The Southern Snow Day

Here's the deal.  All of us in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, etc. we know the rest of the US has been buried in snow and bad weather.  We know this.  I have looked at the news and I have been mortified at the thought of having to remove 18 inches of snow off the roof.  The idea that it could collapse into the living room is beyond terrifying.  You guys are troopers and this year you are dealing with an abnormally crazy winter.  That said, I still feel justified complaining about 2 inches of sleet and ice in North TX.  Why?  Because we are caught completely unprepared for this shit.  We have been listening to the weathermen promising snow since we were 6 and most of the time it is a big fat nada.  That is why at least 1/2 of all the kids who had a snow day in Texas today went outside with socks on their hands.  You think I am kidding?  Imagine, that Saturday your kids were outside barefoot in swim suits pretending to be trapeze artists on the swing set.  Two days later the same kids who wish for just one teeny tiny little bit of snow all winter wake up and realize that there is exactly enough sleet and ice on the ground to justify a snow day.  First, you slam yourself against the door preventing them from running outside barefoot in their pj's.  At 7 & 9 it has been a full year since the last 10mm of snow and they have completely forgotten the proper protocol; which involves, lots and lots and lots of layers.

At this moment, we bribe the kids with anything we have on hand.  Hot cocoa, skittles for breakfast, anything to distract them from the white stuff between bits of brown grass outside.  We are buying time to look through every drawer, closet, nook and cranny to scrounge up the winter crap we haven't needed in 377 days.  While shoving the skittles in, we start trying on mittens that are never going to fit.  I don't know why it is always the toddler gloves that show up.  Well yeah, I do, that was the last time I was paranoid enough to try to shove coverings over their hands on a regular basis so there are at least 30 pair.  The closet under my staircase is a horrible place.  It is home to everything.  If the zombie apocalypse ever got in the house I would tell the children to hide in there because they would never be found.  Ever.  Sadly, this is the most likely hiding place for winter gear as well.  I start throwing pool noodles, backpacks and goggles in the hall.  I know I can only put them off for so long and it has now been at least 35 minutes.  Fuck.  Why didn't I get gloves and some sort of boots at Walmart Sunday when I was busy buying four gallons of milk, three brownie mixes and three cartons of eggs?  It is because people in the south won't spend one day without snacky cakes but we figure we can dart out real quick while the dog pees or to drag the trash to the curb in flip flops.  After all, we aren't going out if there is ice.  We have seen the news, we know what happens to foolish Texans who think they can walk or drive on that stuff.  They end up closing 75 because of those people.

Finally, after an hour of scrounging I have a giant mound of winterish stuff to turn my little darlings into mummy's with.  At one point Helen tells me, "Mom, everything feels stiff, it is hard to bend my arms."  "Yes dear, that means you are warm enough.  Go outside and have fun."  Of course there is no such thing in our closets as warm enough.  The rain boots are fantastic vessels for holding at least a gallon of snow a piece inside.  I do not know how they can get this much snow in their boots when there isn't enough to cover the grass but they manage.  There is a never ending cycle of people going outside, playing in the snow (aka sleet and ice), people coming inside, striping down to their underwear, wanting food, getting warm and instantly wanting to be re-mummified in something warmer and let back out to start over again.  This is a messy process.  One that drives my OCD husband insane who is also not venturing out on the ice.  This is how cabin fever starts.  This is why the Scandinavians brilliantly invented glogg.  We are fresh out of glogg but who says a frozen margarita isn't perfect for a frozen day.  And even if we loose power, I am sure I can shake enough sleet out of a kid boot for something tropical.  Día feliz de la nieve!     

Listen to your Grandma

I don’t write much about my Grandparents and my Great Grandparents but I think of them often.  They have in many ways shaped who I am and shown me what it is to live a full life.  My Mom’s Mom was intensely alive.  She was never old, full of mischief and happy until her last breath.  My Grandfather was deeply in love with her.  She was the beautiful girl on the War Bond poster he had been going on about for ages.  He ended up seeing her one night during WWII in the Panama Canal Zone.  In the midst of big bands, dancing, drinking, smoke and the sweaty tropics one of his pals said “Jack, there is the girl you have been pining over.”   I think from that moment on he was the happiest most grateful man on the planet.  Four kids and a lifetime later, I watched him kiss her goodbye and it was the most intensely loving moment I have ever witnessed.

