Things Lately

It's been a rough couple of months. I feel like I keep saying that over and over and the months get rougher rather than better. The sun is out now so that helps - it almost looks like we might have a spring after all, now that it's summer.

A few weeks ago I said goodbye to one of my all-time besties, my old hounder Truck. Truckles. Trucker. Truckladite. Even now, sitting in a conference room on the last few minutes of a lunch break at some sort of fire training, listening to my classmates talk about sales on RVs, I find myself choking back tears. Even now it's still too soon to talk about it. Maybe it always will be.

Since then it has been a marathon of work hours, training hours, writing deadlines, softball games, track meets, doctor appointments, surgeries, conference calls, multi-hour drives, etc, etc, etc, and never less than two of those at once, all day, every day.

And then there was the day that my romantic entanglement became disentangled. One day I have a boyfriend and Big Plans, and the next day I am single and not a plan on the horizon. I swing wildly back and forth between feeling the most lost I have ever felt and feeling wide open to new adventures, what ever they may be. Something big is coming. Something good is coming. Life is never what you expect.

In all of that, I am still learning. Or maybe I am learning more. I am learning that it's ok to not be ok. I am discovering that no matter how important and necessary you feel a person is in your life, the power they have is really your choice. I am finding out that absolutely NOTHING is so important that it should keep you from being true to yourself, proud of the path you've carved and honest to the people around you.

I am learning that I have a herd of badass kids that are more awesome than even I know, and I am truly grateful. I am learning that you can't underestimate the power of the love of Good People. And there are lots of Good People.

Things About Change

 
I wasn't going to post in this blog anymore. I feel like it's time to shift gears and move into a new space. But I have been a little bit emotional lately and sometimes my feelings feel better when I give them words. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s hormones. Maybe it’s that I’ve been to Mexico, Washington DC, Denver, celebrated Christmas with The Whole Family, bought a house and moved, had hip surgery and commuted over 5,000 miles in the last month and a half. Who can say exactly why I burst into tears at random intervals or the minute I hear anything by REO Speedwagon. It’s a mystery for sure.

All I know is that I feel awfully fragile, and not in a completely bad way. Just… RAW. Ready to feel all the feels and work through them. The sadness of moving away from the town where I have lived for the better part of 20 years and (mostly) raised my kids. The excitement of starting fresh, on my own, as a homeowner. The struggle of trying to decide whether to let my old Truck dog go be with Jesus or watch his frustration over a new life in a new house with limitations that I never enforced on him back in Northport, much to frustration of the baseball coaches and custodians of the school next door.

I am feeling all the tearing of the transition of my kids from children to adult, weighing out how much I can and should help them in the fight to become responsible humans. Sorting through how much is My Fault and what I have to let go for them to figure out. I am riding the waves of happiness and uncertainty that a fairly new relationship pushes toward the shores of my heart. Most moments I feel lost. Some moments I feel joy. All moments lately, I feel fear.

But what I do know is that all of these feelings, the good ones and the bad ones, are meant to bring me to the place where I belong, wherever that is. Fear and uncertainty protect me from wandering recklessly off course, bringing caution along as a guiding light of stability. Sadness and grief remind me of how very much I have been given in the happy years I have had at my old place and with my old dog. Glimpses of joy give me hope that the steps I am taking are the right ones, headed in the right direction. And stress and anxiety, well, they give me gray hair, and I guess I am about due.

For every time my heart cries out silently to the universe for help, I turn back to face the battle and the help I need is there. Not always in the form I expect in. Not always in a surprise check for thousands of dollars or an army of strong backs, although those things have happened for me, but sometimes in the showing up of a friend with a story, or in the plight of another friend who has much larger hurdles to face than I do, and a way that I can help them with the flood that is drowning them.

Amor Fati. I am in love with the fate that I am given. It is not always beautiful, but it is always mine. And while I question my decisions every. single. day. I feel overwhelmingly blessed that I have decisions to make, and they are mine entirely. There is no wrong that cannot be made right. There is no obstacle that cannot become the path, and even now while I can’t lift my arm, I can say that there is no pain without purpose, even if that purpose is a speedbump.

I will slow down. I will take only the responsibilities that are mine to bear, and no more. I will listen to MMMBop on repeat and cry wantonly if it gets me closer to peace. I will write the stories to pay the bills to make the life that I have chosen. And I will always be thankful that I can do that with a beer in one hand.

Things That We Didn't Do: On Baja Dogs and Breezes

We came to La Ventana to kiteboard, or more accurately, He came to kiteboard. I came for the beach and the beer and the warm sunshine on my face. A little fishing village nestled into a protected cove on the Sea of Cortez, La Ventana was founded in 1940 by a disenfranchised pearl diver and his family in search of a new beginning. Most parcels of land in the La Ventana bay were co-opted by the government, subsidizing small family plots until 1996 when Mexican law changed and granted ownership to the longtime farmers and ranchers who had worked the land for generations. La Ventana became a mecca for wind sport enthusiasts in the 1990s as the daily El Nortes (northerly fronts)  make for a wind sport enthusiast’s wet dream. It was a history I could relate to - a new beginning and the dream of doing my job somewhere that wasn’t cold and dreary. Anywhere that wasn’t the snowless frigidity of post-holiday wintertime in the northwest.

We got into La Ventana just in time for dinner on Thanksgiving night, and by some miracle, one of the little restaurants squeezed us in for an all-the-trimmings turkey dinner buffet, sans reservations. Later, He would say how it was the best food we had the whole time we were there, the piles of deep fried turkey and mashed potatoes so creamy that they couldn’t have been real. Even the wine tasted better than the merlots we had back home. I would agree with Him, except for the bag of totopos that the last residents of the Casita had left behind. They were salty and perfect. I couldn’t stop eating them at midnight and for breakfast, and while we laid out in the sun on the plaster roof top in the late morning the next day.  

All I wanted was a space of seaside to sit next to and write. Or daydream. Or drink. Maybe all at once. There was seaside, all right. Miles of it, white and sandy and the perfect amount of warm. Occasional Canadian kiteboarders drifted by, and the fourth generations of the family farmers, picking up sticks off the beach and being chased by little white Baja Dogs everywhere.

