Damn Hippies

I was a surly 14 year old. I would have rather stayed home, but she insisted I go with her. I don’t even remember where we were going. I think it was to meet Dad at work for lunch and to do something scintillating like grocery shop, or worse, shop for clothes for Dad.

It was summer, and I would rather have stayed home. I would have liked to sit out on the deck in the sun, listening to Rush, and trying to get tan. I’d just bought a copy on cassette of “Hold Your Fire” which I was *thisclose* to wearing out. But no, that was not to be the plan.

I scowled as I sat in the passenger seat. I slipped off my sandals and put my feet up on the dash in just the way that annoyed her. She raised her eyebrows, and I think she was counting to 10. I defiantly stared back.

Mom’s second language was English. She often said things incorrectly. Like I said yesterday, she thought that “junk” had a plural. We drank milk chocolate sometimes, instead of chocolate milk. She measured things with a measure tape. I think at one point she’d even used towel paper to wipe up a spill on the counter.

But her arch nemesis was the hippies. Mom didn’t really know who the hippies were, though. To her, hippies and hoodlums were synonymous despite my efforts to explain who hippies were. She pointed out the window at the trash can that was left at the curb. The garbage trucks came through that morning.

“Hey, bring that garbage can back to the house before some hippie steals it,” she ordered. I burst out laughing. (Years later I relayed the story to Todd and he said “Yeah, because hippies are always looking for things to put their recyclables in.”)

She asked me what I was laughing at, but I was too far gone to explain. I got out of the car and dragged the bin back to the house, and then got back into the car.

A few years later Mom came home with a blue bin that said “Western Massachusetts recycles.” We didn’t live in Western Massachusetts. But she beamed as she set it in the garage, “Look at this great bin I found on the side of the road.”

I flashed her the peace sign and went back into the house.

Mimicking a Puppy

Normally I am a very good sleeper. I once slept through a tropical storm while tied to a mooring in Newport Harbor. I woke up after the storm had gone by, rubbed my eyes, looked up at the sun and said “So, did the storm miss us?” Todd shook his head and laughed. He’d tried to wake me up so I could see how the wind was blowing. No dice.

But when busy season at work hits, my brain wakes up at ridiculous o’clock and says “Now you are going to obsess about really dumb things that you cannot possibly change at this hour. Ready? And NOW!” And then I focus on things at work that I cannot possibly change. Even when I think about it and come up with a solution, I still think about it. Even after I smack myself on the forehead and say “StopitStopitStopitStopit you’ve solved the problem now go to sleep.” Boing, the eyes remain open wide.

Today was another fun busy season day. I had gotten my inbox down to 60 messages, down from a high of 108. (This is a lot for me. Normally I only leave what I am currently working on in my inbox, if it gets to 20 then that’s a lot for me.) I was on top of my game, and then all hell broke loose around 3 PM. The emails came flying in, my heart rate started to rise. The phone rang and rang. And then I found out that vendor I work very closely on a major part of my job made a very careless mistake. And of course the person in charge who works for my client got to see the result of this careless mistake. And then, of course, she cc’d my boss on the “What the hell is this???” email.

The email from the client came in as I was on the phone with the vendor. I saw it and gasped. “What’s wrong?” she asked me. “Holyshitholyshit, Holy. Shit.” I forwarded the email to my vender who also gasped and said “Holyshitholyshitsholyshit.” Then we hyperventilated as we tried to figure out what went wrong.

We hung up the phone at 5:30. We know what went wrong, but that won’t be good enough for the client as it should never ever have happened to begin with. And tomorrow morning will be messy when my boss is back from her day off and asks me what the hell went wrong.

I wonder how the obsession session will go at 3 AM tomorrow morning. I came home and jogged the better part of 4 miles. Then I ate a lot of food. If there was milk in the house I would totally drink a warm glass of it. I hope that I burned enough energy to sleep all the way through.

Rushing Out the Door

What a crazy couple of weeks it’s been. Welcome to busy season! For the last 2 autumns I have been consumed by work. This year I am trying like hell not to work at all hours like I have the last two busy seasons. It’s hard not to remain glued to my seat. I force myself to log out and get the hell out of dodge at 5. I force myself out, regardless of the emails falling on me like an avalanche from clients wishing to book their flu clinics, change their flu clinics, talk about their flu clinics or have their hands held for just a few minutes.

My eyes ache from rolling them as I speak to clients on the phone and endure their silly questions. My shoulders ache from clenching them tightly as I watch the unopened email count tick higher as precious minutes are wasted on the phone. The shoulders clench again as I watch the “New Voice Mail” number on the display on my phone tick higher as I plow through my inbox.  I know that it will end.  I know that I've only got 2 hands with which to do all this work.  But it's hard to keep myself in check.

But I am not going to complain. I was speaking to a client just today who I’ve become friendly with. Normally when we start a conversation I ask her how she’s doing and she launches into her complaint du jour. It bums me out when ever I talk to her, but I try to be upbeat. “It could be worse,” I once said to her, “You could be on fire.” She said that being on fire would put her out of her misery. I guess some people can’t be cheered up, no matter how much you try.

Today she said to me “I love talking to you, you’re so upbeat. I just don’t have it in me.” I asked her why not, and she said she just didn’t. I said “I dare you to try it for one day. Just be positive and don’t let work drag you down for one day. You’ll see how much better your day will go.” She was not convinced. I guess some people cannot be saved, no matter how much you try.

But that’s OK. I don’t need to be saving whiny clients. Know why? Because I am in full-on-post-awesome-concert-bliss mode. Last night we schlepped up to Boston to see Rush in concert.

