Things About Valentine's Day

Things About Valentines Day

Valentine Throw Down at The Doghouse:

Step 1

Wake up at 7:44 from a nightmare wherein your best friend accidentally runs over your only true love (Dagny) when your daughter accidentally throws a ball in the highway for her to catch. Interpret the meaning of this dream as the unintentional heartbreak all around you. Happy Valentine's Day.

Step 2

Make waffles (which you hate, thereby reducing risk of overconsumption) with strawberries and whipped cream, bacon and eggs for 6 teenage girls, two of whom say thank you. Feed the leftovers to dogs, all of whom thank you.

Step 4

Go back to bed and make sure no dashing romantic has sent a surprise Valentine Facebook message, text or IM.

Step 5

Give up on all such fantasies and go on a 2 mile "run", pounding out all of the negative thoughts.

Step 6

Wait two hours for the hot water to come back before you can shower, since three teenage girls took 45 minute showers as soon as you got back from your run. Eat the leftover bacon that you hid from the dogs.

Step 7

Get dressed in something as unsexy as possible. Because who cares. Make sure you are wearing unmatching underwear, since obviously no one is going to see them unless you get into a car wreck, which really isn't on the agenda.

Step 8

Giggle when fourth teenage girl attempts shower after you used all of the hot water. Then realize the joke is on you as you are locked out of the bathroom and your hair is drying after the fashion of Ramona Quimby. But hey, who's going for sexy anyway?

Step 9

Leave the house in an undecided foray into fun... it's 7 hours until the basketball game you will be at, but sitting at home in the meantime just seems like a waste of a Saturday.

Step 10

Get the mail. And then go home because sitting at home actually sounds pretty fun.

Step 11

Go back to bed and turn on the matress heater and force Dagny to snuggle for most of the afternoon.

Step 12

Finally get out of the house for a pizza and a beer and to watch the NPHS boys NEARLY win a loser out regional finals game. It was worth the drive. I am proud of our boys. And girls. Even when they use all my hot water.

Step 13

Go home and collapse into bed, once again, and finally. (with Dagny, of course)

Things About Time Travel

Yesterday I drove over Sherman Pass to Republic for a cello concert. The concert was amazing - more about that to come. But the drive...

Ten years ago, I made that drive a million times a week. Sometimes twice in one day. The memories of that summer wash over me like a rough cold wave on the Oregon coast, taking my breath away. The songs, the sights, all flash through my mind. The Forest Service campground where I spent weeks excavating. The creek bed where I waded up to my waist on survey. The brilliant smile of a beautiful boy with a soot-blackened face. Camo pants, Dollar Bets, karaoke at the Hitching Post. Sweet Home Alabama, Tim McGraw and Watching The Wind Blow By, rope swings and watermelon. Falling asleep in an exhausted pile of over-sung, over-danced, over-worked and over-funned boys and girls still wearing nomex and boots.

The memories make my heart race and my stomach flutter like it hasn't in years. Funny how a drive can transport you back in history to a different time. Every curve of the road had a different memory, a conversation, a song - this is the spot where I lose cell service, and this is the other spot where it comes back and 37 text messages from a waiting boy flood my screen.

I remember a little blonde baby and a 4 1/2 year old who ate so much watermelon that she threw it up all over my car.  An 8 year old tomboy and a 7 year old fairy princess. Missing plenty of teeth but not one minute of life. I remember liberation from the tyranny of a terrible marriage. Years of pain washing off of me in the lakes of Ferry County. I remember stepping off of the blind precipice that is leaving A Religion behind, to find out if there is really A God instead. I can still feel the freefall into learning that absolute truth is defined in the burning trees and tumbling rocks of nature. I can still taste the tiniest trace of unconditional love on my lips. Love without judgement, only curiosity and the desire to Know Me. I can feel the wonder of being my own person, valued and sought out and enjoyed, finally escaping years of condemnation and failure and never, ever, ever Getting It Right. For a little while, I didn't have to. I just had to be. Honest, open, trusting, seeking, learning.

That drive was my road home. My pathway to freedom. To knowing my own soul and who I was Created To Be. That mountain pass was the crossover from incarceration to liberty. I learned to fly on that road, and not only when I was going 75 MPH, trusting in the false security of friendship with the county cops and the entire staff of the Colville National Forest. After an insular life of overprotection and sheltering, I finally found a safe place in the wild country over the hill. I fell out of the nest and into a whirlwind of freedom and grace and learning. My instructors were rough and clumsy. My classmates were unruly and uncouth. And I loved them all. Still do. I am thankful for that summer. For all of the steps leading up to it and away from it. For the memories and the baggage that it gave me. I am thankful for that time machine of a road.

Things About Martyrs

The thing about growing up in the Christian Community is that you learn a lot of buzzwords. Sometimes, you know what these words ACTUALLY mean, like PARADIGM, and sometimes, you just operate under the accepted, applied meaning as it is handed down to you from the powers that be, such as MARTYR.

We all "know" that a martyr is someone who will lay down everything for the cause that they believe in. But over the years, the connotation of a martyr in many circles has evolved from the hard-working bible-printers burned at the stake to sappy, willing victims who have found power in "giving up" things for the sake of attention, notice or spiritual elevation. In fact, the Merriam-Webster definition has expanded to include this version of a martyr:


Martyr

Noun

1) A person who is killed or suffers greatly for a religion or cause, etc.

2) A person who pretends to suffer or exaggerates suffering in order to get praise or sympathy

3) A person who suffers greatly from something

(side note: who is this Merriam fellow and when did Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary quit becoming the rule? See end of blog for the answer.)


I personally had lost a lot of respect for the word martyr, until this week.

Kayla Mueller was 26 years old. A graduate of Northern Arizona University, (my alma mater) majoring in political science, Kayla continued a lifestyle that she started in high school, devoted to one thing: taking care of people. She volunteered in women's shelters, HIV/AIDS clinics, and refugee centers in Israel and along the Turkish/Syrian border. In August of 2013, she was taken captive by an Islamic Extremist group. It would be nine months before Kayla's family would receive contact and proof of life from her captors, and in February of 2015, 18 months after her capture, her family confirmed publicly that she was killed in captivity. While rumors and speculation about the nature of her death fly around the internet and news media, the one important fact remains: Kayla Mueller is gone.

Last night I went to see American Sniper, and along with much of America, I was taken aback by the senseless death of an American Soldier who nearly sacrificed his soul on the battlefield long before he lost his life at home, in relative safety.