Late Friday  morning, we walked three miles along a dirty highway to cash in whatever tourist panache we had for a couples massage at the only large resort in town. We paid the going rate willingly, if for no other reason than to feel like we could afford it, and then we tromped back down the highway and then the three minute trail of sand and clay from our Casita to the beach with all of His kiteboarding gear and sat expectantly in the sand, waiting for the wind to pick up. And waiting. And waiting. In between the waiting, we wandered over to Baja Joe’s where everybody goes for coffee, and then beer, and then tequila, and some killer Asada Tacos. Saturday we repeated the process, but with less waiting and more tequila, the kiters bemoaning the quiet air over their Pacifico and nachos. Frustrated windseekers found solace in the mellow beat of a reggae band at Joe’s on Saturday night, the dance floor carelessly littered with multinational escapees of all generations and some of the farmers.

There wasn’t much accounting for Sunday morning, thanks to the Peyote IPA and the number of Baja Fogs that Paula the bartender made for us the previous night, but by afternoon, the waiting game began anew, and in anxious earnest as the wind picked up just enough to rustle the palm trees in the courtyard at Baja Joe’s and tease all of the pent up athletes. Kiters with small physiques and large kites hustled out to the beach to catch the gentle breeze, but those of greater substance knew the wind wasn’t enough to carry them offshore, so the wait continued.  

I didn’t do very well at proving that I am good at working “anywhere,” since unplugging and not caring about work seemed so much more important than getting 18 new stories cranked out and all of my deadlines met ahead of time. But it was heavenly. No place to be unless we wanted to be there, and nowhere to go except where our feet would take us. Lazy afternoon siestas were punctuated with walks up and down the beach for food, catching sunrises and sunsets if we felt like it, counting the constellations we could name and making up new ones. After a few days we found the Baja Dogs on our heels like the farmer’s kids, weaving in and out of kite shops and little make-shift patio restaurants that most of the locals seemed to run as a by-the-way businesses along the beach.

Another night at Joes’ brought in a cover band that played everybody’s favorite song from all generations and genres. The dance floor was full of expatriate and unfulfilled kiteboarders dancing to “Jesse’s Girl,” locals still wearing the uniform of the restaurants next door from the shift they just finished, old run-away hippies and Baja Dogs. Pacifico bottles rolled across the paving stones and beer splashed between the toes of bare feet while the band played AC/DC and Elvis covers. That night nobody cared that the wind hadn’t come for them. That night the moonlight and the tequila and the music was enough.

He only got out on His kite once, and even then it wasn’t His kite, but a bigger one that He rented, hoping the bit of wind that picked up one afternoon would do it. It didn’t, and after fighting His way down the curving shoreline, He endured the walk of shame back up the beach, board in hand, to get back to the more readily accessible sport of beer and tacos and dreaming up ways of smuggling Baja Dogs home to the northwest. Secretly, I didn’t mind the lack of wind, mostly because I was selfish and liked Him next to me on the beach. But Him being next to me made for less work getting done and more lazy wave-gazing, watching the hermit crabs scuttle sideways across the beach and staring at the cloudless sky as if the wind might suddenly appear visibly. I wouldn’t call it a loss, for Him or for me.

Things About Slime

It all started so innocently. I came home late one night from work and saw it - a dark and ominous presence lurking underneath the kitchen sink as comfortably as you care, clearly making himself at home. It was a slug. Not a huge one, a smallish, dark green, garden variety slug. I am not afraid of slugs. They remind me of growing up in Portland and the dank undergrowth of rotting bark and fern leaves. In some twisted way, I almost think they’re cute. Like a beauty-challenged shell-free version of a snail, and who doesn’t love snails?

Thinking I was brave and tolerant, I grabbed the slug and tried to disengage it from my kitchen floor. I was rewarded with slime covered fingers. I don’t know if you’ve ever had slug slime on your fingers, but I learned very quickly that it doesn’t wash off. Not with soap. Or vinegar. Or scalding hot water… Nope. Only time and violent abrasion remove slug slime. Lesson learned. Revising my extrication strategy I grabbed the little bugger with a paper towel and pulled him off the floor. It was an experience similar to stretching melted caramel off of a surface, and reluctantly, at last, the slug let go his gastro-clutch on the laminate and was relocated compassionately to the out-of-doors.

In the wake of record hot and dry summers, this one so far is going down in the books as one of the wettest in recent history. It’s the only thing I can fall back on as an explanation for the sudden emergence of slugs at my house. I have lived for 20 years in the area and never seen a slug. A few nights after the first sighting, I let my dachshund out into the yard and watched her sniff another specimen on the porch with curious disdain. I was happy that she wasn’t more interested as I flashed back to my parents wiener dog who liked to eat them, and could never get the slimy goo completely off of his teeth. Ever. The whole process involved far more chewing than I would imagine is healthy, and resulted in terrible breath for an extended period of time. In Edgar the Dachshund’s defense, I learned recently in my investigatory research that slugs are actually part of the human diet in some cultures. Although they can also result in violent gastro-intestinal illness and even death. I hope they’re tasty with that kind of risk involved. *shudder

Some important things you should know about slugs: They are referred to as Gastropods,drawing from the root words Gastro = stomach and pod = foot. Which basically means they walk with their stomachs. Based on everything I read I feel like it’s safe to assume that MOST of a slug is the stomach, followed by a collection of even weirder anatomical parts and pieces. Slugs are also hermaphrodites, which means they all possess both genders and have successfully surpassed humans in the evolutionary race as we are still trying to decide amongst ourselves which gender we should be. Interestingly, slugs are REALLY good at two things: eating and breeding - I guess something else that they share in common with basic humanity.

In fact they are so good at breeding that in the event they can’t catch the whiff of a romantic slime trail, they can reproduce with themselves. How’s that for self-sufficiency? Catch up, humans. There are the drawbacks among certain species of slugs that involve mating processes that require the chewing off of genitalia and oh yes, cannibalism, but when you’re as highly evolved as a slug, who’s gonna complain about little things like that? They are also not choosy about their mates (as self-reproduction would indicate), and have been known to cross breed with other varieties of slugs, creating hybrid super-slugs of greater size and tenacity.

