Baking Without An Oven

Have you seen this? 

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl so I missed it, and I fast forward through all the commercials on my DVR recordings so I’d never seen it at home.  But a couple of weeks ago it came on while I was on the elliptical machine.  I love, love, love, physical comedy so when bird-man slammed into the window I was SO close to bursting out laughing that I almost broke the number one rule of gym etiquette ―  “thou shalt not appear to enjoy the evil elliptical machine.”  Fortunately, in that half second before I let loose with the first snort I looked around, realized I wasn’t alone, and managed to restrain myself to a contorted grin that probably made me look like I was grimacing in pain and dying to get off the machine … which I was … and which I did.  Get off.  I didn’t die first but I did get off and I haven’t been back on it for two whole weeks. 

I wish I could say I haven’t set tennis shoe back on the elliptical because I’ve discovered a pain free, sweat free, enjoyable way to stay in shape and still eat the Girl Scout cookies people keep bringing to work.  I wish I could tell you I’d found a way to enjoy a five-ounce glass of wine at dinner without feeling guilty that it’s the equivalent of a small slice of sponge cake.  Holy Goddess of Grapes!!  Five ounces?  Get real.  I drool more than five ounces at night.  I’ve seen spit puddles on the sidewalk that were more than five ounces of slimy slobber.  Five ounces is nothing.  Nobody drinks a small slice of sponge cake.  Do they?  I’m not the only one drinking a humongous slice of sponge cake … half a sponge cake … hell … some nights even a whole sponge cake … with gooey frosting!  Am I?  

Anyway, getting back to the all-important topic of my health and physical fitness, I do not wear the crown and cloak of Queen of Guilt for nothing.  No, I may be free of my 35 minute Tuesday and Thursday elliptical routine but I have added a 60-minute Pilates class to my Monday-Wednesday routine in which I half expect to see smoke rising from my abdominal muscles and where I try not to groan (very much) out loud.  That’s immediately after my 60 minute Zumba class in which I am the only dancing board in a room filled with gyrating hips and shimmying shoulders.

The bad part about condensing my workouts from four days to two is that after my classes end I can barely shuffle out of the gym and fall into my car.  The hardest part is pulling my two quivering legs in after me, which is second only to trying to shove them out and lift them one at a time up the two steps to the porch once I get home. But the good part is, now I have Tuesdays and Thursdays free after work to do really fun stuff like dig up raspberry bushes and clean up flower beds.  Pretty soon I’ll get to mow the lawn.  And I can hardly wait until I can weed the garden! 

I’m so excited I think I’ll celebrate by munching on Doritos while I drink a sponge cake.

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Baking Without An Oven

Hans Brinker Should Have Used Silicone

The other day as I was washing my hands in the bathroom at work I looked into the mirror and I saw a small chunk of wax stuck to some strands of my hair.  It was mid-afternoon which meant for the last six hours I’d talked to people, walked past people, worked with people and stood at the sink washing my hands with people, all with a chunk of wax hanging from my hair. 

Spending a day at work with wax dangling off my hair was a little embarrassing, although not as embarrassing as the day a pair of my underwear, stuck in my jeans, worked its way down and dropped out onto my shoe as I was walking across the parking lot at the mall.  But neither of those moments was as embarrassing as the time a large, dried up booger dropped out of my nose while I was talking to somebody at work.  If I had known there was a pebble-sized booger dangling by a nose hair I of course, would have removed it.  But I didn’t know.   So when it fell out of my nose and audibly plunked onto the desk I was surprised and then, so embarrassed I didn’t know how to react.  So I pretended like nothing had happened.  The woman I was talking with had said nothing to me previous to the release of the booger bomb, neither did she say anything when it detonated, but I can only imagine the minute she got away from me she doubled over, snorting hysterically ― and I don’t blame her.  That was truly embarrassing.  But what was even more mortifying was wondering how long my nose had been housing this booger projectile and how many other people I’d talked to before it finally let loose.  Maybe it’s just as well I will never know.

Consequently, even though I spent almost a whole day at work with wax dangling from my hair, I was only a little embarrassed because first of all, worse things have happened to me and secondly, there was a good reason for it ― Spring.  Now that spring has arrived it’s been warm enough outside to sleep with our bedroom windows open which means I’m trying to sleep while the robins are singing their night song, and I’m trying to sleep through the turtle doves as they coo their morning love song.  I’m also trying to sleep through our neighbor’s deep booming voice at approximately 10:00 p.m. when he tells his dogs to “hurry up”, the neighborhood sprinklers which turn on around 3:20 a.m. (or will in a few short weeks), the diesel truck across the street that warms up for 20 minutes early in the morning, and the chainsaw ripping through cords of wood lying next to me in bed.  Sleeping (or not) through that racket leaves me waking up bleary-eyed, cranky and sleep-deprived.