The thing about a Martyr is that the death is, as Mueller's and Chris Kyle's, totally senseless. Mueller was dedicated to helping people. All people. Not just Christian people, although she was a devout Christian - but every race, religion, lifestyle and region of humanity. Chris Kyle fought to regain his own humaness and then turned back to reach out to other veterans facing the soulless aftermath of war. They were killed DOING GOOD. Good that could have continued. The beauty of martyrdom is the message that is sends. While Kayla and Chris have been stopped in their tracks - their stories go on in the actions of others who are compelled by their deaths to do something. So while martyrdom is, indeed, senseless, it is not, in fact, useless.

I have a new respect for martyrs - real martyrs, and the eternal imapact they have on our global community.

We cannot undo the deaths of Kayla Mueller or Chris Kyle, but we can continue their work.

 Support To Life is one of the last relief organizations that Kayla Volunteered with before her capture. Check them out and see how you can help.

The Chris Kyle Frog Foundation is an organization for veterans and their families, offering the support for re-patriating soldiers that Chris started before his work was cut short.



(answer to the side note: the George and Charles Merriam Company obtained publishing rights to Noah Webster's dictionary after his death in 1843)


sources: Merriam-Webster.com, USAToday.com, NBC.com, The Mueller Family

Things About Being Bulletproof

There's this trendy thing going around out there called "bulletproof coffee". I heard about it from one of my few cool friends who knows about trendy things, even if the trend is probably already like 6 years old. Not being one to allow an outdated trend to pass me by, I jumped on the bandwagon and started making bulletproof coffee, without even knowing what the trend was about, or why the coffee was bulletproof, or what made it bulletproof, etc, etc, etc.

So I made my first cup, just to be cool, by blending a couple tablespoons coconut oil, a couple tablespoons of Kerry Gold butter (I was told that this was a prerequisite to being cool) and hot coffee, in my awesome Magic Bullet Ninja™ til I had a big frothy mug of surprising deliciousness.

Then I went to work.

Then I researched it, because researching "why drink bulletproof coffee" is much more interesting and less headachy than researching "what is a quadrangle", and I needed to look like I was very busy so the geometry students wouldn't ask any more questions.

Turns out, Bulletproof® Coffee is a craze started by one David Asprey, after a trip to Tibet where they drank tea with yak butter and hiked all day. Being an American®, Dave came home and put his own twist on it - specially formulated coffee beans lacking some hideous chemical that is only available through his website, some oil with a weird name I can't remember (also available only on his website) and unsalted Kerrygold® grass-fed butter. My cool friend told me I could use coconut oil instead of the weird oil, and I used my old go-to Kirkland Rainforest® Organic Coffee Beans, complete with hideous chemical. The idea behind the thing is that it offers a low-glycemic, high energy, healthy fat alternative to breakfast, since apparently croissants and Captain Crunch® are bad for you. (WHO KNEW???) A lot of the paleo junkies are all over it and it has gotten some great reviews from people who don't believe in food or fun or love. (also, can you tell that I just found the ® on my keyboard?)

I believe in all of those things, as well as Captain Crunch, and since I did my research AFTER I made my first cup I had no idea I was supposed to not eat breakfast, which I did, and heartily so. Anyway I read a lot of articles about how awesome Bulletproof Coffee was because now people didn't have to be bothered with the grueling task of eating breakfast (pun intended), and alternately how stupid Bulletproof Coffee was because really it's an expensive excuse to drink a lot of calories and sound cool at work. In these articles I read about fancy coffee making machines that I had to Google because I had never heard of them, but now want really bad, and I read about glycemic levels and people crashing and stuff like that, but mostly, I just like how the high-calorie coffee tastes. Especially with a big breakfast. And I sound cool at work.

So I decided I am going to give it a couple weeks and see if A) I get way fatter B) I have WAY more energy C) it cures hangovers and D) If anyone thinks I am super trendy and cool and asks me out for Valentines day because of my coffee being Bulletproof. I will get back to you on all of those things. But I am still eating breakfast, because if I don't, the kids in my class start to look like two-headed demons that need to be destroyed by about 10:17 AM.

Things About Saturday Morning

It's Saturday morning. Like the one morning of this entire year that I could have slept in. Forever. But the fates dictated otherwise.

Here's the thing: My back has given me problems for about 25 years. For the sake of brevity lets just say that for the last two weeks it has been giving me hell - except that fire and brimstone are interchanged with the agony of every combination of stabbing, shooting, throbbing, aching pain imaginable. With every possible movement. So yesterday I went to the chiropractor, who sealed the deal for me and made it so I couldn't breathe, much less walk or drive or think. I texted my BFF Christy on the way home with some unintelligible crying-text-jargon, and she met me at my house with Tiger Balm patches, "grown up" medicine and lots of help. Including relocating a memory foam pad to my living room floor and making it up with all my sheets and pillows so that I would not have to spend another night on the marshmallow bed that I swear we bought JUST to help with my back. Then I had to rush right over to the last High School basketball game at home and pretend to sit through a game and a half, in agony, looking like the undead and smelling like I had recently bathed in a vat of Mentholatum. 

Needless to say I went home and crawled into my new floor-bed pretty early, after a few heady arguments with wiener dogs about exactly WHOM the floor-bed was for. I slept like a baby. And I intended to continue to do so for many, many hours - maybe days, even when the 17 year old snuck back in the house during the wee hours, and Truck fell down the last three stairs at about 2 AM, pretended like he meant to and then asked if there was any more room on the floor-bed, and the wiener dogs made their traditional midnight kitchen laps looking for any unattended garbage bags or food morsels, or maybe taking a quick poop under the kitchen table. 

I was doing so well, dreaming about killing zombies (I relate this to my state at the basketball game), YouTube videos of mean cats and tiny dogs (I need to google it and see if it exists), and handsome eligible bachelors showing up at basketball games and finding me absolutely irresistible, even in my undead state. And then....

We have this rolling chair at the desk. It's great, when you aren't using it to prop up a broken ankle and some thoughtless teenager leans on it, sans brakes... Or if it is positioned right next to the head of your floor-bed. 

It started with the darting tongue of a very excited dachshund who seemed to suddenly remember about the floor-bed and me, and the resultant accessibility of my nose for immediate and aggressive licking. Going from handsome stranger to the insides of my nostrils being evacuated by a tiny tongue in .005 seconds is just weird. And then a certain 11 year old, looking for a safety pin, rolls the rolling chair nearly across my head, just before she turns on the iPod ALLTHEWAYUP and turns on every.single.light.in.the.house. WHY???? SAFETY PIN? NO!!! I couldn't even get any intelligent words out, but the combination of growling, angry, drug-hung-over snorts seemed to scare her AND the wiener dog off momentarily. Or maybe she just realized there were other lights in the house that she had forgotten to turn on. 