After the midnight kitchen invader and the porch sitting slug encounter, I figured it was a fluke thing, until last night, when my best friend went to visit my bloodhound, who had gone on a neighborhood walkabout while I was out of town. My best friend likes to visit my dog. Mostly because she enjoys the thrill of driving around town to find him, chase him and tie him up to his leash in the backyard where he should have been in the first place. It’s pretty much her favorite pastime. Especially at 11:00 at night. On the particular evening in question, as she hunted through the sketchy overgrown grass (remember I am out of town) of my backyard for a camouflage dog lead, she accidentally flashed her phone light up on the outside corner of my house. Four giant slugs were making their merry, slimy way up the wall and probably toward my bedroom window, because that’s where most small creatures go to die (a story for another day).

In my reading, I discovered that in addition to being prolific reproducers, because they are totally boneless (like chicken tenders?) they can squeeze through the smallest of openings. I have several smallest of openings around my bedroom window, I am quite sure, where even the largest and most tenacious super-slugs could squish through. All the grossness.

While my best friend enjoys tracking down my reprobate bloodhound in the middle of the night, she was not keen on picking ½ pound slugs off of my house, so by the time I get home my bed will probably be the local nest of feasting and revelry for six generations of giant slugs.

The main point of my slug research was to determine the best way to exterminate the wet-weather invaders, but mostly what I discovered was that they are impervious to many of the recommended remedies. Natural repellents supposedly include coffee grounds, egg shells and human hair (that one would be easy to supply out of my house), but most of the comments led me to believe they were less than effective. Of course, many of the online sources were gardeners concerned for their crops and not panicked defenders of bedrooms. When I was a kid I learned that salt kills slugs, and might have performed a scientific experiment or two on resident slimers. Most gardening experts don't recommend salting garden spaces as the salination of the soil can affect crops, but I am not against salting my bedroom. I seriously doubt it would be as salty as I will be if I come home to a slug-fest in the house.

So, as an alternative to burning the house down and starting over, I will probably be salting slugs when I get home if anybody wants to come witness the scientific effect of osmosis when slug meets sodium chloride. You’re welcome to stop by and help me scrape the gooey remains of fatally dehydrated slime balls off my floor. Or I can just send pictures if that’s better.

Things We've Overcome

It's Tuesday night and I should DEFINITELY be writing all of the newspaper stories that are due in a couple days, but I am not. I am drinking wine and pretending that I have no responsibilities. No high school play in 7 days that is a nightmare of epic proportions. No newspaper deadlines. No more every day trips to Colville or Spokane for track. No Major Reasons (such as land lord visits) to not leave my house in this perpetual state of disrepair. No softballs games, rehearsals, graduation parties, birthday parties, papers to grade, lessons to plan, leaking dishwashers, broken fences, bills to pay, dogs to govern, kids to keep alive... just me and my wine. And a snoring hound dog and a naughty dachshund clicking around in the other room looking for snacks - well, at least somebody is cleaning the kitchen floor.

Speaking of naughty dachshunds, I am pretty sure that my kid figured out how to curb the nasty habit a certain wiener dog proudly boasts of dropping a deuce in the dining room every morning. Turns out that pooping outside is HARD. The grass is either cold or wet or cold and wet, frozen, snowed over, overgrown or green, and therefore very difficult to poop in. That's what they make dining room floors for, apparently. Anyway, when we were cleaning the other day, we came across a little pile of fake poop that somebody brought home from Boo Radley's and left on my pillow. Precious. Nat had the genius idea to set the faux-poo in Dagny's sacred pooping grounds (i.e the dining room) to mess with the pea-brained dachshund. So far the dog has been totally miffed that someone else used her zone and actually went outside IN THE RAIN to poop. Ok, granted it was on the covered back porch but still, not the dining room. WINNING!!

Another lofty accomplishment today happened after school. After rehearsal. After softball practice. After a quick jaunt to Taco Tuesday when I came home to cook more tacos for Aspen. And then it hit me. The smell: B.O. The real deal. Full on, grown up, sweaty armpits, coming from my youngest offspring. It is the end of an era, folks. No more baby Aspen. She was marched directly to the shower, handed a fresh stick of deodorant with firm instructions, and thus launched into her pubescent career. To the middle school softball team at practice today: sorry mom was so slow on the uptake.

One problem that we didn't successfully solve this week was the red sharpie marks all over the kitchen walls from a remodel project that was rudely interrupted by a divorce and that are a constant reminder of best-laid plans and how they don't work out. Nat and her buddy Belli helped me paint the hallway and kitchen in an attempt to scourge the marks of failed intentions from the walls, but alas the demon red kept seeping through. The walls look better, so there's that, but I finally resorted to just hanging random things on the wall over the tell-tale henscratchings. Sometimes Band-Aids are just the way to go, folks.

Oh yeah! And the yellow iris "volunteer" that decided randomly to grow in my half barrel planter that is really just a few pieces of rotten wood leaned agains my also rotten wood porch step. I am hands down the most unsuccessful gardener that ever was, partly because I am gone all fire season, letting plants die, and partly because I just don't bother to try. But it warms my heart to see the happy yellow flower smiling defiantly in the face of utter adversity: hail storms, digging wiener dogs, giant flopping hounds, and of course, me. It stands tall and bright, promising beauty and hope in a world of falling apart, rotten wood and holes dug by a neurotic dog. I am sure it's symbolic on some level but I haven't had enough wine yet to interpret it.

All of this overcoming and finally, at 9:38 PM, I settled down on my couch and decided to catch up on season 6 of Game of Thrones. The whole reason I subscribe to HBO Now - and all of the episodes so far this season that I have been saving to binge watch. Obviously I don't need sleep to teach school. Or direct a play. Or write stories. I have faith that it will fulfill a deep seated need to find resolution since the cataclysmic end of Season 5 when I swore I was done with all of it. So here I am, hoping beyond hope that Jon Snow isn't really fully dead, yet. Maybe a Band-Aid for him, too?

Anyway, I have a lot going on right now with all of the wine and Targaryens to catch up with, so I will just leave you basking in the warm happiness of all of my successes of late. You're welcome.

Things That I Deal With

My house.

It's where all the cute, innocent baby bunnies of the world come to die. 

Like it's not enough that I've been relegated to teach 9th grade health class. Or that I single handedly provide a breeding ground for every pestilence known to man, or that I adopted a dog who claims the world record in more hair shed than retained in a 24 hour period... but must the bunnies all die here as well?

And it's not like I provide them with peaceful, humane exits from this world of suffering. No. Nope - Violent, horrific deaths full of terror and predatory nightmares.

