Bailey gets her groom on

Bailey gets her groom on 

 

 

Does this look like a creature who cares about foofy beauty treatments?

 

Last week, I learned that the woman who’s been grooming my dogs for the past fourteen years is no longer able to groom Bailey.  Apparently decades of grooming dogs has taken a toll on her back, and she’s no longer able to lift dogs of Bailey’s size.

Of course this news comes at the time when I’ve finally managed to save up the $80 grooming fee and when Bailey’s coat is so overgrown she looks like a mutant chia pet.  Whenever she moves, a fine cloud of dog hair floats along behind her before finally merging into tumbleweeds of blonde fur upon hitting the floor.  This dog needs a haircut and she needs it now.

Like it or not, I need to find a new dog groomer. 

After googling “dog groomer” and reviewing websites, I made a few phone calls. The first two were no longer in business, the third was not able to receive messages (!!!), and the fourth, while farther from my home than I'd have preferred, seemed to be a suitable candidate. 

 

"Amber," the woman on the phone, sounded welcoming and knowledgeable as she reviewed rates and policies with me. 

I set up an appointment to have Bailey groomed in a few days.  Amber mentioned that they also have additional services available for purchase.

            “You can also get a relaxing mango facial," Amber offered. 

Hmm... my skin has been a mess lately and I could stand some relaxing.  A facial sounds nice. 

            "Your pet will enjoy the soothing, tropical scent.  Can I set one up for Bailey?”

Wait...they have facials for dogs?  Why would a dog need a facial?  Do they get stress acne like I do? 

            “No thank you,” I responded.  “I’ll just take the grooming appointment.”

            “But our customers love it and can't wait for their next one!” Amber was clearly sniffing too much doggy shampoo.

           “Um, I did mention that Bailey is a dog, right?”

 Amber was undettered in her enthusiasm. “We also have blueberry nail soaks…”

             “She likes to sniff crotches and lick her own butt.”

             “...which help to soften the nails and leave them fragrant.  Wouldn’t Bailey love that?”

             “I don't think Bailey cares much about fragrant nails.  She sniffs the cat’s butt, too.”

             "OK.  Well, how about a nice massage to melt those cares away?"

             "Now that's something I could really use!"

Amber giggled.  "I'm sorry.  At this time, our massages are only for our canine guests.  Shall I schedule one for Bailey?"

I looked down at Bailey, who was sitting expectantly at my feet, smiling her big goofy dog smile.  She's clearly happy just to be alive, and not bothered at all by acne, or stress, or non-blueberry-scented toenails.

            "Actually, we're good.  Bailey's good.  Just the haircut, please."

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take my dog out for a walk in the field.  There are rodent holes to sniff and pee-mail to read.  These are the things that Bailey truly  loves. 

No spa treatment required.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cold Showers: They're not just for breakfast anymore

I was having a good week for a change. Thanks to some creative money-wrangling, I'd managed to keep the family alive and well during our monthly mortgage-imposed Two-Week Period of Impossible Austerity.

While the other weeks of the month are financially tough for us, those first two, when our mortgage is due, are especially difficult. Every dollar of our income for that time goes toward paying a mortgage that did not used to be oppressive but which has become, due to higher prices and diminished wages, a bank account-draining monster.

There's no such thing as buying food or gas or kids' shoes or toothpaste during that first half of the month. There simply isn't anything leftover. This week, though, finding ourselves on the other side of the mortgage payment, at least until next month, felt liberating.

I felt better mentally, too. I decided to accept that our current state of affairs was probably the new reality for us. After dealing with the financial fallout from the never-ending Great Recession for so many years without a break in sight, a future without struggle seems unlikely. For my own sanity, it makes sense to make peace with the struggle rather than continue to fling myself at an unmovable wall.

If life was going to be hard, it was going to be that way whether or not I moped or fret or railed on and on about the unfairness of it all. The outcome was beyond my control, so why continue to worry about it?

I thought of my daily To-Do List as I turned on the shower in preparation of the day ahead. Everyone else had already left for work or school so the shower was finally mine.

As I stood under the water, I noticed that it just didn't seem to be warming up. In fact, the longer I stood there, the water grew noticeably colder.

Some days my brain behaves like an obsolete computer, incapable of booting up those neurons with anything resembling speed. It took several moments of enduring the increasingly cold shower before my brain seemed ready to dismiss the To-Do List in favor of solving this current problem.
And then, the terrible realization: we had run out of heating oil.

