Do Empty Heads Weigh Less?

It’s finally happened.  I tried to stuff one bit of information too many into my head and instead of just refusing, it emptied itself of everything.  My brain contains nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Zippo.  Zero.  I have no words to write.  No thoughts to share.  It’s empty.  I am walking around with lump of vacuous flesh and bone balanced on my shoulders.

Before my unfortunate brain drain I’d had a brilliant idea for my next post.  It was so good I chuckled to myself just thinking about it.  I was excited to write it.  I was excited for somebody to read it.  But I was in the shower at the time and not at my computer.  The shower is where I seem to do most of my thinking and where I work out things that have been bothering me and where I review the day and solve problems.  And it’s where I do a lot of mental blogging and blog editing.   More than once, in the middle of my nightly shower, I’ve grabbed a towel and dripped all the way across our wood floors to the laptop to edit a post because the perfect word finally came to me, or I figured out how to make a sentence flow more smoothly, or the perfect blog post title popped into my head.  Maybe it has something to do with rubbing my head as I shampoo my hair that gets the blood flowing to my brain, but whatever it is, I seem to do my best thinking in the shower.   

I, of course know that wet, slippery feet and soapy water dripping from hair is not recommended for wood floors unless you’re trying to achieve that warped-wood look in order to break up the monotony of flat smooth boards.  I also know “electrocution due to a water-soaked keyboard” is not covered under my computer warranty, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t drip on both my floors and keyboard ― because if I don’t react to those shower-induced brainstorms immediately I will forget what it was I wanted write or what I needed to add to my perpetual list.   So when that “oh, boy, this is going to be a great post” idea came to me you’d think I would have grabbed a towel and slipped and slid to the computer or written a quick note on a post-it.  You’d think that, wouldn’t you?  I mean that’s my normal routine.  But no.  This time I told myself there was no reason why I couldn’t remember one simple idea for five more minutes.  Really.  How difficult could that be?  So I repeated my idea to myself four or five times.  Then I got out of the shower.  And I couldn’t remember it.

I should have known better.  What was I thinking?  I hoped I’d remember when I woke up the next morning but I didn’t.  I didn’t remember it the next day either … or the day after that.  A few days later I decided to put a notepad and pen beside my bed in case the idea came back to me during the night because even though I don’t mind running to the computer sopping wet, crawling out of a nice warm bed and staggering through a freezing cold house in the dark has never tempted me.  I figured even if the lost post idea didn’t come back I could at least jot down any crazy dreams I wanted to remember or any other new blog post ideas that may come to me in the wee hours of the night.  And a small notebook close to the shower seemed more sensible than dripping all the way out the bathroom, through the bedroom, down the hall, through the kitchen, to the dining room where the laptop has become a permanent guest at our dining room table.  

It’s been about a week and a half now and that missing blog post idea still nags at me.  It’s been almost a week since I carefully placed that notebook on my bedside table confident I would be filling it with all kinds of “perfect” words, thought-provoking blog post ideas, or maybe even details about the crazy dreams I’ve had so instead of telling Dean “I had a dream that went on for two hours and I think there was a hedgehog and popsicles and I think I was lost in a tunnel and I think you were there but you might have been hunting the hedgehog and I think the popsicle was dancing”, I could tell him I know there was a hedgehog but he wasn't hunting it because he was dancing with the popsicle.  I would know this because I would have written it down.   But that has not happened.  Instead … nothing has happened.  The notebook lies there patiently, clutching the pen, waiting for me to jump out of the shower, hair bubbly with shampoo and head bubbling with ideas.  It stares at me all night long, daring me to dream something crazy and scribble it down.  But I have had no dreams to remember and no thoughts to write.  

That’s not quite right.  I do have one thought.  I'm beginning to think it wasn’t that last bit of trifling information I tried to shove in my brain that emptied my head.  I'm beginning to think that innocent-looking little notebook, lying on the table is sucking my brain dry.  I'm beginning to think I have notebook’s block.

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Do Empty Heads Weigh Less?

“When birds burp, it must taste like bugs.” ~~ Watterson

Being a parent has been rewarding in a myriad of ways, not the least of which is the comfort of knowing my daughters will be hovering over me, anxious to scrub my dentures and cut my toenails when I am old and feeble.  However, after Leslie and Ryan became parents themselves, I learned the ultimate, all-time best part of being a parent is the joy of guilt-free grandchild spoiling.  “Have another cookie, Emerson.  What?!  Only one Popsicle, Myra?   Are you sure, Pierce?  Don’t you want whipped cream along with the chocolate and sprinkles on your ice cream?”   