The first three were tiny newborns that The Cat (Crookshanks) delivered to me in the kitchen: live, squealing trophies of his hunting prowess that I quickly confiscated and tried to resuscitate, to no avail. And then a few months later, The Cat brought me segments of what was probably one of the surviving siblings of the earlier victims of his serial murders. Segments. Cleanly separated, freshly dead, segments. Served to me somewhat reluctantly from Crookshank's favorite eating spot, under my bed. My own, serene, once unviolated bed. First it was the back half. Waking up to the smacking, tearing, pleased with himself growl of a contented feline, I groped under the bed until I found the carnage. The crime scene was relocated outside, only to be recreated later when The Cat returned with the front half of the dead rabbit. You know, all ears and cute little nose, with dead glassy eyes, perfectly chopped off just behind the front legs. Once again I did a gruesome recovery operation, and tossed the entire quivering package, cat and rabbit front end altogether, outside.

You'd think that was enough, you know? Like really? Aren't you over it now, Crookshanks? The rite of passage has been accomplished! Not really, I guess, since I woke up the next morning to just the decapitated head of the poor beast. In my living room. On the floor. Still dead.

For these reasons, the long-operating dog door was put out of commission and we began the new adventure of trying to potty train a stubborn dachshund who had always had open reign between house and yard. As if.

I guess after a few months Crookshanks got the hint that I wasn't impressed with his love offerings, and I guess he was unimpressed with the 140 lb bloodhound that moved in and loved nothing more than to chase him around the house. Anyway, The Cat quit brining dead things in, which I appreciate. To his credit, he also trained the bloodhound to quit chasing him by stopping dead in his run and turning to rub all over Frank's legs, which confounded the giant hound to no end. Frank had to go outside to run off some of his anxiety from being fondled by a cat.

A few days ago, a new baby bunny appeared, hopping around Nattie's rabbit barn, reaping all of the sloppy benefits of tame, show-quality bunnies arrogantly flipping the food out of their cages. I would assume that the new grey bunny was somehow related to the murdered litter from earlier this year, all offspring of the rabbits that our Beloved Neighbors across the way turned loose when they got tired of feeding them. But it was cute. And maybe even a survivable age - and more importantly, Crookshanks didn't seem too interested in working that hard for a few slices of fricassee. So the grey bunny frolicked merrily around the rabbit shed for several days, nibbling grass and taunting the dogs who were much too slow.

And then one night, through my open window, I heard the screams. All too familiar with rabbit screams, I got up three different times in the after-midnight darkness to try to find him, but no luck. I thought maybe Frank finally got stealthy enough, or Crookshanks got motivated for a minute... but something was going terribly wrong for the little grey bunny. I couldn't find him, or Frank, or Crookshanks. The screaming finally stopped and I fell asleep to dreams of gore-encrusted bloodhound lips and rabbit heads on my pillow. But the next morning there was no sign of foul play, and no sign of the rabbit.

Today I went out to fill up the water in the back yard and I found him. He had tried to squeeze through the wire fence and gotten stuck by his hips. He was intact, seemed unharmed. Probably died of fright. Just hung up in my stupid fence. There wasn't a scratch on him, just terror stricken, dead rabbit eyes. I had to tug him free and relocate him to a more appropriate decomposing place. Moving dead furry things ranks right up there with my least favorite activities ever, BTW. Isn't that what boys are for? Oh yeah, right.

So, here I am, in the rabbit house of horror. And it's not like I've ever gotten a good stew or a furry pair of slippers out of the deal. Makes me mad. There's just no justice in the world.

one of Nattie's (don't worry, no bunnies were harmed in the making of this photo)

Note: all of Nattie's baby bunnies are safe and snug in their hutches. Although she announced to me a couple days ago that she has two with "special needs". Good thing we have experience there... 

Things That Aren't Funny

Teaching school has done wonders for my sense of humor - in that it's pretty much completely obliterated. Things that I used to be able to find the funny in have lost all of their comedy.

This includes but is not limited to 9th grade health students with VERY QUESTIONABLE personal hygiene habits giving me sneak attack wet willies from behind. The old Liv would have laughed it off and made a snide remark. But 'Ms. Stecker' quickly explained to said freshman the legal definitition of battery (thanks to a study session with a BLEA recruit).

Once upon a time I could find the humor in coming home to an epic dog accident spread wall to wall in my 6x10 foot bathroom. Or finding dog hair a foot deep between cushions of the couch EVERY SINGLE DAY when I vaccuum. Or that my daughter now considers herself a "plunger ninja" - a title of great accord and importance in our flood-prone home. It used to be funny to me, all the little things. Not so much lately.

Not Funny.

Also not funny is a renegade, 140 pound bloodhound hanging out with the state DOT road crew on the Columbia River Bridge. Or at the logging shop up the road. Or at the overprotective neighbors with three tiny children for hours on end. Or at the bar. Or at the school where I work. Or anywhere OTHER than the fence that I keep piling, twisting, pounding, digging and hiring teenagers to fix.

Riding with my 16 year old as she learns to drive, adventures in whiplash style, isn't funny to me. I haven't replaced the white knuckle fear for my life with hilarious anecdotes about will planning and why letting my teenagers learn to drive in different states AFTER they were out of the house is a much better idea.

Also Not Funny

Least funny of all is a 12 year old gagging over a bowl of delicious homemade pineapple curry which I felt represented a turning point in my 15 month hiatus from cooking anything interesting due to the aforementioned child's lack of culinary adventurism.

A few years ago, the antics of highschoolers in a classroom setting would have given me ample fuel for hilarious storytelling. Now I go home from alternative fitness without finding the humor in kids walking with their hoods up in 80 degree weather to hide the earbuds that have been clearly outlawed, or jumping in frigid river water on a $1 dare behind my back. Not funny you guys. Also not cool.

Ok. A little bit funny.

I have turned into a fuddy-duddy. A stooge. A stick-in-the-mud. A geeze, as my mom and aunt would say in fond reference to the unamused old-man status of my dad and uncle. I don't laugh enough. I am not sure if I remember how. And while I blame the kids, I know that the problem rests with me. The funny is still there - the ridiculousness of every day life surrounded by adolescing idiots. I just forgot how to dig it up.

Things I Would Like to Ask

1. Why don't we drink wine out of pint glasses?

2. Is it a functional requirement to throw the empty dishwasher tablet wrappers back in the box?

3. When do dogs stop shedding?

4. Do they make a centralized vacuum that just continually sucks crap out of the air in one's house, and if so, is it expensive?

