dirty home.

But the whole time, I'm thinking about you. Seriously. I think about posts while I'm doing attendance, taking lunch money and even going potty. You're lucky we can't access the wireless for personal biznass at school -- the bathroom is, after all, where I do my best thinking.

So as I go about this pursuit of balance, I'm going to cheat and post a link to something I love. You know, because I was trying to think of a way to give you something without upsetting the delicate, fragile, about-to-blow-over-balance.

The older I become, the more I admire, and even try to emulate, great storytelling. Real stories, from real people, about real stuff. You know, the stuff of life itself.

Fair warning: the story I'm posting a link to is not funny. I would even invite the little ones or anyone with too rich an imagination to leave the room.

And while those who know me well know I believe the funny to often be of the highest order of all, this story is the one that stuck with me the longest. And that, my friends, is the mark of a good 'un; and worth sharing.

Ladies and gentlemen? I give you .... Deborah Scaling Kiley: Lost at Sea.

(For more on The Moth, please their website here. I personally subscribe to their podcast via iTunes, but for ease of posting decided on an easier approach for the iTunes-not-so-savvy.)

I Hope

2010-10-04T23:01:00.000-05:00

I can't stop thinking about a Mom I met today.

Four kids. She and her husband broke up. She had moved away. Now they were reconciled and she and the kids were back. She'd been back in town for less than an hour and was there to register her babies for school. (This is not as common as you'd think ... some people have seven year-olds they've not yet registered for Kindergarten and they've lived in town the child's entire life.) That this woman was at my desk on the same morning she got back, and that she had all of her kids birth certificates, shot records and names and numbers of previous schools absolutely thrilled me. I've met parents with PhD's who weren't as organized as this Mama--we were going to get along SWIMMINGLY. And those kids were good kids. Well behaved with great eye contact, inquisitive, using appropriate language for their age groups. All good signs.

We commenced with the paperwork mountain.

At the end of it, I asked her to call me tomorrow afternoon for class assignments. She agreed and off they went.

Five hours later she returned. This was not the same woman who had been there earlier in the day. This one had bruises forming and bandages over cuts and obvious contusions ... and a very apologetic demeanor. In fact, the first thing she said was, "I'm sorry."

The story, while short, spilled out in a torrent of words. She left my office and went home to her husband. Who promptly beat the ever living crap out of her. She spent the rest of my work day in the emergency room and then talking with police. And now they had to leave again. And she was sorry. Sorry for what, she didn't say. It was everything I could do to not offer her a hug. But you could tell she was barely holding it together and that she needed to keep it together for the kids. They were with her, but quieter this time. Solemn.

And so I made her swear she'd never come back. And asked if she had what she needed to get them where they were going. And then I sent every ounce of love I had to her as I watched she and the kids walk sadly out the front doors and into a bright autumn day at odds with their shuffling gates and dropped shoulders.

I've never wished so hard to never see someone again as much as I wished to not see her or the kids anywhere near this town ever again. Near those memories. Near that man.

I don't know how long this will stay with me. A part of me hopes I forget quickly so I don't see them in my dreams. Another part of me hopes it stays forever so I don't forget. Because how CAN someone forget? How can you hear her, see her, see those kids and then just forget, have it fade away like your high school locker combination or your second-grade teacher's name?

I don't have the answer. I don't have so much as a clue. I just have love. So I think of her with love. And I think of how she looked to me: capable, engaged, patient and organized. And I picture her knowing she is all of these things and more.

I Hope
Dixie Chicks

Sunday morning, I heard the preacher say
Thou shall not kill
I don't wanna, hear nothin' else, about killin'
And that it's God's will
Cuz our children are watching us
They put their trust in us
They're gonna be like us
So let's learn from our history
And do it differently

CHORUS:
I hope
For more love, joy and laughter
I hope
We'll have more than we'll ever need
I hope
We'll have more happy ever afters
I hope
We can all live more fearlessly
And we can lose all the pain and misery
I hope, I hope

Oh Rosie, her man he gets too rough
And all she can say, is he's a good man
He don't mean no harm
He was just brought up that way
But our children are watching us
They put their trust in us
They're gonna be like us
It's okay for us to disagree
We can work it out lovingly

For I hope
For love, joy and laughter
I hope
You'll have more than you'll ever need
I hope
You'll have more happy ever afters
I hope
And you can all live more fearlessly
And you can lose all your pain and misery
I hope, I hope

There must be a way to change what's going on
No, I don't have all the answers, but
I hope
For more love, more joy and laughter
I hope
you'll have more than you'll ever need
I hope
You'll have more happy ever afters
I hope
We can all live more fearlessly
And we can lose all the pain and misery,
I hope I hope
and we can lose all the pain and misery

I hope, I hope.

Brownie Explosion

2010-10-03T20:58:00.001-05:00

Something weird—and totally awesome in a “science is cool” kind of way—happened tonight.

Kitty Daddy and I had thrown some veggies and pork chops in the slow-cooker earlier in the day. As dinner time approached, the need for mashed potatoes became evident.

We ~~waited until the last minute~~ leapt into action, peeling and cutting potatoes. Soon, a kettle of spuds with water was on the stove.

KD went upstairs to check football scores, and I ran across the street to gift the neighbors a half-pan of Ghirardelli brownies. You know, because if brownies are here, they will be eaten. Sort of like the way you'll spend what you make, increasing spending as income increases—if a double pan of brownies are present, a double pan of brownies will be consumed.

A few minutes later, I returned and went immediately to work on cleaning the dining room table of the flotsam and jetsam it had become home to over the past week. or two.

A few minutes pass and I go into the kitchen to throw some garbage. As I exit, I realize that it smells like brownies. Four hours after the brownies were done. Well now, that's weird.

Approaching the stove to inspect the source of the smell and check on the potatoes, I discover that we had left the brownies in their glass baking pan on the front burner and it, rather than the back burner with the potato pan, had been turned on high.

