Things About Change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things About Independence

I've been a single mom for some time longer than I have had a man around to fix stuff. I've learned a lot over the years about the things I can, and CANNOT do for myself, but it seems like it's a perpetually evolving process that needs updating constantly.

There are some real benefits to being a single woman and Doing It All Yourself.

For instance, during a recent invasion of slugs, and then when a hoard of Giant Hobo Spiders moved into my bathtub, I had the opportunity to up my bravery game and take on the pestilence, head on, sans male protector. I salted the heck out of 6 inch slime monsters and watched them melt like the wicked witch of the west, feeling powerful and courageous. And on TWO different occasions, I battled four massive hobo spiders in my bathtub, with only scorching hot water on my side. The horrific arachnids were so big they wouldn't even fit down the drain, so I had to muster my bravery and scoop them out of the tub and transport them to the porcelain aqua-mausoleum. TWICE.

GIANT hobo spiders. in my tub. showering has just become optional.

And then there is the Rosie the Riveter "We Can Do It" attitude that has me all cavalier and heading off down the road with my Thule carrier fastened to the top of my car BY MYSELF. Except it was fastened entirely upside down and backwards. Miraculously, the thing didn't blow off before I realized that it was on completely wrong, pulled over and reattached it almost completely wrong again. I feel somewhat brilliant that the right way of attaching the thing slowly came to me as I made a 500 mile drive, one step at a time. It's like rocket science, but easier. The 16 year old son-that-isn't-mine shakes his head in disgust at me.

The learning opportunities, folks. They're phenomenal. If I had some doofy guy around doing everything for me, correctly, the first time, think of all of the things I wouldn't learn.

My next undertaking is learning how to shoot. Guns. Real ones. All of them. And I feel kind of awkward about borrowing other people's husbands for lessons, so I am just gonna go out and teach myself. If this isn't the best idea I've ever had, I am not sure what is. I just have to figure out how to load the guns that I have to shoot. It can't be that hard. I will just YouTube dome do-it-yourself videos: How to load and shoot an SKS... What's the worst thing that could happen?

I mean it worked with plumbing. At least until I had to borrow someone's husband to finish the job I was botching royally. The text conversation went something like this:

me: *photo of toilet in pieces
Friend With Useful Husband: oh that doesn't look good
me: I think that one doohickey is the broken part, so Ima just switch it out. But I can't figure out where the whoozit in the left corner goes.
FWAUH: Hold on.
me: *girl from Ipanema instrumental
FWAUH: He says stop. Don't touch anything else. He'll be over after work.
me: I am pretty sure I can do it
Useful Husband direct text: STOP NOW
me: ok

Or there was that time that the hot water heater died. Like 8 times in a row. And I tried to fix it myself.

me to friend's useful husband (notice how the middle woman has excused herself): so if nothing is coming out of the hose and it's making a weird screaming sound, is that normal? Do water heaters ever blow up?
Useful Husband: BRT. Stop touching things.

Of course this is the same Useful Husband that I asked to check the trailer that I hooked up and was hauling home by myself. Guess the thing wasn't even latched on or something. Who knew?

Hey man, I tried.

Someday I should write a book called Useful Husbands and The Friends I Lost By Borrowing Them.

When I lived in Bend and all of my Friends With Useful Husbands were hundreds of miles away, I tried to rewire my dryer and in addition to nearly burning my rental down, I doubt I would have survived the 220 volts I tried to play conductor for. I placed an ad on Craigslist that went like this:

I NEED A HUSBAND

I tried to switch the cord on my dryer from a 4 prong to a 3 prong and I nearly lost my life and burned down the house. I am cramming food for 5 people in my tiny freezer because I don't have the means to tear out a bench to make room for my chest freezer. My six year old is dehydrating herself on a strike against drinking water because we haven't hooked the ice maker/water dispenser on the refrigerator up since we moved in and she insists that the only good water to drink comes from the refrigerator. I need a man, or a woman, who can re-wire my dryer without orphaning my children, make two ridiculously small cuts with a skill saw to take out a bench, and run the water line for my refrigerator. I will pay, or I will trade you for cookies and/or beer, and let you pet my dog, who feels severely outnumbered in a house full of females. If you need a really ginormous and comfy love seat, you could have that too, but either way I am terrified to make another attempt at being an electrician, and I just don't have the tools and/or time to do the other stuff. The last love of my life took all of my tools when he left, bless his heart. Please let me know if you can do these things for me at some ridiculously inappropriate time, since I work 7/ 10 hour days a week. I have the dryer disassembled, the new cord ready to go, and I have no idea what I need for the ice maker. Maybe you do. If you are lucky my 10 year old will give you her impression of a jump-roping pig while you are here. Someone licensed and bonded would give me peace of mind, but I am open to someone with experience. 

Please email me and let me know how much you would charge, and if I should make you dinner. 

thank you,
Liv

Out of that ad, I ended up getting a guy who ran a company called Aspen Building somethingoranother, and by his correspondence seemed less expensive than the only other email I got, from some licensed and bonded dude who, several months later, would end up being my next ex husband (that's a whole different tale to tell). Aspen Building dude charged me plenty for doing about 25% of the work, and proceeded to ask me out. Maybe I really missed something there. Or maybe I should have just tried it again on my own.

All in all, the fact that both I and my children have survived my solo flight as a "functional" adult so far is nothing short of impressive. I continue to learn, sometimes at great expense, and burn out friendships. Because the only thing worse than being a third wheel is being a squeaky one that needs to borrow your grease all the time.

In all seriousness, I am eternally grateful to the Useful Husbands and the wives who have loaned them with no grudge, as well as the brother-in-laws, dads, uncles, neighbors and friends who have saved me from my own independent capabilities more than once. I CAN do it, but it's much easier with someone who knows how.