So here I am. Coffeeless, awake, listening to music that is WAYTOOLOUD for a Saturday morning without coffee. At least it's good music. Now to train the 11 year old to make coffee before she runs over my head with a chair...

My back feels about 52% better, which means the planned trip to Spokane for When's birthday will move forward. Maybe we can find safety pins there. And a nose plug to wear for the duration of the floor-bed era. 

Things About Highschool

For a minute, they had me almost convinced that it is absolutely ok to hackey sack in the classroom during science, and do the assignment at home. Because classrooms are clearly more conducive to hackey sacking than learning.

Today, the high schoolers taught me how to arc weld - and by taught me, I mean show me where the switch is, tell me I should take off my ring, and walk away. But after an interesting discussion about why girls never take welding, far be it from me to prove their point for them by backing away in the mortal fear that was absolutely gripping my soul. So I arc welded. By myself, without dying. The boys then proceeded to politely giggle behind my back at the terrible job I did, but still, I DID do it. Tomorrow I will finish constructing my steel wiener dog out of junkyard trash. Maybe that's actually what they were giggling about. But as far as I know, nobody spray painted graphic images anywhere or burned anything down while I was lost in my ridiculous little project.

There are three students that absolutely will not stay in, or anywhere near, their assigned seats. I am not sure how to fix this, other than repeatedly threatening to do absolutely nothing, very loudly, and using their names a lot. The (most) mentally unstable student in (every one of) my classes has mellowed out after a grade-schoolesque time out in the hallway yesterday. The Discovery Channel video of people nearly dying in a car wreck that we watched in science also seemed to have a calming influence on him, which is mildly terrifying. One of the delinquents keeps referring to me as "jack", which I am certain is very derogatory but as long as he is in his seat and not shaking any chemical containers, I will let it fly. It's not a verifiable obscenity, and I have more than enough of those flying around to deal with, along with a mummified cat, a mysteriously re-appearing hackey sack and sketches of me with a unibrow on my desk.

The problem breaks down like this: really intelligent kids with not enough work today, really unintelligent kids that won't even attempt the work, and several straight up, boniified, wait for it - delinquents. The blissful moment that all students are head down, working busily at their desks, only happens when I rescind the no-cellphone rhetoric (which really means that I quit saying "no phones" every four minutes) and they are all furiously texting before my next wave of rule setting. And as always, at least four kids every five minutes have to go to the bathroom. And we aren't even to lunch time yet.

Things About Doing It All

I have four kids (at the lowest ebb) and two burners on my stove. If the math right there totally doesn't make any sense, because how can you feed 4+ kids on two burners, then you are calculating correctly. I know this because I am now a high school math teacher. Geometry, in fact. I am pretty good at sounding like I have a clue what we are going over, until someone asks me what orthocenter means and I tell them a story about miniature engines, which happens to be what my most recent article was about.

The thing about being a high school geometry, science and welding teacher, along with a "newspaper reporter", mother to unsubstantiated amounts of children, EMT, secretary/treasurer and binge drinker all at once is that it doesn't work out very well. At least the drinking and geometry. Everything else gets along fine. I am experimenting with spacing those two out from each other. But seriously - I have had a headache for two weeks straight and I am pretty sure it isn't just the wine. I also refuse to blame the toxic gasses released by the delinquent cutting into aluminum containers in welding class because welding is fun and if they knew that the delinquents were running me around, they might not let me teach it. I barely got away after one of the aforementioned delinquents spray painted an electrical outlet black instead of his metal project when he snuck off to the woodshed paint room, but I was able to prove plausible deniability and actually get the delinquent off. He later shook a volatile chemical container nearly to explosion point in the chemistry classroom, but luckily the class clown staved him off from the brink of disaster. You know it's bad when the class clown intervenes.

So, this is my life lately. Delinquents and miniature engines and a lot of wine. Or beer. Or whatever happens to be pouring STAT.

I have been on several EMT calls lately involving violent felons - and being the first and often only responder for the 20-45 minutes it takes for law enforcement, the transporting ambulance, or ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING to get there, it compelled my bestie to buy me an adorable green taser. I am kind of excited to try it out, but successfully resisted the urge when my own 17 year old daughter made an obscene show in my classroom the other day. Looking back, it was foolish to not whip out the little device and cut her exhibit in ABSOLUTE INSOLENCE short, but then the paperwork, being that I was technically her teacher and not her mother at that moment in time (a concept that she CLEARLY did not understand) was a formidable thought.

In addition to the taser, and a BAD-A** little gismo called the CAT (available at amazon), which is like brass knuckles that aren't brass but bright red plastic and LETHAL (my BFF also got for me), I have decided that I need a gun. That's all well and good, especially since I am surrounded by gun experts and aficionados, already have my concealed carry permit to go along with access to endless advise and hopeful some test runs... and am only slightly afraid of shooting my last remaining ovary out accidentally, but I got a little confused today when I was Googling both Ruger LC9 and orthocenter, and got the stat sheet for the gun mixed up with the measurements to find the centroid.... Another nod to NOT multitasking every.single.minute. But I am muddling through. Somehow.

The good news is that I said NO to adopting a homeless pot bellied pig, instead passing that piganthropist baton to my BFF (I know, what exactly is SHE getting out of this relationship, you ask?), and living the vicarious pet farmer's life through her. Also, I am now more well armed for both EMT calls and welding class, since I can use my Cat on the delinquents when they try to spray paint penises on the walls of the painting room. Boys.... I hope they behave tomorrow because I have big plans to weld myself a new trivet. And if ANYONE knows what orthocenter is, I am still looking....

Things About Tomorrow

If I didn't get out of bed tomorrow...

my kids would still eat.

my bills would still be unpaid.

they'd find another sub at school.

I wouldn't make any new friends.

I wouldn't fall in love.

I wouldn't lose a job.

no one would die.

I would get texts from three people.

I would get two phone calls.

no one would buy me lunch.

my kids might get in trouble.


If I did get out of bed tomorrow...

my kids would still eat.

my bills would still be unpaid.

they'll have to find one less sub at school tomorrow.

I might make a new friend.

I still won't fall in love.

I wouldn't lose a job.

no one would die.

I would get texts from one person.

I would get no phone calls.

someone might buy me lunch.

my kids might get in trouble.


my life wouldn't be dramatically altered by the choice to avoid life tomorrow. but I can't answer whether someone else's would be. and the reality about life is that nothing is really in our control. we move. we breath. we make choices and live. our choices affect each other and all we can answer for or influence are the things that we engage. tomorrow may not have a purpose in my life, but my life might have a purpose in someone else's tomorrow.

and so whether satan says "oh crap" when I get out of bed tomorrow or the angels shudder in dread, the action I take in doing so changes the outcome of the world around me. I have a responsibility to live, and until that is taken away from me by the forces that I cannot control, every choice must be to live well, and truly, honestly and sincerely. because it's not about me.