I cannot describe how wonderfully awesome the show was. They’re calling this tour the Time Machine Tour, and it truly was like going into a time machine. They played a lot of the old favorites… Spirit of Radio, Time Stand Still, Presto… Tom Sawyer, Limelight, YYZ, Free Will… Closer. To. The. Heart. Need I say more? And of course, the gratuitous Neil Peart drum solo. As you guys might now, I’ve been nursing a mild obsession with Neil Peart since I read his books last spring. I clutched my closed fist to my mouth and watched his show in silent reverence. Only Neil Peart could make a drum solo sound melodic. It wasn’t as melodic as “The Rhythm Method” solo from ‘A Show of Hands,’ but still… damn, Neil!

Now I will take off in a time machine of my own. The last time I saw Rush in concert was in November 1991 in Hartford, Connecticut. It was my senior year of high school and I went with my boyfriend whom I’ll call Pedro (only because if he’d ever read this he’d look at me and say ‘Pedro? Really? Come on, now!’) Pedro was a few years older than me, and I tried like hell not to look and act high school-ish around him. But really, we had nothing in common. We spent way too much time in his basement watching really bad action movies with his National Guard buddies, with whom I also had nothing in common. (“Escape from New York” is not a good movie. At all. These yahoos were totally into it.)

It was an awkward relationship in which he never really said anything about how he felt about me. He completely ignored my 18th birthday, and every makeout session was an exercise in agony where it would take the entire night to get up to the point where he’d kiss me, and it was just so uncosmic and uncomfortable when he finally did. And did I mention that he was shorter than me? It was so hard to feel like I could be myself around him. After all, I am 5’8”, broad shouldered, and felt like I towered over him. I am boisterous. He’s quiet. Yet, I chased him. And looking back I really wish I knew why.

So, Pedro and I went to the show. We sat off to the side. Pedro wasn’t much for expressing anything at all, like I mentioned. So we just sat there and watched the show. It was a really great show, I remember that. But I felt stupid about getting up and dancing. So I didn’t. I felt stupid about cheering with abandon, like I normally would. So I didn’t. Just sat there with him watching.

I drove him home after the show. We’d been hanging out together for months at that point and never managed to kiss. But that night I held out hope. I got out of the car, it was cold. We stood in his driveway under the glow of the security light over the doors, and didn’t talk. There was no “Man, that was an awesome show.” Silence. I kicked at a pebble on the driveway and shivered under the leather jacket I’d borrowed from my sister. I looked up at him. He looked back at me. There was no leaning in toward each other, no music welling up in the background. Nothing. I cleared my throat. He looked down.

Then he threw his arms around me. And it was the world’s longest hug. I totally blew my curfew standing there with his arms wrapped around me for some ungodly length of time. I ended the night by telling him I liked him. He didn’t say anything back and went in the house. It was a few weeks later when his brother asked me “So, what’s up with you and Pedro?” I asked him what he knew and he told me “After the Rush concert he came inside and said ‘She likes me’ and I said ‘You’re just figuring that out now? She’s been pretty clear about that for months.’” I just shrugged. And then he shrugged. And the “That’s just how Pedro is” passed between us. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.

So, the Rush concert started the hug stage of our relationship. This dude would literally hug me for 20 minutes at a time while standing on his damn driveway at his parents’ house. This nonsense went on for months without him making a move beyond that. I would go home and search my face in the mirror to see if there was some booger lurking in my nose that scared him off.

After the next summer I went off to college. He wrote me letters, careful not to tell me how he felt about me. I wrote back and told him what a fun time I was having. He called up my dorm room, upset about how I was basically moving on without him. And I was. I met new friends who actually, you know, spoke. I met a boyfriend who liked me and told me so.

During winter break he’d look for me at work. I would spot him; hide behind the displays until I could safely stash myself in the stockroom where JCPenney civilians were not allowed. And thus ended the huglationship I’d endured for way too long.

Years later Pedro and I became friends. He learned how to communicate and we actually had a really great time hanging out that summer before I moved to Boston. I didn’t know he could talk that much. That summer I couldn’t get him to shut up. And it was fun. We also made out a lot. And that was fun too. Turns out, back when we were together when I was in high school he had very deep feelings for me (Is that why I saw him pace and glance at his watch when he attended my high school graduation?). Since then he hadn’t been able to listen to a Rush song because his heart was so broken after I’d went to college and moved on. (Sorry Neil, I cost you a fan.  Forgive me?)  He’s married and has 2 kids now. And I am happy for him. And I wonder if “Tom Sawyer” or “Limelight” on the radio is still intolerable for him.

But last night was different. Todd’s not much of a Rush fan, but he tolerated me bouncing up and down in the car seat on the way to Boston. He smiled patiently at me as I practically skipped through the parking garage on the way into the venue. He didn’t complain when I slapped his arm repeatedly with an “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” every time the band played one of my favorites. And I did that a lot last night, because it was a fantastic show where they played a lot of my faves. I cheered loudly without caring. I sang along to “Time Stand Still”, which is my favorite Rush song, and he cheered right along with me after every song. And he totally made out with me after the show was over too.

Dependent

Thursday night Todd came back from his trip to San Francisco. Usually while he’s gone I try to cook. I am not known for my cooking. When Todd calls on his way home from work I hear the trepidation in his voice after I say “I am trying out a new recipe…” But while he’s gone I try new recipes, and I learn something new about cooking every time, and I don’t feel the pressure of needing to make him something actually edible.

Today is Saturday on Labor Day weekend. I am sitting in Todd’s office while he works. I have been working on my book, and I’ve read the Providence Phoenix and completed the crossword.

Originally the plan was I’d drop him at his office then go bomb around Providence. I haven’t been in Providence all summer. I left here after lunch and drove up to Thayer Street, which is near Brown University. Thayer Street has funky little shops that are always fun to kill time in.