Things That Are Fascinating

This morning a 9th grader, who seemed possessed with the imperative need to be on his computer before school started, was relating to me his new plan to develop atom transforming technology that can genetically modify cows, lakes, and heck, whole planets. He apparently had to get online to start researching the project. And play a video game or two. It will never cease to amaze me how some kids have endless creativity to either avoid work or circumvent rules, but when asked to apply the blossoming mind to actual academic pursuits, they are devoid of any artful thought or even basic brain function. Far be it from me to judge, the Master of All Math Avoidance. Heck, I guessed my way through a math exam to test out of all of future required classes in college and I lucked out. So here's to putting that developing brain to work, even if it frustrates the hell out of me during every period of the school day.

Yesterday I was informed by a senior that finishing her FASFA online was far more important than doing yoga in my PE class. Generally I would agree, except that I distinctly remember my high school senior last year doing her FASFA at home on her own time (check that - I think I actually did it for her), and if by 'doing yoga' she means getting that required PE credit in alternative fitness in order to graduate, then.... Perhaps we should reevaluate the statement. But again, A+ for creativity in Yoga Avoidance (yes it's so hard) and also, disrespect. Kids these days. Once again I cannot complain or judge as I recall a certain 17 year old all but cussing me out in front of a math class last year - a 17 year old that I had raised.

There is a difference though, in this generation of egalitarian youth who truly believe they are untouchable thanks to an overprotective, attachment-parenting society. My own daughter got school and social officials involved down in Oregon when she told her teachers that I would not provide her with lunch. The REAL story is that she spent all of the lunch money on her school account on treats and gatorades at the school snack bar and when I realized her account was empty I told her she could pack peanut butter sandwiches from home. Instead, she told her friends and teachers that I refused to feed her and her boyfriend's mom started sending lunches for her. Then the school counselor called me. We were tottering on the brink of a full-scale social services investigation, and the child that clearly needed a spanking had tied my hands completely. Thankfully that kid turned out ok and I think she's even seen the folly of her ways back then... We're a few syllables short of a full blown apology, But that's ok.

How to raise a child is a book that has never, and will never, be truthfully written, because there is no way to encapsulate the behavior of all children into one formula. Parents and educators and psychologists alike continue to chase the pink elephant of a one-size fits all approach to kids, and until we get the science of human cloning down, they'll be out of luck. I raised four daughters with slight variations of the same parenting style, evolving over time. Although each one will tell you they got a rawer deal than the next one, I have been the same mother - over emotional too often, angry sometimes, not nearly as sympathetic or affectionate as I should be - to all four of them. Their personalities, behaviors, flaws and strengths could not be more diverse if they had been raised on seperate continents. But the same creative genius for getting their way flows straight from my genetic makeup through them...

And then there is the 11th grade redneck kid who comes into my classroom every day during my prep period to sharpen his pencil for art class, trying to sneak so I can't see him. Sometimes he is tiptoeing silently behind my back. Sometimes he is plastered to the wall like a chameleon lizard, snaking his way to the pencil sharpener. Today he was slithering on the floor under the tables. The clonking of his cowboy boots on metal and the bright red stripes of his Garth Brooksian western shirt gave him away before he had entirely breached the door frame. I don't have him in any of my classes this term, but he is still hell bent on entertaining me whenever possible, and quite imaginatively. There are a few good ones left.

There is no limit to the human imagination but what age and social dignity call for. Luckily, some of us never find our behavior dictated by these norms, but live in our Peter Pan world - continually seeking out new ways to avoid the things we hate and attain the things we love in unorthodox and often impractical ways - if my four girls are consistent in anything it is this. I have succesfully taught them to believe that boundaries are the places that we learn to grow, to think critically and invent the rest of our story. In return, they have taught me the same thing. All of the most Impossible Things are done because they must be, limits be damned. And for what it's worth, I would consider that a win.

Things That Aren't Funny

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

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

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

Not Funny.

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

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

Also Not Funny

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

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

Ok. A little bit funny.

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

Things I Would Like to Ask

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

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

3. When do dogs stop shedding?

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

5. How do you train a wiener dog?

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

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

Aspen's locker room.

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

9. How do people have full time jobs?

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

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

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

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

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

15. Is running away ALWAYS the wrong answer?

Things About Frank

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things About Roller Skating

Natalee is turning 16 tomorrow. Sixteen. Sweet 16. A top-end teenager. Which means I only have one young kid left. The rest are all old.

For her 16th birthday party, we went roller skating. We took a good percentage of her class from school, along with some relatives and friends from other grades, for a sum total of 19 people, to the roller rink in Spokane, where we skated our collective buns off.

That's right, WE skated. WE including (but not limited to) me, myself and I. I skated THE WHOLE TIME. All three hours I skated. I swooped and circled, I chicken danced and limboed and even tried to do the cupid shuffle on roller skates, which is a terrible idea if I ever heard one. Especially when he says "freeze!" and all you can do is fall on your face on top of several small children who were in front of you and apparently know how to stop instantly on 8 rolling wheels of plastic. I was just happy during one sequence when I got a "hop" and a "right stomp" in appropriately. My left stomps always turned into a weird rolling recovery sequence of waving my arms foolishly in the air for several minutes. Turns out I am NOT an ambi-stomper on roller skates.

My ankles hurt within about 45 seconds of roller skating, which is important to note since my sister with the perpetually broken ankle and detached tendons, etc, etc, etc, skated THE WHOLE TIME too. She probably isn't speaking to me or anyone this morning, if she is still alive. I almost wasn't alive. If hips were capable of murder, mine would have killed me in my sleep. Instead, they collaborated with my lower back to exact harsh punishment on me today.

I am not sure which was more fun, watching the adults (i.e. me) flailing around like wanton scarecrows, or getting to witness my three nephews on roller skates for the first time ever in their whole lives. It was pretty much a perpetual dogpile with wheels on top. Roller skating is a sport where no one can actually take themselves seriously, which might make it my most favorite sport ever. Check your ego at the door, y'all. Even you - that middle aged couple doing constant couples skate routines - I see your potential for imminent disaster behind those clever hand movement that mask your instability, you don't fool me. Admittedly, I thought I was pretty cool at 11 years old when I won an Amy Grant record doing the Hokey Pokey at homeschool skate night. Far cooler than my sister who won Sandy Patti doing the limbo. Even homeschoolers don't like Sandi Pattie. For heavens sake. Did they think it was grandmother skate night?