Things About Love

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

   If this be error and upon me proved,

   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-       William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

Things That I Feel (like a broken heart) Are Wrong

Feelings suck. Mostly they suck because 90% of the time, they are wrong.

For example: when I am a substitute teacher for one day, I FEEL like I should be awarded a Medal Of Honor for performance above and beyond the call of duty in just keeping my students alive and mostly contained inside my classroom. This feeling is wrong because the real teachers who survive every single day of their whole lives with the same exact students never get any medals. Or awards. Or even Christmas Presents from certain terrible single parents who shall remain forever nameless. Teacher gifts are right on the same level for me that out-of-town sports events are. Yes I should. But I haven't started now, I can't afford to do it, and really if I tried to begin at last, it would merely draw attention to the fact that I never have before. So to all of the teachers of all of my children, past and present, which at current count should be in the area of 64 total teachers, give or take a few, I am sorry. You deserve presents. And medals and trophies and heralded recognition and celebrations of your heroism. You do. And I, like my feelings, suck.

Another good example of Wrong Feelings is the phenomena of having a multitude of people in my house and feeling lonely. Clearly, I am surrounded by human beings. Some of which I am even supposed to like, i.e. my children, and even so, and quite wrongly, I feel very much alone. Maybe that has to do with the fact that under the age of 29 and a half, which is all of the other people in my house, there is little to no recognition of the fact that towels that have been used and left on the floor upstairs to mold cannot, actually, get up and wash themselves. This is really a superficial part of the problem, since the main thing they lack is a strong, warm shoulder for me to lay my head on and cry. Or just rest. Whatever that feels like. But feelings are wrong anyway.

I am also fairly certain right now that this FEELING inside my chest like my heart is torn into a million jagged pieces is inaccurate, and other than some stress-induced, high-blood pressure related headaches, my heart is probably for the most part still physically whole. But the tearing, burning, throbbing ache in my chest says otherwise. But feelings lie. They are wrong. And just because I feel absolutely compelled to weep uncontrollably when I hear Ed Sheeran Sing Thinking Out Loud, doesn't mean that it's really true that I will never be loved that way. Right? And really, feelings just equal drama. And we all know how popular drama is. Keep it to yourself. All of the passion. All of the hurt. All of the love that isn't. Don't feel. And certainly don't tell anyone that you feel. Because feelings are wrong.

I'd like to think that the good feelings are a little more right - but who's to say. I have found all too often that the good feelings spring from wrong actions, so probably feelings, in their entirety, are just terrible, and should be avoided at all cost.

I am currently in the market for a substance of any kind that makes feelings go away. I have tried various forms of alcohol, only to discover that they are actually Wrong Feeling enhancers. I have been on some different antidepressants, and while I felt less things, there was still a lot of wrongness going on in my head and my heart. My momentary solution is business. Not like, two-piece-twill-suits-and-a-briefcase type business, but move-go-do type business. Just keep doing things. Cooking. Cleaning, Working, and when all of that just overwhelms me like a tidal wave, I try yelling (at my unfortunate children) louder than the wails of my (not) broken heart. That, as it turns out, is just obnoxious, so then I go to bed. I try to find something more confusing than my own life to watch on TV, and after trying to muddle my way through part of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I find myself feeling like my life is that scary without acid. But that is a feeling, and feelings are wrong.

Things About (wannabe) Snowboarding

Today is day 2. Two days of Snowboarding for me this weekend, if dragging your snowboard down perpendicular to the mountain repeatedly is actually considered snowboarding. But I am here, and I am doing it. Finally.

Yesterday was day 1, and it took me no less than 45 minutes to work up the courage to get onto the ski lift alone, by myself. It would have taken me longer, but after standing near the line for 45 minutes, pretending to be getting ready to get in the line, but telling everyone who asked that I was "waiting for someone" (the second coming of Christ, perhaps?) some random girl accidentally pretended to get in line in front of me, and then realized it was her turn to get on, panicked, backed out to "wait for someone" and forced me to load up. I couldn't back out because a really tall, broad shouldered, good looking guy with a tiny, adorable child on a snowboard was already waiting to load behind me. I felt like Buddy The Elf of the escalator. I am sure that I drug my toes up the ramp in a last ditch effort to fall off early and thereby escape the inevitable embarrassment of a crash at the top, or death from the highest peak of the lift itself, which is a common occurrence among mothers, as a brief search of online news will tell you. Unfortunately, I remained on the chair, and after a panic-stricken plea to the lift-op to slow the thing down at the top, or even just stop it ENTIRELY, I launched off. And I didn't even crash. Not until the third run, when I crashed every three feet, just to make sure that I still could. Of course, halfway through scraping my way down the hill, the good looking guy stopped to ask if it was my child flopping down the hill on her belly. It was, in fact, Aspen, in too-big boots, too-small snow pants and a skateboarding helmet that sloshes around on her noggin like a popcorn bowl. Hey, at least we are here. We are doing it. I contemplated denying ownership, but decided he was asking in a not-condescending way, unlike the dude at the top of the run who informed me very knowledgably that her boots were too loose, which was excellent information considering I wasn't absolutely certain that they were even on the correct feet. And all those weird laces with buttons and pulleys and crap. The heck. I was exhausted before I even took a 45 minute break "in line" for the chair lift. But back to the good looking guy - I said yes. Yes. She was mine. But all I said was yes. Being talked to by a good looking guy and every witty thing to say escaped me entirely. He said it was cute, and again I said yes. And then he swooshed off, I am sure thinking I was the rudest girl he's ever hit on on the ski hill. And immediately I thought of all of the best things to say. Funny, endearing things. Things that would probably make him ask to buy me a beer in the lodge later and we could tell funny parenting stories. And then he could teach me how to do something other than stand on my board sideways on the ski hill. And probably we would get married. But yes. That's all I had.

I survived several "runs" yesterday. Or maybe we should call them drags, because it's really more like my poor board was dragging me down the hill. And then again today, lest anyone say I am too old, too weak, too out of shape to come up here two days in a row and "snowboard". Because even those all of those things are true, I still need a good excuse to sit in the lounge and watch the Broncos play this afternoon. While my children master the craft of not-dragging down the hill. Also I have to let my legs rest because they are currently in the exact state of vanilla pudding from all of that being dragged and somehow I have to drive home. And I think I dislocated my back. Is that possible?