I walked down the street and popped into a few shops. I crossed the street and made my way back. I stopped for a frozen yogurt, sat at an outdoor café table and people watched for awhile. But really? I was bored.

I used to go everywhere on my own. Hell, I traveled all over Australia on my own. If my friends didn’t want to go somewhere, but I did, I went anyway. And I didn’t mind. I would explore on my own, meet new people, walk around and do my thing.

After about an hour or so I went back to Todd’s office. He asked why I was back so early, and I said “I’ve been without you all week, and it was boring walking around without you.”

I never thought that I wouldn’t want to walk around alone in the city.

I Am a Dork. Big Time.

I can't keep my dorkitude a secret. It comes out most times when I open my mouth. And then there are the times when I shouldn't be let out in public without a chaperone that will clamp my mouth shut at just the right time.

Years ago I was working at a company that had a cafeteria in the building. My co-worker Kristin and I went to get lunch one day. I said to her, "I am going to check out the soup." She didn't say anything back. For some reason I'd just assumed she'd follow me to check out the soup too. I mean, why wouldn't she? This is my story, after all. I am the main character, and the other characters are supposed to hover around me at all times.

Not so. Kristin, a person in real life and not a character in this story, went to the salad bar. But I swore she was just behind my left shoulder. After all, she was wearing a white shirt that day. She's tall and has dark hair. I turned to Kristin and put on my best Homer Simpson voice and said something scintillating like "Lentil soup.... uh huh huh huh..."

Of course, it wasn't Kristin standing there. Of course it was some impossibly handsome man. And of course he looked at me as if I was a complete weirdo. Because why wouldn't he? Then this is the part where the main character of the story says something very witty that intrigues the impossibly handsome man. Then he woos me with floral arrangements, and we end up together under a setting sun.

My witty response didn't come out so well. Mouth dry, I let out a squeak of some sort and then ran away from impossibly handsome man. I found Kristin selecting lettuce, and I immediately doubled over in laughter. Then of course I had to tell her what happened. And she laughed too. Then all of our co-workers laughed back at the office just after she finished the sentence starting with "Guess what Beej did at lunch today..." They all leaned in to listen, because I am always doing or saying something dorky. For months I was asked whether I wanted to go to the cafeteria to get some lentil soup.

Just the other day I was driving home from work. I stopped in at the convenience store at the truck stop to get an ingredient for dinner. There were a few people milling around near the cash register. The radio in the store was blasting and they were talking about the music. I joined the conversation, and a few minutes later s Sheryl Crow song came on.

I hate Sheryl Crow's music. I have often wondered how the hell she managed to get so famous with that scratchy and whiny voice of hers.

"Ugh. Sheryl Crow," I groaned. "She makes my teeth itch."

One of the men I was talking to laughed, "Makes my teeth itch? That's a good one. I'll have to remember that..."

The kicker? When the man opened his mouth to laugh he had one tooth in his mouth. One.

And then I may have let out a squeak and ran out of the store.

Perseverance

There are 17 days left until the big trip up the Hudson. 17. Less than 20. Just more than 2 weeks. We are starting to freak out a bit because there is still so much to be done to make sure Sabine’s ready. We spend entire weekends preparing her, we spend entire evenings as well. The temperature is rising outside and in our heads as well. We’re tired. We’re getting burnt out. The promise of an awesome trip with new and functioning systems is what keeps us going.

When we bought Sabine she had a manual anchor windlass. This is the machine that sits on the bow of the boat that pulls the anchor and the chain out of the water and up into the boat. The manual windlass had long since seized. But hauling up an anchor and chain by cranking the handle on the winch back and forth never appealed to either of us. An electric windlass has long been on our list.

Not only has it long been on our list, it’s long been in our basement. We bought one five years ago or so. We also bought an obnoxious length of chain that I swear weighs a metric ton. The chain has been sitting in a barrel in the backroom at New England Yacht Rigging. Maggie and Charlie were nice enough not to hassle us about keeping it there all these years. If anything it became a running joke. The weekend before last Charlie nearly fell over when we went there and finally took it out of the shop.

Last Sunday we started the great anchor windlass installation project. Since then the project has involved a custom stainless steel plate fabrication by a local machine shop. (I wish I lived closer to home. I grew up in a shop just like that one and Dad would’ve had it done lickety split for me.) We bolted the machine onto the plate and onto the bow. Over last weekend we started running wires, and last night we installed the control box and finished all the wires.

We stood on the deck, with the remote control in hand, and pressed the button. The sun had just set and the summer temps dropped, thankfully. We’d been crawling in and out of the boat, slick with sweat, sticky and crabby. The no see ‘ums were swarming; I swatted frantically at my arms, legs and neck. We looked at each other expectantly and Todd pressed the button, but nothing happened.

The rotors on the machine did not spin. The chain did not retract below deck into the anchor locker. Nothing. Happened. I winced. Todd let out a frustrated sigh. He picked up the manual, originally written in Italian but badly translated, and tried to diagnose the problem. Over the course of the installation he’d already found 2 errors in the wiring diagram.

Out came the jumper cables and the voltage meter. We tested different configurations of the wiring, assuming another translation error caused the problem. We managed to get the machine to pay out the chain, but not return it to the anchor locker. Todd uninstalled the control box and puzzled over it.

“I think we got a faulty control box,” he said as he swabbed the sweat on his forehead with the sleeve of his t-shirt. We were crouched in the forward-most section of the boat. The air was stiflingly hot in there.

“Well, do you think we can order another?”

“Beej, it took weeks to get this from Italy the last time. We don’t have weeks.”

“That was 5 years ago. Surely they’ve managed to establish a distributor in the US in the last 5 years, no?”