The best part about it was that my Fitbit app says that three hours of roller skating burns approximately 1288 calories. One thousand two hundred and eighty eight calories. Twelve hundred and 88 calories. That's so many. I could have had two pieces of cake if I wanted. Why does running, which feels like torture, burn like 5 calories an hour, but roller skating burns over 400? Roller skating is FUN you guys! If it wasn't, I would have quit like 37 minutes in. But it's super fun! I would go every day if I could, and after awhile, I would beat Em at the limbo, win the races AND probably defeat my ex husband in a professional couples skate dancing competition (more on this, contact Josh Weston). Not to mention ROLLER DERBY!!!!

I drove home alternately whimpering in pain and plotting how to get a grant to build a roller rink in Northport. I am sure that somebody is dying to give away a couple hundred thousand to get kids and housewives off of the streets and onto 8 wheels.

Addendum: A friend of mine posted this on Facebook about the same time I posted this blog, it seems appropriate...

"That thing you want to do that makes no sense on paper that everyone says is ridiculous? Go ahead. Because I tap danced while wearing roller skates. So there." - Gene Kelly

Things I Can Give Up

It is the last day of 2015. It's monumental, I suppose, this 38th year of mine, a year full of change, turmoil and triumph, highs and lows, work and play... but it feels like a Monday. Like I have to get up and get stuff done as soon as possible. Maybe a night of heavy drinking will fix that.

I was researching the tradition of New Year resolutions for a story I am writing in the Silverado Express, and it was fascinating to see that the custom of using the beginning of the year to make changes, to repent and forgive, to purge and cleanse and start over, is almost universal, whether the new year celebration is on January first, on the Chinese lunar new year, or Rosh Hashanah. The underlying theme of new year resolutions is sacrifice - the giving up and letting go of anything that hinders us: grudges, bad habits, clutter... Even the sacrifice of pride that keeps us from owning our failures or forgiving the people who have hurt us, or giving up something we love for the greater good. This tradition is rooted in the Catholic tradition of Lent which requires church members to forego the eating of meat among other things for a period of time.

In the spirit of the season, I laid in bed for awhile pondering what sacrifices I would make this year (because it was a great excuse to lay in bed for awhile), at the beginning of 2016, to start the year off unencumbered and ready to get some shit done. So here is my list of things to give up. Things I don't need hanging off of me in 2016:

1. Ungratefulness - this is something that has come up for me again and again and again. I have so much to be thankful for, but I habitually resort to complaining about what I don't have. And it's ugly.

2. About 30 more pounds - which means leaving behind the bi-weekly habit of cheesy bread and beer. I am on the path... just a little more paring!

3. Anger at situations that I cannot change or control. I am pressing hard after a deep seated peace, knowing that I am exactly where I need to be to get me where I am going.

4. Worry about my growing-up kids that are no longer under "my protection." I need to trust them to the Arms of Someone more powerful than me.

5. Substituting things for people. I pacify loneliness by shopping, and all that results in is a whole lotta stuff and still nobody here to make me feel better. When the urge hits, I need to reach out to a friend or pick up a book. Hey - imaginary friends are better than credit card bills!

6. Fleas, lice, round worms, ringworm, and all other vermin. You are no longer welcome in this house. Find somewhere else to haunt.

7. Relationships that are false, shallow or lecherous. I don't need to be sucked dry anymore, and in the same token, I need to evaluate how I relate to others and always make sure that I am giving and honest.

8. Neediness: I have been given everything I need to be a whole person, without being dependent on someone else. I forget this every day.

9. Judgement - I have enough of my own failures to focus on without being distracted by the shortcomings of others.

10. Excuses: For the first time in years, I am virtually pain free. I am capable and I am willing. It's time to be the person that I want to be, without letting my laziness and apathy slow me down.

Things Unseen - Why to Believe, and Why to Push It

It isn't just that I've had a couple of gin & sodas. It isn't just that it's The Holidays. It isn't that my good friend who really couldn't afford it footed my bill at the bar, or that by some weird God-related coincidence some random weird guy at the bar knew that this entire day swirled around and came back to It's a Wonderful Life and referenced it to me. It isn't because I am a spoiled brat and throw a lot of fits. Even if all of those things are true, that's not what it is.

What it really is, is that It Matters. No matter how much I feel like in any given moment, that it doesn't matter what I do, what I say, who I see or talk to, it really does matter. Just like if George Bailey had never been there for Mr. Gower, you never know when just being there matters the most. And you never can tell how the one time you made cookies with somebody, or read them a book, or made them watch a ridiculous Christmas movie, could be something So Big in their lives that they never fully recover.

Tonight I was feeling sorry for myself after sending my kids off to their dad's house for a Christmas celebration, and then I got into an argument with kids that aren't mine about Santa Claus and Christmas and believing. Even my own kids chastised me this holiday season about being too relentless with the Christmas Movies and the Christmas Music and TRADITION. Other kids think I am just plain nuts in my Santa Claus dogma.

I don't know how to say all of the feelings in my heart. All of the frustration for the 8 year old who tells me Santa Claus is a lie, because his parents believe in the importance of  teaching him to thank them for the presents they paid for. Or because perhaps they are afraid that as he grows older he will think that his parents lied to him about a mythical being. Or the 17 year old who doesn't even the know the name of Santa's reindeer because no one ever bothered to tell him. I probably sound petty when I say that it seems horrific to meet someone who has never seen White Christmas or Holiday Inn, or who has never laid awake all night listening for reindeer hooves on the roof of their house.

