Take My Wife, Please

                There is one four letter word that gets my hackles up, believe it or not.   Now, I’m no prude – I love lively self-expression filled with colorful words.  Sometimes it takes one of those “Seven Dirty Words” that George Carlin embraced to get the point across.  Those forbidden words can serve as a sort of punctuation, providing the perfect emphasis or pause.   In fact, I love to swear. 

But this particular word, although the meaning is benign, has the connotation of ownership or belittlement that makes my skin crawl.   At the top of my least favorite word list is ‘wife’.  Now, I’ll admit right off that there are times when this word is appropriate when explaining connections between people, but I think this term is incredibly over-used and in most cases can be replaced by a more expressive word or just a plain old name.  For example, “John and his wife are coming for dinner.”  Does John’s wife not have a name?  Do you not know her name?  Learn it.  Names are always better than labels.

“Is this your wife?” asked after a manly handshake and hello.  “Sorry, I’m not owned by anyone, but we are married.  My name is Sharon.”  I know, I know – a petty complaint and a little ridiculous. No big deal.  You can say the same thing about the term “husband”.  You are right.  My husband, my daughter, my dog – these are all merely explaining a relationship.  Honestly, I don’t kick and scream every time I hear the word (but you might notice my slight convulsions when that word is thrown in my direction).

But HERE is the one use that gets my lips-a-curling and my fangs-a-showing:  “The Wife.”   As in, “The wife and I are going on vacation.”  THE wife?   You can’t do better than that?  I use 'the' when referring to objects.  THE glass in on THE table.  THE radio is on THE wrong channel.  THE poop is in THE grass.  Do you ever hear “THE husband” except when someone is deliberately turning it around for a laugh?  It’s almost worse than ownership, because it rings of resignation.  “This is THE wife.  I don’t claim her as mine or anything.  She’s just there.  She’s like the furniture.  THE lawn.   She isn’t even a she, she’s a THE.” 

I may not be writing the words, but you can bet I’m picturing all of those colorful swear words in my head right now, just thinking about ‘THE wife’.  Feel free to join me in this visualization exercise.

 Well, now that I’ve gotten that off the chest, I’ll get the child off to school and start the day.  

Happy Friday to y’all – or whatever day it is when you read this.

March Forth!

                I am lucky enough to call myself a Patches Pal.  If you grew up in the Puget Sound area in the 60's and 70's, chances are you are also a Proud Patches Pal!  If you didn’t, well…I feel kind of sorry for you because you don’t know what you missed.  Each morning before school I sat shoulder to shoulder with my siblings, squatting on the shag carpet in front of the big old console television giggling at J.P. Patches and all of his goofy sidekicks, like just about every other kid within sight of Mt. Rainier.  Always in the center of the screen was his huge Grandfather clock, complete with Grandfather’s face.  We watched that show, and that clock, until it was time to rush out the door to catch the school bus at the corner.

                J.P. Patches was the mayor of the City Dump from 1958 to 1981. He lived in a shack with Esmerelda the rag doll and his gender-bending girlfriend named Gertrude (played by Bob Newman…in fact, most characters that visited were played by Bob Newman) not to mention his pet rubber chicken named Tikey Turkey. Today is March 4^th, always a special day at the Seattle City Dump. Mr. Patches declared the fourth day of March as extra special because this was the only day of the year that stated a command, “March Forth!”

                On this day J.P., who some knew out-of-make-up as Chris Wedes, would lead a raucous march around his shack. Mr. Music Man would play special marching music to encourage us kids at home to join the march and celebrate the day.  Never does this date pass that I don’t march a few steps in J.P.’s honor.

J.P. had a constant parade of visitors such as Ketchikan the Animal Man, Miss Smith from Miss Smith’s Delivery Service, Officer Patty-Wagon and Boris S. Wort – the Second Meanest Man in the World.  You could see Bob Newman sweating at times as he juggled all of his alter-egos, costumes and make-up in one show.  Visiting characters had to be careful when leaving the City Dump, as most of them fell into a seemingly bottomless pit right outside Patches’ shack door. He often warned them, but they never listened.   We didn’t see them fall, just heard their call for help fade as the victim fell far down into the dump’s abyss.