“I don’t know. But look, there are screws in the top. They wouldn’t have put screws in this thing if they didn’t want me to open it, right?” he reasoned.

He unscrewed the top and meticulously laid out the parts. He pointed out the two electromagnets in the box, “See, the electricity causes the spring to activate the lever. Then the metal touches the contact which sends power to the motor. When the up button is pressed, the left lever is engaged. When the down button is pressed the right one is engaged.”

He connected the electromagnets to the jumper cables, and tested each electromagnet. They both worked. But the lever on one of them was turned the wrong way, so it never would have established the connection with the contact.

He reassembled the box, and then we pressed the buttons on the remote control. The chain went up, and the chain went down.

And then we cheered, high-fived and hugged.

And it never would have happened if Todd hadn’t had the perseverance to carefully trouble shoot the problem, disassemble the components and never give up.

Knock Knock! Who’s There?

Not me, that’s for sure.

Sabine hit the water last Friday, and we’re still in that early sailing season flurry of activity. The spring cleaning is largely done and the water system has been flushed free of anti-freeze from the winter. While I can now swish some highly chlorinated water in my mouth when brushing my teeth, I still wouldn’t drink an entire glass until the inline filters are installed. And that installation is somewhere on the list next to “install anchor windlass” and “put the sails on.”

We’ve begun our weird summer existence of living part of the time on the boat and part of the time aboard. Now that I am set up for that kind of life, it’s great, but it takes a bit of planning each week. We ask each other what nights we want to stay aboard and what nights we want to stay at home. There are things to do at home like get the mail and do the laundry. Which days will Todd be busy and can’t bring the dogs in to work with him? The dogs go to work with Todd on most days, so they just commute with Todd from the boat instead of from the house. But there are some days that they just cannot go with him. Like today, for example. We have a function to go to after work tonight, so we stayed at the house last night and left them home today. Tonight we’ll stay at the house, but tomorrow night we’ll probably be aboard. I think.

Deciding to stay aboard is often done on a whim usually over a flurry of emails between Todd and me. And for that reason a matching set of toiletries have been bought to keep aboard. Prescriptions now travel in my purse. And a change of clothes that I can wear to work is now kept in the stateroom closet. I wear jeans to work most days, so I don’t care about wrinkles or stuff like that. Todd keeps a set of his work clothes hanging in the truck or at work.

Food remains to be an issue. The only thing I have in the fridge on the boat is beer (and I hope that Todd thought to toss that roast beef sub from Sunday) yet I haven’t bought groceries for home either because we haven’t been there all that much. (Yes, it is possible to eat too much Subway. I wonder how that Jared dude lost all that weight eating Subway all the time. I can’t do it for more than a few days.) But that will be remedied when I can be bothered to buy some staples from the supermarket. I have to buy just enough so that things won’t spoil at home or aboard, yet enough so that we’re eating healthy and not overdosing on burritos and pizza.

But overall living on the boat is a healthier lifestyle. We don’t beach ourselves on the couch in front of the TV, because there is no TV aboard. We might watch a movie from Netflix on Todd’s iPad before bed, but that’s just about it. We do things around the boat and we’re more active. We go to bed with the sun and wake up with it the next morning—and because of that I am more inclined to jog in the mornings I am aboard.

And now to respond to the email from Todd, “So, wanna stay aboard tonight or tomorrow night?”

Living with the Bubonic Plague

While I was on my technology induced blog vacation, I have contracted what seems to be the Bubonic Plague. So it’s just as well that I haven’t been able to post, as you were all spared the gory details of my annoying symptoms.

I am back to eating solids now. Kind of. On Sunday I got cocky. I ate all kinds of things. And what didn’t I do for a Klondike bar? Oh, you’ve no idea! I ate pizza! Glorious pizza! Todd made jambalaya from scratch. The recipe called for roughly 8 metric tons of cayenne pepper. I arrogantly ate a few bites, and then promptly held my hands against my jaws to prevent my face from melting from the heat.

Yesterday morning I struggled through a few bites of toast for breakfast, and fed the rest to the dogs. I boiled an egg, and then split it in half for each dog as well. I got cocky and tried to eat a plain turkey sandwich. It took three hours to get through about ¾ of it before I gave up. Will someone explain to me why I thought Greek yogurt would be a good idea? Because really? It wasn’t. At all. Todd made me the world’s blandest chicken soup for dinner, and I ate about three bites of it before I declared I was done eating anything for the rest of my life.

But today is a new day. I am feeling better. My energy is returning. It’s amazing the effect that food has on my energy. My fuel tank is full. I am not doubled over in agony. My stomach isn’t making noises only heard from caged lions. And I am about 3 pounds lighter. Win win!

The major downside to living with the Bubonic Plague, is the lack of energy. We’re getting ready to launch Sabine, and there is still oh so much to be done. Working on weeknights is largely a bust, as we’re both tired from work. (I don’t know how we used to do that all the time? It used to be that we’d work on the boat until a million o’clock on weeknights and still go do our jobs. Where have those days gone??)

On Saturday we went to the boat, and then Todd promptly drove me home again. I squandered the day in a disoriented haze of illness. On Sunday, we made another stab at working on the boat, and declared the day a wasted effort as well. The new fuel tanks are inside the boat, but not hooked up to anything. The radar, while now functional (!!!) still needs to have the wires chased up the mast and through the interior of the boat. The boat’s a damn mess and it smells bad, too.

But there’s always next weekend.

Lonely

Well, lonely and jealous I guess. Todd and his dad are currently in a plane bound for The Bahamas. The Fricken Bahamas. I am stuck in Rhode Island, doing pesky things like going to work, and he’s on his way to the Bahamas. Their plane departed Boston this morning, and after a three hour flight they’ll be having lunch and fruity umbrella drinks on a white sand beach. I am sure you’ll excuse my jealousy.