Holy. CRAP!

I hollered for Kitty Daddy and grabbed the glass pan, which immediately brought me to my senses. Caliente! Quickly donning a hot pad, I managed to fight the urge to plunge the searing-hot glass into dishwater and instead relocated it to a cool, empty burner on the stove.

Crisis seemingly averted. We breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The air acrid with blackened glass and even blacker brownies, we start to find humor in the situation. It's what we do, it's how we cope.

And then the popping started.

Deep tones, coming from inside the glass pan.

Holy. CRAP. Squared.

"Everybody out!" I yell, waiving my arms at Amos and Bob, herding them away from the popping. Amos, of course, figured the popping to be something he MUST inspect. That one, of course, had to be physically removed to a different room and then shown something interesting to keep him there.

I wish I had the right word to share. Something to impart exactly the right tone and length of KARACKAWOOMPF that comprised the sound we heard. I suppose I was so impressed with it because I've never heard anything quite like it before. Sure, I've broken my share of glasses and crockery, but this was probably the thickest measuring glass I'd heard break yet.

Learn from our error, gang: when something says, "no stovetop" on the bottom? They're not kidding.

I'm off to shop for a new square glass pan.

Danny and Annie, A Four-Kleenex Post

2010-10-02T17:38:00.000-05:00

While I work on my next post, I'd like to share something that moves me. May it touch you, as well.

For more Story Corps from NPR, click here.

Yabba Dabba - A Word From My Mom

2010-09-30T20:36:00.000-05:00

I received this email from my Mom this afternoon:

50 Years

This is putting some things into a weird perspective for me.......I was 13 1/2 when this came on the air. We finally had a color tv in 1963 - and boy did I ever enjoy cartoons - after you were born, I looked forward to Saturday cartoons as much as you did. Did you know that the "Banana Splits" are on again.....the old stuff - and we have "Wallace & Ladmo" once a week on Saturday morning on a local Phoenix station. Love you - and hope you still watch cartoons! Mom

It brought a smile to my heart ... and to my face. Thanks, Mom.

A Tidbit While You Wait

2010-09-29T18:52:00.000-05:00

I see the local Denny's finally put that Lego "restaurant shoppe" kit together.

544 Miles

2010-09-22T21:41:00.004-05:00

I did something that tests mettle. That tests nerves. Truly, that tests the very fiber of friendship itself.

I and two girlfriends drove for ten hours this weekend. Let me take you back to how it came to be:

"Hey, I know!" I said through a mouthful of delicious organic corn chips. "Let's drive to Rugby on the way to Walhalla!"

"Have you SEEN a map?" came Maria's reply with one eyebrow raised.

"No, but who cares? Once we're out of the county it's four hours to anywhere. We're in North-Da-freaking-Kota, dude." (I say "dude" a lot. I think I started doing it in the 80's just to ~~annoy people~~ amuse myself, and it stuck.)

And I know what you're thinking (especially now that you've seen the map.) Rugby? Really? Oh, hell YES.

See, my friend Cathy lives in Rugby, and anywhere she is, I will travel to. This woman is incredible. She's funny, smart, tells a great story, is a fantastic cook, a gracious hostess, and thinks I'm funny. What more could a girl want? Oh! And her husband is a gifted artist .... who uses my bras for art. Now THAT, my friends, is what I am talkin' 'bout.

And Walhalla? On purpose? Absolutely. Well, NOW it's an absolute, but at the time it was more of a, "She's getting married where now?", followed immediately by an, "Of COURSE we'll come!". You would, too, if you knew Sarah. Sarah is smooth. But not in a weird, slimy, guy-who-buys-high-school-girls-beer-by-night-and-sells-office-supplies-by-day kind of way. More like a nothing-can-shake-this-woman-she-comes-from-folks-that-are-salt-of-the-Earth-and-Lord-don't-I-love-her kind of way. Sarah is one of those people that you can be you around, regardless of which you may show up. She has a sparkle in her eye and a wildly infectious laugh. And did I mention how scary-smart she is? Dude. To know her is to love her.

So when Tammy, Maria and I were invited to the wedding, (Tammy is already friends with Cathy, and believe-you-me, Maria and Tammy sure as heck are friends now), we made plans and off we went.

Tammy brought her immense vocabulary and an arsenal of treats. Maria brought her decision-making and her admirable willingness to climb on top of inanimate objects for photo-ops. I drove. And hilarity ensued.

I could tell you about the number of times all Maria could do was this weird wheezing thing because Tammy made her laugh, or the number of times Tammy counted me snort-laughing, or the potty stops, or the songs listened to, sung aloud, and reminisced about--but I won't.

Because better stuff happened.

That thing that's supposed to be a deal-breaker, the road trip, turned out to be a deal-maker.

I learned that three women can, indeed, have a peaceful trip in the same vehicle. I learned that when you show up to someone's wedding four hours away, you do it because you love ... nay, adore them. I learned that exploring teeny-tiny towns and spending an hour in that town's graveyard, paying your respects to strangers and being awed by history, instills a sense of peace like nothing else. And that wearing your pj's and talking late into the night in the parlor of an incredible bed and breakfast with people who still love you even after they've seen you in the morning is one of the best ways there is to close out a day.

Here's to 544 miles, friendships I cherish, and women who make my world a better place just by being in it.

I am blessed.

Dear Friends,

2010-09-21T22:15:00.000-05:00

The new job is kicking my ass.

There. I've said it.

I love it, but it's exhausting.

I'm in bed by 9:30 most nights and my house is a wreck because the stuff I cram into the hours between 5:00ish and 9:30pm most certainly has nothing to do with cleaning, picking up or even straightening, truth be told.

I have a post about last weekend's super-fantastic trip to dang-near the Canadian border written, but I strongly feel I should post photos with it. Unfortunately, those photos number in the I-don't-know-how-many and still reside on one of two card-thingies in my camera bag. Which is around here ... somewhere.