Indeed, it had been a couple of months since we last purchased it, and even then, we'd only bought the minimum of 125 gallons. We'd had to drain the remainder of our savings account in order to pay for it. At nearly four dollars a gallon, the price of home heating oil equals the cost of a car payment. And that's just to buy the minimum amount. Fill the entire 275 gallon tank and the cost easily exceeds that of our mortgage payment.

These days, we do not have the cash equivalent of a car - or mortgage - payment just lying around.
Although we've run out of oil, we've also run out of the money to buy more of it.

No oil means no hot water and no heat during a cold January in Pennsylvania.

So much for acceptance and going with the flow. Just when I think I've found peace with my situation, and that there may finally be a healthy way of dealing with it, the Universe is there to remind me of exactly how badly we're still screwed.

Facing relentless financial struggles has a way of forcing you to lose all inhibitions. Suddenly, selling off possessions or taking an odd job or asking other people for help isn't nearly as intimidating as it used to be. You do it for survival. You do it for your kids.

When all of the pain and uncertainty and embarrassment is removed, our days of challenge have a way of showing us the best in ourselves and in other people. I know that our family would not have survived this long if it weren't for the small kindnesses of friends, arriving at just the right time, at that exact moment when we needed it most, and for that I am overwhelmingly grateful.

As unlikely as it feels right now, I'm doing my best to believe that things will work themselves out this time, too.

"Everything is alright in the end. If it's not alright? It's not yet the end." - from the movie Best Exotic Marigold Hotel


(originally published on phillyburbs.com on 1/21/2013)

Enlightenment? Maybe tomorrow

Even though much of my life these days feels out of my control, I'm trying to be a better human being.  Stop snickering - it's true.  I realized that once in a while - OK,  maybe a lot in a while - I'm not as loving toward my fellow earthlings as I should be.  I often lose my patience when others behave stupidly, I can't handle narrow mindedness, and rudeness makes me crazy. 

Choosing to be tolerant when what I'd really like to do is smack the stupid right out of someone doesn't always come easy to me.  While I may not always be successful, I've gotten to the point where I don't immediately criticize or react to someone else's behavior.  Instead, I try to understand where they might be coming from:  are they having a bad day?  facing a difficult challenge?  just visiting from Cleveland?

So, as part of my quest to be more accepting of others, I've begun to imagine everyone I encounter as helpless infants.  Everyone loves babies, right?  They're innocent, adorable, and absolutely incapable of hurting anyone.   A baby's spirit exudes nothing but pure love until the cynicism of adulthood erodes it away. 

I'm trying to honor the fact that everyone doesn't start out as difficult or curmudgeonly as they appear to be in the checkout line at the grocery store or while shopping the aisles of Costco. 

I'm also trying to set a good example for my kids.  I tell them that everyone they meet was once someone's precious baby, deserving of our love and respect even if we don't feel like loving or respecting them in that particular moment.

The kids don't always buy it.

Recently, while running errands with Evan, we seemed to encounter an overwhelming abundance of challenging drivers.  I'm sure you know the ones:  braking for no apparent reason, applying make-up while driving, and - my personal favorite - weaving so much you expect they must be making a sweater.

Through all of these frustrations, I didn't react, choosing instead to remind myself that each of these drivers used to be someone's precious baby.

I felt pretty smug about my new enlightened attitude, thinking that my son Evan must surely admire my patient and serene attitude. 

And then, out of nowhere, a car cut in front of us and abruptly stopped, causing me to slam on the brakes in order to avoid a collision.  Evan and I flew forward against our seatbelts. We stopped short of hitting the other car by mere inches. "Whoa!" Evan exclaimed. "What was that guy trying to do?"

I was shaken, but did my best to remain calm.  "He probably didn't see us," I reasoned, as we resumed driving with Someone's Precious Baby in front of us.

Soon, the driver began swerving erratically from one side of the lane to the other.  I could see the profile of his head turn to the right and then drop below the level of his seat headrest.  He appeared to be searching for something under his seat. 

            "What's he doing?" Evan asked.

            "I don't know," I said.  "Maybe he dropped something and is trying to find it."

Someone's Precious Baby was quickly turning into Someone's Dangerous Nightmare as he continued to pay more attention to whatever was on the floor of his car and less attention to his driving.  A few times, his inattention caused oncoming cars to swerve out of the way when he failed to keep his car from drifting into the other lane of traffic.

            "Shouldn't he pull over if he dropped something?" asked Evan, already exhibiting more sense about road safety than the driver in front of us.