5. How do you train a wiener dog?

6. Are dirty dishes grounds for disownment of a child?

7. Is there a way to get a 12 year old to quit changing her clothes in the living room between school and practice?

Aspen's locker room.

8. When does the amount of Top Ramen/Macaroni and Cheese consumed by teenagers cross the line into abuse and neglect?

9. How do people have full time jobs?

10. Did someone swap out the presidential race for a reality TV show this year?

11. Does anyone want a dog? Or a teenage girl? Or both?

12. How much does it cost to hire a cook?

13. Why hasn't SIRI solved all of my problems yet?

14. How many is too many consecutive days with people under the age of 20?

15. Is running away ALWAYS the wrong answer?

Things That Are Alright

It never ceases to amaze me how the springtime sunshine can push it's way through a plethora of suck and make even the worst days better. I spent the first half of this week on the verge of tears for so many reasons that I can't even keep track, and here I am on Thursday, St. Patrick's Day, no less, feeling like maybe it will all be ok after all. Not that things aren't still a little upside down, or there aren't plenty of excuses to cry, but I am working real hard to find the silver lining in All Of The Bad Things right now, and it's coming out alright. I have a beer sitting next to me on a Very Dirty Porch in the Very Warm Sunshine, and even though the beer isn't green and my butt is getting muddy, it feels good.

Frank the Bloodhound figured out how easy it was to step over the less-than-four-foot fence in the back yard and has taken to wandering around town. It was almost cute and endearing when he tracked us to Rivertown Grill the other night in the rain and had to sit in the car until we were done with dinner. It was even semi-adorable the first time he showed up at the school to find out what I could possibly be doing there that was more important than throwing his Breno horse for him. The second field trip to school was a little much, in addition to charging all 140lbs of hair-flinging dogflesh through a very unhappy English teacher's classroom, he made me late for class when I had to take him home, which is apparently a bad thing when you are the teacher.

he's definitely grounded

Because as it happens, I AM the teacher. At least for now. For the next three months, every single day. I am the teacher. Already I am getting a taste of the sacrifice that teaching is as I forgo St. Patty's Day shenanigans to ride with a bus full of drama students tonight to watch a play at Woodland Theater. I mean did it have to be tonight? I will miss the tinge of green food coloring in my beer as I watch The Addams Family Musical with a herd of reprobate high schoolers. And so my full-time teaching career begins, turning the usual financial nightmare of spring into something survivable, if I can make it to work every day, which we all know is a major challenge for me.

I get to sub for Mrs. Wilson as she ends her 37 year teaching career with a full knee replacement so that she  remain ambulatory during her retirement. This lady has earned it. Apparently the school advertised for a substitute that was highly qualified in the subjects of health, fitness and drama, and all of the certified people ran screaming the other way. I guess drama isn't everybody's cup of tea. Who knew? And I guess that I am passably qualified to teach it. I am not sure if this is based on the fact that I have raised four girls or my limited background in theater... But mostly it's probably my ability to pretend to know what I am talking about that really won me the work. #fakeittilyoumakeit

This is such a great opportunity because one of the classes I am teaching is "alternative fitness", which is geared towards students who really couldn't hack it in PE due to stressors like dressing down and exercise. Interestingly enough, my class is full of jocks and athletes who just needed an elective and figured it would be easy. And if you're into yoga and training for a pack test, it is, because that's what I am doing. It is sobering to realize that there are 18 year old guys who can't keep up with my old lady pace when we do our walks. And I am wearing a weight pack! I am looking forward to finding a way to compel these kids to leave me in the dust, which would take very little effort on their part, if effort can be found.

Anyway, suddenly I went from being bored out of my mind in early February, to so busy I can't see straight at the end of March. I just stare on my calendar and will some of the obligations to go away, but they don't. They just stare back at me and laugh in that sinister way that obligations do. So I drink a beer and decide to figure out how to Do It All tomorrow sometime.

I love that it's baseball season, and the fields are full of heckling kids and the clinking of balls on bats. I come home to find the random teenage boy rooting around for gatorade on my back porch and begin to wonder when the baseball-sized dents in my car appeared. The dogs can hardly get their unauthorized neighborhood patrols in as they are so busy supervising baseball practice and digging in the soft mud that was once a front yard. Dagny should be arriving in Australia any time now I think.

beer, booger, baseball season #gobendelks

Life is busy and inconvenient. It's filthy dirty and out of control, but it's good. It's going. It's life. Noone remembered to put corned beef and cabbage in the crock pot this morning so maybe I will help out the Grill with theirs. It just seems wrong to not observe the holiday somehow, and besides, I don't have any Jameson here.

Things About Frank

We got another dog. I am not sure why we (we being mostly I with a moderate amount of enablement from the remaining girls at home) got another dog, but we did. It wasn't as if there was a shortage of dog hair on the couches, poop in the house or scratches on the floors. It wasn't as if every flea in Stevens County hadn't already found a comfortable place to live in this house. But we got another dog.

In some ways the new dog is more like a horse, if we're going by sheer size, volume of food consumption and general maneuverability around the house. At this point he outweighs everyone else that lives here. In fact, he makes Truck look like ein kleine hund. The new dog is a purebred Bloodhound, the kind I have wanted pretty much my whole life. The kind with big droopy lips and eyes who howls at the garbage truck and bays like he's on the trail of an escaped criminal when someone doesn't give him a snack at the dinner table.

Frank adequately compensates for all of the teenagers that have moved out of my house in his moody flailing about. He is the master of dramatic sigh-filled flops onto the couch, following by a series of long high pitched moans that are eerily reminiscent of MacKenzie doing math homework. He helped himself to a plate of waffles on the back burner of the stove one day, thereby filling the rather large appetite gap left behind when Halle moved out. And his knack for watching you silently with knowing eyes from across the room has replaced the hole that When left when she decided she'd had enough of Northport and moved away. Most of all he is chief accomplice of the legendary Noone, helping to spill, break, tear and cover in mud and/or slobber every single item in the house and then disavow all knowledge. Natalee says that his drool dries all sparkly like unicorn blood and she seems to enjoy the sheen of glitter cast liberally around the house.

