Sick days....

It's been coming on for a while. I've had a headache that most closely resembles a giant needle stuck into the back of my brain. I've been tired. I've been cranky. I've been achy all over. I knew that I was in for something miserable.

I woke up yesterday with a fever and a cough and feeling as if a truck had driven over me during the night. A visit to my doctor confirmed that I had a virus. Not the flu, luckily, but a garden variety bug that has moved in and set up housekeeping.

His advice was to go to bed and stay there. I decided to heed it.

I don't like being sick. I feel helpless and ineffective. I feel like I should be doing something besides watching HGTV all day and dozing off.

But my doctor pointed out to me that in this day and age, people seldom allow their bodies enough rest to heal. It made perfect sense to me.

Besides, I no longer have little kids who need to be tended all day. They are semi-adults now and can, presumably, fend for themselves. I have a fantastic teaching assistant who can take care of things when I am out of school, and everything else, I suppose, can wait for a few days.

So, with my husband out of town and both kids at school, I came home from the doctor, put on my warmest pj's and slipped into bed. I fell asleep and stayed asleep for the better part of the day.

Only, I forgot about the one inhabitant of my house who does need to be tended all day. That's right, Toby, the Golden Lab Hellhound, was left alone.

Toby wasted little time protesting this change in his routine. He promptly ate one slipper, one black permanent marker, two socks, one Christmas cactus, a roll of tape, a pair of boxers (Steve's or Trent's - it was impossible to tell from the remains) and several dryer sheets.

Then he had the audacity to wake me up using his cute little wet nose. Thank goodness Trent arrived home at around the same time.

"Take this dog for a walk," I ordered.

I returned to bed and slept until this morning. I'm feeling a little more human, but I know that after cleaning up the effects of the Toby Tornado, I'll be ready for a nap again.

This time, I am going to chain him to the rear axle of my car.

NaNo What?....

I'm going to do it.

Growing up, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote poems and stories. I loved term papers. I loved essay tests. I loved to put a pen to paper and let the words begin to flow.

In college, I started out as a Journalism major. I wanted to write feature stories and music reviews. I saw myself as the next indispensable staff member of Rolling Stone. The girl who got to tour with the Stones and live to tell about it.

Then, I listened to conventional wisdom.

Getting a writing job would be next to impossible is what conventional wisdom told me.

So, I lost my courage and decided on a nice and safe English degree instead. Writing? I liked doing it, but what was the point? I was getting married and I needed a job.

And really, I do understand that apart from teaching high school, an English degree does not guarantee an entry level position with a Fortune 500 company. I graduated in the early 80's when greed was good, and business majors ruled the planet. I've paid my dues.

I did get married, found a corporate job, had kids, went back to school to become a teacher (HA, I say, laughing at myself. Should have known all along.) Apart from monthly school newsletters and parent handbooks, writing went on the back burner for a long, long time.

Then, I started hanging around the Compuserve writer's forum.

I began by just lurking. Then I gathered up my last reserve of courage and actually posted a few things.

I was shocked that people didn't tell me to surrender my password and leave the forum. Other writers, farther along in their journeys than I, actually encouraged me.

I cannot express how affirming this was. I became hooked. Besides, I have learned to love writer's lingo. I get all tingly when someone talks about word count, or chunk writing, or author intrusion.

In short, I felt like I had come home.

I've been dabbling for a while. Have a couple of things half-finished. The little voice - you remember conventional wisdom - still whispers to me "What the hell are you doing wasting all of this time in front of a computer?"

I am trying to ignore it.

Then I found out about NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you write a novel in a month. The month of November, to be exact. So I registered to do it.

I'm certainly not going to talk about the book I have planned, or even share any of it. I just want to write furiously for a short period of time and see what happens. I love the process, and I hope I'll find a few things salvageable about the product. If not, so what?

Wish me luck.

A special guest...

My dear husband of many years has asked if he can make a special guest appearance on my blog. Apparently, he would like to relate some stories about my driving. For some reason, he finds these stories hilarious.

Yes, I have granted him special permission. But, before I let him hijack this little space, I must say a few words in my own defense.

I am actually a pretty good driver. I've had only one traffic accident in 30+ years of driving.

I just seem to have this spatial problem. The kind where I perceive that stationary objects are farther away than they actually are.

Please keep this in mind when reading his words. Thank you.

What I'm reading...

Last year, I signed up for a website called Goodreads.com.

I did this because Goodreads allows you to keep track of every book you've ever read. For some reason, I had been wondering how many books I've read. In my life, I mean.