My other Grandparents were just as wonderful but very different.  It never dawned on me as unusual that I grew up calling them Edison and Margaret.  Or that they did not own a couch but instead had modern white vinyl swivel chairs with chrome legs in the living room.  They were pretty modern for Bowie TX, but they were old school as well with tractors and ponies and one of those old black rotary phones upstairs.  Edison had lots of contraptions he designed and built himself.  He was always the one to put me to bed at night.  He would scratch my back until he fell asleep and started to snore.  Edison disrupted the airstream with his snoring.  Seven year old me would say “Edison, Edison, you’re snoring.”  He would apologize and give me a whiskery peck on the check and thud off to go snore in his vinyl avocado green recliner downstairs in front of the tv.  Edison was quirky in a wonderful way and he made the BEST coke floats ever.  His birthday is coming up so March is Coke Float month at my house.

All of this brings me to Margaret, who is actually the person I was thinking about this morning and last night.  I have a cookbook addiction.  I am pretty sure I inherited this from Margaret.  I think she actually made a lot of the recipes and was a fantastic baker.  I tend to just read the cookbooks and make a big mess with about twenty of them scattered everywhere.  It is great fun thinking about what I could cook outside my ten staple recipes.  Several of my cookbooks are from Margaret.  When Edison passed away we went through the ritual of going through photos and finding keepsakes throughout the house.  I wanted the cookbooks and Edison’s air compressor. 

So yesterday while planning our weekly menu I grabbed a large cookbook called Bayou Cuisine.  It is fabulous.  It is divided into an Indian, Spanish, English, and of course French section.  The recipes are involved and indicative of the way people cooked and ate 50 years ago.  In fact, they were so different from how we eat today that I had to look at the copyright date, which was 1970.  1970, it dawned on me that I was two and Margaret and Edison had come to Luling, La. where Mom and Dad and I were living for a visit.  Margaret had gone to a new and different place that she enjoyed and she was taking a bit of it home with her via this very cool cookbook.  I would have bought the exact same book on such a trip.  Margaret died when I was 19 so connecting with her now that I am firmly settled into adult life is a unique gift. I could imagine her trip to see us, and how much she would have enjoyed it.  While Grandma Sandefur was full of life, Margaret filled everyone around her with life.  She did this by listening.  Margaret was the single most engaged listener I have ever met and as a result, people blossomed around her.  When you talked to Margaret, she wasn’t thinking about what she was going to say next, she was experiencing what you were saying right there with you, feeling it, enjoying it.  I always felt so happy in the warmth of her attention.  I feel sad now that I did not listen more and talk less, although I am not sure she would have said much.  Margaret had chronic pain from rheumatoid arthritis and focusing on herself might have amplified that misery.  As it was, I never remember her complaining.  Now that I am bumping up to 50 and have an assortment of minor aches and pains that I complain about, I find this even more amazing.  She loved the people in her life enough to set her own issues aside and listen.

My word for 2015 is listen.  I didn’t even associate it with Margaret when I selected the word and made my manifesto back in November.  But now, I realize I am figuring out something she knew all along.  Listening connects us.  My kids are in heaven when my parents listen to their horrible knock knock jokes.  My husband’s clients are assured when he honestly listens to their complaints.  My friends are comforted when I stop trying to fix what is going on with them and actually listen to their frustrations and fears.  It seems like such a small thing but it is huge and hard to do.  This year, I am going to try.

Listen.

Listen to your heart.  Hear the love.  

Listen to your mind.  Hear the conflict, the worry, the doubt and address it.  

Listen to your body.  Hear what it needs, feed it.

Listen to the quiet.  Embrace it.  Let it unfill you of the clutter.

Listen to your soul.  Give it comfort.

Listen to your husband.  Enjoy the person he is.  Do not put words in his mouth.

Listen to your children.  Enjoy the people they are.  Do not speak for them.

Listen to your friends.  Enjoy who they are by listening closely to their hearts.

Listen to the world.  Hear the birds, the thirsty trees, the swooshy grass, the traffic, the wind, the sun, the night.  Here all of it and rejoice in being part of it.

Listen to your dreams and make them part of your life.

Listen to joy.  Let it drown out the anger.

Listen to possibility.  It is so quiet it is often missed.