So. Here we sit. You, waiting to be entertained; me, too tired to entertain.

You should know, though, that I love you. I do. I love that you pop by to see if I've updated. I especially love those who subscribe. And I specially-super-duperly love those that share a link to my musings, meanderings and ... uh oh, need an "m" word. Uh .... meanings? Sure. Let's go with meanings.

I have no way to wrap this up with a nice, neat bow. So I'll just share a photo from a simpler time before the hours sped up and years flew by. Oh, Lawsy, the eyeliner.

Happy Tuesday, y'all.

She Loves Me - A Guest Blog

2010-09-13T22:47:00.000-05:00

Hi, y'all.

I turned thirty-seven at 9:something this morning.

A few hours later, on Facebook, a friend asked what my theme for the coming year is. Without thinking (what? me? not think? unheard of!), "letting go" came popping out.

With that in part of my brain and the scene from City Slickers where Billy Crystal's mom calls him in the wee hours of the morning to tell the same story she tells every year on his birthday -- that of his birth -- in the other part, I asked my older sister, J., to guest blog.

"Dude, do a Billy Crystal."

We did our customary chicken-cackle and I waited.

And here, without ANY. EDITING. AT. ALL, (high-five to me!) copied and pasted straight from Her Majesty's email, is J.'s story:

Thank you, Julia. I love you, too. More than words can say ... and I know a LOT of words.

Roll out the carpet, strike up the band and shout out with hip hooray!

Yep, that is what every older sister should feel at the time of her baby siblings birth. But, it was not like that. I was scared of the 'baby' that was coming. I was now going to be a big sister who no longer received all the attention. That part was okay. I was most concerned about how was I going to take care of this real life baby. Would "it" cry like the ones in the store? Would I have to take "it" on dates with me when I grew up and had a real date? Would my Mom get mad at "it" for not taking a nap like me? But most of all, of all the feeling and true, vivid memories I remember, it was what if "it" does not like me?

I loved my Mommies tummy. I wanted one too. Big and round and soft. I will NEVER forget the first time I felt "it" kick. My Mommy was 7 months pregnant. I giggled. After that I was hooked. I could not wait for the moments when my Mommy would take my little hand and gently place it wherever "it" was kicking. One time, my Mommy put my hand on her tummy and said, 'This is the butt'. That was the best.

I watched as my Mommy prepared the room and how she began to change.

There was lots of change going on around our house. As I look back now, after having my own son, I think that children go through the similar emotions as the Mothers do. As my Mommy got closer to the day, I became anxious and sick and scared. Again, what if "it" did not like me?

Again, this was different. September 13, 1973....B-Day. I am not sure where I was at the time or the time. But "it" was on its way. I imagined a baby but I could never imagine "its" hair, eyes, skin, hands, or smell.

I guess this was God's way of knowing how I am and without any preconceived notions, would be more apt accepting "it" without any stipulations of my own.

Much after that is a blur...and then...as my the woman who I called Mommy opened the door and there "it" was. No longer an "it", but rather my Mommy had brought my baby home. We locked eyes. Her, oh yes HER! She is a her, a girl, A SISTER!!!! We locked eyes. If you have ever experienced the awesomeity of looking into a Doe's eyes and seeing them blink back at you with longing and trust, then and only then can you know what I felt when "she", my sister, Laura looked through me. I say that because as I was admiring this tiny human being that my Mommy had brought home for me, Laura sent shivers through me. She was talking to my soul. I was not scared, but we knew each other before. I felt it then, I have felt over the years growing up and I know it now.

We are all given pillars to lean on and gather strength from. I felt that it was indeed my job to prepare her for something. Of course, I was your normal older sister who picked on her little sister, but only I was allowed to do that. Anybody else who crossed her was forever my enemy.

You see, Laura was my cub.

Over the years, we never grew apart, we just grew up. There is 6 years between us and when I graduated and joined the Military, she was still at home in middle school. What a horrible time on a girls life to all of a sudden loose her big sister.

Laura never lost me. How can you loose your soul mate? We have shared every secret, every lie, every laugh, and every cry. We have yelled and screamed, loved one another and at times may have thought we hated the other. Not so. A soul mate is so overused in today's society. A soul mate is one who you know before you are here on earth. I am lucky to have 3 sisters. Each one unique and supportive. But today is Laura's day. My soul mate. God of course created us, but sisters...well we pick each other before God even picks our parents. I am not sure who picked who.

But, I'll bet we were up in Heaven cooking and that is how it all started.

It was a match of wits, but Laura said, "Hey, I need you to guide the way for me Julia. Then one day, you will need me and I will be there." So, that is how we got each other. Then together, we picked out Heather. I am not thinking like a puppy, but probably really close to that. Laura got to pick Heather out - I just approved.

Happy Birthday Laura Lynn. You guide my way now and keep me on track and remind me that I was your path. You now are my light.

I love you.

PS - Everyone...."it" liked me.

As best described by Carla Ortega, "to the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time."

A Promise Fulfilled

2010-09-09T21:33:00.000-05:00

When the BoyRD was a wee child, he adored Barney, the loud, adenoid-challenged, overly cheery, Purple Dinosaur.

Like the “L-O-V-E-D” him kind of "adored" him.

I would even go so far as to say that as a citizen of the diaper-wearing nation, the child was obsessed. Maybe someday I'll tell you about the things I would get done while he was entranced by Barney videos. Then again, maybe that's not the best idea.

So as a two year-old, the RD hears that Barney is coming to town.

Except that this is a lie.

(And should we talk about how a two year-old hears about an act coming to town? As though in 1995 there was some sort of underground toddler grapevine? Did they use rhythms beaten out with sippy cups, broadcast via pirate radio? It boggles the mind, really.)

Oops. Bunny trail. OK, back on track:

The lie lay in that Barney was coming to our town. Barney was, you see, coming to Las Vegas, 96 miles away from our town. (I've said "our town" so many times in this sentence that I'm beginning to feel like I need a couple of ladders and a stage manager. Five points if you get the reference.)