I started out this season with a colossal cloud of guilt hanging over my head for the season passes that we bought back in May. How would I, alone, and terrible at snowboarding, ever get three+ kids up to the hill and complete one day of snowboarding without dying, let alone an entire season pass worth. I did the math to figure out how many visits would appease the guilt. And then, realizing that either way, the money was spent a very long time ago, I needed to look at it instead as free snowboarding whenever we want to. And now it's fun. And since gas is $1.99 a gallon, and Aspen is pretty sure that Cup'o'Noodles is the best thing ever, it's almost like a free recreational family day. With football.  I have $6 cash that will just cover a beer, one beer that I will nurse for the duration of the game, or until they kick me out of the bar for being a Broncos fan, or the kids come complaining about cold fingers and no more cup'o'noodles.

Things That Are

I have been teaching middle school all week. Tomorrow will be day five of 6th, 7th and 8th graders. If you don't know or possess any middle schoolers, I strongly encourage you to run out right now and acquire some because there is nothing quite like a middle schooler. Tottering on the brink of teenage horror, they have just the very first taste of grown-up on their lips. They see the shiny, sequined dazzle of high school and all of it's drama, and they are practicing hard. Too hard. It's an amazing thing. And even more amazing are the people that teach them. Every day. All day. For hours on end. If you don't know or possess middle schoolers, there is nothing I can say that will make you understand the heroism of these teachers, or the wonder that is a middle school child.

After The Holidays, it happened that we ran out of food. Like, all the way out. No milk. No cheese. No cream for coffee. Therefore, out of food. Since this last 12-29 months has been the Epic Season of Wasting All of The Food In The World, I have adopted a new policy: not buying any more. Ok. That's an exaggeration. I bought more cream. Which is foolish, since when we ran out of milk two weeks ago, my coffee cream disappeared at an alarming rate in close conjunction with the remaining holiday Corn Chex. I also bought yogurt, because my stomach has been upset for a few days and well, yogurt, right? Feeling compelled to buy something for the children to eat, but still bitter at the utter waste of food we have been enjoying lately, I bought 6 boxes of cold cereal and a case of top ramen. I am taking a break from trying to be a Good Mom Who Cooks. I came home from a trip to town tonight (after teaching middle school) to an untouched crock pot of soup I had made for them. Untouched. Cold. Not even finished cooking. I started it this morning, I checked it and reset it before I left for town. Now it will go in the garbage. Because it's been out all night. Along with dirty cereal bowls that no one is responsible for washing since I haven't finished revamping the chore chart. I am sure they ate Corn Chex with heavy cream for dinner. I wasn't here, so that's what they do.

Driving home, I realized that it isn't the lack of yogurt that was messing with my gut. It's stress. I want to throw up if I eat the food that we don't have, or the food that should be thrown out because no one ate it before it was Too Late, not neccessarily because of the translucent color of the meat, or the unidentifiable growths, but because it is all so frail. Life. Groceries. It comes, and it goes, so fast. In one night, when the entire high school shows up. And then it's gone, all of it. Never to be replaced. Or at least not until I muster up the courage to go to town and decide between cheese and gas. Luckily gas is cheap right now so I was able to get both on the last trip.

I keep thinking, if only I could just fast forward through this part, the frustrating part. The stress part, when my stomach hurts because I have NO IDEA if I can actually do all of the things I have to do, in the amount of time I am allowed, with the resources I have. Like pay the rent. Write the stories. Feed the Children. Somehow it always works out, but in the Moments, it's terrifying.

And the problem with fast forwarding is that you might miss something. In avoiding the bad, the stressful, you might  accidentally skip that One Thing that makes it all worth while: The smile from your daughter that has been pretending to hate you, the unexpected touch on your neck that lasts for days, the laugh with a friend that has been far too long in coming. The little things in the days that would be lost with the big stresses and the problems - it's not worth it. To skip so much of the emotion just to be able to get to the climax. It's like walking away from a movie to scoop up some ice cream and you come back to find the hero kissing someone you don't even know. You missed all of the getting there for a bowl of ice cream. And who's to say that the climax isn't right now anyway, this very instant. Do we ever know for sure when we are right in the middle of The Best Day Ever, or Happily Ever After? Or is is later, in the remembering, and the chilling surge of joy up our spine that memories bring that tell us when our "good parts" are. And who knows if in time, my days in Middle School might be some of the most remarkable ones I live.

So thank god that there's no fast forward button, and no mute, to miss the whispers, or the screams of the Right Now that we need to successfully transport us to the Tomorrow. And thank god that we have today to make the best one ever, in spite of the stomach aches and the middle schoolers and the yogurt and the stress.

Things About New Years

Princess Leia. There. I got your attention.

I am hereby, as of this blog post, on 2:17 PM, December 31, 2014, enacting a new annual family tradition. That is the requisite viewing of the 1956  classic "Bundle Of Joy", starring Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher - AKA Princess Leia's, or Carrie Fisher, if you must, biological parents. And you thought I was just using that as an attention ploy.

If you have seen this movie, you love every ridiculous and unaccounted for musical number. If you haven't, then I pity you, and it's well overdue.

First of all, Debbie Reynolds is just, awesome. I don't care who you are, if you don't love Debbie Reynolds you must be dead. Eddie Fisher is tolerable, as the genetic contributor to Carrie Fisher's composition, and a voice to weaken the knees. But you will notice that throughout the movie, his facial expression (or lack thereof) pretty much never changes.

Of all of the ridiculous old musicals that I have seen, and love, this one stands out as the most quotable, most singable and most adorable. And quite possible the most little known. All of that changes today.

This is important today, because, well, New Years. Which happens to be the pivotal moment in this love story. And also when Debbie Reynolds pretends to be a foreign princess.

The good news for you, sitting at home and wondering what in the world to do this New Years Holiday, is that you can watch this delight on Amazon for $14.99. Right now. Like I am. And subjecting three of my own girls along with three foreign exchange students to the full glory of several poor excuses to hear Eddie Fisher sing (but not emote). And Debbie Reynolds. 

GO. WATCH. 

and Oppy New Year. 

Things That I Don't Say

Five. That's the number of blog posts that I have started in the last two weeks. Started and never finished, because after writing a lot of words, I suddenly realize that I have said NOTHING. Nothing worth saying. Nothing worth reading or hearing. Nothing with any WHY behind it.

Maybe it's the winter. Or the holidays, and the strangeness of not being with All Of the Family All Of The Time. Maybe it's a long string of Slight Disappointments and Minor Setbacks that highlight this year as it comes to an end.

Everybody is posting their year in a video. Or a thank you note. Or a cute slide show with All of The Best Moments. A dozen or so Christmas cards full of happy, smiling kids with happy, smiling parents are grinning at me from the clothesline garland where they are hung. It's been a good year for a lot of people. People have grown, changed, moved, learned, earned, lived and loved. And so have we. But how to categorize this year for us, for me, without focusing on the monumental fails that we have been through is still baffling me. The best approach is to look at 2015 and claim it as the Best Year Ever, ahead of time, which I think I might have done for 2014. But things were different then. I was so sure of certain things, things that certainly aren't that sure at all anymore.