Listen to the universe.  It knows a lot more than you do.

Love

Even from very early on in the girl's lives, love is the example I use to prove that things you don't see exist.  I sit here today, on the big day of love thinking how much it impacts our lives.  Of course this feeling actually comes from yesterday, not today.  Yesterday was a birthday party day.  Not some random kid, my kid.  That meant I had to plan it.  Anyone who knows me knows I am not a planner.  Every year about a month before each of their birthdays I get this big knot in my stomach just knowing, shit, I am in charge of this thing happening.  Phase 1, I don't even worry about something going wrong with the party, I worry about it not actually happening because I am a slacker.  The first few years I did the parties at the house and actually made the cakes.  I am not a baker.  After I made the poor decision to create castle towers out of angel food cake (tip:  angel food cake is structurally unsound, do not build anything out of it), I decided Target makes an excellent half sheet cake for $29.99 and I do not have to stay up until 4am cleaning a destroyed kitchen.  Target has also eliminated the despair of watching things slide in an unnatural way off a cake two hours before the party and trying to make quick toothpick repairs.  But why did I even attempt something I have no skills at? Love.

Love makes us do crazy things.  When I was young, love made me take up mountain bike riding to impress John.  I never stopped being terrified of even the smallest hills.  And to be fair to him, he has tolerated a fair number of museums which are not his thing because I love them.  The desire to be with the people we love is stronger than the dislike for certain activities.

This is certainly true of all the unpleasant things that accompany parenthood.  Diapers honestly never bothered me that much, other than again, I am not a planner and was occasionally caught ill prepared simply because I did not properly forecast the amount of shit that could come out of one 10 pound baby during a 3 hour outing.  No, my gross out thing is saliva.  Kids go through this whole phase when they try to kiss you with their mouths wide open.  They often cover your mouth, eyelids, ears, everything with giant gapping mouths filled with drool.  It is honestly at least number two or three on the most disgusting things I have ever experienced list.  Even writing about it I can feel my gag reflexes gearing up. BUT, because I love my children and knew they were trying in their very, very young way to show me affection, I tolerated it and tried not to grimace.  Love gets us out of our comfort zone.

I try to remember this with every party I plan.  I love my children.  This is getting my out of my comfort zone.  All those self help books say do things that scare you.  This is a silly thing to be scared of but I just did party number 9 for Helen and yep, all the same old dread is still there.  In my Hall of Shame I was 6 months late having a party for Lauren once and just combined it with Helen's.  The people at Pump it Up told me they had never seen a half cake before.  The second birthday moment to go on in the Hall of Shame happened yesterday.  I actually sent invites for Helen's class out to them yesterday.  I will tell you the return on 20 invites sent out the day of a party, 1.  I was actually extremely impressed with the one.  Fortunately the return on other invites sent out a week ahead of time is about 14/20 so it wasn't a total disaster.

So for the planning challenged, once Phase 1 is complete and I have actually reserved the place, gotten a lame email out to people in way of an invite, Phase 2 begins.  The "Oh crap, now I have to do things" phase.  Things like show up to the party with pizza ordered, all supplies, something to light candles with, candles, plates, drinks.  This is where having parties at your house during the early years comes in handy.  You can usually scrumage around your kitchen and find things that you forgot you would need as they happen.  This is impossible at a natatorium.  Which happens to be where the party was yesterday.  I have been spoiled in recent years by going to the places where everything is done for you.  You just show up and a little army of teenagers cuts your cake, feeds the kids, pours drinks, cleans up and and runs the time table with military precision.  The natatorium supply's a room for one hour.  It is up to the person hosting the party to have some party planning skills.  Of course the person in charge yesterday happened to be in the water playing chase with 14 kids instead of getting a cooler out of the car, getting the cake from behind the front desk, tipping the pizza guy.  I. am. a. slacker.  Things would be a complete disaster if I did not have such good friends who bail my ass out when I am in charge.  They took care of everything.  Seriously.  When I got out of the water I was dripping wet corralling kids to get them in the room.  When I walked in the room, everything was in there and set up.  I am crazy lucky.

Thanks to great kids and fabulous parents party number 9 worked out.  It is hard, it will always be hard.  I reveal to everyone how imperfect I am.   But, I am willing to get it all wrong because I love my kids so much.