Today those 96 miles wouldn't be a big deal. ~~Shit,~~ Shoot, today I drive 96 miles just for a good cup of coffee and a nice view. Fifteen years ago, however, that was like asking me to fly to NYC and pay cash for four dozen tickets to a Broadway show before handing them out to the musical aficionados from the cast of The Jersey Shore. It just wasn't gonna happen. Not only was I a single Mama without the financial means, but there was no way my car would make it to Vegas, much less home.

I talked to the young RD about it.

"Son," I explained (I called him son at home), "next time Barney is in town, I will find a way to get you there. I promise. I double-dog swear. I make a solemn oath on my Garth Brooks Fresh Horses CD." (What? It was 1995.)

Defeated, the little fella agreed. And I never forgot.

Fast-forward seven years. The BoyRD is now 9 and we're living in Fargo, North Dakota. Fargo, the city with the FARGODOME. (Their spellin' yellin', not mine -- I'm just stickin' with their branding.) The FARGODOME, a large enough venue to bring in big shows. Big shows like Barney the Purple Dinosaur, for example.

Nobody's forgotten the promise, right? Me either.

"Son," (I still called him son), "Barney is coming to the 'DOME. Do you want to go?"

He thought about it.

And thought about it.

And weighed.

And measured.

"Yes. I do."

And so we went.

We made a date of it. He & I washed the car, got dressed up, left Dad at home and went out to lunch. And then we went to a Barney concert.

We had great seats. And by "great seats," I mean, "on the floor, about 11th row, center." (Yeah, that's how I roll.)

As we waited for the show to start, he looked around and pretty quickly had an observation.

"Mom. Mom. MOM!"

"Wha? Oh, sorry ... I was people watching."

"Yeah. Me too. I'm the oldest kid here."

I had noticed something similar and was ready with a platitude. Something like, "Maybe people just think you're exceptionally tall for your age," but when I saw the look on his face, I realized it was best to go with a different approach.

"No you're not, babycakes. See? Look at that girl over there," I said, pointing to a blond tween up in the tiered seating. "She's even older than you."

"MOM -- she's a babysitter!"

Ah, crap. This kid was smarter than I thought.

Thankfully, that's when the show started.

Four billion cubic tons of multi-colored confetti showered down from the heavens. Lasers and spotlights swung wildly from every crevice of the facility. Tiny voices screamed in an ecstatic frenzy as Barney and his posse bounded on-stage.

I told myself it would be okay; my baby boy would remember everything he loved about this ~~goofy-ass purple freak~~ affable dino as a toddler and be able to enjoy the show, even more so than if he'd been to the same performance as a two year-old.

And then Barney exalted the crowd with, "Hey boys and girls! Do you know what time it is?"

And my sweet, sweet, loving, angelic brown-eyed boy stood up and shouted at the top of his lungs, "It’s time to PUT … ON … SOME … PANTS!"

Barney didn't hear him. I'm not entirely sure anyone but me heard him, either. And in that moment, I learned something.

It could be that maybe some promises are better left unfulfilled.

First Day of School (Or: Did That Just Happen?)

2010-09-07T21:47:00.000-05:00

OK, so I'm not sure how many of you know I am a brand ~~spankin'~~ new elementary school secretary.

I had been applying to become a secretary in the Fargo school district for over a decade to no avail. The times I would make an in-person inquiry, I would be told, "We always hire for those spots from within." Don't they know WHO I AM?!? Sheesh.

And then, a glimmer. A whim, really. I applied in Moorhead. And ... they ... said ... yes. I hope I never forget when my principal called to offer me the job. I had to pull over, I was crying and laughing and praising Heaven like a crazy person.

I've spent the last month getting ready for today. Building up to HAVING THE KIDS IN SCHOOL.

Just typing that makes me laugh. Nothing, my friends, zip--zero--zilch--NADA could have prepared me for the big day.

I ran the front desk of a 1,600+ room gaming/resort/hotel for how long with how many drunk, angry, loud adults in my lobby for how many hours in a row with the decibel level set to kill? And nope -- even that didn't give me a glimpse of the chaos, the craziness that was today.

Today made the beaches of Normandy look like a Kennedy-family picnic at Martha's Freaking Vineyard.

Crying kids. Frazzled bus drivers. Stoic janitors. Stealthy toddlers. Insistent lunch ladies. Super-charged teachers. Glassy-eyed siblings. Freaked out parents. Harried teachers aids (we call them "para-professionals" in the part of the world; heretofore referred to simply as "paras".) And the phone. Always, always, always the phone. Non. Freaking. Stop.

And then he appeared. The child who made my day. He was like a twenty-something man, crammed into a eight year-old's body. He was so matter of fact, so frank in his manner that I wanted to hug him ... even though.

So right in the midst of all of the aforementioned sensory assault, I sense someone staring at me. It's him. He barely clears the higher part of the counter around my desk -- the part where adults sometimes stand to fill out forms or rest their arms as they talk.

"Hiya, sir. What can I do for you today?"

"Well, I think I might need to see the nurse," came the reply.

"Oh?" (it's my job to make sure everybody gets to the right person the first time), "What happened? You okay?" I tried to give him the best once-over I could from the opposite side of the desk, leaning in to inspect his face and visible extremities for obvious injury.

"Well," he said, looking for all the world like a work-weary blue-collar fella telling a story at the bar, eyes sweeping the room, taking in everything and nothing, "I was runnin' real hard in PE, ya know? And somethin' just squirted outta my butt."

His gaze locked mine. "And now I think I must need some new underwear or sumpin."

And there it was. So straightforward. Not a hint of embarrassment; just what it was.

And so I walked around the desk, put my arm around his shoulders and introduced him to our nurse, Janet.