What baffles me is how you can expect your child to believe in a God that you cannot see or hear but banish so completely the wonder and faith of believing in Santa Claus. If there is anything of value that we can give our kids, it has to be the richness of believing in what we cannot touch or see. It has to be the mystery of Christmas Eve and the wonder of Christmas morning.

Years ago, as I slogged through the mess of my own spirituality in the wreckage of my soul as I was living in a hell on earth, I wrote a poem for my mother. It was shortly after my Grandma had passed away, the Grandma who had told me stories of brownie kiss freckles, mermaids at Twin Rocks on the Oregon Coast, and stories of fairies dancing in the ferns around Multnomah Falls. She told me the legend of The Bridge of The Gods, the ancient Klickitat brothers who fought over a fair maiden and wreaked havoc on the villages and lands of their people, ultimately destroying the naturally formed bridge over the Columbia River. In Punishment, their father, the Great Chief, struck all three down and they became the mountains: Adams, Hood and St. Helens, standing as mournful sentinels of caution to the native people. My grandma, with all of these stories, taught me faith in ages that have gone by before me, belief in knowledge that can not possibly be proven, and she is the reason I will always love, and always believe in Santa Claus, and even more, God. Don't tell me that there is an unseen world but that you are the only one with accurate information about it, according to your badly translated book of stories.

Christianity is in such an all-fired hurry to shun traditions and legends that originate before the advent of Jesus, because of their "pagan" roots - which interestingly, are ALL of our roots. There is history before Christ, y'all. Deal with it. There were miracles and mystics, and if God is yesterday, today and always, then most likely he was hanging out with the pagans before Jesus wandered along. Our little box of religion that is a few thousand years old puts a lot of limits on an omnipotent God, who, incidentally created all of the cultures behind all of the legends and stories and mysteries.

Here is the poem I wrote, and the belief that I feel compelled to share with my children and any others that I come into contact with. Because this is faith. Because it probably matters. Because I think my grandma had it figured out.

I believe in things unseen

In brownie kisses and faerie rings

I believe in gnomes and elves

And pixies that disguise themselves

I believe in sprites and nymphs

Mermaids and mischievous imps

Little things we never see

That hide in toadstools, rocks and trees

I believe there is a world

Of unseen things as we’ve been told

With lots of different creatures there

Irksome ones, and some that care

Now I think I understand

Why Grandma told me faerieland

Was not something I had to see

But trust my heart and it could be

Although this world I cannot see

I know it is as real as me

This trust has grown throughout the years

Throughout the joy and all the tears

And things unseen have grown beyond

Faeries dancing on the lawn

To faith in God and heaven above

And giving unconditional love

for Grandma Schiffman, 1997

Things That Are Disgusting

I have decided that if there is anything gross in the world that it will happen to me. While I will spare you some of the more sordid details of my long past, I will bring you up to speed on the manifest disgust that I have had the pleasure of enduring recently.

It would be easy to just tell you to imagine the grossest things you can and then take it on faith that those things are going on at my house.

Say for instance, you imagined something as horrific as the idea of roundworm larva that live on the microscopic backs of fleas. And say for instance, that you imagined a demon-possessed kitten with the face of a miniature tiger that came to live in a house that was equipped with a dog door, and you couldn't actually keep the kitten out, but it brought these back-packing little parasites with it and shared them with All of The Dogs.

Then say for instance that the dogs, after a few months of chewing the obnoxious fleas off of their itching spots, swallowed enough with the happy little round worm larvae on their backs, that the little worm-eggs hatched out and then the dogs (and probably cat) all had round worms. And then say that the worms started crawling randomly out of your dogs anus on to the living room floor as he slept angelically. I mean just imagine that. Wriggling little white round worms on your living room floor. All around the vicinity of your dog's precious rear end.

And just imagine if the same cat who basically ruined your ENTIRE life, along with 30% of your Christmas tree ornaments which he flung wantonly off of the Christmas tree and into the waiting maws of a vengeful dachshund who got left behind on the last trip to town, imagine that this cat was also a fierce and ferocious hunter, and his favorite activity was bringing half-alive and all-the-way dead, and best of all, ripped-in-half baby rabbits and birds into your bedroom to tear apart and devour. Ripped in half, folks. Little furry halfs of baby rabbits. With fuzzy little cotton tails and hind feet. Under your dresser.

The carnage of an ornament. But slightly less gross and more photographable than anything else in my house.

I mean, I am sure you've already heard the horror story of the people with the kittens who infected the Entire 12 Grade School with ringworm? And also the story about the poop floods at Christmas time.  Or even better the poop floods and head lice! Those things? They all happen here. All of them. And more.

All of these things are of course survivable, as is the bean soup that I fed the kids with the drowned fly in it. It's just that I thought that throwing a splash of "vintage cooking" wine (i.e. I opened it last summer and then left for fire season) in for flavor was a great idea. How was I to know there was a long-dead fly floating in the corked bottle? The internal moral debate that ensued was tumultuous. I could have thrown the whole pot out in a paranoid frenzy. Or I could calmly scoop the fly and surrounding soup out and let it boil for a very. long. time. Obviously I settled for the latter. Mostly I did it because one of my loving offspring announced to me recently that I am the only one in the house who likes soup anyway, and I have clearly been force-feeding this terrible slog to my children against their will. Who cares if it had a dead fly in it?

The good news is that nobody died from the fly-soup. The worms and the fleas have been routed (God willing!?!?!), and there hasn't been a trace of ringworm in well over a year. At least not here, which means things are getting less gross, right?

Things About Fear

Last week the world blew all to heck. Literally. I have heard reports from the towns south of me, I have seen the pictures on social media to support the claims. In the dark, cold hours of the night, I could heard the angry roar of the wind, like a bear unleashed from a long captivity, wreaking vengeance on his captors. I imagined the giant dying tree above my bedroom crashing down through the roof. I imagined what many people faced in reality that night.

I was afraid. I was afraid for the daughter who lives in Spokane, where she listened to perpetual sirens as the giant trees fell like blades of grass around the neighborhoods. I was afraid for my youngest daughter and the entire bus full of middle school basketball players trekking back from a match across a mountain pass in the violent storm. I was afraid for all of my friends and family who were at the mercy of the wrath of nature.