Love is beautiful because it makes you grow.  It makes you vulnerable.  It inspires artists to paint, writers to write, musicians to muse.  It is the gift of reaching inside and doing things we never thought possible.  I always use love as my example of what exists in the unseen world because it is so powerful.      

The UnTexan.

I consider myself a Texan.  My parents lived in South Louisiana for six years or so and I happened to be born during that time, but other than tiny memories of picking sugar cane with my Dad, fresh crab and watery ditches in front of our duplex, all my memories are from Texas.  I love bar-be-cue, pinto beans and cornbread, George Strait, the flatness of West Texas, cowboy boots and iced tea.  I am bonified in all aspects except one.  I don't love guns.  I know, I know.  Some of you will stop reading because after that statement, I might as well be from Berkley.

The deal is, I remember the stoic old cowboys of my youth taking their riffles out to put the dog down when he got out and got mostly killed by a car.  There was no happiness in this, it was simply what people did who lived in the country and didn't want their animal to suffer for 30 minutes going into town to be euthanized.  It was a practical way to get rid of other critters creeping into the garden as well.  I remember riding in pick up trucks with guns in the gun rack and never thinking twice about it.  Of course these were also the days of heading down a two lane road with a Budweiser between your legs.  Shocking today, but probably no more dangerous than texting at 75 miles an hour in 5 lanes of traffic.  Sorry, I digress. The point is, there seemed to be more people who shot when I was a kid and far fewer people talking about it.  It wasn't a thing, it just was.

I was fine with guns just being.  The people I knew who had them were the same people who would stop on the side of the road to help someone who was broken down.  The people I knew with guns would tell the neighborhood kids to get a bucket and pick berries off their fence.  The people I knew who had guns just had 'em.  It was no reflection at all about the fear and hatred they had for 95% of the people on the planet.  When guns were part of the average household, I was ambivalent towards them.  It is when people started seeing them as a necessary defense against "the ever present evil in society" that I started to dislike them.

Of course I hate the crazy people who take their hatred out by shooting up schools and malls and movie theaters.  I want them stopped.  It doesn't mean that in response I am going to start wearing shirts that say "I am a packing PTA Mom.  Rely on me to go old testament with my 9 millimeter if I see an unidentified twenty-something male in the 3rd grade hall!"  It doesn't mean I am going to spend every Lady's night at the gun range honing my skills to kill the masses who are threatening me.  I am not going to buy a semi-automatic machine gun so I can shoot all the people who could possibly attack my car when I go buy groceries.  Even if my lifestyle warranted paranoia, how much life is a gun going to get me?  The gang lifespan doesn't seem to be getting longer since they are all packing.

The crazy in this world does not mean I have to adopt the attitude of basing my life on the fear of being attacked.   I would never want to be a person whose collection of weaponry and thoughts of protecting myself from the evil in the world consumed me.  That would be...well....crazy.  I would rather spend my time eating bar-be-cue and pecan pie, on a float in the middle of a pool, celebrating the fact that in the almost half a century I have been here, no one has ever tried to kill me, even when I have been a self righteous asshole.  I love life.  I love people.   Humans are going to kill good people and bad.  Guns are a very efficient way to make that happen.  That is why I don't love guns.  If ya'll think that makes me a bad Texan, well, I suppose I can have Tex-Mex shipped to Berkley.  

50,000 Carnations on the Bubble Gum Float Part Deux

So where was I?  Oh yes, the most fun I have ever had trying not to snore up lead paint.  You see I was staying with dear friends at what HDTV would lovingly refer to as a 1929 California Bungalow.  James and Rich had recently purchased this place and while indeed charming, she had a few years on her and was in need of some cosmetic surgery.  They took this adventure on with gusto.  While I was busy being ridiculously unsuccessful at managing my life, these guys were my age, renovating a house and open to houseguests.  What better environment for me to rebound under?  Seriously, going from Dallas in December to Pasadena California is in itself transformative.  Even the sun is transformed, it baths every plant, every human, every building in the most flattering light possible.   Everything simply looks happy.