He goes on a trip with each of his parents once a year. In February he had a conference in Vegas and took his mom along for the week. Concerned that she’d be bored while he was at the conference, he arranged for his cousin—a close friend of my mother-in-law—to join them. Of course, he did not tell his mom about this arrangement, and surprised her on that Sunday. And of course they all had an amazing time. He arranged for a day in the spa for the two of them, they went to something like 3 dozen Cirque du Soleil shows. He won gobs of money at three card poker, and turned it all over to his mom so she could have some mad money while he was in class during the day.

Now he’s off to The Bahamas with his dad, where I am sure they’ll do fabulous things like renting a sailboat, snorkeling, and drinking lots of rum.

More than jealous, I am lonely. Before I met Todd, I lived alone. I liked living alone. I enjoy having my own space. I used to look forward to Todd’s trips just so I could have the joint to myself for a few days. Last night I made a very disgusting and disappointing dinner. Of the two of us, Todd’s the cook. So, I lamented his absence as I dumped the chicken fried rice into the trash. I had found the recipe in the Providence Journal, and in my incapable hands it turned out entirely inedible. Relieved, I discovered both cereal and milk in the kitchen—a rarity—and polished off the quiet night with a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

But this morning I woke up and the house felt empty, despite the beagle hogging the bed. Even though I lived alone, and quite enjoyed it, I find myself enjoying an empty house less and less. I never wanted to be one of those married people who couldn’t exist without her spouse, and I am scared that I am turning into that person.

While he’s away, I am filling the time. Tomorrow night I am dragging some friends along to see Willy Porter in concert. Then on Sunday I am going to a cook-out.

But it’s just not the same without Todd.

This Burrito Will Self Destruct in 4.... 3..... 2.....

I love Mexican food.  A lot.  It's to the point where if I have Mexican food for lunch on a Saturday, the remainder of my day is thrown out the window.

My "off" switch in my stomach and my brain somehow become disabled.  Then it's chipssalsachipssalsa chipschipschipssalsaaaaaa.

Then the refried beans come out, and those are eaten with more chips.  Then the entree, and the gooey vat of queso.  And the burrito, or the tacos, or the empanadas, or the flautas.  It's all good. 

Eventually the water I am drinking and the chips meet up in my stomach.  Chip hits water, and the expansion occurs.  But the flavors still play on my tongue, and they are oh so good.  Chomp chomp chomp goes the remainder of the entree.  Stomach strains against jeans, and I look around to see if anyone in the restaurant would notice if I unbuttoned them.

The energy I started the day with has been doused by queso and refried beans.  Todd drives the car home while I recline in the passenger seat and groan.  Once home I flop on to the couch, clutch my belly and say, "I cannot believe I ate the whole thing."  My "off" switch re-engages and shouts "I told you so!"

But the thing is, once I am back in On the Border, I'll probably do it all again. 

It Just Worked, Somehow

My blog pal Crisitunity had just written the other day about changes in her fiancé’s work schedule. He’s putting in later nights these days, and spending time together is getting harder and harder because of it. It got me thinking about how normal that sort of thing has always been in my life. Yet, I sympathize.


My dad started his machine shop the same year I was born. At the time my parents had five children ranging from newborn to age 14. Eventually they put all those kids through college without taking a single student loan. When I graduated college, 22 years after Dad started the shop, I had no student loan debt at all. I was blessed and thankful. Still am.

But I know it wasn’t easy. Dad went to work well before I woke up; I can still remember the sound the old blue pick up truck made on cold mornings as it wheezed to life and he pulled it out of the driveway. He came home after I went to bed. He worked Saturdays. He loves his work, and borders on obsessed with it. He still works long days, at age 72. He’s tops at what he does. It never fails to amaze me when he glances at a blueprint and a piece of steel and knows exactly to make that piece of steel look like what’s in the drawing. I struggle with basic things like recipes and furniture assembly, but Dad makes big metal things from scratch—things like parts on the engine of an F-14, or parts of machines that paper companies use, or hinges on submarine missile silos.

When I was a kid, Mom fed us all dinner at home. Then she’d pack up a plate for Dad in a sauce pan. These were the days before she had a cabinet full of Tupperware, and she probably would not have spent the money on something like that anyway. She put a lid on the saucepan and put it into a paper grocery bag that she’d rolled shut. The bag was set on the floor of the passenger seat in the light blue Chevy Impala wagon, she piled all of us in there and didn’t take any crap from us when we argued about who got to sit in the front.

Dad ate his dinner at his workbench. Between bites he made adjustments to the machine nearby cutting or drilling away at some hunk of metal. He and Mom talked while he worked and ate, me and my sibs played. Sometimes we did the sweeping up, but mostly we played. There was an office on the other side of his space that Dad never used, preferring to use a desk in the corner of the shop floor rather than a far flung office on the other side of the building. The office was empty, but he’d stuck 2 desks in there that he’d probably picked up from somewhere. The desks were also empty and they didn’t have chairs. We eventually stocked the drawers with things like paper, markers, crayons, and small toys. But mostly we climbed on top of them and slid across their slick surfaces on our bellies.

In the office there were two glass brick windows on the east wall. There were deep ledges under those windows. Of course we climbed onto the ledges and marked up with walls with our dirty sneakers on the way up and down. It was a big deal when I was finally big enough to climb that wall to the ledge. I felt like I’d graduated to the big kids club. My brother Kaz could jump up there and land perfectly seated without having to use his hands. (I would love to see how high that ledge is now.  In my mind's eye it's somewhere up in the stratosphere.)  When I wasn’t trying to climb up to the ledge, my sister and I made a Barbie house in the gigantic safe in the corner opposite the ledge. On nice days we roamed the neighborhood, or walked to the pharmacy where I had once shoplifted a candy bar.