The word afraid means "to be filled with fear or apprehension." I believe that fear itself is a gift, but to be filled with it is death.

Fear is an unavoidable human reality. It is easy to demonize fear and make it the enemy, but fear is often the one thing that keeps us safe. Fear is the only reason we don't leap unprotected from skyscrapers or dive unguided into the darkest depths. Fear keeps us alive, but it can also keep us from living. Fear, left to spiral out of control, can dominate our existence and paralyze us from movement. When fear fills us up, and we are afraid, it can monopolize our time with useless worry and wasted days of what-ifs and but-maybes. It can be the still small voice that tells us which side of the street to walk on, or it can be the screaming howl of senseless paranoia. Fear is a gift, but like any gift without moderation, can cause death.

My two oldest daughters are heading off in a couple of weeks to a country in a different hemisphere from me. They will be "alone". Traveling teenagers with no supervision during The Holidays in South America, away from me, out of reach of any futile protection I imagine I can offer them. It brings me back to the place I was in 2009, when I lay on a bed under a mosquito net full of holes and I realized that from my location in Northern Uganda, it would take me no less than two days to reach my kids back home if something went wrong. In that moment I began to panic, to regret my decision to travel, to hate myself for abandoning my post as sworn protector. But in that moment I also had to find peace, and the only way I could do that was by reminding myself that they are in The Hands of Someone who has loved them much more and much longer than I have. That even sitting next to me at the dinner table, they are no more under "my protection" than they are 10,000 miles away. They do not belong to me, they belong to themselves and they world they were created for. They have a reason to be here, and their purpose as human beings is certainly not to sit "safely" by my side.

I have to remember this when Halle is working all night on an uncontrolled fireline. I have to remember this when MacKenzie rides the bus alone in Spokane. I have to remember it when Aspen is at the top of Sherman Pass with her classmates in a windstorm, and when Natalee doesn't come home from a sleepover on time. I have to remember this when there are kids being murdered on college campuses almost daily, our Protectors in Blue are being killed on the streets, and there are terrorist threats close to home.

My delusion of control and protection over the ones I love I owe entirely to the safety that they have been granted thus far by a Power far greater than me. I have not kept them safe. I have not prevented their harm. The One who made them has sheltered them, and will continue to do so until their purpose is served. There is no other way to live life with healthy fear and respect for the dangers of this world, than to believe that Someone Bigger is in charge. All I can offer is wisdom and prayer.

In this ugly world of terror, surrounded by human beings intent on destruction, our wisdom has to be grounded in healthy fear and our fear has to be driven by wisdom. I carry a gun not because I am afraid of the bad people, but because I know they exist and I am not afraid to counter them if I must. I wear a seatbelt not because I plan to be in a wreck, but because I know that no accident is planned and I have seen the consequences of not using that protection.

One of my best friends is a police officer - I do not fear the real danger he faces every day but I do pray for his protection every shift. One of my best friends is facing health challenges that could be terrifying, but I trust in her strength to overcome anything. The things that we fear the most: death, pain, suffering... are the things that none of us can avoid. Bad things happen every day, to good people. Our only choice is to embrace the purpose behind the things we suffer, before the things that kill us and make every step count along the way.

Which is why I am not harping (very much) on the girls' trip to Brazil. I am trying very hard to remind them to be wise, but to not nag them to quit living. This world is so vastly different from the one I knew as a teenager. More connected, more open, in some ways better, in other ways, immensely more dangerous. But again, they fly under the Wing of a Bigger Bird than me, and I am thankful.

I am not afraid anymore. I am not filled with fear. There are fearful things, to be sure, but they do not own me. Like that night in Uganda, there are moments when I have to make the conscious decision to put aside my fear for my faith. I have done it a thousand times before, facing the suffering and the struggle to find the joy on the other side of fear. I did it when I  left a destructive marriage and a damaging community, I did it when I pushed through the nightmare of getting a college education, of single motherhood, of starting over in a new town. I do it every time the pager goes off in the middle of the night or I see the burning forest ahead of me. Fear is always there, but I am not afraid, and because I am not afraid, I have oodles of stories to tell. I can only hope the same joy for the ones I love.

READ: The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker, and Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales. Both of these books have been game changers for me.

Things About The Perfect Girl

Someone recently asked me if I was, in fact, The Perfect Girl. I quickly answered yes, if one is into moody, unpredictable people who drink too much. But if you ask any of the men that I have been with in the past, they would tell you otherwise.

The last year has been a winding trail of Dealing With All The Shit that I have semi-successfully buried for many years deep inside of my soul. I have been rooting out the lies and replacing them with truths, and every day it seems like there is a new one. Sometimes it's easy to get discouraged or bogged down in the endless, hopeless struggle, but sometimes I can look back on the progress I have made and I feel pretty damn good. Ten years ago, I would have agreed wholeheartedly with the string of lies that I have been fed. Ten years ago, I would have done anything to be whatever THEY wanted. But it's not ten years ago, and I don't believe the lies anymore. Not even the ones like these that have been spoken to me by people in my life:

"You're an underachiever. You could be so much more."

Wrong. I am fierce about chasing down what I want. Wrestling it to the ground. I have made concessions, yes. I could make more money, have a stable future, retirement, benefits, blah blah blah... But it's been a conscious trade off for the tangible liberty I have to do what I love and be with my kids and owe no one my soul. I am a mother. I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a teacher, an EMT, a writer, a hard worker, a partier, a pusher. And every day I go farther.

"You were irresistible when you were thin."

Wrong. I am irresistible now, you are just too shallow and insecure to be happy with anyone. When I lose "the weight", as you call it, as if it were a set of keys to be misplaced, I will be too good for you and your pettiness anyway. And the idea that you have that you got ripped off by having to endure fat Liv - it's garbage. Like you are.

"You're failing as a parent."