The best thing about this old show was that it was live, mostly improvisation and slightly subversive.  There were so often jokes, aimed more at adults, that made the characters AND the crew bust-up laughing. We children laughed along with them because we thought we were supposed to, but  we didn't really know why.  Last night I watched an old episode with my family (yes, I have a DVD set – you can borrow it if you promise to cherish every moment) where Ketchikan read an old classic story to the television audience, “Henny Penny”.  We watched the Animal Man catch the giggles when he reached the part about “Cocky-Locky” and proceeded to laugh himself off his chair while the crew egged him on.  My stomach still hurts from my own gut-busting guffaws!

To this day I can't listen to the classic jazz tune “In the Mood” without thinking of Mr. Announcer Man (his theme song) on Friday mornings giving his weather reports and general advice.  Was there ever a childhood birthday that we didn’t sit silently in hopeful anticipation, fingers-crossed, waiting for J.P. to see us in his ICU2 TV Set, wish us a Happy Day and tell us where in our house to find that hidden special birthday present?

Calling all Patches Pals:  Please join me today in a short march in honor of our childhood hero.  If you don’t have marching music, just find a pot and wooden spoon, chant with the beasts in the Secret Room, “OO-GA-CHAKA!  OO-GA-OO-GA-OO-GA-CHAKA!” and lift those knees high.  And March Forth!!

My oldest daughter's first Halloween.  I had to introduce her to my childhood hero.  So glad I did.

Blame the Dog? Heck yeah.

(Warning:  Contains potty humor)

There are few things better in life than my loyal dog, asleep on her bed at my side.

And almost nothing is worse than her deathly gas clouds wafting over our faces while we drift off to sleep (or at least TRY to).

I try to feel empathy for her intestinal woes and be patient.

I try to breathe with one long exhale, in hopes that the cloud will disperse and breathable air will return in time for the inhale.  But that’s one Big cloud.

The thought crosses our minds at the same time – is someone trying the “Blame the dog” game?  Should I smack my husband?  Is he about to mistakenly smack me?

But no.  Although my pup, like all dogs, has no fleshy cheeks that rumble and flap with the passing of gas and usually are of the silent-but-deadly type, these gaseous utterances have a slight sound at the beginning and end - much like a capital letter and a punctuation mark on a sentence.  Definitely coming from the dog’s exposed brown star.

I peek over the edge of the bed and see that she is as disgusted as the rest of us.  With the squeak of another eruption, her head pops up and she looks toward her tail, nose twitching.  “Dang…” I almost hear her grumble.  “What died in me?”

I turn away from her side of the bed and try to build a protective cave of blankets around my face, which works well enough to doze off for a while.

Just two hours later, I hear my beloved dog whimpering to get outside.  She’s a good sleeper so I know what’s going on.  As I shuffle across the dark bedroom floor toward the door, I’m hoping that whatever is knocking on her back door will ease her intestinal pain, and our own discomfort.

At last, Goodnight.

Mission Impossible

              I’m on a mission.  Actually, at my directive, my whole family is on a mission.  Our sanity and health depend upon the success of this task.  Our job is to keep The Catling awake during the day.  She has become a Demon of the Night, and we need to suck the energy out of her during the daylight so that she putters to a quiet purr at night.

                These cold winter days are making this nearly impossible.  Being of the heat seeking variety of feline, Lyra the Catling finds a warm spot to occupy and quickly drifts off into a content dream.  Since all the dog beds and sofas are empty I am fooled into thinking she is outside playing or wrestling her brother downstairs.  But, no!  I walk into the living room to find her sprawled out, belly-up in a golden sunspot under the picture window.  When the long shadows of winter fade into evening, our gas stove works like morphine on her small frame.  Once curled up below the flames, the most movement we see is her brief joyful twinkle as she gazes up at the fire with pure love, as if the iron box was her own mother.