I tried to guess. What if I'd read 50 books a year? This means that over the last 40 years or so (I really don't think it's fair to count all of the Golden Books or Nancy Drew Mysteries that I read as a child), I've read maybe 2000 books.

Could this be true?

Over at Goodreads, I was only able to come up with about 400 titles. This was disappointing. I really wanted to have 2000 books on my home page, but I couldn't remember every trashy novel I'd picked up at the grocery store.

I was faithful to Goodreads for a while. I would finish a book and add it to my virtual bookshelves. Still, I couldn't get that number up to even 500.

Finally, I got lazy. I would forget to add a book, and read three or four others, and then forget to add those, until finally I gave up. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. In the end, it turned into another chore that I would put off and feel guilty about. I sure don't need any more things like that in life.

So, let's just say I've read 2000 books and leave it at that.

On the journey to 2000, I have read just about everything. I'm a fiction junkie, but I don't limit myself to one genre. Sometimes, I'm looking for a literary tome. At other times, I'll settle for a great horror story or mystery or crime novel. I'm partial to post-apocalyptic tales (think The Stand), but I've also been obsessed with historical fiction. I overdosed on Queen Elizabeth a few summers ago, and I really don't want to sit through another go-round of Henry and Eleanor. I don't mind vampires (loved The Passage this past summer), but I'm also a big fan of Richard Russo and Wally Lamb, two guys who write about 'normal' life and pierce your heart while doing it. I love Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, and, along with the rest of the civilized world, I enjoyed Stieg Larsson's books.

As a teenager, I would read Gone With the Wind every summer. I devoured most Agatha Christie titles in middle school and high school. I read War and Peace sitting on the beach, and I remember sneaking over to my friend's house to sit in her laundry room and read Love Story when I was in fifth grade. It seemed racy at the time, and I knew my mother wouldn't approve.

Some books I read earlier in life, like The Sun Also Rises, really stuck with me. I know he's not everyone's cup of tea, but I loved this book so much that I waited my whole college career until, as a Senior, I could write a paper on Hemingway. I tingled with anticipation as I sat at my typewriter, finally able to pound out 20 pages on my writing hero. I think I got an A. In fact, I think I still have the paper somewhere.

So lately? I've read Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, and was not enthralled. His characters were pretty boring, and I really didn't much like them. Just finished a new novel by Julia Glass, whose debut, Three Junes, won the National Book Award, and was just heartbreaking and wonderful. Her latest, The Widower's Tale - not so much.

I'm on to what I hope will be a good ghost story - A Dark Matter by Peter Straub. He knows how to weave a story and keep me guessing until the end. Fall is a spooky time, after all, and there's nothing better than a spooky story to go along with my favorite season.

Oh, and I've never read any of the Twilight books. Just so you know.

Happy Fall. Happy reading.

Saturday morning....

Today, a Saturday, I woke up while it was still dark - about 6:15 am. Because I had fallen asleep at 9 pm (thanks, Julia Glass, but your new novel is really a snoozer), I decided that 9 hours of slumber was enough, and hauled myself out of bed.

I fumbled around in the dark for my slippers. I can no longer keep them next to the bed because my Golden Lab puppy considers them a chew toy, so I have to hide them on a high shelf in the closet. Luckily, I was able to locate them without knocking over anything.

I made coffee, and I poured myself a cup before the pot had finished brewing. This is one of my secret vices, and has been, believe it or not, the subject of the most vehement arguments between my husband and me over the last few years.

But I digress.

Faced with a long stretch of quiet and peace, I pondered what I should do. Years ago, when my kids were small, I would have used this time to accomplish something meaningful....like clean out a closet or wash windows.

Now - not so much.

I used to be an absolute ogre about my house. It had to be clean all of the time. I would never consider going to bed with dishes on the counter, and, like an obsessed scullery maid, I would crawl around on the kitchen floor with a damp paper towel to make sure that every spot or spill had been annihilated.

I continued with this irrational behavior even though my kids were toddlers, capable of destroying a room in a matter of minutes. I persisted even though we had a big black Labrador whose shedding output could create enough fur to weave an afghan at least twice a day.

In short, I was nuts.

Funny how life changes. This morning, I sat on the deck and looked at the stars. I watched dawn break over the trees. I drank two cups of very strong coffee and played with my dog. I considered doing the laundry. I decided to go to the dog park instead.

I can only wish now that I had been a little more relaxed and a little less neurotic when my kids were little. I probably would have played with them more and cleaned a little less.

So, this morning as I briefly considered washing down the cabinets I reminded myself that I'm all better now.