Wrong. I have made more mistakes than I care to recount. And one of my kids is barely speaking to me at this moment. But all four of my girls are brilliant and strong and capable and will be forces for the world to reckon with. I will not always be a best buddy to my kids, but I will always be the best thing that I can be for them. And all four of my girls love me. This is a confidence I never expected to feel. I draw strength from their love. That, my friend, is not failure.

"You're selfish and irresponsible."

Wrong. Ok, maybe irresponsible, a little, sometimes, but really, come on. I have been raising girls more or less on my own for over a decade on a shoestring budget. We've never gone hungry or cold or really without much of anything, and we have been blessed beyond measure to do crazy awesome things. I don't have much in my savings, but I can tell a pretty cool story, and so can my kids.

"You're a spoiled brat." 

Wrong. I can throw a mean tantrum, to be sure, but there is no question in my mind that things only go my way with a heck of a lot of persistence, determination and hard work. Yes, I like to have things my way, but I sure don't expect it to be handed to me.

"You destroy relationships."

Wrong. Meet my friends. My family, 89% of whom are speaking to me at any given moment. I am surrounded by people that I am committed to. Not people I agree with at every turn. Not clones of me with identical lives and tastes and experiences. I am rich with relationships that are non-negotiable in my life. That require work and flexibility and patience and tolerance in both directions.

"You're a lazy piece of shit."

Wrong. I am not even gonna dignify that with a reply. And get off my couch.

"You are crazy."

Wrong. Unless you mean crazy like, in a good, spontaneously fun and life-of-the-party way. I do not need lithium. I do not need a psychiatrist. I do not need you in my life telling me that my insanity is the cause of all of your issues.


I mean, when it comes right down to it, I guess I am The Perfect Girl. Not because I am flawless, but because I see my flaws, and everybody else's, as the choppy water that rubs the river rocks into smooth and graceful pieces of art. I have my share of weak areas and blind spots, but I am also hella fun. I like beer and football and trees and guns and wine and couches and sweatpants and long hair. I like food and music and traveling and learning and listening. I like doing, not planning. I like going, not wishing. I like to stay up late and sleep in later. I will never grow up. I like to kiss. I like to hold hands. I like sex. I like dogs. I like pretty much every animal I ever met, except a few humans. I like God - the real one in the rocks and trees and rivers, not the one in the Pink Churches. I like to dance. I like to sing, however badly. I like to make it up as I go, and while sometimes my life gets a little haphazard, it's made me a great problem solver. I am interesting and fun and often silly. What's not perfect about all of that?

There you have it, folks. Pure perfection.

Things About Being Home

It's july 28th. I've been home exactly a week from the Newby Lake Fire and 24 hours before that, Ireland.

In seven days, I've fought some major battles. The war isn't completely done yet, but I'm making headway into Enemy Territory. 

Day one was the ants. A quick google trip, a healthy dose of Borax, and getting rid of month old rotting food off the counters and I feel confident that I have the little bastards dominated until I leave for the next fire. 

When the carnage from that bloody skirmish was winding down I launched a counter attack on the dishes and laundry that were attempting a surprise attack from the Far Reaches. It took some mustering, but I think that after purginga both washing machines with a scourging of vinegar, and beating the piles into a mission, I can call myself ahead of the game. 

The next battle involved strategic maneuvering of resources to begin undermining opposing forces by some covert operations in the Big City, where I acquired materiel for the next course of onslaught and conferred with allies for intelligence that could make or break upcoming victories. This involved doctors appointments, lunch  and beers.

The next day was back in the trenches where I encountered the overwhelming sabotage of pets with health issues, fleas and GINORMOUS vet bills. I left the field bloodied and a little worse for the wear, but not completely defeated. 

After a night in hiding (I.e. Someone Else's house), I engaged subversive forces in the battle for control of my professional writing skills. There wasn't a lot of territory gained but I held my ground for future advances. Applying a few tactical tricks I have learned along the way, I managed to eek out some propaganda in spite of a fairly extreme case of writer's block. As a reward I met with cooperating parties for a Watermelon Blonde at Northern Ales. 

The next day I retreated from the frontline and basically hid in my bed all day long. I was finally able to lay to rest the outcome of Season 5 of GoT and slog through Season 2 of True Detective. Hard work but I pulled it off. It took a lot of popcorn and cherry jelly bellies.

Day 6 was a combination of intelligence gathering and reinforcement for the coming battle. I got a haircut, ran a bunch of errands, and buttoned up a story or two. And then the troops came home.

The Great Battle Started the evening of day 6 and continued into the morning, as we fought valiantly against invading head lice and a bedroom that was knee-deep, wall to wall. Being occupied by hostile soldiers, dishes and laundry were able to flank me and rush in for a resurgent attack. I was outnumbered and grossly underarmed, but somehow, by noon on day 7 the room was showing the hurt of our triumph and the head lice were all but routed. My one relief was the reinforcement delivered at the right moment from Papa Murphy's.

Avoiding "peace in our time" and persevering toward the goal of absolute victory, I launched a counterattack on laundry, forced my writer's block into submission for a couple more stories and even cooked a real dinner that Noone is going to love tonight, but might warrant a sneak attack on the dishes from turned Soldiers of the Opposition (i.e. conscripted children). Or it would, if the crock pot settings hadn't been rubbed off of the knob and my guess for the "high" setting wasn't actually the "warm" setting and the dinner had really cooked. Where are you now, Papa Murphy? There are enemies EVERYWHERE.

I am not convinced, in this heated moment, that the injuries I have sustained are not life-threatening, even though verified sources tell me that I am fine and a big whiner. But Dang, my shoulder hurts like a son-of-a-gun.

Also: I need a maid. and another fire assignment, STAT. 