                What are the stakes?  Imagine yourself in a deliciously deep slumber, when a furry, purring beast, with un-retractable claws (a birth defect) that are as sharp as a box of needles, climbs onto your face for a love session.  She rubs her face on your face, and can’t help but give love bites to your nose and chin. When she is rested this session goes on and on and on.  You lock her out of the room, only to have her poking her paws through the gap beneath the door, pulling and scratching at the wood.  You give up and let her in.  She is quiet for a moment, but then starts playing hockey with the objects on your desk.  At last she gets bored and decides to play ricochet ball on the wooden steps with her bouncy balls.  The last game is a relief, because at least the sound is distant and happy.

Even Alfie the Turtle can't get her to move

                On a normal mild-weather-play-outside-chase-butterflies kind of day, Lyra’s bed-time love session would end after a couple of minutes as she falls asleep from exhaustion.  But these cold winter days leave her no choice but to sleep all darned day to leave her refreshed for a night of play.  I do my best to disrupt her daytime naps.  I pet her, poke her, move her, play with her, even drag her limp body across the carpet far away from the heat source.  But she persists and drags herself across the carpet to bask in the radiant warmth.

Lyra sniffing catnip and dreaming

 Today I attempted to tease her by hog-tying her tiny legs with my pony-tail-holder while she snored on the dog bed, but she didn’t even notice.  She merely smiled and stretched while the hair-tie sprung away from her toes. This evening I put catnip right under her nose.  She just closed her eyes and inhaled, dozed off and had the best psychedelic dream, ever.

                I will have to admit defeat today.  Tonight will no doubt be long and torturous for the humans in the house.  It’s a lucky thing for Lyra that she is the Catling, a diminutive runt so innocent, dimwitted and adorable, or she might be in big trouble.

Spoons - A Human Experiment

       

      Recently we left our teenage daughters at home for the weekend.  They were invited to join us for the little get-away, but as the semester had just finished and they were exhausted from finals week, they chose to sleep-in at home and laze around watching Netflix all weekend.  Before departing I took their grocery list and stocked them up with their favorite goodies to assuage my Mommy Guilt.  Then I put the dog in charge and left.

         My only request was for them not to go brain-dead on screens and to keep the kitchen reasonably sanitary by rinsing and putting dishes into the washer I had just emptied.  They pretty much pulled that off – at least to their own slovenly standards.

         What stuck with me upon our return, though, was not how they have become independent human beings and were able to cook and clean up after themselves.  Not the thought of how close they are to leaving our nest and becoming real adults out on their own.  What struck me was how many spoons they used! 

Not so many forks or knives, but every single spoon from the drawer was now soiled and in the dishwasher waiting for a steamy spa treatment.  The long-handled, delicate dessert spoons, the regular meal spoons and even the fat soup spoons were all used up.

If this had been just my junk-food daughter, I would get it.  She would just go from ice-cream container to yogurt cup to cereal bowl – I could totally see her subsisting on scooping food from container to mouth.  But this weekend included my health-conscious daughter who enjoys eating whole foods and creating healthy dishes.

Could it be that spoons are the only necessary instrument for eating and everything else is finger-food?  Are forks only required when eating with others and we need to appear to be civilized by gingerly piercing food rather than scooping it – in other words, when parents insist?  I do remember that my own childhood job was to set the table – eight complete settings that included forks, knives, spoons and napkins for 8 people.  On nights when we had chili or some other definite spoon-shoveling food, my mom would demand that I lay out the other utensils, even though there was nothing to cut, spread or stab on the table.

Let’s all try an experiment.  For the next week we will only put spoons on the table at meal time.  We will watch and see.  Will our families be able to eat all foods by scooping?  Will they even notice the lack of other tools?  Will we all decide to clear out our utensil drawers to make more room for scooping devices?  I’m beginning to understand that nursery rhyme a little better.  It is now obvious why the Dish ran away with the Spoon!

                

Grown-Up Playdates

Some days I just want to go back to preschool.  Life is good when your day is filled with plates of food arranged into happy faces, strictly enforced afternoon nap times and your most stressful responsibility is to put your toy trucks and stuffed animals into their proper containers.  While those reasons alone are enticing enough for me to put a time machine on my wish-list, there is a more compelling aspect of the preschooler’s life that I wish we had as adults.