So it was in the glow of happy that I arrived at the bungalow.  James apologizing profusely for his solid dirt yard, apparently the victim of a vicious chinch bug attack;  home ownership, the joy.  We walk inside and he apologizes for the lawn furniture, they haven’t picked out furniture yet and I think they have just finished redoing the floors, ripping up silly gross carpet to reveal these gorgeous floors.  I get the full tour, the house is cool and breezy.  It is California, I forget, they can open their windows without millions of bugs taking up residence.  Wait, hmmm, there do not appear to be windows.  James apologizes and explains the complexity of fixing 1929 panes in the 1990’s.  Not a lot of people do it, they got the windows off, started and apparently the craftsman working on fixing them has gone AWOL.  Now getting the original windows back on is proving difficult because everything shifted and now they won’t go back on.  He ominously states the first person to get up in the morning claims the one real chair in the living room.  I think to myself, I am the guest; I have no problem with plastic lawn chairs.  Not to mention I am recently divorced.  Recently re-employed.  And currently residing under my parent’s roof with a giant scarlet “L” tattooed on my brain.  To me, everything about their place was wonderful.  This is how it is suppose to be when you start life in your twenties.   It is exciting and wonky and I feel unbelievably lucky to be standing in the middle of it.  Of course there are going to be the chinch bugs of life killing your sod; but the upside to that period of life is that you don’t let a bald yard keep you from doing fun stuff.  You explore the cool coffee houses.  You eat at the new Thai restaurant.   The itinerary that awaited me would make the Prince and Princess of Windsor jealous. 

We started with a hike.   They had great hiking right out their front door but we decided to go to “real” mountains that were not far away. One of the downsides of being young and immortal is that you don’t think about practical things like packing trail mix and water.  In fact, you don’t pack.  You just head for the hills.   I think we got a later start than we intended, but the day was our oyster; we saw no need to hurry. James and I were flat-landers.  We weren’t thinking how quickly the sun falls out of the sky when it slides behind a mountain.   We started up and over, and talked and walked, walked and talked, and suddenly stopped to look around.  Wow.  It was later than we thought.  Wow.  It was getting kind of cold.  Hmm, we could not see the parking lot.  We had better start walking down.  Quickly. 

After about 15 or 20 minutes, the trees cleared so we were able to move to the side of the mountain and try to figure out where we were.   This side was fairly steep and rocky.  In fact, it looked slightly daunting, still, in our current predicament, time was not on our side and going down this way would probably give us an important extra 30 minutes of daylight.  We had no food or water, it goes without saying we had no flashlight.  This was the pre cell phone era so flashlight apps, gps apps, anything useful to knuckleheads had not yet been invented.   Rich took off down the side and made it look, if not exactly easy, doable.  He stood looking up at us from the bottom trying to give pointers.  I sat down on a large rock and could see my path down.  I had just climbed from the large rock onto a gravely section right below it.  There was something wrong.   The path I had just seen disappeared as all the rock that had been sitting there for God knows how long decided to go for a roll.  But it wasn’t finished.  I don’t know how to describe it but there was something that felt like rumbling underneath me.  I was in scoot position when I put one arm up to James.  “Something is about to happen.”  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.  “Just hold my arm with all your might.”  And he did, thank God because everything underneath me just went.

So back up on the big rock I went, thankful not to be in the new pile down below.  Now James and I opted to go the long way round and Rich was stuck waiting for us on the other side of the mountain.  The thing about hiking is that the first half is so glorious that by the time you decide to head back, it is too late.  The blisters are already forming.  The warm air has turned to a chilly wind that pokes at your chapped lips and sunburned nose.  Suddenly you are aware of muscles that did not exist a mere three hours ago.  The trek back could be completely miserable were you not in the company of friends.  James and I had each other to take our minds off these minor irritations.  Rich did not.  When we discovered him he was wandering around a stream trying to find his sock.  You really would not think a sock could get up and run away from such a tiny area.  Rich had walked in the direction he figured we would pop out at and there happened upon a small stream.  One can only wait alone by a stream for so long with fresh blisters without succumbing to the temptation to plunge feet into what Coors has always taught us is the most magical water on earth.   No doubt other creatures find them magical as well.  Like the snake, a.k.a. cleverly disguised stick, which caused Rich to drop his sock and run for his life.   We looked and looked for that darn sock.  Somewhere on that mountain I picture a giant glob of single socks, a memorial to the snake stick.