Things That Make You Stop

I had an awesome weekend. I learned so much, met some great people, and slept in a top bunk, which is therapeutic in the same way as those weird shrinks who make you squeeze your way out of a fabric tube to re-experience birth. If you haven't heard of that then you aren't watching enough Law and Order SVU. I came home knowing that I would have a lot to catch up on. I mean, I have been gone for the last 23 out of 30 days, so if you were beginning to wonder where I live anymore, me too. It's almost the end of May now and my yard hasn't been mowed since April. Of last year. Ok that's a slight exaggeration, but it does look a lot like no one has lived at my house for four years. The good news about me ignoring my yard is that I haven't had a chance to kill the surviving raspberry plants that are back there defying the odds of existing in Liv's world.

I have had work to go to since I got back, which is great because no matter how much laundry I do, or dishes, or how many times I mop the floors, nobody will pay me for it and the Bill People don't like that. The downside of working when I am home and then leaving is that All Of the Other Things don't get done. Yesterday, before hitting it hard on a mission from hell to Do It All, I took a night off with the kids and we went to see Avengers: Age of Ultron. It was awesome.

So I came home from work today all psyched up to get shit done. Like, f'reals. This was after a long day of data entry, directing a bunch of eye-rolling sophomores in the school production of Mean Girls, and having my 17 year old daughter tell me flat out, NO, that she would not come home with me on the school campus in front of God and Everyone, then ride off into the sunset on a bicycle with her boyfriend. In my heart, I grabbed her by the hair and drug her down the sidewalk, but luckily my shoulder wouldn't have endured it, and I probably would have ended up in my best friend's cop car, parked conveniently 10 feet away from the altercation. Turns out that in spite of the fact that she is FAILING two classes that she must pass to graduate in three weeks, her dad told her she can run wild and free all over town with her boyfriend. Effective parenting right there, folks. Also: PUBLIC SHAMING.

Anyway, Aspen cranked up an odd mix of Frank Sinatra, Fun., Justin Timberlake and Pink and we started cleaning out the camp trailer that has been inhabited only by a colony of ants, a family of small spiders, and MacKenzie and her boyfriend over the last few months. When even got in on the spider killing action, and then we moved on to the back porch which has been doubling as a garbage dump/where we put all the crap we have no idea what to do with it, and let the spiders take over. We swept and stacked and tossed and hosed and got that junk wrangled. Then I cleaned the bathroom, organized the laundry room, washed ALL of the rugs from the floors, the shower curtains, and nearly every towel we own.

I was washing the trays from two food dehydrators that we discovered under a pile of cardboard on the back porch when it happened. I was bent over the sink a little and all of a sudden I couldn't breathe. Or move. Or anything. There was something that I can only compare to The Hammer Of Thor pounding into this spot in my spine and I was rendered completely useless. After a few minutes of dry heaving in the sink from the pain and planning my funeral, I managed to slowly twist down onto the floor, where I belly crawled out of the kitchen. I learned two things in this moment: my core strength could really use some work, and the floors need to be mopped badly.

I tried crawling onto the inversion table to "stretch it out" which ended with Aspen helping me get back on to the floor. Then I got on my feet in a very graceful knees-to-couch rolling twist up again and figured out if I stay perfectly straight upright I could finish making dinner. I did a stint on the foam roller which my kids watched in amusement, and Dagny thought was strictly so I would have a better ball throwing angle for her. Now I am in bed on an icepack with a bottle of wine.

I asked my sister if spines can bleed, because I am pretty sure mine is. She said no, unless someone stabbed you in the back, which we could, within rights, pin on MacKenzie today, especially considering I had just written a $50 check to cover her cap and gown and year book. I wonder if I can cancel that check?

I am curious to see how work goes tomorrow, and if they will send a wheelchair to pick me up because I can't feel one of my legs...

Things That Are Good

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

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

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

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

Things About Teaching

I have been subbing this whole week, which is good, since that means that I might be able to pay my bills next month, maybe. The cool thing about being a substitute teacher is that there is a  7/12 chance that I will be in one of my kid's or one of my not-kid's classrooms. This is met with any imaginable level of enthusiasm, ranging from "oh noooo (groan)" to high-fives in the doorway. Lucky for my self-esteem it's usually a happy mix of the two. Yesterday I told one of my (not) kids that I would take their test for them if they gave me one of their green chocolate chip cookies. I lied. But I got a cookie, so all-in-all, the breach in trust was worth it. I also recruited them to help write some stories for me, but since it was a English/Language Arts class, it seemed TOTALLY justifiable.

Today I got to teach a weightlifting class, which involved a couple of the "experienced" lifters from the senior class demonstrating their impressive muscles to the newbies. And I did 3 incline sit ups, which means I don't have to work out again, forever. Then in a history class that isn't really history but Current World Problems, we got to research conspiracy theories. The class was evenly divided between I-don't-give-a-crappers and Oh-my-gosh-did-you-know-Obama-is-actually-a-lizardman-alienners. I definitely lean more toward the lizard man side so I chose to ignore the crappers and read all about how Madonna and John Cusack are actually vampires. I am good at teaching this stuff. Also: did you know that Russia made their own Men In Black, but it's a documentary and therefore TOTALLY VERIFIABLE FACT?!?!?!? Aliens are real, y'all, and they are here.

Tomorrow I am back in SPED, and while I am dreading the poop fingers, I am relieved to be escaping the incline sit ups. I am not a fan of teaching any grade level of math, which is suddenly the only thing we do in SPED, apparently. So I am lobbying hard for a reassignment to Middle School, where the cookies are accessible and source-able (this is critical to avoid lethal exposure to all fecally communicated diseases).

The coolest thing about teaching at this school is that I live next door. This makes going home for lunch, a.k.a a nap, or a coke, or a handful of ibuprofen, super doable. It also means that I can look out almost any given window and see my house, and the bad dogs running around in the driveway, or the Mormon Missionaries that are knocking forlornly on my non-responsive door. The latter is unfortunate, since I have some serious raking projects in my yard that I could use some help with... they're always asking if there's anything they can do. I feel bad for never having anything, and then when I do, I am not even there to offer them reprieve from their boredom.