Picture yourself at the preschool Lego table, minding your own business, building a most awesome atomic space rocket, when another short person walks up and starts assembling a stunning launch pad complete with count-down clock.  BAM!  You suddenly have a very-best-friend.  You spend the morning running around hand-in-hand, giggling at nothing.  Then at your request your Mom sets up a play-date complete with fishy crackers, juice-filled sippy-cups and piles of brightly colored interlocking rectangular blocks.  No political arguments, social faux-pas or religious toe-stepping to worry about.  Sure, there may be a squabble over who gets to smash the block tower or be the police officer at the pretend toy robbery, but as soon as the cookies and milk are served, all ill-feelings are forgotten and a new game begins.

Sometime along the path of growing up, maybe during the years of becoming “cool” in later elementary school or among the awkward growth spurts of the lanky and lost middle schooler, making new friends becomes less natural and highly over-thought.  “Will she think I'm stupid?” they worry.  “He’ll laugh at me.”  The invitation to 'hang out' may never be made.  Opportunity lost.  No new friend.

We adults have our stand-by friends and our co-workers with which to share a beer or coffee and some small talk, but wouldn’t it be nice to just see someone who looks interesting and say, “Hey!  Come on over and we can finger paint, race some hot wheels and eat mac and cheese!” without the fear of being judged?

In recent years I have found a way to do this without a time machine – become a volunteer.  I know that many of you figured this out decades ago, but I couldn’t find the right volunteer spot – I hate committees and I’m really bad at selling things or begging for cash.

 I feel extra fortunate to have a gregarious group of gals that I call my pals, and they have a habit of volunteering me to join them in all kinds of endeavors that help the community.  Since we run, we end up passing out water or awards at fundraising runs for awesome causes like Girls on the Run or organizations that support homeless mothers and children.  We have used our elbow grease to help other trail-loving groups build paths through our beloved hills.  One season I even became a door-beller to raise funds for the Healthy Kids Campaign at the Y – I was terrible at it and they didn’t ask me back, but it felt good to try and I did raise a few dollars for the cause.  Whatever the job, it can be a great excuse to just hang out with like-minded people and giggle at nothing.

At each and every one of these events at which I have volunteered, I end up feeling like the beneficiary rather than the helper.  My social group grows with the new friends I meet, these playmates stretch my comfort zone and teach me something fresh and I always leave with that glow in my gut that tells me “I done good.”  It certainly doesn’t feel like ‘work’ in the adult sense of the word.  I like to think of these commitments as Grown-Up Play Dates. And afterwards I

celebrate by arranging my lunch into a big smiley face and taking a good ol' afternoon nap.

One Moment Can Last Forever

I’m angry.  At nobody in particular, just mad that life can be so cruel.  And I’m frustrated that there is nobody to blame, nobody who can fix this and make it go away.   Furious that one split second in time can cause such devastation.

Now, for no good reason, our community has lost a young life, one so well-loved and full of potential.  A high school has lost a leader and a friend to all.  The hospital has lost a cancer-care volunteer. A college has lost an honors scholarship recipient and the world has lost a future doctor who had the potential to find many cures for many things.

A family has lost their heart.

When a child is born, that tiny baby fills a hole in their parents’ hearts that they never knew existed.  Although this family will now be painfully aware of that missing piece for the rest of their lives, that hole is not vacant as before, it is lined with years of laughter and tears, memories and beauty and smiles…plenty of smiles.

This young soul had touched so many in the most positive ways that her legacy will bring comfort the very ones that are hurting so badly today.  The awful, dark haze may last a long time, but at some point the clouds will part, just a little, and memories of her brilliant smile and young accomplishments will peek through to sprinkle bits of hope back into the lives of those who loved her.

As much as we desperately want to, we can’t fix this tragedy.  But we can reach out to folks in need.  Lend an ear or a hug, offer a meal, and be sure to keep the good memories flowing.  As one tragic moment can last forever, so will every beautiful moment and smile that she shared with those left behind.