Phil, they're playing with a dead bird....

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of the day we found the dead crow.

There was a whole gang of us - neighborhood kids whose names I really can't remember now. We hung around outside all day because, well, that's what kids in the 60's did. We played with whatever was around. We built forts and went exploring. We looked for snakes in the field behind our house. I don't think we were ever bored.

One day, we found a not quite alive crow behind our house. By not quite alive, I mean dead. Stiff and cold. Eyes that were gray and glassed over.

So we did what any kids would do - we put the recently deceased crow in someone's old bird cage.

We took Mr. Bird (I'm fairly certain this is what we called him, but the name Batman also rings a bell) all over the neighborhood. Being the animal lover that I was, and still am, I think I wrapped Mr. Bird in a baby blanket. We played records for Mr. Bird. Since some of us were young Catholics, we may have held some sort of funeral mass for him. I'm not really sure about this last one, but I know we did something ceremonial.

Our capers with Mr. Bird went on all day, undisturbed. No grown ups had noticed our new friend. Mr. Bird was very probably beginning to smell when we decided to play in our basement, and bring Mr. Bird along.

I remember a look of panic on my mother's face when she realized just what we had brought into the basement. I remember my father descending the basement stairs and I remember Mr. Bird being taken from us rather quickly and without explanation. I can only hope that Mr. Bird found peace in his final resting place, and that he was not thoughtlessly tossed into our metal trash can.

The subject of Mr. Bird never came up in our house again. We probably caught a snake or dug up some termites the next day and were happy again.

Ah, childhood....

Shifing the parental paradigm....

Having little kids was easy for me. I loved the raising of babies, toddlers, preschoolers, elementary schoolers. I seemed to have a knack for saying (mostly) the right thing at the right time. Problems were easy to solve, and solutions usually involved a band aid or a hug.

My daughter has always worn her heart on her sleeve. She's been a verbal kid from the very start. She started talking at a young age. As a young 'un, she followed me around the house to engage me in conversation. All of the time. And since she stopped taking naps before her second birthday, there was hardly a break in her chatter from sunrise to sunset.

Don't get me wrong - I loved having a kid who loved to talk. But I do remember my clenched teeth as I asked, for the hundredth time, if mommy could just have a little quiet for just a little while.

Things started to change when she reached her teens. Sure, she still talked to me all of the time, but the topics started to change from which shoes would be suitable for her Homecoming dress to should she change her major after two years of college.

Often, in the guise of imparting wisdom and a shot of reality, which I thought was my job, I would end up saying something that would send her into a fit of irritation and contempt. She'd accuse me of wanting to crush her dreams. She'd tell me I wasn't really listening to her. She'd tell me that I didn't really understand her and that I was treating her like a child.

I was often left frustrated, and so was she. Our relationship was untangling. I worried that we were alienating each other, and I wasn't quite sure why.

Then, one day, I had an epiphany. I wondered if maybe, just maybe, all she wanted was for me to listen to her, hold my tongue, and support whatever decision she was going to make.

I tested my fledgling knowledge one snowy morning. She found me in the kitchen sipping coffee. Her quandry? Should she risk her safety by driving to work when the road conditions were terrible and getting worse, or should she call off and stay put at home?

What I really wanted to say was something along the lines of you'd better get your butt into work - a snowstorm isn't really an excuse. Then, I stopped myself. I realized that this particular reaction was due to my own fiercely Puritanical work ethic, honed over the years in response to my particular neurosis of always wanting to please everyone, all of the time.

This was a decision she was going to have to make, and she was going to experience the consequences of it.

So I kept my mouth shut until she stopped talking and looked at me expectantly. I gathered up all of my courage and said Whatever you decide, I'm sure you'll make a good decision.

Then I ran away.

Something shifted. She realized that I didn't want to argue about this. I realized that I would be OK with whatever she decided. And a weight lifted, from both of us.

Of course, we still have our struggles. We're both women, with very strong personalities, living under the same roof. But I think, on that snowy morning, that we redefined ourselves, and each gave the other permission to reboot and start over.

I like it that way.

My secret desire

I harbor a secret desire. And it's probably not what you're thinking.

My secret desire is brought to my attention each and every morning as I apply copious amounts of product to my tresses and set off, once again, to tame my hair.

I secretly wish for a pony tail.

And I'm not talking about the pony tail I can now achieve - a sliver of hair caught in an elastic band and held in place by 6 or 7 barrettes. The hair style I resort to when I have chores like power washing animal cages or de-liming the bathroom tile.