And the rest of the day? Well, the rest of the day was just like this young man had told it: straightforward. Matter of fact. It was what it was ... with one major difference.

Now I had perspective.

It's Like "Where's Waldo" ... Without Waldo

2010-08-26T20:57:00.001-05:00

I was workin' away on my computer (what? Breaking Bricks Hex is totally working!) when I realized Kitty Daddy had paused the game to go check on something in the oven. Or maybe he was answering the door. Or going potty. Or donning a tutu to wear during his interpretive dance to express his sorrow at the Twins' lack of game. Heck fire, I don't know what that man was doing--I was busy ~~playing~~ working, thank you very much.

Anyhoo, this is what I saw when finally looked up. I swear to y'all, I was mesmerized by this image for a good five minutes. I love unspoken (and assumed) dynamics.

What do YOU think you see? ?

Oonly Bonly

2010-08-22T23:25:00.001-05:00

His name was OB Lewis.

My mother said he was, in a word, magnificent. I pressed her for more, but she just sighs and says, "forty-six years does nothing for specific memories."

It was their senior year at South Mountain High School in Phoenix, Arizona.

I like to think OB was a go-getter. The kind of young man you want living next door to you, taking your daughter to the homecoming dance, and eventually marrying her. You'd put him to work at your car dealership, and he'd make you zillions of bucks--just because men trusted him, women were enamored of him and babies toddled to him with delight. A solid boy with honor, manners, great hair, a cleft chin and perfect teeth in his deep and brilliant gene pool -- the sort of fellow that makes Richie Cunningham seem like a ruffian.

The story goes like this:

OB was a family name. One passed on for generation upon proud generation in the Lewis family. One his parents lovingly passed on to honor those who came before him. One that stood for goodness, for purity, and, as it turns out, nothing.

Yup. That's right. The "O" stood for not a thing. It was simply an "O", next to a "B" that, likewise, stood for bupkus ... just as it had for generations.

I imagine OB was used to explaining this to legions of folks as he grew from a boy to a man. I envision him clad in crisp denim and a fresh sweater, varsity letter gleaming from his spotless letterman's jacket. (I have no idea if he was an athlete in reality; but he for SURE is in my head. The captain of every team he was on, in fact.)

I imagine the scene wherein he gives his perfect convertible Mustang a loving pat as he leaves her at the curb, entering the building that houses the Army recruiter's office, his jaw set--determined. It was 1964, there was a war on, and this young man was going to go serve. Just as his father and his father's father had, he would carry the name OB Lewis into battle and gladly fight for the very things his forefather's had fought for.

In my version, he approaches the desk, paperwork filled out and waits while an overworked clerk reads through the fields filled in ink, checking for missed information.

"What do the O and B stand for?" the clerks asks. He's seen hundreds upon hundreds of these kids and has yet to be impressed. He'd be there headed overseas, too, if it weren't for his own father's legacy: myopic eyes, flat feet and wheezing lungs only a pharmacist could love.

"Nothing, sir. It's just an O and a B," young Mr. Lewis would explain calmly.

And so the weary clerk makes a notation on OB's paperwork, adding a single word behind each letter. And when OB receives his dog tags mere days later, they read in a way even his father's and grandfather's tags did not.

They read, "Oonly Bonly Lewis".

OB came to school that day laughing his head off and showing everyone the tags. He even claimed the Army said they wouldn't fix them; that HE himself filled out the paperwork and that surely the boy knew his own name.

And so OB became Oonly Bonly for the term of his enlistment.

My mother told us this story as I was growing up, and it became one I retold often.

I asked Mom what happened to OB. She has no idea, but thinks maybe she saw his name on Classmates.com. I take this as a good sign. That maybe those Oonly Bonly tags became a good luck talisman. That they brought him home safely and with his sense of humor intact.

Raise your coffee cups, kids:

To OB Lewis, who shows us that even if they call you a silly name, you remain who you are, and that even in the face of something terrifying, you can teach others that it's okay to laugh, too.

Stormy Minute Man

2010-08-15T10:09:00.000-05:00

Anyone Care For A Dirty White Smelly T-Shirt?

2010-08-14T12:45:00.001-05:00

My BFF, C., is 25 weeks pregnant. This, combined with my body's current refusal to responsibly handle its own insulin levels, leaves us out of the alcohol game.

Last week, we got together with C.'s little (and stunningly gorgeous, super smart and wicked funny) sister, J., for movie night. I brought the drinks.

Now, I'm certain I'm not the first one to combine these ingredients, but holy COW did we think I was a genius. These concoctions were DELIGHTFUL.

Even though they were non-alcoholic, we poured into martini glasses like big girls.

And C.'s 4 year-old twins, G. and N.? They drank from sippy cups, sans lids ... like big boys.

Sitting around eating bean dip and sipping our lemony goodnesses, I asked the boys what they thought we should name these fabulous new beverages.

N. puckered his little lips, glancing from his glass to my face and back.
"Dirty, white, thmelly t-shirts," came the authoritative answer.

And so they are.

Want one?

- 3 oz pre-made lemonade (I like Simply Lemonade, but if something else pre-made is on sale, do it!)
- 2 oz lemon-lime soda pop (we used Sierra Mist)
- splash o' grenadine

Mmmmm ... Dirty White Smelly T-Shirts. Cheers!

Library Card Upgrade

2010-08-13T23:46:00.000-05:00

I could read by the time I started kindergarten. My older sister, J., had dyslexia (which I was quite careful about spelling just now), and our mother would read to her on the couch. It was there on a floral-print couch I started my book learnin'.

The summer between fourth and fifth grades, my Mom was a dispatcher for the Kingman Police Department, and she'd take me to work with her, where I would trundle across the street with my sack lunch ... to the public library.

A few weeks into this arrangement, I was out of books. I don't know that I read everything in the kids' stacks, but certainly everything that interested me. (I was stunned years later to find out that I had missed some Nancy Drew titles!)