He's a big baby, really. A two year old softy who doesn't understand that his 6 inch dinner-plate paws come down with the force of a baby elephant everywhere he goes. He tries to play with Dagny, who just gets mostly offended and insulted that he can't seem to control the perpetual flopping. But he is a nice boy. He's gentle and listens MOST of the time, when he feels like it. He and Truck are NOT best friends, because the thing about hounds is that food is their favorite, and sharing is not.

Frank's real best friend is Ava, the neighbor's pretty German Shepherd, who shares his affinity for smelly river water and running away whenever possible. Luckily Frank has taken to running away to Ava's house when an unwitting child leaves the gate open, and the Middlesworths bring the reprobate hound back sadly sans-girlfriend. I am not unconvinced that Truck hasn't been unlatching the gate just to tempt the giant puppy away from his house, but I have no visual evidence of this sabotage.

When we got him, they called him Hank, but since we already have a Hank dog in the family, we morphed his name to Frank, which has become interesting when we get him and Truck confused and start calling out weird amalgams of both names. My sister insists that it's not her fault if she accidentally calls Frank something more obscene. Luckily he also responds to "poophead" and "dufus" so we have a  lot of fall back options.

Since Frank joined the ranks of The Doghouse, I will admit that my vacuuming skills have improved exponentially. I will never understand how short-haired hounds lose so much hair during the winter, like a punishment for not banishing them to the frigid out-of-doors. Another perk to having a horse sized dog in the house is that the cat is less than impressed, so Crookshanks has more or less taken up residence out side, which is fine with me.

We love Frank. Less when he is yelling at Truck for hurting his feelings by walking through the kitchen, and more when his lips fan out like mink blankets across the couch. At this moment he is hiding outside in the rain where he RAN when I tried to put some tea tree oil drops on his neck to discourage his flea comrades. I think witnessing Dagny being washed in the kitchen sink aided his fear response, and he probably thought he was the next creature to be crammed into the metal square that is smaller than his head. Poor Frank. Life is scary. Don't tell him he has a vet appointment for a rabies shot on Saturday, he would probably cry about it all night.

Things That Qualify As a Workout

I was the special education teacher today. (Chris Hoops, this means I am no longer your inferior. I am now your professional equal.) In case that doesn't mean much to you - which it should, because there isn't one person I know that hasn't been personally touched by the world of special needs, learning disorders, or other disabilities - it's basically 6.5 hours of explaining, affirming, re-explaining, affirming, patiently enduring  accidental insults and vague threats, affirming, explaining again, affirming, directing, affirming, redirecting, affirming, and on and on and on. The REAL SPED teachers that do this every day (like Chris, and Bethany [just kidding, I will NEVER be your equal]), are absolute educational heroes, along with the barely-over-minimum wage paraprofessionals that do all of this and more every. single. day. I see you. But seriously. It's a work out. I had to remember how to both add AND divide fractions, not to mention explaining why a cited source quote has to be verbatim and should somehow connect to the rest of the annotated bibliography. I mean seriously. I couldn't even do that in college!!! But dang it all, I NAILED it. And I even checked the answer book to make sure. I can teach math, you guys, and even some English. I can. Badly, and with questionable communication skills (I didn't swear any actual swear words), but I did it. I have the LCD and the GCF and the MLA guidelines DOWN. PAT. LIKE A BOSS. Because, obviously, I am.

Then I came home, and because all of that brain exercise wasn't enough, I decided to take on every single flea in my infested house in hand-to-hand combat. What this actually looks like is bathing 2 dogs and 1 cat. Anyone who has bathed a cat really doesn't need to read any further, because THEY KNOW. I look like a botched suicide attempt after Crookshanks tried to pull both radial arteries outside of the skin of my wrists. I'm not sure if you've ever seen anything other than a rainforest frog climb a window, or one of those sticky hands out of the vending machines, but Crookshanks succesfully climbed the window. And not the screen, as is traditional feline behavior. No, he made his way nimbly up the glass while Aspen was helping me apply direct pressure to my right wrist. Believe it or not, the cat got his bath AFTER I bathed the 85 pound aptly named Truck, who hasn't had a bath since last summer when a sun-warmed garden hose met its  doom at his perpetually extended claws. Ok, to be fair, it was a reclaimed toy hose from a fire somewhere that already had 37 leaks, but he contributed his share. Tonight he also ran away from the bathtub twice. Which was a 170 pound rebellion that my bad shoulder and Aspen (who weighs slighly less than Truck) were clearly surprised by. The good news is that all of the animals, myself, Aspen, and the entire kitchen were bathed in a mostly non-toxic dishsoap and vinegar solution that won't harm any of us if it didn't get ENTIRELY rinsed out.

Anyway, I was supposed to do a PiYo or PLYO or FYALL video tonight, except I can't help but agree with my shoulder that we have done enough. My brain has been stretched, my body has been contorted in every imaginable defensive position, as one will when cats are climbing windows. Truck says he's sorry, but Crookshanks still isn't speaking to me. The surviving fleas, however, are throwing a party on the carpet that I just vaccuumed with Borax in yet another Pinterested solution to the crisis at hand. All in all, it's a #winning day. I've earned this mason jar of wine, you guys.

Things About Commitment

We lost part of our family today. Somebody that came into our lives almost by mistake. Somebody that almost wasn't one of us. Somebody that we chose, in spite of all of the very good reasons not to.

We lost a friend that was unconditional. One that was always thankful, always loving, always kind. She was optimistic in spite of every obstacle in her way. She was dedicated and up for anything. She was the one that you knew you could count on to back you up in any crappy spot - as long as you could help her get there. 

We spent the better part of 4 years with Penny after we found her eating herself to death with no hope of escape. She came to live with us, and learned to love rabbits (or at least barking at them), to love long walks (or at least all the naps she took along the way) and to share her food. Penny lost a few pounds while she was with us, but in spite of the physical limitations of a belly that hung lower than her legs, she kept up with us and became part of our silly family. 

She made us laugh every day with her constant cheerfulness, her heroic attempts to climb stairs and her respectful begging for more food. She made us appreciate the heart that's inside an imperfect body, and even when she lost her eye sight she seemed to have a better idea of what was going on than a lot of humans. She knew when somebody needed a chin on their knee for comfort. Or an excited Cadillac dance for no reason. She knew the power of a good snuggle and the value of a squishy bed. 