In spite of the obvious perks (?), all of this subbing has really cramped the escapist plans that I have been making since I got off of the prom bus Sunday at 3:27 AM. I was able to rush to town for a meeting last night, with grandiose plans after for green beers and shots of Jameson, but found myself home in bed by 9:30 like a good, responsible teacher. Working has also cut into my writing time, which means that the 37 stories I have to write this month will all be hammered out in about 1.5 days. To my editor (if I had one): I apologize preemptively. To the rest of you, if you want to hang out and drink wine and help me write 37 articles, not necessarily about Jesus or dinosaurs, hit me up. I will be awake all night.

Things About Having A Cold

I kept telling people that I was sick. Everybody else was, and it seemed silly that I wouldn't be coming down with it, especially when Aiden was dying of the plague and drank out of my cherry pepsi at the movie - or when Andrea pulled that one giant booger out of Calvin's nose and we aren't sure where it ended up. There is no way to avoid exposure, and hence, succumbing to the various and assorted community diseases going around. But for all of the times I have said: "yep, this is it. I am finally going down!" so far this year I haven't fallen prey to anything.

Yesterday I started to really feel it. I woke up with that thick stuff in the back of my throat and the sense of impending doom. But, having cried wolf often enough this year I decided to keep it to myself. Plus I had consumed enough beer the night before and danced for A Very Long Time, and it was hard to tell where those aches and pains stopped and the viral ones began. But this morning the telltale drip onto my pillow of an unstoppable nose sealed the deal. This time for reals, I am going down. It's almost a relief. Like giving into an inevitable death that has just taken it's sweet frakking time.

The thing about a good old fashioned head cold is that it makes you notice All of The Bad Things In Your Life that you didn't notice before. Suddenly the daily suffering you do is highlighted by an accompanying misery. Like the entirely long walk from my bed to the couch. It's insufferable. I thought I would never get here. And how cold the tap water is. It's like the water nymphs of Northport are trying to kill me with brain freeze. Or how flipping heavy a bag of pellets is. Brutal. Life is especially hard when you have a cold. The tap-tap-tapping of my keyboard keys and the snoring of an old hound dog are like machine gun fire raining down from a 747 about ten feet over my head. Why are you all so loud? And since when? My legs muscles and butt muscles and those little tiny muscles just above my hips that I had no idea existed are screaming at me about the folly of a dance marathon on the night before Viral Invasion.

Soon, Aspen will be home from school to practice her violin. My eyes and ears are already bleeding in anticipation. And thank goodness there are two weeks worth of leftovers for dinner because cooking would be unthinkable. I was able to get the rest of my stories written with only a few tears this morning, but I did quit an entire job because it just seemed like WAY TOO MUCH now that I have a cold. (Don't worry, it wasn't lucrative) Even my sweatpants are offensive today. They either squeeze my ankles or they aren't soft enough. I managed to put a bra on to go to the post office and remember why life in the outside world just isn't worth living. One more push today to deliver a check next door and then I am out. It's all about top ramen and Criminal Minds and probably some saltines if they aren't too crunchy - and since those are pretty much my favorite things in the whole world, it turns out that I don't actually mind having a cold after all. :)

if you need me I'll be right here, with Truck.

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 (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 To Prepare For

Yesterday I was the kindergarten teacher. Most of you are probably cooing in your heads about those cute little cherubs and singing songs and playing games. But if you know me, you know that I have great difficulty getting past the boogers smeared on each and every surface in the K-1 room, and really don't have much of an affinity for anything under 13 years old that isn't a puppy.

But today was good. It was much less germy than all of my worst nightmares, and  the kids were all remarkably well behaved. After surviving my first full day in the K-1 classroom, there are a few things that I wasn't entirely prepared for, emotionally mostly. So, out of the goodness of my heart, I thought I would share those things with you. Either to prepare you for your own K-1 experience, or just life in general, because everything you need to know, you can learn from a Kindergartner. Or that's what they say.

1) Just because they raise their hands, doesn't mean they have something to say. Be careful who you listen to.

2) The lead in a colored pencil is infinitely softer than the surrounding wood, and creates many tear-filled adventures around the pencil sharpener. Sometimes a gentler approach gets the job done more successfully. Or just use effing crayons.

3) Picking you nose and eating it never killed anybody. YET.

4) Growing bodies cannot be still for more than 15 seconds. Attempting longer term stillness could result in spontaneous combustion, violent seizure activity and/or vocal implosion. This is an ironic contrast to older people, who grow larger in proportion to their maintained stillness. One of life's many inverted relationships.

5) Stickers fix everything. (Tell me this isn't still true. I dare you! Dutch Bros has this one dialed in.)

6) If you put anything to music, you will never be able to get it out of your head. EVER.

7) Making kids stay in from recess for misbehavior is probably going to be more punishment for you than it is for them. This is practice for the teenage years, when anything you do to them inflicts cruel and unjust inconveniences on you, whether the kids learn anything or not. (I found a way around this as a substitute High School teacher the other day when I wrote my own dear daughter a yellow slip for her insolence [HA! TAKE THAT, SMART ONE! I CAN'T GROUND YOU BUT I CAN PUT YOU INTO DETENTION!!!!] Total win on my part. Sorry to the solutions lady at school...)

8) When all else fails, color. And don't be that one kid that will only use black. Because I mean, seriously.

9) Maybe the kinders can't read yet. But if you think about the fact that last year, the first graders couldn't read, and now they can actually tell the difference between the number 7 and a capital R, dude, they're working miracles in there. Be patient.

10) Every dirty little kid is a product of the people around him, for better or worse. Be the better.


It is my firm belief that every early elementary teacher should be nominated for sainthood or an insanity plea. The ones that work tirelessly for an entire career span are my personal heroes. Give me the blood and guts of EMS and the drama and intrigue High School or even unemployment and professional questionability, because I couldn't do it. But they do. Gracefully, endlessly. Day after day they shape our littles into the next workforce. The next generation. Our future. God bless 'em.