No, I'm talking a pony tail where every single strand of hair is firmly captured in a jaunty scrunchy. A pony tail that bounces when I walk.

Kinda like Julia Roberts.

I recently watched a movie where Julia Roberts played a corporate spy. Of course, she looked beautiful - she's Julia Roberts.

Oh, and she was sleeping with Clive Owen.

In one of the scenes, Julia leaves an assignation with Clive, hair askew, to attend a meeting. While on the escalator, she manages to wrestle her locks into the perfectly shaped chignon that she sports in the very next scene.

She doesn't need a mirror, hair clips, straightening gel or a flat iron to do this. She's on a friggin' escalator.

OK, I know that Julia didn't really do this on her own. The director yelled "cut," and hundreds of stylists converged upon Julia, primping and fluffing her into pony tail perfection.

Still, I've always wanted to be able to attain just that sort of casual glamor. The kind where a woman looks stunning and makes it appear absolutely effortless.

How does the pony tail fit into this? A pony tail screams nonchalance. A pony tail tells the world that you're pretty comfortable in your own skin. That you have more important things to do, like steal corporate secrets and romp with Clive Owen, and you just can't spend precious time with a blow dryer.

Never mind how much easier the morning hair routine would become.

I've almost made it a few times. Grown out the layers to the point where I can get just about every hair into the elastic band. But then, I listen to the little voice that tells me 50 year old women have no right to wear pony tails, and I make an appointment for a haircut.

But know what? Screw that little voice. I'm going for it.

You'll know when I've done it. I'll be the woman casually pulling all of my hair into a band on the escalator at Macy's.

October is awesome because...

Just a few things that make me smile in October:

• Socks
• Sweaters (especially handy for disguising the jiggly upper arms that have been hanging around all summer)
• Sleeping under a down comforter with the windows open (OK - this doesn't really make my husband smile, but still)
• Beef stew
• Football
• Halloween
• Picking apples

Happy fall.

Just visiting....

Every so often, I visit my son's room. He's 18, you see, and shares information in monosyllabic grunts. I stop by his room to catch up on what's going on in his life.

Did I mention that he's an artist? An amazing one, in my humble little opinion. He works a lot with stencils that he cuts out of tagboard with an exacto knife and then spray paints. The stuff he can do with spray paint is pretty amazing. To me.

Apparently, the artistic life precludes any sort of personal hygiene. And don't even think about finding value in organization or uncluttered surfaces.

Once in a while, he brings down a few baskets filled with jeans, black t shirts and white socks. I wash them because that was the deal we struck - if he would just cart the clothes downstairs, I would launder them. Other than that, I have let go of any hope that he will suddenly transform into a person who actually keeps his room clean.

But his terror-inspiring mess does contain lots of information about him. Information that I wouldn't get simply by asking him questions. Or by trying to "friend" him for the 987th time on Facebook. He's now "blocked" me anyway.

Sometimes, he tacks up his personal to do lists. Well, to be more precise, he hangs his lists on the wall using black duct tape. They contain goals like "get a job," (he did), "finish portfolio" (he did) and other directives meant to provide motivation.

By reading this, I am assured that he is developing into a young adult who just may be ready to assume some responsibility for himself.

Other times, I find new work that he has done. Sometimes, his images are pretty darn...disturbing. Have I raised a terrorist?

I think of times when I hear him playing with the dog, times when he thinks no one is listening. He laughs in a delighted way and coos endearments in a voice a few octaves higher than his normal tone.

I remember that this is the kid who bought a stuffed duck at a garage sale when he was six and named it "Little Cutie." This is the same person who talked his father into wading into a muddy riverbank to rescue a blue heron wrapped in landscape netting.

Artistic friends tell me these images are pretty much stock in trade for emerging artists. I am comforted by that. I love this kid to pieces, even if I am never allowed to show it, and I don't want him to carry around a cumbersome darkness that no one else can reach.

Sometimes, a visit to his room will reveal song lyrics painstakingly copied and taped to the wall. Lyrics about depression. Lyrics about rage and about the "man." You know the "man," right? The one that has fucked up the world for every generation of teenagers? Yeah, he hates that man too.

Instead of feeling panic, I remind myself that he finds solace in words. That he is able to find comfort through reading and listening to music, cause I can relate to that. I was that kid, too.

He's got the normal collection of dirty dishes and spare change. Books are everywhere. He's got paintbrushes and colored pencils and an easel and lots of other things that tells me he's busy, he's passionate, he's committed to something beyond himself, he's envisioning his future and he's aware of his own talents.