We continued to follow the distracted driver, although now allowing a much greater distance between our car and his.  If this guy was going to drive this erratically, I didn't want to become involved in an accident with him.

Both of our cars stopped at a traffic light.  Suddenly the driver's side door flew open on the car in front of us, and a young man in his twenties jumped out.  With the traffic light still red, he ran to his trunk and opened it.  He pulled two small torpedo-like things out and slammed the trunk lid shut.  Evan and I looked at each other, too stunned to voice the obvious questions:  what are those things and why did he suddenly need to retrieve them from his trunk?

            "Well, maybe now that he has his torpedoes with him, he'll be able to concentrate on his driving," I offered.

Not a chance.  The light turned green and Torpedo-man was once again back to fussing around on the seat of his car.  I could no longer find empathy or excuses for this man who drove so carelessly.  I felt helpless and afraid as I watched him swerve from right to left and back again, into the lane of oncoming traffic. 

            "For crying out loud, this crazy jerk is going to kill someone!" I screamed, having reached my limit of frustration.

So much for my plan to be a role model of tolerance for Evan.  I tried to correct myself.  "What I mean is, I hope that Someone's Precious Baby gets where he's going safely."

            "It's OK, Mom," said Evan.  "I think that even Someone's Precious Baby knows he's a terrible driver."

Evan was right.  Instead of tolerating everything, maybe the wisest thing for us to do is to recognize trouble when we see it.  The next best thing after that is probably to take a different route home, away from the crazyflakes.

We can always try this tolerance stuff tomorrow.

Mom finally gets a clue

(Evan, back when he only had eyes for me.)

My son Evan is growing up.

I know I shouldn't be surprised.  For some time now, I've been listening to the cracks of his pubescent voice as it searches for its new mature range.  I've seen his growth measurements on the inside of our pantry door move dramatically higher.  Soon, we will run out of pantry door to mark them on.  And let's just say I've become even more appreciative of the miracle of deodorant with so many boys in the house.

I know that kids are supposed to grow up.  As parents, our job is to keep them alive so that they can grow up and eventually move out (hopefully taking all of their stuff with them.)  If those rapidly disappearing groceries and too-small sneakers are any indication, Evan is indeed actively engaged in the business of growing.

Still, none of these signs fully prepared me for the day that Evan stopped waving to me from the school bus.

I've been waiting for the school bus with some or all of my three boys for seventeen years now.  The bus stop is right in front of our house so that means we're able to hang out on the front porch until the bus arrives.  We talk, or joke around, or simply see how far we can shoot our breath at one another in the chilly winter air.

As soon as we see the bus, Evan grabs his backpack, gives me a quick hug, and runs off the porch to the catch the bus.  As the bus drives by, I wave to him.  Until recently, he'd always wave back.

After a few days of unrequited waving, I asked Evan about it.

                "I guess you're embarrassed of your mom," I teased. 

                "It's not that," Evan assured me.  "It's just that now we have assigned seats and I'm sitting on the other side of the bus."

                "You can't wave from the other side of the bus?" I asked.

                "I don't know..." he said impatiently.  "It's just that everything is now... sort of... different."

Different?  Life didn't feel very different for me.  It was still the same work-family-finances dance that I've been doing for years now.  Day after day, I'm busy juggling those same precarious balls, stopping only to clean up the resulting fallout from those I've accidentally dropped.

While I've been preoccupied with all of this juggling, my youngest boy - my precious baby - was busy growing into a young man.  I am no longer the center of his world as I was when he was two or three years old.  There are other people and other experiences which have moved into that role, as they should.

The next day, I watched as Evan boarded the bus and settled into a seat mid-way toward the back.  There were girls sitting in the seats on either side of him and they eagerly started talking to him as soon as he sat down.  I thought of waving to him but didn't. 

As the bus drove away, he glanced at me.  I'm pretty sure I saw gratitude on his face.

Wishes for a Happy (or at Least Disaster-Free) New Year

 

Happy New Year!  I hope that all of you enjoyed the holidays.  Mine was lovely in spite of not receiving the World Peace I've been asking for since I was sixteen.  I mean, what the hell, Santa? 

Anyhoo, 2013 is off to a great start so far:  the kids are back at school, the house is quiet once again, and my sanity is mostly intact.  It feels good to have just the usual stuff to stress about rather than the dozens of additional worries that the holiday season ushers in. 