By the time we got back to the car there was only a tiny shred of light in the sky.  We were dirty and exhausted and ridiculously high on surviving.  I went to my cozy little room in the bungalow.  Ready to stand for hours under the shower head in the petite shower attached to my room.  This bathroom was a huge benefit to the house.  I think it started its life as a closet and perhaps the owners before had up'd the market value 10 fold by turning the house from one bathroom into the coveted two.   However, at this moment, the shower was working only slightly better than a leak.  It was hot.  I will give it that.  But the water only came out in a trickle so I had to wait to gather a handful at a time and throw it on different body parts.  I did get to spend my hours under the shower head but only because it takes a while to get hike filth off a handful at a time.  I lay down grateful for my sleeping pad on the floor.  James poked his head in, said something deep and meaningful about me being there.  My heart swelled.  Then he looked around the room at all the interesting white and silver flecks that coated the floor like snow all around me.  “Oh, try not to breath any of that in, houses built in 1929, lead paint.  We are in the process of scraping it all off.  Good night.”

In two minutes I was out like a log.  Not that I have any desire to go back to being under 30, but I would love to be able to sleep like a log on a floor, with no windows, no fear of intruders and lead paint all around me.  Now, the hoot owl in the woods keeps me awake.  A beep on the other side of the house wakes me up.  Peeing every morning at 4am wakes me.   Perhaps I would go back to my youth not to party but to sleep.

I guess this post is going to have to be a trilogy.  

16 Not So Easy Pieces

Back in October or the beginning of November, I am not sure, I have a horrible sense of time, Helen joined the 3rd grade Music Memory team.  Their competition was yesterday.  It has been a short ride on a fast machine to get to the certificate displayed on the dining room table.  When it started, I had no idea how much I would learn about my wise little 8 year old and her ability to listen fully.

My role in this has been mostly to provide opportunities for her to listen.  The music teachers at her elementary school have done all the heavy lifting.  They provided us flash cards, a cd of the music, a folder with information on each of the pieces and composers.  They have been working with the students twice a week before and after school.  And as I said, the girls and I listen.  We have the cd in the car and we listen to it on the way to school, to and from the Reading Ranch and back and forth to the grocery.  It has been a long time since I have listened to one cd non-stop over and over.  I think the last one was The Indigo Girls when I was in college or maybe Graceland.  I had forgotten what it is like to have a musical companion like that.  One that lifts you with its carefully placed notes that speak directly to your heart.  This was even sweeter because it was Helen, Lauren and I listening together.  We all had our favorites.  Lauren loves Pa Pa Pa Papagena by Mozart.  Helen loves the Cello Suite #1: Prelude by Bach.  And, I never tire of Copeland's Fanfare for the Common man.  

As time went on, Helen would say things like, "Listen, do you hear this part?  It sounds happy which is confusing because it is suppose to be a march to the death but it is happy.  That is how you know he is writing about a dream."  Lauren and I would learn these things and then we too were able to listen more fully with an appreciation and understanding that Helen was giving us.  She never did this in a bossy way, it would pop out as she would hear it, with understanding and clarity.  An "aha" moment where she connected what her teachers had taught her.  

It is a wonderful thing to share music with your children.  It is quiet connected time.  It is also the first time where I listened to Helen less as a Mom and more as a person interested in what she has to say.  It is good for both of us.  We are emerging into an age where she is becoming more complex.  It is important that I notice the changes in her tempo, rhythm and mood.

So, by yesterday we had been living and breathing Music Memory for awhile and as a result, we were pretty invested in the competition.  She needed to be to the high school by 8am.  I had visions of the whole team forfeiting because I failed to get her there on time.  Thank God, this was not the case.  She finished by 9:30am.  We were free until 2pm when the winners would be announced.  Mom and Dad came in for lunch and the ceremony.  Helen's piano teacher braved the chaos and was there to cheer Helen on too.  

I went into parent auto pilot, relying on all those things that have been said forever, "do your best, we are proud of you know matter what, you know this stuff like the back of your hand...you will be fine, eat your eggs and pumpkin pie so you have lots of brain power.  I love you."  We were very well prepared except that apparently we dropped her off needing to pee like a race horse at exactly 2pm.  Apparently I misread Helen crossing her fingers at me from the gym floor.  It was not hoping they would place in the competition.  It was hoping she wasn't going to pee in front of 500 onlookers.  Luckily the music teacher likes her and had a very sweet look on her face as she and Helen raced to the bathroom moments before the rankings were announced.  They made it back in time. 