Looking back, I realize the library staff must have been having some sort of meeting at the desk that morning. They were ALL there. The woman who wore the same gray pair of slacks every day ... the ones whose seams always seemed THIS close to bursting; the older lady with the magic hair-growing mole and glasses; and the younger gal who I only remember as "the younger gal" based on my back-then comparison to her ancient colleagues. (In hindsight, the oldest was probably 45--tops.)

As I came near, their conversation waned. Aunt Mole spoke up, "Yes, Laura? What is it you need?"

"I'm done with those."

"Done with what?"

"Those. The kids books," jerking a thumb over my shoulder to indicate the area decked out in Lilliputian furniture and posters in primary colors.

They looked from one to another in what seemed an eternity to me.

"Can I go over there?", pivoting in my sneakers to indicate with my torso the tall stacks, filled with volumes and volumes of mystery. "My mom lets me read Reader's Digest Condensed books at home."

A few moments of hushed conversation and a call was placed to my mother. And then magic: my card was swapped out for one that all the adults--and now a nine year-old carried. (I dearly wish I would have kept that card.)

I can still feel their eyes on me as I entered into new territory. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I knew that I'd best find something, or I'd look like a fool on top of having to revisit Beverly Cleary's version of elementary angst yet again.

Soon, though, I was lost.

Not literally, (this was small town Southwest, after all) but figuratively and willingly. The smells were richer, the volumes thicker and the pull stronger. I know it was then I fell in love. I allowed the lure of words, the telling of tales, to seduce me; to draw me in.

Time stood still. Or maybe it flew by. I have no way of knowing. It's a place, books, perfectly akin to good music. One in which I choose to stay, to forsake other experiences for. From that day forward, the perfect stories dwell in books rather than film or even stage.

How long it took me I can't say for sure, but I do remember choosing first one book, then hauling it around for a few more rows until I found the book that, to this day, remains my favorite.

Those ladies watched me the whole time. I lost that feeling of being observed as I inspected my new treasure trove of possibility, but have a distinct memory of all three of them staring intently into the aisle I was in and suddenly BLAM! looking quite busy when I emerged, novels in hand.

The books I chose? The Godfather by Mario Puzo and Alex Haley's Roots.

Both amazing works, both are stories of family, conviction and the creation of one's own freedom at any cost.

I'll let you figure out which is the one I buy every five years, re-read and then loan out knowing it will not return to me, but go on to bless someone else's shelves. And to give you a hint? There's not a single beheaded horse in the bunch.

Early Exposure: A Favor She May Not Even Know She Bestowed

2010-08-09T00:20:00.000-05:00

I have a library in my head.

Now, don't be impressed -- it's fairly useless, poorly catalogued, and quite dusty in many areas. And ... it's comprised almost entirely of pop culture.

I am fully aware the day will likely never come wherein I save a busload of people from careening down a fiery ravine because I know that a meatball sub is Joey Tribbiani's favorite sandwich. I've accepted that. (Except, theoretically, during a particularly long, boring drive with no battery in the ol' iPod or discernable radio stations available. What? Boredom gives license to a vivid imagination.)

Where was I going with this? Oh, right ....

OK, so I know having useless trivial knowledge is, well ... generally useless, but a giant portion of this obscure wisdom falls firmly into the "music" class; a subject I could discuss endlessly.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the ideas I have, the beliefs I hold and the values I operate under. Not just what they are, but where they came from. Often, it traces back to my childhood, but sometimes all the way into my adolescent and teen years. For example, my disdain of the sight and even smell of black olives can be tied directly to a time of extreme economic challenge for my family, and my mother's inventiveness in creating something to fill our bellies with the waning contents of the pantry. Also, to this day, I'll let pretty much anyone lotion my feet because it was something my mother did to express love. Ah! And I just thought of another one -- I have a preternatural affinity for the Hoover Dam. "Whuh ..." you ask? Wait, wait, I totally know this one ... it's because for a great deal of my childhood, we had to cross the Dam to get to my grandmother's house. See? It all traces back.

And here we are at the subject for posting: music.

I was a seriously nerdy 7th grader, and my older sister, J., had just moved out of the family home. (In a bold and striking statement of independence, she moved into her friend's house next door.) It was a Saturday afternoon and I was rearranging our previously-shared space to be mine, ALL MINE. (BwuwahahaHA!)

Among her leavings was a putty-colored audio cassette displaying the K-Tel logo, provocatively proclaiming, " Danger: High Voltage".

"My God," I thought, my heart racing. What could possibly be on this tape? Profanity? Sexual references? Cold War secrets chanted by mysterious pop stars? I didn't care how naughty it was, I instinctively knew my world was about to expand and by gum, I was IN.

Practically tripping over myself to find a tape player, I settled in among the upheaval that can only happen in the room of two teenage girls and had myself a listen.

What I heard not only expanded my little universe, but flat-out ROCKED it.

Up to this point, my musical tastes mirrored that of my parents': Neil Diamond (rule #1: thou shall not disparage Mr. Diamond), Marty Robbins, The Statler Brothers, Jim Croce, James Taylor and anything that hit the folk charts in the 70's. A few years prior, J. had begun her high-school career as a pom-pon girl and because of that I'd heard a little bit of Prince, Madonna and The Go-Go's--the danceable pop one needs for a proper eight-count.

But this, well this was different. A few of these songs had something more. My heart beat faster, my head nodded almost on it's own accord and my toes took on a tapping life of their own accord. A discernable baseline, real drums up front, sometimes a throaty guitar and all in your face with a notable lack of well, sheer popiness.

Before you get your pop panties in a wad, let me just say that I LOVE me some pop: N'Sync, Britney, Huey Lewis AND his News, Wham!, the Material Girl; I love it all, but there was something about rock that dug deep and sunk in its claws. And I've never asked it to leave. Ah, who are we kidding? I still seek it out.