I always have such high hopes for each new year.  Each January 1st brings with it a feeling of bright and shiny optimism, bursting with potential.  Yeah, that old year really let us down (I'm talking to you, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012) but this one, THIS new year, is going to be when things finally turn around. 

So, before the alcohol wears off, er, I mean, before the disillusionment sets in, and while my cynicism is still sleeping, I'd like to throw a few of my wishes for 2013 out into the universe and see if they stick:

-  For starters, can this Great Recession/Depression/Whatever please end?  It's like an uninvited guest who keeps messing up the place and refusing to leave.  While the politicians remain beholden to  their own agendas, so many of us remain forgotten and continue to struggle.  Here in America, we shouldn't have to choose between paying the electric bill and buying food after working a full week.  We shouldn't be living one illness away from financial ruin or homelessness.  Something is fundamentally wrong with an economy that is content to allow the majority of its population to subsist as long as the stock market keeps humming along.   I pray that this is finally the year that people will matter more than politics or profits.

-  Speaking of politics, can Congress please just do its job without reducing every single item of legislation to a whiny-baby partisan fight?  If Moms ran the country, we'd know what to do to break the stalemate:  we'd count to three, and if the fighting continued, we'd take away their video games and send them all to the Naughty Chair.  The privilege of representing the American people should be reserved for those who will honor it and who will work for the good of the people - ALL of the people,  not just the wealthy, powerful, and influential ones. 

-  How about a year with no natural disasters?  Certainly, we've paid our dues in 2012 with wildfires, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes.  We haven't even gotten all of those sorted out yet, so a boring year weather-wise would be much appreciated.  How lovely it would be to have a rainstorm just be a rainstorm and nothing more! 

-  Lastly, can we please at least move closer to that World Peace thing?  Maybe try diplomacy a bit more and violence a lot less?  Perhaps a good place to start would be by being kinder toward one another.  We gain nothing by magnifying our differences rather than embracing our similarities. We're all members of the same grand club known as the human race.  It would help to remember that we're all just doing the best that we can even if it doesn't always look that way. 

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, peaceful, prosperous, and disaster-free 2013. 

"It's a turkey, Gertrude!"

 

 

I don't know how it happened, but Thanksgiving is next week. 

Next. Week. 

It totally snuck up on me, what with trying to keep all of my assorted balls in the air.  You know the ones:  keeping the kids alive, employers happy, animals fed, and bills paid.  Add in a hurricane and a presidential election and it's no wonder I'm a more disorganized mess than usual.

As I attempt to pull a holiday dinner together this year, I can't help but think how our Thanksgivings have changed over the years.  One of my favorite memories is of the time when my soon-to-be-husband Dan and I traveled to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with my maternal grandmother.

After we arrived, we learned that Grandma had not yet gotten a turkey.  Ignoring the obvious question of why didn’t she have a turkey already if she was having guests for Thanksgiving dinner, Dan and I offered to go to the store and buy one. 

Looking for a turkey on Thanksgiving Day was a much bigger challenge than we expected, especially considering that we needed a fresh, unfrozen one.  A frozen turkey would never thaw in time to cook.  Dan waited in the car while I went into the grocery store.  I made a bee-line to the back of the store toward the meat department.  To my horror, there was not a single fresh turkey to be found.  Not one. 

Should I get a chicken?  A roast?  As I considered the options, my eyes were drawn to a freezer bin near the meat case.  Inside it were smallish turkey-looking items.  I picked one up.  The size was perfect since there were only going to be the three of us for dinner.  As I checked the package for the little pop-out timer thingy (a necessity for a young cook), I discovered that my perfect turkey was really a capon.  A capon?  What on earth is a capon?  Oh well, it looked like a turkey and it wasn’t frozen.  It would have to do. 

I wanted to impress my grandmother with how well I could cook a turkey, so I immediately began preparing the bird once we got back to her apartment.  There was no need to tell her about the capon.  After all, it looked just like a turkey.  Who would even know the difference?  I cut open the wrapper, cleaned the inside of the bird, and seasoned it so that it was ready for my grandmother’s oven.  I was proud of myself that I knew how to prepare a turkey.  Surely Grandma would be impressed as well.  I couldn’t wait for her to take the first bite.

My grandmother made several side dishes to accompany the “turkey”.  I helped her finish the rest of the preparations while Dan set the table.  Just as we were about to sit down to eat, there was a knock on the door.  It was my Aunt Mary.  Aunt Mary was known for showing up unannounced whenever a meal was likely to be happening.  She was a tough, independent woman; the bold, feisty yin to my grandmother’s quiet, passive yang.  Aunt Mary believed that she knew everything about everything and no one dared to tell her otherwise.