She was Dagny's scolding grandmother, Emmy's comrade, Nattie's confidant and Truck's lower bunk. Penny took nothing for granted but loved every minute of her life. Her little stubbed tail was always working in thankful circles. We loved that silly obese dog. She's in her next home now. Probably chasing chickens and flopping down for a quick rest in the tall grass. Wearing angel wings like a flying pig, some of us think. And it would only make sense. 

There were times after we adopted her that we wondered if we'd made the right choice to commit to a dog with so many struggles and imperfections. Really, we were the ones that needed rescuing. We needed Penny's blind, unconditional love of all people, and her steadfast faith in her family. Her willingness to ask for help and offer affection. We needed to be reminded that beauty is what we give to each other, not how we look. We needed Penny, and thank goodness she chose us. 

Things That Are Good

Some days it can be hard to remember why we do the things we do. Why we didn't give up our children for adoption or file for disability 12 years ago. Some days it seems like all of the trying and the working and the struggling to Do The Right Thing only ends in one more disaster and another bad day. Some days there is no amount of positive thinking or gratitude to compensate for the mascara that you finally decided to wear and then promptly bawled all over your face. Some days just suck. 

The beauty of sucky days is that we would have no idea how Truly Awful they were if we didn't have the good days in between. The days when those kids we aren't sure we want anymore reached out and reminded us of the loveliness that is buried 10 issues deep inside of them. The good days when you can feel the gorgeousness that is You pouring out from deep within, even when you haven't showered and you realized the sweatpants you're wearing doubled as the dog bed last night. Our crappiest moments stand out because they are in stark contrast to that time when the kid you weren't sure would ever read got the high honor roll. Or the dog that can't be potty trained went for two whole days without pooping anywhere visible to surprise guests. We have days and days of bills paid on time and dinners cooked (however poorly received by ingrate teenagers) and not running out of gas on the way to work. We have those days and it makes the ones when Everything In the World Goes Wrong seem like utter hell. 

It isn't so much about having a half-empty or half-full glass. It's about having a glass. Something to put stuff into that can hold it all, whatever you've got for the time being, whether it's wine or Pepto-Bismol. You've got a container for all of the good, and the bad. And the "impurtities" that you'll skim off the top.  You've got a place to keep it all - a way to know whether it is good or bad for short term or long term or how the hell it fits in at all. You've got a glass called life. And sometimes it's all scuzzed over with dishwasher grime and unidentifiable substances and you can't stand to look at it, but sometimes it's crystal-sparkling clear and you can't remember ever wanting to slam that beautiful thing on the ground and shatter it into a million pieces, even though it was just yesterday. Or an hour ago. Lucky for us the glass changes. The shit filling it changes and the level fluctuates. But as long as there's a glass, we've got something, and if we didn't, where in the world would we put the beer?

I think tomorrow my glass will hold a Bacon Bloody Mary. It's only right.

Things About Dogsitting

Top Ten Reasons That Dogsitting is Better Than Having Kids:

10) Dogs are cuter. They can't help it. Even with runny noses, weird coughs and strange skin conditions, dogs are cuter.

9) You don't have unrealistic expectations that dogs will clean up behind themselves or help around the house with chores like dishes, laundry, etc, therefore, you live with much less disappointment and frustration.

8) Dogs are excited for EVERY bedtime and EVERY meal. No complaining. No arguing. Just pure, unadulterated excitement.

7) They don't interrupt your show. Or your book, or your sleeping in - ok, maybe this happens sometimes, but rarely.

6) They don't make the toilet overflow. If anything, dogs keep that water level DOWN.

5) Dogs, even visiting ones, are much better at expressing unconditional love and adoration than any kid I have met. Total self esteem booster.

4) Dogs don't have unrealistic expectations on you to drive them to various events, cook gourmet meals for them to complain about or buy them expensive things.

3) If you tell them to get off the couch, they don't get all butt hurt and not speak to you for three days. Ok, some dogs do this, but they bounce back much quicker than kids who expect couch space.

2) Dogs are blissfully unaware of your shortcomings as a human. They will not point out how fat you are, how terrible your apparel choices are, or how embarrassing you might be to them.

1) If you do a good job (which essentially means keeping the dogs alive) the owners bring you boxes of wine and giant bottles of Fireball. No kid has EVER provided such a kickback.

Authors note: I currently have 3.5 teenage girls available for rescue and/or adoption. They are adept at throwing fits, clogging toilets and being mean.

I am keeping the non-resident 18 year old child who occasionally makes a selfless choice which remind me that someday, all of this might be worth it.

Things That We Are Good At

We have done a really good job potty training Dagny. She is very smart, and has already learned that right after she pees on the carpet she needs to go outside for a second or she will get yelled at. She dashes right out the dog door as soon as she is done pottying now, whether there is anyone yelling or not. It's a pretty cool set up. We have also succeeded in teaching the girls how to keep their wads of long hair out of the shower drain, by sticking said wads to the shower walls and then throwing them away after. Somehow the throwing away part got lost in translation, so now our upstairs shower is decorated with multicolored wads of hair. It's pretty awesome, I am not gonna lie. Another great success story for me is the personal record I hold for most unfinished cups of coffee in random spots around the house. I have just barely edged out February of 2010 and I would like to credit the over sized wonderfulness of my new Pendleton mugs for this triumph. In my own defense, I will say that I actually found a half finished cup the other day and reheated it. Twice. And still never finished it. It reminds me of Grandma Schiffman and the perpetual cup of coffee in the microwave.

In other news, and in the interest of honesty, I would like to issue a revision to the facts set forth in my Holiday Poem: three out of four girls are rocking straight A's, and I will leave it to you to wonder who could be the slacker. Obviously this information wouldn't fit the smooth-flowing format of my poem, so I took a little creative license. And was guilt racked for two days. But now I have made my confession.

If my ramblings seem disjointed and incongruent lately, or even unedited, I would like to cast sole responsibility on a very small hairball who is constantly either eating Christmas Presents or running outside to celebrate her most recent urination, and the fact that I am forced to claw my way out of my Pendletony nest on the couch to save gifts and rugs. I might as well give up because I am mostly succeeding in forgetting about my coffee and I think the carpet is past saving. This would be cause for distress except I know that there is beautiful hardwood underneath that we are intending to convince the landlords to let us uncover as soon as Dagny is potty trained, but since the world may come to an end before then, I am not holding my breath. And no, that is not a reference to December 21.