In order to fulfill my duty as a Nada I FINALLY finished a baby quilt for Pierce.

Technically, it isn’t really a baby quilt anymore since he’s almost five years old but it’s not because I hadn't been working hard on it.

It’s just that I couldn’t start Pierce’s quilt until I’d finished Myra’s ...

which I couldn’t start until I’d finished Emerson’s. And it takes me forever to make a quilt because sewing machines hate me almost as much as I hate them, so I make my quilts completely by hand which limits the length of time I can quilt during a sitting because after a kajillion pinpricks in my fingers they start bleeding.   And even though blood comes off nicely with a little spit and rubbing I only have so much spit.  Anyway, as I’ve been pricking and bleeding and spitting and rubbing on Pierce’s quilt, I’ve been thinking about grandkids and kids and parenting.

Back when I told my parents I was pregnant with their first grandchild I remember seeing surprised faces and then big grins.  The big grins surprised me ― until I had grandchildren of my own.  The surprised look however, was easy to understand because during my first six years of marriage I had repeatedly stated I was “never going to have children.”  Turns out my biological clock and the baby lust gene had conspired together to make a liar out of me.  Dean was so busy trying to get through school I don’t think he realized completely that whether or not he wanted to be a father had no bearing on the matter at hand.

At least he had control over one thing ― the sex of this new human being I felt compelled to create. Not that I didn't wish I could also control the gender of this future child.  I was (and still am) a control freak but that wasn't the only reason.  It was just that I didn’t know a lot about little boys and they kind of scared me, so I wanted my babies to be girls.  Thanks to the wonder of magic ― the slow rotation of my wedding ring suspended from a string above my belly (Leslie) and a colorless concoction of urine and draino (Abby) ― I knew early on that I would be having girls.

I already knew how I wanted to raise my girls because previous to being infected with baby lust I’d watched women burning their bras on the news and listened to Helen Reddy roar.  I’d been told that women were not only equal to men; they had the right to control their own bodies.  And the pill was there to help.  I wasn’t one of those bra-burning feminists (I couldn’t burn what I didn’t own) but I was determined my daughters would believe they were equal to their male counterparts.   I wanted them to open themselves to love and find someone to share their lives with, but I also wanted them to have the skills to stand on their own if they needed or chose to.  I wanted to raise happy, intelligent, secure and open-minded young women who, when the time came, would be confident enough to dive head first out of the nest, spread their wings, fly off and build their own nests.   And dang it, long before I was ready, faces beaming, they did just that.  But even though my nest was empty except for a diminished bank account, bathroom drains clogged with long hair, and walls shiny from hairspray, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

And then … there were grandchildren.

Leslie and Ryan were more considerate than I had been and didn’t make us wait six years for our first, then second grandchild.   Abby and Jorge were just as considerate.  Their nest just happens to be filled with an iguana hunting cat and dog.  And then one day Leslie called to say Emerson and Myra were going to have a brother.   I still didn’t know anything about little boys so I was a little anxious.  I knew how to play with little girls and dogs and cats but my only experience with little boys was the brother I did my best to avoid.  When I was writing my angst-ridden thoughts in a diary, he was scribbling on the wall.  While my pale, white-knuckled father rode along as I was learning to drive, my brother was “burning” rubber on his bike.  The only time I remember playing with him was the time I yelled, “Hey, Mikey!  Come over and I’ll lie on my back, you sit on my feet and I’ll shoot you into the air like a rocket.”  That was actually quite a bit of fun  ―  until he broke his arm.

I was worried I wouldn’t know how to play with this new grandson.  It was one thing to break my brother’s arm but it would be quite another if I had to tell Leslie I had snapped her son’s arm in two.  Ryan's mom told me all I needed to know was how to push a toy car back and forth and say “vroom! vroom!”  It turned out she was right.  I even added “beep! beep!”  Now, after almost five years of playing with Pierce I can say with complete confidence that playing with little boys is absolutely, no doubt about it, positively, unequivocally  ―  completely different than playing with girls.  Every stick is a sword or a gun, every towel is a superhero cape, every rock is a projectile, every stair/table/couch/chair is a launching pad.  Every tree/leg/banister/fence/wall/doorway must be scaled.  And absolutely everything you do requires its own unique sound effect.  Everything.  My sound effects repertoire now includes planes taking off and landing, monsters roaring, dinosaurs doing whatever dinosaurs do, pirates arrrrrging, guns shooting, super heroes flying, trucks careening around corners, trains choo-chooing and oh, gosh, the list is endless.  If I don’t know how to make a sound Pierce shows me.  We’re doing okay.