That one cassette was the nexus of a love that's gotten me up in the morning, bonded me with complete strangers in concert venues, pulled me through scores of relationships and turned into lullabies for a cranky infant some eighteen years past. (What? Hasn't everybody rocked an angry, crying, raisin while softly singing Kiss', "Beth" at two o'clock in the morning? Don't knock it--'worked like a CHARM.)

Over the next few years, before she moved to Europe with the military, J. left musical droppings for me pretty frequently. Bad Company (Val-uh-REEE!), Journey and Foreigner completed the base for a multi-layered, cross-generational catalog of songs and memories that still and will, I hope, forever pluck a visceral chord deep inside of me. And always, always, take me back to being a young teenage girl in Mohave County, Arizona.

Raise your coffee cups for a toast, y'all:

To Julia -- for forgetting music so I may play it loud.

Rock. On.

I Can't Bear To Look

2010-07-30T13:47:00.000-05:00

Allegedly Speaking: Spell It

2010-07-26T23:19:00.002-05:00

Vehicularly speaking, I was a late bloomer. I turned sixteen about a month into my junior year of high school, but didn't yet have so much as a driver's permit. I did, however, have an urge to ditch second and third periods to go shopping in a nearby town.

I asked my friend J. for the keys to her baby blue Ford Pinto. With the usual, "you'd best be careful!" speech, I grabbed a cute boy, D., and headed out in search of a place to spend my recent fast food paycheck.

Everything was going fine. 'Didn't find any clothes, but got some flirting accomplished. D. was blessed with black hair and blue eyes -- still a lethal combination in my book. With Richard Marx's "Angelina" playing in the cassette deck, we headed back to school through state-owned forest.

About half-way through the back-way home, on a two-lane hairpin curve (gotta see this comin', eh?) I was fiddling with the radio and not so much looking at the road. Probably speeding, I was fast approaching a hairy situation: a big truck and a car both heading in my direction, one in each lane. The decision went like this: Car? Truck? Tree? Tree.

We jump a ditch and hit a tree. In the Pinto.

I straight-arm the steering wheel, rupture the gas line, introduce the upper part of the steering wheel to my face and my knees to whatever lays beyond the dashboard.

We come to a rest against the decimated tree. D. looks around and sniffs the air out his now-open window. Mumbling something about gas, he reaches over and cuts the ignition. Richard stops singing.

We climb out. Shaky, we observed the damage. With the front end completely rumpled and humping a pine tree, gas puddling underneath, the windshield looking for all the world as though it had been vomited out the front of the car, it looks pretty danged bad.

A dark-haired older woman in a BMW slows down and mouths with her radish-red lips, "Do you need help? Should I call for help?"

I think I must have nodded yes, because she pulls out a giant Zach Morris phone. You remember the one -- about the size of a shoebox and putty colored? Yup, you DO remember, don't you? She's talking into the phone as she drives out of sight.

Hysterical and thinking only of myself, I ask D. to say he was driving. He won't. He can't -- his father is wildly abusive and this would surely spell out the seventh realm of hell for him if his dad knows he is ditching, much less has the idea that he is driving. He makes sure (as much as you can when you're sixteen and just got thrown into a windshield by a crazed female driver) I am okay (aka, "not dead") and hightails it for the woods as the sounds of emergency response teams sound in the far distance. (Let me just say, there is NOTHING better than the sound of sirens when you're hurt, having a hard time discerning up from down and don't know what to do about it.)

Alone, I sit down a few yards behind the car.

I'm not sure how much time passes, but the next thing I know, I'm on my back, staring up at a horde of firemen, paramedics and the gray, cloudy sky beyond them. They all look concerned. I decide to stay calm, especially since I don't want to worry them further by revealing exactly how dazed I am.

Someone is wiping blood from my face, trying to figure out where it's all coming from while someone else speaks to me, encouraging me to lie still and not move anything. I hear another voice announce, "Fire Captain's here!".

Crunching boot steps on gravel and a vaguely familiar face is gazing down at me from above; our faces upside-down to one another as he crouches down. Hands of paramedics are sliding a backboard under me, slipping a c-collar under my neck, getting things stabilized.

He slides his hands around my neck, assisting in the process, as he speaks to me.

"Hi, honey. Where's your purse?" Oh, good. This I know I can handle. Just questions. Not a problem.

"In my locker at school."

He shuffles his feet just a bit, shifting his weight. "Okay. Where's your license?"

"Oh, I don't have one of those." He shuffles again.

"Ohh-kay. Where's your permit?" His right eyebrow is starting to creep up his forehead.

"Uh, I don't have one of those either." Shuffle, shuffle, shift. And the left eyebrow is starting to join its friend's elevation.

"Sweetie, what's your name?" Nice words, meant to be comforting, but his tone and the shuffling feet tell me this man clearly mean business. It is time to implement my best behavior. Speak his language. The language I learned from my police officer Father and my judge pro tem Mother. You know, over in the next town.

"Laura," I manage to get out.

He blows a whoosh of warm, cinnamon-scented air over me.

"Spell it?" He's relaxing a little bit now. Thank God. That eyebrow-shuffle-thing was becoming worrisome.

"Lincoln Adam Union Robert Adam?" I search his eyes for approval, acceptance of some sort that it's all going to be okay. You know, because I know THE CODE.

"And your last name?" The shuffling feet has stopped. I seem to have his attention. He meets my gaze, nodding just a bit, as if to reassure me that this little granule of information will make it all better. Like maybe there will be ice cream involved.

"Slaughter."

That left eyebrow performs a dramatic drop as the right one shoots clear to his hairline. He cocks his head to one side like a quizzical Labrador, "Spell it?"

Gulp.

"Sam Lincoln Adam Union George Henry Tom Edward Robert?"

His jaw drops slightly.

"As in JOHN and MARY?!?"

"Yes."

"Oh, YOU," (he drops my head) " are in DEEP shit!"