Then Mom piled us all into the wagon again and got us home on time for bed. Dad stayed at work and came home at some point after I’d already fallen asleep. Just to do it all over before I ever woke up in the morning. Dad didn’t work that way because he didn’t love his family. It was quite the opposite. He worked that way because he loved us all so very much and wanted something better for us. Sure, he worked a lot of hours, but he was still very present in my life as I was growing up. He went to the band concerts; he went to the basketball games. He went to the really big track meets on Saturdays, but had to miss the week day ones. I don’t think he ever saw me play field hockey, because those games were always in the afternoon. With Dad there were no excuses for bad grades, and he sat up late with my sister and her algebra homework, and the tutoring session didn’t stop until her answers were perfect. (And for that reason I avoided him when it came to homework. I liked to get my sleep.)

My mom was exceedingly patient with the way Dad worked. She always had her eye on the future. That future was all about sending her kids to college because she and Dad hadn’t gone. It was all about buying us things like musical instruments because she’d never learned to play anything. Mom crunched the numbers and she made it happen. After Mom died, when I was 27, Dad and I were sitting up late in a hotel room in Poland. With tears in his eyes he said, “She knew what needed to be done and she never complained.” And it was true, and it’s what I admired the most about her. She took the team mentality of a marriage to a whole other level that I cannot even comprehend.

And it’s that quality from my mom that I try to bring to my own marriage. My husband works hard, and is often home late. I don’t complain because I also have my eye on the future. He works hard, but he makes sure that we take plenty of time to play. He doesn’t work Saturdays like Dad did (and still does). But if I had half of my mom’s energy, then I know that the future we’re working for is going to be great.

All Aboard

I was doing a bit of data entry at work today and stumbled upon the date September 29, 2009.  As I mindlessly typed my mind wandered to the movie "Sliding Doors."

In the movie, Gwyneth Paltrow's character got fired from her job.  As she is going home from the office she missed the subway train by a matter of seconds.  At that point the plot splits into two story lines--what would have happened had she made it onto the train, and what would have happened had she missed it. The Gwyneth who caught the train caught her boyfriend in bed with another woman.  The one who missed it was mugged as she was trying to catch a bus, and none the wiser about the cheating boyfriend.  The one who caught the train threw the boyfriend out and started a brand new happy life.  The one who missed the train slogged along, picking up a job as a waitress, and was miserable.  It's one of my favorite movies, and really made me think of all those little moments at which the plot of my life could have split. 

The date I mentioned above got me thinking of this because on September 29, 1989 my high school boyfriend and I had gotten together.  Had I stayed with that boyfriend, I would have been with him for 20 years.  Our breakup, sometime in the spring of 1991, was probably one of those Sliding Doors moments for me. 

This boyfriend, Leonard, (he looked like Spock so I'll call him Leonard) married the girl that he'd dumped me for back in 91.  We had broken up twice.  The first time was a few months before, and I had learned that he asked out this girl, Olive, (she looked like Olive Oyl, from the Popeye cartoon) but she'd said no.  Rejected, Leonard used his mind meld technique and managed to get me back.  We stayed together for a few months, but his mind was on Olive.  She flashed him a green light, and he dropped me in a second flat.  (Then he posted some lousy thing in the yearbook "Thanks for the memories, Beej, but I am much happier now."  It must have been all the pesto that Olive Oyl served up.  Pfft!  Whatev!)

I've heard from mutual friends that Leonard and Olive are married.  They had gotten engaged when I was in college.  I saw them at the movies one night when I was home for a weekend.  I was about to go up and congratulate them, because I heard the good news.  They spotted me and quickly turned away; at that moment I vowed not to buy them a Misto for a wedding gift. 

They live in the town next to our home town.  They never really left our hometown.  I don't know what he does for a living, but I guess that it's some unimaginative gig.  My friend saw them in Walmart a few years back and said "I saw Leonard, Olive and their monkey child" so I know they have at least one kid.  (And I love that my friend, still loyal years later called their progeny a "monkey child.")

But I caught that train in 1991.  I sat down and stared out the window as it took me to college out of state.  Then it took me overseas to Australia.  It took me to the open mic night where I met the people who led me to Todd.  It took me to get my Masters.  It took me underwater.  It brought me to my sailboat.  Then my dogs boarded somewhere along the line too.  There is no limit to where this train will go.  The track has no end, and the ride has been fabulous.

Thanks for the memories, Leonard.  But you know what?  I am way happier now than you could have ever made me.

Robbed

I don't know where it's gone.  It must have been stolen.  I am not sure when I last saw it, and I don't think it'll turn up at a pawn shop.

I am talking about my energy.  It up and left.  I can't be bothered to do the simplest things.  The dryer?  It just dinged and I need to put some sheets on the bed before my mother in law arrives tonight.  Cannot.  Be.  bothered.  Todd was cooking dinner, and I was lounging on the couch.  I had the nerve to get annoyed with him for asking me to get him something.  Really?  The man is cooking!  For me!  Could I be any less grateful?

I've been training for a 10K race that will happen in May.  I've been steadily running 4 miles pretty consistently these last few weeks.  Yesterday I took the run outside, and couldn't even get through 1 mile.  Not even 1!  I bailed after 2 miles and went home.  How the hell am I going to get through 6 miles when I can't get through 1?!

Then my co-worker emailed this picture to me yesterday.  And I think she might be right.