There is something very satisfying about watching your kid sitting in the middle of a team they are part of.  All of them beaming with happy anticipation.  Of course up in the stands Mom, Dad, John and I sat befuddled by a wompy PA system trying to use our spy brains to figure out what was being said.  We knew Music Memory womp womp womp was happening.  Helen and several of her team mates were going to the podium.  We assumed since they were all going up, that they had gotten 5th place.  But something wasn't right, they were getting certificates and so were kids from other schools.  Still it must have been overlapping because it was all of Helen's team.  They started calling out 6th place.  5th place.  4th place.  3rd place.  Maybe Helen's team got honorable mention then?  2nd place.  1st place, Cheatham Elementary.  Helen's team got first place!!!  All the kids came up to the front carrying their certificates and being presented blue ribbons.  Come to find out, the certificates were for perfect papers.  Five of the six people on Helen's team did not miss one thing on their tests.  That is why they all came up.  They were receiving Certificates of Excellence.  Helen of course felt bad for the one girl on her team who did not get a perfect paper.  She felt bad for Cheatham's 5th grade team for getting 6th place because there had been a 5 way tie and they had not done well on the tie breaker so no one would realize that they had all scored perfectly on the first round and had originally tied for first.  Mostly though she was happy and proud of her team, her rocking music teacher and herself.  

We celebrated in McGurk style with Slurpees.  I am sure future activities will end in ribbons, tears or both but this will always have that distinction of being the first.  This will be the one where we fell in love with 16 beautiful pieces of music.  Where we realized how different it is to vaguely hear than to listen with awareness.

For my sweet girl who has reminded me how to listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCicM6i59_I

50,000 Pink Carnations on this Bubble Gum Float - Part Une

When I say that I have a reputation for torturing others with the Rose Bowl parade on New Years day, I am not kidding or exaggerating a bit.  Even in college where the New Year’s Eve festivities went on until 3 or 4 am, I would pop up in a hazy hotel room filled with people coating every piece of floor and furniture, quietly turn on the tv and rejoice in the floral borage through my hang over.  I would keep it as quiet as possible but I desperately needed to know how many 100’s of daisy’s, thousands of tapioca pearls, and millions of cranberry seeds were used on the animated butterfly on the Mutual of Omaha float.  I know, it is a strange obsession to have at 21.  I think most people don’t get the weather and tournament of roses obsessions until they have been on the planet at least 6 or 7 decades. 

Needless to say, no matter how quiet the parade announcers are in their perky morning personality voices, it is not quiet enough for 20-somethings on New Year’s morning.  I was fortunate to make it through this period of my life with friends.  Of course the next period of life was even weirder.  I married a guy who wore muscle shirts, smoked Marlborough’s in a gold and white package, drove a 1970 Chevelle and though I have tried not to say these words ever, when we first dated he did in fact have what could have been viewed as a mullet.  There is nothing wrong with these things.  But if you know me, this would be pretty much an exact opposite description of my soul mate.   I am sure I was the only one who was surprised after 9 months to realize this marriage was not going to work.  I put on the black hat and told this really sweet guy that I was riding off into the sunset without him. 

Nothing sobers a person up to adulthood like a failed marriage.  I was now a statistic.  I didn’t even have the excuse of getting married when I was too young to know better.  I was mid-twenties when I lost my mind.   I walked away from my marriage and my bohemian Wimberley lifestyle.  I decided it was time to start acting like a grown up.  I moved home.  I got a real job with people who did not drink vodka and smoke pot before noon.  So after Christmas I decided, what better way to embrace my new older wiser self, then to take a trip.  A trip to Pasadena Ca where one of my best childhood friend’s had just bought a house.  That is what I needed to ring in the New Year.  A trip to visit the person who spent hours comforting me when I could not admit to anyone else my marriage was crumbling.  The one person who would love me enough to be harassed into going to see the Rose Bowl Parade at 8am on New Year’s Day.

There are trips in life and then there are the monuments.  This was a monument.  When I look back, I am always amazed that the rock slide incident, the trickle shower, Coronado Bay, West Hollywood and the Rose Parade were all the same trip.  It was the most fun I ever had trying not to snore and inadvertently suck up lead paint.