I am a sentintimental person. A mushy fool, to some. A hopeless romantic. I believe in love. Last year, I had a plan. I knew where I was headed. I was IN LOVE. And when you are In Love, every new year is an exciting re-launch of adventure. Even if things weren't perfect, and there were kinks to work out. I knew there was Love. I believed it. And then it went away. Gone. POOF. Like the snow, it just disappeared in the spring, without a trace. And now here I am, tottering on the brink of a new year, with the faintest glimmer of belief in Love still sputtering down inside of me, but unsure. No hand to hold on the launch. No lips to kiss at the turn. Just hope. And foggy darkness. And it's hard to say "look at my year!" in spite of all of the good things, because there stands the BAD shadowing it all. It's amazing how loss can swallow winning so completely and make it seem silly and insignificant. It's not very fair. And it's hard to say "bring on the next year!" with quite as much zeal because as much as I want to believe that the parachute of love will open for me, I can't see it anymore, and it's scary. I can't seem to get the oxygen I need to fuel that pitiful little spark of hope, or a breeze to fan the flame. It's like the world is hell bent on depriving that fire of air.

But that's the crazy thing about love. You can't really kill it completely. If it's real, it's there all the time no matter what. It's permanent. It can take some hits, and be beaten down into a smolder that's almost unrecognizable, but once you've tasted it, and you know how it feels to give it to someone who eats it up and gives it back, you can't ever quite get over it. There's the suffocation. The KNOWING of love and the HAVING of love to give and the NO ONE that will accept it. Except the girls. All Of the Girls. And I share it with them badly. Because I am selfish and I want the love that I can bury my toes under on the couch at night. And lay my head on when I go to bed. I don't just want the love that is sticking her tongue out at me when I tell her to behave. Or washing the dishes without asking. Or telling me thanks for dinner, without a prompt. I want the kind of love that is Being Known. The love that is one look and unspoken understanding, and a good day because of one word. I had that going into 2014, and here I am with no eyes to look into and no words for me. And no one but myself to blame. Myself and the Big Scary World of Real. All I can do is try to show my girls this kind of love. To be it for them, because I know it, and if I don't have it right now, at least I have them, and I can Know Them, and Listen. And Hear. Even if I am not Heard.

I have so many things to be thankful for. A house full of girls. No, literally FULL of girls, who are healthy, and for the most part happy, and smart and strong and will do fine. And 2015 will be the Best Year Ever, so far, I believe it for them, and for me, as I watch them step out into the new adventure without the scars threatening their spark. And I can fan that flame. I can pump the oxygen into their spark and help them Know Love and Be Love.

Things About This Christmas

This is a weird Christmas. It's weird for a lot of reasons, and maybe some that I can't even really explain, but mostly it's weird because it's like three days away and I am not entirely sure what I am doing.

The kids have this Christmas with their dad. It's his turn, and although I am relinquishing them to him, I am doing it grudgingly. Even though on my Christmases with them I whisk them away to the coast and their dad doesn't get to see them at all, I still kind of expect to have them for at least PART of the holiday when they are rightfully his. Because, after all, I am the MOM. But this year, with raised eyebrows and pointed statements, he did insist on his right to keep them the whole time. So I am relatively kidless, which is strange. Christmas without kids is something that I have never experienced. Ever. When I got married, my baby sister was 5, so there have ALWAYS been kids. And now my sister has kids that I can borrow, or show up and crash their Christmas, which I am sure I will do, but as much as I complain about my kids, Christmas without them just plain blows. In fact, most things without them pretty much suck.

Sometimes I am so busy just surviving life with four+ kids that I forget that it is LIFE. And without them it is not. Not that the quiet times when they go away for a few hours isn't a divine intervention into my unraveling sanity, but when they're really gone, it's just... weird.

I realize - no, wait. I have had it pointed out to me, by one of my very astute and possibly bitter children, that I complain about them a lot. "write horrible things about us" was the exact phrase she used. And it made me sad, because really, I never meant to. The "horrible" things are also quite often the funny things to me, and the best way to keep it from being a festering wound that ends unattractively for all of us, I tend to vent in my blog. But I have to remember to vent about the good things. Like Aspen spontaneously scrubbing out the dog water dish when she discovered green algae floating in it. Or Natalee decorating the dogs for the holidays. Or Halle driving to pick up Natalee's friend in what is quite possibly the first errand that one of my children has run for me. HALLELUJAH! Here are the perks of semi-grown children! Driver's licenses! Other good things are when MacKenzie overcomes her will of iron and her pride (both gifts that I bequeathed to her) and tells me she's sorry. And then works on things. And when When quits blaming Aspen for messing things up and voluntarily cleans up Dagny's most recent "accident". These are the good things. Singing the wrong lyrics to pop songs together and playing out soap opera scenarios with the vintage Christmas Candle Angels. Drinking cream soda out of my wine glasses and actually being into old musicals and black and white movies. All these things are good. They are wins. They mean that not only are my children alive so far, they are even COOL. My kids know who Bono is and can categorize Frank Sinatra's musical catalog according to his singing age. They will gladly watch football, hockey, Jimmy Stewart and Peter Paul and Mary. They are quick witted and hilarious. They are independent and curious. They are brave and intelligent. All of them. Even When and my other daughter Amanda. Almost all of them will eat almost anything with minimal complaining, and will try new things. They do their own laundry, and 75% of them even put it away, which is more than I can say.

But back to Christmas. And how weird it is. Because Christmas is Family. And Family is Kids. And Kids are gone. So it's weird. And my sister and her family have Christmas stuff with their other side, and I will probably end up with my adopted kids at the Middlesworths, and it will probably be fine. And fun. But still, weird.

Things That Are Good Ideas

It seemed like a good idea to get up and get dressed, to put on my makeup even, and make some coffee and go to work. Because I was supposed to work. But the teacher that I was supposed to substitute for was as surprised to see me as I was him. So I came home and repeated the whole process in reverse order.

It seemed like a good idea to Nattie to keep Dagny's  food dish on the headboard of my bed, where only Dagny can reach it, so the other dogs quit eating it, until 2 AM when I awakened from a nightmare about a Tyrannosaurus Rex standing on my face to eat rank dead carrion, only to find Dagny standing on my face eating rank crunchy dog food.

It seemed like a good idea to suggest to the whole family to make care packages to send to each other instead of individual presents, you know, to save money and stress and all of that, until it turned into a potential one-upsman-ship glorified version of The Surprise Game™* that may or may not cause the death of my younger brother.