The  four of us sat down at the table and took turns selecting our food.  After taking the first bite of her “turkey”, my grandmother paused and said, “Hmmm.”

Uh-oh.  Is that a good “hmmm” or a bad “hmmm”?  Did I do something wrong in cooking it?  Did she bite into the giblets bag? 

“What’s wrong, Grandma?”  I asked.

Grandma took another bite.  “This tastes like a capon.”

How could she possibly know that it tasted like a capon?  I took a bite.  I couldn’t tell any difference except that the meat was less dry than a turkey. 

Before Dan or I could say anything, though, Aunt Mary jumped to our defense.  “It’s not a capon, Gertrude.  It’s a turkey.”

Grandma took another bite and chewed it slowly.  “I don’t know.  It sure tastes like a capon to me.”

Dan and I looked at each other.  If we come clean with the fact that it is, indeed, a capon, we’ll embarrass Aunt Mary. 

Aunt Mary took a bite.  “This is a turkey, not a capon.”  She looked at me and rolled her eyes as if to say "your grandmother is losing it." 

Grandma wasn’t about to let it go.  After another bite, she was certain.  “Yes.  This is definitely a capon.  This does not taste like turkey at all.”

Aunt Mary, unable to contain herself any longer, slammed down her fork and shrieked:  “For crying out loud, Gertrude, it’s a turkey! What do you think, they’d buy a damn capon for Thanksgiving dinner?” 

Right.  Who would buy a capon for Thanksgiving dinner?

Thankfully, the identification of the bird wasn’t mentioned for the rest of the meal.  We talked and laughed and shared an otherwise uneventful Thanksgiving with my grandmother and Aunt Mary.   

The next day, as Dan and I were preparing to leave, Grandma thanked us for coming for Thanksgiving and for helping her cook the meal.  I could tell that something was bothering her though..

 “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head.  “I still swear that bird was a capon.” 

 

 

 

photo by Lisa Kern

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All was fine until the polynomials showed up

“Mom, I need your help with my homework tonight,” Evan announced as I picked him up from school.

Then, the words no parent wants to hear: “It’s algebra.”

Algebra. Not much scares me these days (except wolf spiders, poison ivy, and an ineffective Congress,) but algebra still paralyzes me with fear. At my age, I’ve forgotten much more math than I remember. In fact, I think algebraic concepts were among the very first things in my brain to shrivel up and die during childbirth.

Twenty-plus years and three children later, my memory of algebra hasn’t returned and I can honestly say I haven’t missed it. The way I see it, you’re inviting trouble when you allow letters and numbers to fraternize with one another anyway.

After dinner, Evan began to work on his math homework. It wasn’t long before he ran into problems (I know, I know…bad pun.)

I looked at his homework but it might as well have been written in Chinese. It made just as little sense to me.

I stared at the problems, incredulous that I’d ever been capable of figuring them out at any point in my life. No matter how long I stared at them, though, I could not remember what to do with them. Which do I solve first: the addition and subtraction or the multiplication? What about the x’s and y’s? What am I supposed to do with those? And what’s the deal with those tiny numbers that like to hang out above and to the side of other numbers? Those things are just plain annoying.

Why can’t math be more like language arts? If you can’t remember a grammar rule or how to spell a word, you can at least look it up in a stylebook or a dictionary. There’s no reference book for math problems.

I consider myself to be an intelligent person, but not being able to figure out my son’s seventh grade homework makes me feel uneducated and, worse, incredibly old. What would I forget next – how to tie my shoes or eat with a fork?

Even though I did not want to allow myself to be beaten by my son’s algebra homework, I hadn’t been able to successfully solve a single equation. Still, this wasn't my homework so why should I have to continue to struggle with it? I’d already passed seventh grade!

I decided to give up and tell Evan that I can’t help him with his homework. One of the perks of maturity is that we no longer have to be so concerned with how competent we appear to someone else. We’re more relaxed with ourselves and therefore less likely to feel insecure by admitting our shortcomings.

Or something like that.

While it’s probable that I care less about my shortcomings and more about not spending the rest of my night with an algebra book, I felt proud that I was able to drop the Supermom façade and admit that Evan’s homework was beyond me.

I couldn't abandon Evan, though. Solving algebra successfully would require the big guns, a secret weapon, and an ace-in-the-hole.

I asked his older brother to help him.

Who says I’m too old to figure this stuff out?