I don't take my computer to bed.  But the beagley one ends up in bed with us.  So this is what I wrote back to her: 

They only steal sleep when they…

1. incessantly claw at the blankets demanding to be let underneath
2. crawl out from under the blanket 15 minutes later
3. lick your face
4. apply a cold wet nose to whatever human body part extends out from under the covers—usually your butt
5. lick the carpet incessantly
6. lick themselves incessantly, because all species need a thorough bath at 3 AM
7. tilt their head upward and lick, apparently, nothing
8. sit on your neck
9. shove their business end up by your pillow
10. claw at their dog bed to make it just a bit fluffier
11. kick you when they dream about fetching, swimming, chasing, or whatever they love to do

And now it's approaching 8 PM, and the bed is looking pretty good about now.

Who’s With Me?

I have a sweet tooth that is so big I swear it’s visible from outer space. I often fantasize about ways to combine all my favorite desserts. I imagine a cupcake bisected by an oatmeal raisin cookie then topped with ice cream and then served as one crazy a la mode on a slice of pie. If I was Catholic, I’d give up sweets for Lent. Alas, I am not Catholic, so I never have to endure that torture.

Todd claims that he was never that into sweets until he hooked up with me. While I take my tea black, the lure of some concoction like brownies topped with crème brulee sprinkled with Andes candies never fails to seduce me. But I wasn’t always this way. Sure, I always liked dessert; I just didn’t have it every single day multiple times per day like I do now. In college I rarely had dessert after dinner. Never ate a cookie after a sandwich at lunch and never had ice cream at the ready in the freezer.

Now? It’s everywhere. And it’s my own doing. Yesterday Todd and I were talking about the decline of our eating habits, when he brought up the topic of our dessert consumption.

“I’ll bet you can’t go a week without sweets,” he teased.

“I’ll do you one better. I’ll go to the end of the month! What do I get if I win?”

And on the conversation went until it eventually evolved into a month-long challenge that will end on April 15th. Todd and I have resolved not to eat sweets until April 15th. If he caves, he has to take the trash barrels to and from the curb every week for a month. If I cave… well, I can’t remember what he gets if I cave. I am sure he does, though.  And even though I cannot remember, I am sure it'll be mildly unpleasant enough to keep my competitive spirit going strong.

So, Internet, I invite you all to join our dessert free for a month challenge. No sweets until April 15th.

All the cool kids are doing it. Are you in?

Birthday Week: Day 4 and 5 and a Computer Virus

Birthday week has come to a close.  It breezed right by me, in a sugar rush haze of chocolate, cupcakes and Girl Scout Cookies.

On Thursday morning, the day of my actual birthday, my dear friend Charlie brought me a box of chocolates from the world's best chocolate shop, The Chocolate Delicacy.  The label on the box said "Calorie Consuming Anti Matter Chocolate," and then the other label had the atomic symbol on it.  Of course, the box had all my favorites in it, because Chocolate Dave knows what I like after having been diving with me and eating post dive chocolates with him.

Then I met Todd for Mexican for dinner.  He presented me with a group of papers stapled together with a riddle on it.  He'd bought me tickets to see Willy Porter again (swoon) in April.  But he won't be around to see the show with me.  So he hooked up my friend Dennis from work and his girlfriend Nikki to go with me. 

Then on day 5 he baked me a chocolate cake, and got me a device from Amazon that will measure how much electricity (and money) the lights and devices in our house use.  Which I think will be fascinating to play with.  And maybe it will help me to bitch less about our electric bill every month.   So, it'll bring peace to him as well. 

Also on day 5 I caught a computer virus, which was both good and bad.  It was bad because I didn't get the chance to work on the book, or the freelance project I'm working on.  But it was also good because it forced me to unplug for a weekend.  Todd just finished fixing it a bit ago.

Thank you, love, for an amazing birthday week, and for spoiling the hell out of me once again. 

Birthday Week: Day 3

On the third day of birthday week
My true love gave to me
A red velvet cuh-uh-up-cake.

And then this morning I ran 5 miles on the treadmill to keep up with the excess consumption of goodies.

Birthday Week: Day 2

Birthday week, day 2 brought two boxes of Caramel Delites.  My favorite.

And they're great with Twisted Tea.

Birthday Week: Day 1

It happens the same way, and pretty frequently too.  The doorbell at work rings.  One of my co-workers who sit near it answer it.  They groan and say, "Beej?  Really?  Again?"

Todd likes to send me things at work.  He sent me flowers last year on the first day of spring.  He sent me flowers this year on the first day of February.  I've gotten them for Groundhog's Day.  I've gotten them just because.

Yesterday an Edible Arrangement arrived--chocolate covered pears and apples.  The card read "Happy Birthday Week!"

The women rushed in to share, because I ALWAYS share in my bounty.  And then they rolled their eyes, because it's my birthday week.  I get presents when it's not even my birthday.  (Hell, he's gotten me presents on HIS birthday.  Figure that one out.)

Is it wrong that I was pushing for a birthday month?  Not necessarily for gifts, more for chores.  For example, "I shouldn't have to chase the dog to the neighbor's again.  It's my birthday month."  Eventhough I often call Todd "Excellent Husband," he's not buyin' into the whole birthday month thing.

Maybe I Did Have a Weird Childhood

Even though I have four siblings, I spent a lot of time on my own as a child. My brothers are 4 and 8 years older than me, and my sisters are 5 and 14 years older than me. While the age difference is nothing right now, when we were kids, it was a great divide that screamed “You and I have nothing in common!” There were no kids my age in the neighborhood, which contributed to my not-really-an-only-child-but-kinda-an-only-child life back then.

When I was 4 years old, my oldest sister was graduating high school and heading off to college, while my brother Kaz—4 years older than me—was entering the 3rd grade and playing on the “Major League” little league team. I was barely hitting the ball off the tee. (See above, great divide.)