It seemed like a good idea to make gingerbread houses ONCE AGAIN, this year, with 12 kids and five adults and four dogs, and to let my sister be the one to earn the glorious burn scars from the sugar, until I woke up this morning and realized the Swedish Fish and the Vodka were all gone.

It seemed like a good idea to go on a family cruise to the North Pole to see Santa, until Natalee dropped her iPod in the grass somewhere and made Papa Stecker and Grandma jog across three-quarters of Coeur De Alene and caused Santa's elves to scold us meanly to have "fast feet" all the way to the boat we almost missed. Turns out it was worth it anyway, even though all of the kids except When were on the nice list, and if anyone had a heart attack they wouldn't admit it. And Natalee was mad at the world for trying to steal her iPod.

*The Surprise Game™ was invented by bored young homeschooled siblings in the upstairs of an old farmhouse, where they would take turns trading crappy toy surprises they dug out of the bottom of their toy boxes/junk drawers for hours. Favorites were bouncy balls with puppy tooth gouges, army guys with torn off bazookas, and silly putty 80% encroached with dog hair.

Things That Are Dramatic

You say drama like its a bad thing. You tell me I'm too much drama - and you're damn straight I am. I'm a single mom with four daughters on a shoestring budget. Too many hats and jobs to count, volunteering, dedicating, overloading. Emotions are always high at my house. Even if I was an amoeba there would be drama. If I let the girls walk all over me and didn't get back in their face for the disrespect and insolence they throw at me. If I didn't send my 17 year old to live with her dad there would STILL be drama. The toilet would overflow. The flu would come. The fleas won't stop. And I will tell you about it. Because I am too much drama. 

You know what else is drama? The bald eagle that just dive bombed my windshield. The monster buck that stepped in front of my car out of the mist on Boulder pass. The raging inferno of a forest fire. The mighty Columbia River. All drama. Too much drama. Extremes of hot and cold, gentle and cruel, bad and good. 

Life is drama. Without drama, life is passionless. Blah. Sane? Perhaps. Boring? Absolutely. Without drama there is no passionate love song. No gut-wrenching tear-jerker. Without drama, who cares if some Dude died on a cross, or rose again. Who cares if He was ever born? Who cares about anything? Drama makes the world go 'round. 

The silly mystery of Christmas presents wrapped up in shiny paper is drama. Drawn out traditions and advents and pilgrimages are drama. Hanging on to family memories and paying hundreds of dollars to see loved ones for few days is straight up drama. 

Every bit of my life plays out like the worst soap opera you might imagine. You can't dream this stuff up - but it happens. Every day. Between real people. Silly fights and hopeless romances. Highs and lows. Ins and outs, feuds and alliances. Life ebbs and flows around us and changes and only the most detached are not touched by the pain and the joy and the DRAMA that is LIFE.

Could we stand for less weeping and gnashing of teeth? There's no question. Do I need to talk about every dramatic thing that happens to me? No. But I do, because that's how I deal. If I can't make fun of the drama in my life then it might eat me alive. I can't avoid it - it won't go away. And it's not only because I have terrible taste in husbands and some sort of aversion to gainful employment, it's because I believe in living life - chasing it down and wrestling every bit out of it. Life is short, and full of drama. Good drama, and bad drama, and excitement and grey times. I don't want a day to go by that I haven't seen for every hour that it is worth. I want to wring the life out of each minute, because someday they will all run out, and you never know if the most fun is hiding in the last drop. 

So I will take the drama, and the judgement that comes with it. I will go on living my life and enjoying it, enduring it, hoping it, believing it until the clock runs out. We only get one shot, and I want to make mine worth every second of the drama that it brings. 

Things That Are (Not) Sacred

We've had this talk before. The one where I remind the children that the fancy, expensive shampoo is mine, and that they are to use the bulk stuff I buy specifically for them. If they want fancy, expensive shampoo then it is up to them to buy their own. We have had the same talk about razors. About bath towels. About makeup. Over and Over and Over again. Which is why it was no surprise to me that when I took a shower yesterday, after cleaning three Persian cat's worth of hair out of the drain, that I was fighting to squeeze the very.last.drops of my fancy, expensive shampoo out of a bottle that had been half full only two days ago. I have few remaining vanities. I get that I am old. And I don't have a  whole lot going for me anymore. But my hair. Which of course is ONLY successful based on the procurement of fancy, expensive shampoo. And when it is gone, along with the money, which was swallowed alive in a comedy of errors we will call Accidental Miscalculation, I am relegated to using the cheap, bulk shampoo, which happens to be Dove right now. I HATE the smell of Dove shampoo. Shampoo is all about the smell, as much as Megan Trainor is about the Bass, shampoo is about the smell. I can't stand Dove. The kids don't mind it, so I get it FOR THEM. But even then, I only get it when I am wandering Walmart (God Forbid) in a feverish state, and I can't smell from the head cold that will certainly kill me before the day is out, so I get the Biggest, Cheapest Bottle of whatever isn't Suave. But next time I am getting Suave. Because since it is readily apparent that I cannot have fancy, expensive shampoo of my own to use, and I refuse to use Dove, and even if I can't smell the flavors, Suave has to be better than what we've got now.

Don't even let me start on the razors.

And the makeup.

and All of The Things.

All of these frustrations are really just opportunities for me to grow, and learn, and become a better person. By not killing any of my children. And discovering new talents.

Yesterday we had our third monthly toilet flooding. This one was the best so far. With swirling poop water standing two inches deep all the way to the back corner of my bedroom, where I was carefully squirreling away the Christmas Presents. By the time I responded to an expletive laced text from Nattie who unwittingly started the flood while I was over at the neighbors, the damage was irreversible. I didn't cry. Well, not til later. Curiously, we had just rolled up our sleeves and embarked on a sugar cookie decorating adventure over at the neighbor's, when I got the text. Two months ago it was pumpkin carving. Apparently even attempts at Holiday Traditions are not sacred to the fates. I think I might ban the use of the toilet for a 24 hour period around such undertakings. Gingerbread houses are on Tuesday. DECORATORS BE WARNED! Maybe I will dig an outhouse before then. Or, as suggested by the many witnesses of this repeat catastrophe, put a drain in the hallway. So I guess I will be hanging out on ehow.com for awhile this morning, educating myself on the nuances of floor drain installation. See! Learning and growing!

In the meantime, between load of poop-infested laundry today, I will be salvaging the few Christmas presents that I was able to get together this year, and write apologetic notes for the poop streaks that may or may not be included in the packaging. Because I care. Happy Holidays. (don't worry DC, your care package escaped unscathed...)