________________________________________

I don't remember much after that. I was probably trying to figure out how to run away from it all. And I don't remember this part, either, but the medics told my Mom later that in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, I interrupted their clothing-removal long enough to bellow, "Cut up the seam! I already wrecked her car!". Turns out Captain Obvious nailed it on the head with his declaration of my current state: I was wearing J's pants that day, too.

A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

2010-07-26T21:39:00.000-05:00

So I'm testing out mobile blogging. If you're a follower, don't be surprised if you get a notification and then it's gone by the time you get here.

I've got a mile-long list of things I want to do here and am diving in ... with or without any actual knowledge. (MuwahahahahaHA!)

A Nod To Craig Ferguson's Closing Bit, Nine-Volt Batteries and A Little Bit O' Twang Creepin' In

2010-07-12T01:48:00.001-05:00

"What did we learn on the show tonight, Craig?" makes me smile each and every time I hear it sung. And if it's accompanied by a farty-kitty graphic? Well, hell fire, I'm a pig in poop on the day after Thanksgivin'! (I'm not sure why that last line came out Southern, but it amuses me to say it aloud. Go ahead, try it. See?!? HI-larious!)

Today in my house, we learned that Amos will, indeed, taste anything offered to him.

Tonight's offering? A nine-volt battery. Both terminals. Simultaneously.

Now, before you go gettin' yer PETA panties in a proverbial ~~vegan~~ wad, you should know that this cat has been known to steal and consume radishes. Nope -- no need to clean your glasses; you got it right. A radish. You know the one -- little, red on the outside, cool white on the inside, slightly peppery second cousin twice-removed from horseradish*? Yup, that radish. And if he doesn't eat what he steals, he'll play cat-soccer with it as though the spirit of Pele himself compels him, frequently losing or, worse - hiding, the ill-gotten goods until it a) it rots, or b) we move. So if Kitty thinks he needs to take a sniff at whatever it is you're clearly withholding from him (an obvious violation of the Geneva Convention*) ... well, as a diploma-awarded human being, you recognize the power afforded by control and go ahead and give him a little sniff. Sometimes he licks it, sometimes he doesn't, but either way ... you get to keep it. These are the circumstances under which the battery was proffered.

And I tell you what ... (till youuu whuut) ... little dude pulled back a bit, startled as though someone had abruptly shown him a photo of a heinously ugly baby, shook his head, leveled a "what is WRONG with you?!?" look at Kitty Daddy (aka, my husband) and HELD HIS GROUND.

Seriously. He acted like nothing happened. He didn't run away. He didn't even swat at it. He gave Kitty Daddy the look and then stayed at his station, supervising the smoke-detector battery changing for the season.

Good boy, Amos. Way to take one for the radish-soccer team safety committee.

* You'll find that I sometimes will go from "theory" to "proven fact" without so much as a breath. I'll try to be sure to note these little treasures so that the Unfortunate Copper Penny Incident from high school isn't repeated. (Y'all remind me to post that story sometime, 'k?)

Got Yer Mojo On?

2010-07-12T01:03:00.000-05:00

My husband and I were at King House tonight where the little dude in the booth next to us, probably all of four years-old, was demonstrating to his parents that a weekend at the lake did nothing to diminish his energy, vocabulary or decibel level.

Clearly having enough of her offspring's antics, his mother quietly and calmly informed him that if he kept it up, he would not only be skipping dessert, but also be going straight to bed upon arrival at home.

His megaphone-like response?

"Hey, Mama -- you must have your MOJO on!".

MMmmm ... Tacos ....

2010-06-25T10:40:00.003-05:00

I've been looking for a good taco seasoning recipe for a while now. The packets make us all bloaty and feel like a twenty-member team of people should attach ropes to us, then drag us along in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

We had three teenagers over the night I made this, and they all raved about it. (Though I think it would be a bit spicy for little-people palettes.) My husband and I decided it's our new taco go-to. I'd like to tell you I concocted this on my own, but bold-faced lies are unattractive, so props to whomever posted it on AllRecipes.com where it's listed as Taco Seasoning I.

I've used this on hamburger and chicken. For the chicken, I created an olive-oil based marinade, adding in some extra cumin and lemon and lime juices. I also recommend about a half cup of plain or lemon yogurt when marinating; the enzymes work some magic on the proteins of the meat, yielding a seriously tender slab o' goodness.

And since (I know, I know, "isn't she done blabbering yet?") I knew from the first bite I'd want to have this on hand always, I also did a little Excel magic and created a "bigger batch" matrix at the bottom. If it's too small to read, just increase the view size in your browser.

If you'd like this in a PDF, just drop me an email. Enjoy!

Taco Seasoning

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Mix all ingredients together, store in airtight container.

For use, stir 3T mix into .5 c hot water, pour of browned, drained meat and simmer until absorbed.

To make large batch for storage:

(Sorry, no photos on this one ... I had teenagers who were hungry NOW.)

Sometimes We Love Boys We Shouldn't

2010-06-24T01:04:00.003-05:00

I am a woman who loves a bad boy.

He only wants love on his terms, never when I am the seeker of affection.

He is a menace to society. He picks on puppies, verbally threatens even the tiniest of birds and more often than not, tries to goad everyone and everything around him into a spirited tussle.

He wrecks the house. He slices through screens as though their purpose on a door or window is to be but torn apart, rips facial tissue out of boxes like Guy Fieri and a live studio audience are egging him on, and has no qualms about drinking the last of the milk .... from YOUR glass.

And yet I adore him. He melts me. I can't help myself.

He's lived with us for just about five months now. I love watching him sleep. I love the lithe way he walks, his muscles rippling with every step, every nuance of movement a study in form. I love that he talks incessently, sometimes repeating the same thing over and over, well into ad nauseum. I love watching him play. But most of all, I love the way he stops what he's doing--regardless of what fun he may be having--to nuzzle my neck and kiss my face, eyes full of love.

Sometimes, we love boys we shouldn't ... and love every minute of it.

World, meet Amos.