Years from now, when it's still too soon for Leslie and Ryan, but exactly the right time for Emerson and Myra and Pierce, they will launch themselves into the world and all the adventures it has to offer. They will soar and dip and dive with joy and excitement just like the Wren, and the Jay and the Kestrel.  Leslie and Ryan will watch with hearts simultaneously bursting with pride and aching with loss, just like we did.  And maybe some day they will also have big grins on their faces, just like we did.  I only hope all of their birdies choose to build their nests a little lot closer than Ecuador. 

There are 2 lasting bequests we can give our children; one is roots.  The other is wings. ~ Hodding Carter, Jr.

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“When birds burp, it must taste like bugs.” ~~ Watterson

Protego Horribilis!

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Protego Horribilis!

Grub On A Wire

It’s funny how things sometimes just drop in your lap.  I’d been trying to figure out how to write about our recent trip to see friends in Yuma, Arizona without being responsible for bruised foreheads or electrical shock due to heads and drool meeting keyboards and then yesterday I saw this. You may wonder how words on a watch list have anything at all to do with a mid-winter break from snow and cold.  What would a watch list have to do with drinking pina coladas, beer and wine on a patio with friends?  How would a watch list be remotely related to the freeing of our piggies from wool socks?  And how could baking out the rest of the virus I’d been sick with be connected in any way to a watch list?  Here’s the thing.  If you’re drinking pina coladas and wine and beer, soaking up the heat, watching that one cloud in the sky, you need to get some exercise so you can drink more pina coladas and wine and beer.

So we did a lot of hiking.













 

And every day as we drove out of town to go hiking we saw a white maggot-shaped object floating high in the sky.  It was as spooky as a word watch list.

We didn’t know what it was but it was always there.  Every day.  It sometimes faced a different direction but it never moved.  We couldn’t figure out why it didn’t float away until one day we noticed it was tethered to a long string.  Every day when we drove to a new place to explore we tried to figure out what it was doing up there. 


We joked that it was spying on us and even though I didn’t truly believe that, it made me uneasy to see it up there.  But not quite as uneasy as a word watch list.

It’s not like we didn’t have astounding intuitive abilities and superb deductive reasoning when it came to other mysteries.  We’d already determined exactly why there was a wide “street” out in the petroglyph area we’d gone to explore.

It was obviously a boulevard for a wedding processional.   

Back “in the day” the king and his nubile bride-to-be would march up the boulevard, crawl regally across the rocks until they reached the top of the sacred monument where the king would 

scoop a handful of “nectar” (made from mashed creosote bushes with a drop of snake urine) from the cups carved into the stone and offer it to his bride as the masses watched and cheered from below.  

Then they all gathered at the pavement for post-ceremony reception. Either that, or the monument was an altar and the cups were for collecting the blood of the sacrificial virgin who was offered to appease the gods.  Either way, it sounded plausible to all of u … me.

Besides the maggot there were a few other mysteries we couldn’t solve.  Like ―

How can a cactus grow out of a rock? 

Why would palm trees choose to grow here?!

If you were a killer bee, wouldn’t you choose  to make your hive somewhere closer to flowers?

What the heck are these?  Halloween alien bugs? 

Does Buford know this is not what Betty had in mind when he told her to pack up the kids because they were moving somewhere warm?

And finally ―

How many conglomerates will a conglomerate collector collect when a conglomerate collector collects conglomerates?

We did finally figure out what that maggot was through questions and Googling.  It IS spying.  And that’s spooky enough, but learning that tweets and facebook comments and all that social media stuff we all use so blithely is being monitored kind of sends a chill up my back.  Especially now that I look back and realize that I’ve used several of those words in this post. 

But I’m not going to worry about it.  Today it is too beautiful for worry.  As I write this I’m sitting by an open window, glancing up now and then to look at clear blue skies, bright sun, and … what's that … ?

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Grub On A Wire