Today is my day off. Yesterday I thought I didn't work until 12, but luckily I called in to double check, and found out that I actually worked at 10, which was precisely 20 minutes from the time that I called. Somehow I still got almost everything done that I had wanted to, except showering, but I just threw some jingle bells in my dirty hair and called it good. I have another long list today, at the top of which is finishing my coffee, and then beginning to pack the smallish things that need to go North with us for Christmas. -- Stand by, Dagny is eating the area rug.--  Anyway, I have been losing sleep over the thought that I will forget things like Mom's turkey roaster rack, or Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas (an absolute holiday requisite viewing, in case you haven't yet), or the stuff for Josh's tactical stocking that I have hidden in such an obscure place that I am not sure even I can find it. And by the way, yes, Josh has a tactical stocking, complete with molle strips and carabiner hooks. Obviously it will be filled with tactical tools. Like shot glasses. I have already conferred with Santa about this.

I also need to spend some time working on my eBay junk, shipping, measuring, messaging. One last push before Christmas, and every penny in the Paypal account means non-accountable spending for me! Or not. But I am doing quite well selling Victoria's Secret panties that I buy on clearance and sell for slightly over retail because somehow people who have figured out how to navigate eBay and set up a Paypal account haven't stumbled across the Victoria's Secret website. Hmmm. I am not complaining. --- Dagny is now UNDER the area rug. Trying to decide if it's worth unnesting to save her. Probably not. She can just chew her way out. ---

One major non-success in our life right now is that I taught Natalee and Aspen how to sew. How cute, you say. How mother-of-the-yearish of you and all that. It would be, but for the random misplaced needles I am finding on the rug, hanging off the coffee table, sticking out of the couch cushion just millimeters from Truck's elbow. I mean come on! Who leaves a needle on Truck's side of the couch! That's just mean! Apparently Josh lived as a child in a rental that had previously been inhabited by seamstresses of some nature who had a habit of dropping needles in the carpet. Several of these were relocated by various members of the Weston Family who would then have to remove them from metatarsal bones with pliers. This will not happen in my house. --- Dagny has weaseled her way on to the couch and is now chewing on the corner of my MacBook. --- So tonight we are going to have a needle safety debriefing, wherein I will pull gruesome pictures off of the internet of needle related accidents and strike a fear so deep in the girls that they will have to be sedated for Tetanus shots.

Well, I think it's time for me to go unpack the dog's stocking and dole out all of the chew toys we got for Dagny before she eats my technology. We are currently accepting donations of anything that you would like chewed up. And if you'd like a cold cup of coffee - stop on by!!

Things That Worry Me

I have an interview today. And for all of my fashion expertise (hahahahahahahahahahaah. ahhhh. hahahahahahahhaha) I am really bad at dressing myself in anything other than jeans and hoodies. As my good old bff will attest, nothing grants as much mid-section grace as a hoodie. Sure, you might look pregnant, but those dang kangaroo pocket obscure things just enough that most people think twice about asking. Except that bimbo in the checkout line. Why is it ALWAYS my cashier that loves to stick her foot in her mouth?

"Ohmygosh! When are you due? Are you SO excited? Boy or Girl? Is it your first?" all comes out before I manage to snap : "Not pregnant. Just fat. Thanks" That shuts her up. Every time. It always seems to happen just after I drop three pounds and I start to feel like I Am Awesome. Pride goeth...

Anyway, back to dressing for an interview, and doing it badly. The worst part about today is that I am interviewing for a classy clothing/housewares store (I know, right? What is that, IKEA/Coldwater Creek? Close!) - the new Pendleton Wool Outlet that's opening here in bend. Josh says I should wear a dress because slacks scream lesbian. I am not sure what makes him say that, other than he is worried about someone of ANY gender hitting on me and I look so dang good in slacks. Especially the kind with pleats. My personal sense is that I should go looking like something that my grandmother would approve of, and I don't have any of those kinds of dresses. So slacks it is. Pendleton Wool always reminds me of my grandma, maybe because she kept a little Pendleton blanket in the back seat of her Volkswagon Rabbit that was really itchy and smelled like her cigarettes, which is somehow really comforting sounding right now. All I really know is that my interview is at noon and if I start dressing now I might have settled on something that I only hate a little by the time I absolutely have to leave. Moments like this I really wish I could have my fashion forward cousin body double for me, or my I-do-professional-every-day sister in law. I don't suppose Pendleton makes hoodies?

I have an interview tomorrow as well. Tomorrow's interview is much more my style. It's a warehouse job that sounds a little bit sucky except people bring their dogs to work, and they said if I dress up at all for the interview they would probably make fun of me behind my back. No really, he said that. Guess who's rocking a hoodie to an interview? The only thing I don't like about this job prospect is that the warehouse is unheated. And I hate being cold. Only slightly less than I hate being hungry or bored, but it still ranks near the top of my Least Favorite Things. Also, this job is potentially full time, and as I discussed with Josh last night, I am really not looking for full time work. I would really be best suited to an on call job - where I can work when I call them and tell them I want to. Which would probably be from like 10 am - 10 pm one day a week. Or like noon to midnight 4 days a week so I don't have to make dinner or help with homework. But only once a month. I am an excellent candidate.

Why exactly, you ask, with such lofty employment aspirations, am I even applying for jobs? Truth be told it's mostly to appease the guilt I have for my impulsive spending habits, and for the employee discount. Can you imagine a whole house of Pendleton awesomeness? I have one Pendleton Blanket. The limited edition Smokey Bear Throw. Of course. It's one of my favorite possessions, obviously, and nothing makes me mad like picking Truck hair off of this gem. That's the trouble with wool. By now my blanket has softened up nicely and it shakes out pretty well, but Truck is well enough trained that if the Smokey blanket is out on the couch he takes one sniff and steers a wide berth around it. Emmy needs some more training in this, apparently.


Anyway, I'll let you know how the interviews go, but if I were you, I'd be rooting for epic fails, because they're way funnier to talk about. Like that time I interviewed for the Buckle. That was awesome. There's nothing like a homely, too-skinny girl with Tammy Faye makeup, patronizing you for your million kids and "crazy busy" job history. Apparently they were looking for focused career types at the Buckle. Someone to really grab jean sales by the horns and look towards retirement. And also someone with more hairspray. Maybe I should have worn a hoodie to that one.