I have no idea if the comfort these visits provide is just a grand illusion, one I employ to still the nagging doubts about the parenting I've provided him over the last 18 years. If nothing else, it shows that he is an interesting person, completely and irrevocably untethered from me.

I probably wouldn't want it any other way.

And I don't want your pumpkins...

Yesterday, along with 135 parents and children, I attended our school's annual trek to the orchard to pick apples. The weather was perfect - low seventies, the kind of bright sunshine that tells you fall has finally arrived - and I looked forward to a day of chatting with parents and kids and absorbing one Midwest autumn ritual that I hold dear.

Only once we got there, we were told that we would not be picking apples - the apples were almost all picked already. We could pick pumpkins and gourds instead.

I have always considered myself a pretty flexible person. No problem, I thought. We'll pick pumpkins instead.

We rode to the pumpkin patch in four wagons pulled by two tractors. Our guide told us all about bees and apple trees and the growing seasons. We could pick one pumpkin per person, or two or three gourds, or a small pumpkin and a gourd, or something like that.

My partner and I were the last ones off the wagon.

By the way, our guide mentioned, we're going to take two of the wagons back to the barn. Can you just tell your people that they have to walk back?

Walk back? We looked at each other. Walk back with toddlers and preschoolers across a pumpkin field brimming with vines and pumpkins and pretty uneven ground? Walk back toting pumpkins and jackets and cameras and tote bags and crying children?
No problem, we said.

So we spread the word. Only half of the pumpkin pickers could ride the wagons back. Everyone else was on their own. Most people happily complied - it was, after all, a glorious day, and it didn't look to be that far.

People remained cheerful as they trudged half a mile through the fields.

People remained cheerful when our promised donuts and cider couldn't be easily found.

People remained cheerful when the personal items they'd left on the disappearing wagon didn't turn up anywhere.

Because I am a semi-reformed people pleaser by nature , I always feel a great responsibility to provide everyone with a good time. So far, the good time was materializing. I remained cheerful, too.

However, I lost my precarious hold on good cheer when the owner of the orchard - an elderly Asian man - appeared at the exit and began telling our families that they couldn't leave because they were stealing his pumpkins.

The father of a three year old boy was about to lose his temper when I arrived on the scene. The owner kept repeating that since the two pumpkins didn't have a sticker on them, the man was stealing.

I thought I would easily be able to smooth this over.

"He's with our school group," I tried to explain. "We paid for a field trip and everyone is supposed to be able to take home a pumpkin."

But the owner would have none of this.

"He has two pumpkins."

"He's carrying one for his son. His son is three years old and can't carry a pumpkin all the way to the car."

By this time, a small group had formed.

"Children need to carry their own pumpkins. We have rules. Children must follow the rules."

The owner went on to explain that he didn't even know if we had paid for the field trip. He was just protecting his pumpkins, he said. He had a right to protect his pumpkins.

At this point, I felt myself getting perilously close to, well, rage. I practically shouted that I had just written his orchard a check. For a thousand dollars. I had the receipt in my pocket.

And thus began one of the world's most circular arguments. I should have know better than to engage. I should have.

Owner: Some people have pumpkins and two gourds. That is against the rules.

Me: Your tour guide was pretty vague about what we could actually take.

Owner: Kids have to carry their own pumpkins.

Me: You can't expect little children to carry a heavy pumpkin all the way to the car.

Owner: I have to protect my farm.

Me: Then you have to have a way to show that people have paid for the pumpkins.

Owner: My employees don't listen to me.

And on and on it went. I was aching for a fight. I was. I really, really was.

Suddenly, a kind dad walked over and spoke quietly to me.

"You seem to be getting pretty agitated. About pumpkins. They're only pumpkins."

Deflation. Thank God. A deep breath and I was suddenly OK again.

I knew we had been mistreated. But at the same time, I knew this man would never hear what we were trying to tell him. That's what happens to people when things (pumpkins) become more important than people.

At last, I was able to feel some pity for him. We procured a sheet of stickers and walked the entire orchard, looking for our families and putting stickers on all of their pumpkins. We told them that the owner was a little funny about people leaving with his pumpkins and to please make sure to show him the sticker.

Our moods lightened. Thanks to someone who took a chance and called me on my behavior, behavior that probably would have crossed the line to embarrassing in just a few more seconds.

Despite the day's events, I got lots of "Thank You" emails from families who attended the trip. They'd had a wonderful time. They were ignorant about our pumpkin battle with the owner. They went home with tired and happy kids and a couple of pumpkins to boot.

And besides, I know that this orchard will never receive our business again.