This morning is one of the coldest ones we have had lately, which meant it was absolutely the perfect time for the pellet stove to throw a hissy fit and quit working. Motivated by numb hands, I quickly tore the beast apart and jerry-rigged a solution, so now the stove is reluctantly cranking it out. I wonder how in the world single moms survived before the advent of google, and do-it-yourself videos about ignitor replacement, and without really helpful brother-in-laws. I was able to convince the pellet stove it could get by just fine with what looks like the scarred remnants of a amputated finger for an ignitor remaining. Clearly this is an issue that will need to be addressed more thoroughly in the near future. Probably when the temperatures are at least sub-zero. I am looking forward to that little do-it-myself lesson.

The good news in all of this is that the head cold that seemed determined to take me out has finally subsided, and I can move ahead with fixing All Of the Broken Things without feeling like I just want to crawl under a rock and die. Being mentally functional is somewhat important today as I have PILES of writing that Must Be Done in addition to the poop laundry and masking of Christmas Gift Poop.

So if you need me, I will be over here, on my computer with the rubber gloves on, googling ignitor replacement and drain installation while I am folding towels and writing about the Grand Army of the Republic and locally crafted beer. And I am really sorry if my hair smells like Dove.

 MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Things About Snow

It's December 12th. Less than 2 weeks until Christmas. We had snow. We had The Holiday Spirit, in spades. And then something happened. I am not sure what exactly - I can't tell you which rotten, grinchy thing that happened to steal it all away, but the snow melted, and now the dirty, muddy, drizzly December and I are at odds.

Maybe it's the overdrawn bank account, just in time for Christmas. Maybe it's the terrible, awful head cold that makes me feel like my head is in a mailbox and all of the kids are beating on the outside. Maybe it's that I am at what feels like an insurmountable impass with MacKenzie, once again, and I don't know how to fix it. Maybe it's hearing from old friends and missing good times. Maybe it's falling asleep alone trying to pretend that the heated mattress pad and the pile of clean laundry on the bed next to me make a good substitute for "the one". Maybe it's the ever growing piles of bills with red numbers and letters from people that I didn't even know that I owed money to.

But all of these things just make me wonder if somehow fate didn't get the memo that it's The Holidays. I can patch it all together and make it work, but can't we save all of this failing for January, when it's a good time to start over anyway? And when is it gonna snow again, and feel fresh and clean? Because that's what I need. A clean start. A new snow. January. A new name. A new beginning.

And gosh darnit, I'll be dad-gummed if I am gonna let it ruin The Holidays. Me and Aspen are gonna sit down with a  giant mug of Gyspy Cold Care tea and watch the Muppet Christmas Carol and enjoy every minute of it. All the dogs have their jingle bells on, the stockings are  hung by the chimney with care, and nobody is gonna stop ol' St Nick.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Things About My Name

Today I finished the process of having my name legally changed back to Stecker. If feels full circle and final to me. Like this is where I started, and where I will end. But not in a bad way. I like being a Stecker. It carries with it connotations of weird cerebral coolness. And eccentric pack-ratish tendencies that usually result in having a lot of cool stuff for really cheap.

The process in getting back to Stecker wasn't too hard. But man, today was like an exercise in learning tolerance for the Whole Human Race. And that part was hard. I had to sit through the last part of traffic court, which was the contested cases, where a couple of very illiterate and mostly unintelligent people decided to go up against whichever law enforcement officer wrote them up for whatever infraction they were adamant that they didn't commit. It was actually pretty darn funny.

One guy was insistent that even though every witness of the accident that he caused saw him cross the center line, none of them could prove that they weren't lying, and therefore the person causing the wreck remained a mystery. He called his father, his brother and his buddy from down the road to testify on his behalf, because they all heard the officer on scene say that he "probably wouldn't" get a ticket. The high point for me was when the dad, in a raspy-smoke-thickened voice, asked if he should go "over yonder" to the witness stand, and then proceeded to tell the judge about all that he "seen" when he got there. The grammar nazi inside of me was gasping for air. The entire time. Then the brother said the exact same thing, except slipped up and conceded the officer's "probably" to the court. Then the buddy got up and chanted a similar mantra around a thick plug of chew and several rotten teeth, with grammar that put the entire defendant family to shame. It was impressive, and needless to say, they lost and were forced to pay the entire $124 ticket.

But THEN.... This other guy with a dirty gray ponytail got up and asked for a continuance of his ticket, which happened to be the third continuance, and therefore denied by the judge. According to the ticketing officer, this rocket scientist had passed on the shoulder  to the right of a car, and told the cop that he "don't like following slow cars, and I probably do lots of things people think are wrong." Yes. Those words. He proceeded to ask the judge is she could prove that there was a shoulder on this particular piece of  "real estate" and how she could make a judgement call without knowing for sure, and that he really felt sick and needed a continuance. Again. Another loss, he took it with his chin up and muttering disdainful things about the judge and cops and conspiracies about road shoulders, etc, and went off to pay his $124.

It makes me feel foolish for paying my speeding ticket without a fight. I mean, at least I could sound smart. The judge would probably let me off out of pure relief.

Then I went to Walmart. Because God hates me. I still haven't recovered.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, I decided to swing by Goodwill to make sure I wasn't missing and Christmas Candles on Military Monday that Em would beat me to later. After eavesdropping on a revelational conversation about the vicious nature of hippopotamuses between two meth-heads at the counter who were buying a resin hippopotamus statue, I left in a state of intellectual numbness that I haven't quite recovered from.

I went from there to do a few interviews for my next couple of articles, and until after I sat down and looked at a pile of amazing pictures from the early 20th century and newspaper clippings about the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic, I wasn't able to shake the hopelessness I felt for our species. But here was this little old lady named Edie, pointing out her battle-axe of a grandmother in pictures where she paraded with other patriots and political activists of the time. She told me the story of being apart from her biological father and grandmother until she was 19, and then meeting the woman who was the past president of the Ladies of The GAR, a somewhat celebrated school teacher in the northwest, and an all around mover and shaker. She explained how her bitterness toward her absent father had stolen the chance she would have had to be a part of this great lady's life. She spoke of forgiveness and the wonder of family and opportunities and always being soft.

And when I left, she slipped a puzzle piece into my hand, and reminded me that we all have a place in God's puzzle of life... and that even when we are "so low that we can sit on a dime and swing our legs", that we are loved, and we have a place. And suddenly, being human didn't seem so bad anymore, thanks to Edie.

And I remembered that I am, once again, a Stecker. Fitting into my spot. And while I am thankful for all of the days that I have spent as something else, and everything that I have learned along the way, it's good to just be me again, the way I started. My own puzzle piece.