Throughout my childhood we played endless hours of wiffle ball in the summer, and of course Kaz and the boy next door could hit the ball way further than I could. They would round the bases while I scrambled to field the ball and try to tag them out. The games that my siblings played were all too old for me, and I constantly lacked the skill to compete. I was the little sister that tagged along, yipping at the heels of my older siblings. My choices were yipping or staying home. Staying home meant helping Mom with the cleaning or ironing, and who wants to do that?

Then someone, I don’t know who, took pity on me and bought me a set of jacks. I remember the plastic molded jacks were in a plastic-y drawstring bag with a rubber ball. There were no instructions with the game, and I had no idea how to play jacks. I studied the contents of the set with a scientific fascination. The jacks certainly looked interesting. Why were some prongs rounded while the others were pointy? I didn’t know. I twisted them around in my fingertips, and then tried to spin one of the jacks on its end on the surface of the coffee table. I was disappointed that they wouldn’t spin the way a coin would spin. It would have been cool to see how many I could get spinning at the same time. No dice. I couldn’t stack them on top of each other like blocks, or lean them against each other like I would when building a house of cards.

I lined up the jacks end to end on the length of the coffee table and examined them. They didn’t look like they would be that much fun to play with as they uselessly tilted on their axis; I couldn’t get them to balance so that they looked like plus signs. I left them on the table and bounced the rubber ball against the picture window. I left a perfect round smudge on the glass. I wiped it off with the curtain, so Mom wouldn’t see it and then turned my attention back to the jacks in formation on the coffee table.

“What the heck am I supposed to do with these things?” I puzzled. There was no Internet, so it’s not like I could anonymously look it up and learn. I didn’t want to ask anyone how to play for fear of looking stupid. Even I knew that everyone knew how to play jacks. Well, everyone except for me. Was it some sort of childhood instinct that I lacked?

And now it’s an adult instinct I lack. If I understand it correctly, you’re supposed to bounce the ball and see how many jacks you can pick up before the ball hits the table again, right? Where’s the fun in that?? Who thought of that? I’ll bet it was someone who wanted to make cleaning up the toys a game, so the kids would tidy up after themselves. I can picture some misguided and frazzled mom, “OK, kids, I am going to bounce this ball. Let’s see how many things you can pick up before it lands…. Ready??? GO!!!”

It’s Not That I Am a Fraidy-Cat

Well, maybe I am. A little bit.

For the next few weeks, Todd will be on what I call the Great American Nerd Tour 2010. He will visit something like 10 cities in the next 3 weeks or so, and then he’ll go to Vegas for a conference sometime in February. (I can’t remember when, and I really should pay better attention.) While he's traveling he has lots and lots of meetings schedules where he'll talk about technological things that contain lots of initals and lots of acronyms. 

On Sunday night we came home from Kalahari. I unpacked the suitcase, and on Monday morning he re-packed it and headed back to the airport. He hopped a plane to San Diego. When he was done evading IT groupies as they threw undergarments at him (held together by duct tape), he flew to San Francisco. Then on Wednesday hopped a red-eye back to Providence and stumbled into work on Thursday morning.

I’d been alone in the house since Monday. I enjoy being alone, and used to live alone before I moved in with Todd at the ripe old age of 24. I look forward to having the place to myself for a few days, so long as the lights stay on. But now that I am so used to living with my big strong man, the bliss of being alone for a few days is slightly tainted with trepidation.

I mean, any psycho could be hiding out in the woods that surround my house at any given moment. And surely that psycho will have a freshly sharpened axe. And that psycho will know enough to bring steak bones for the dogs. Hell, my dogs would settle for a tennis ball as payment and grant anyone access to the house. The psycho isn’t psycho enough to kill my dogs, just me.

On Wednesday morning before I left for work (on time, thank you very much) I put the dogs out the front door. I walked out with them. Of course, they caught the scent of something and walked around the back. I followed them through the gigantic puddles that formed back there from the snow melt and recent rain. They finished their business and led me up the deck stairs, where I saw wet foot prints leading up the stairs to the back door. I hadn’t walked on the deck at all that morning.

Let me say this again. There were wet foot prints leading to my door. And they weren’t mine. My heart pounded in my chest. Was it the psycho with the tennis balls and the freshly sharpened axe? I frantically scanned the tree line around the house for evidence of the psycho. Then looked back at the foot prints. The tread didn’t match my “dog chasin’ shoes.” (Yes, I have a pair of shoes devoted to this purpose. I can slip them on quickly when they bolt, and always leave them by the back door. Next to them are my Crocs, that I wear when we walk to the hot tub from the door.)

I opened the back door, which I hadn’t locked the night before when I went to bed. I thought my hands were shaking, but it was actually the dogs nosing at them demanding treats for coming straight home after pooing. I stepped onto the deck again and looked at the foot prints. I bent down and traced them with my fingers.

They weren’t wet. They were frozen. Wet shoes had made these tracks at one point and the surface of the deck was so cold that the pattern froze. I examined the tread pattern and compared it to my dog chasing shoes and confirmed they didn’t match. I went back to the boot tray, just inside the door, to look for a more logical explanation. My paint splattered Crocs sat in the tray.

The night before I’d worn my Crocs instead of the dog chasin’ shoes. I had unlocked the back door and let the dogs out. They took off down the trail behind the house, and in the dark I splashed through an ice-cold puddle near the chicken coop as I chased them. I cursed my choice of footwear as the water penetrated the holes and drenched my socks. Once I lured the dogs back to the deck, the Crocs sloshed and squeaked as I walked.

I picked up one of the Crocs and held it near the frozen foot print. A perfect match.