I decided I had to do something.  So I did.  My sister recommended these, and since she is a

long-time experienced user I took her advice and bought them.  The package specifically says to “avoid hair” so the first night I used them I tried really hard to keep my hair out of the way when I plugged my ear with a ball of “silicone putty”.  But while I was sleeping, my hair fell over my ears and when I woke up and pulled out the softened glob, one of them had gotten so stuck to my hair that it dangled like an earring and I ended up pulling some of my hair out before I could free it.  That worried me a little.  I wasn’t convinced the risk of going bald was worth a good night’s sleep.  I wasn’t sure the time it took to pull all those silicone covered hairs out of the glob I’d just released from my hair so I could use it again the next night was worth it either.

The second night I was much more careful.  I slept with my hair pulled back in a hair tie.  The next morning there were only a couple of hairs stuck in the glob.  I still ended up ripping those few hairs from my head when I tried to get the flattened silicone goop out but I felt like I was close to figuring these noise-reducing balls out.   By the third night I had it down.  No hair caught while mashing them in, no hair caught when I took them out.  Baldness averted!

Wadded up balls of “Pillow Soft Silicone” do feel a little strange in my ears for the first few minutes but that doesn’t last long.   Pretty soon I just feel kind of like I’m underwater without the panic I experience when water gets on my face.  I float peacefully through the night oblivious to the muffled sounds around me.  No annoying bird songs or booming voices or rhythmic sprinklers or clattering truck engines jolt me awake.  I barely move because now I don’t have to pull covers, flop from one side to the other, pull covers, flop, pull covers, flop, to get Dean to wake up just enough to turn over and stop snoring.  In my underwater world I don’t even know if the chainsaw is revved up and running next to me anymore. 

I wondered at first if Dean would be grossed out seeing me lie in bed with big globs of white goop in my ears but I don’t imagine ears packed with wax are really going to gross him out any more than seeing my  lower lip protrude after I insert my mouth guard.  Heck, I don’t think he’s even noticed them yet because I’m pretty sure if he had, he would ask me why my ears are bulging with white stuff.  Unless … maybe he’s asked me and I just haven’t heard the muffled question. 

I might be sleeping with globs of white silicone mashed in my ears and a plastic form making my lip look like a National Geographic photograph but at least when I wake up the bags under my eyes are a little smaller.  Of course, if the skin under my eyes isn’t bloated and swollen it reveals more wrinkles but what the heck.  At least I’m not tired.  Unfortunately, now that I’ve discovered how to sleep so hard I drool it’s possible I may, on occasion, accidentally walk around with chunks of wax in my hair.  I know that’s tacky but it could be worse; I could be walking around with a dried up booger perched precariously at the edge of my nostril.

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Hans Brinker Should Have Used Silicone

If Wishes Were Horses

Last month we loaded up Leslie and the kids and went back to Nebraska for a long weekend.  While we were there, Pierce fell in love.  We had gone back for my niece's wedding and as everybody knows, the feelings of love and hope and new beginnings spill over onto everybody as they watch two people promise to love and adore each other for all time ―  as they support their loved one's head over the toilet during bouts of vomiting, as they refrain from commenting on bad haircuts, as they gag discreetly during stinky farts, as they monitor out-of-control nose hair and yes, even as they silently eat their own soup while listening to the rhythmic slurping from across the table.  Even four-year old Pierce, who asked his mom to please ask the beautiful flower girl to dance with him, felt the love. 

I think this was Pierce’s first falling-in-love experience and when he did, he fell hard and he fell fast.  One look and it was over for him.  It was a transformation as miraculous and unexpected as watching a fat, slow and awkward caterpillar emerge from a chrysalis as a bright and graceful butterfly.  One minute this boisterous, teasing, monkey-like four-year old was chasing his sisters, the next he was standing quietly, eyes wide with adoration. 

You think he was looking adoringly at the beautiful flower girl?  She was beautiful, but his heart was not hers to take.  Even before he’d met and danced with her he had given it to somebody else.  He had given his heart to somebody he barely knew.  Somebody he’d met for the first time the night before ―  his Great Uncle Dave.  You might wonder what would cause Pierce to make a man he’d only known for a few hours his new best friend.  I’ll tell you.  A combine.   One nanosecond after Uncle Dave opened the door of a gigantic metal building and showed Pierce his big, red combine … and semi … and tractor … he became Pierce’s best buddy.  

And then … Uncle Dave opened another door to another big metal building and there was … ANOTHER tractor.   By then Pierce was looking up at Uncle Dave with unabashed adoration in his eyes. That is until Uncle Dave took him "to town" in his pickup truck and bought him a bright red toy combine just like the one in the building.  That's when the adoration turned into worshiping.

And then … later that morning … the heavens opened and rained down candy and puppy dogs.   Uncle Dave drove the tractor out of the building and took Pierce (and his sisters) for a ride up the road.  I can only

imagine that Pierce was thinking how great it would be if only  his dad could fit a gigantic metal building in their backyard so they could have a tractor too.

I worried a bit that being tossed aside like a rusty Hot Wheels and replaced by Dave might hurt Dean’s feelings but it didn’t seem to bother him.  And then it dawned on me that he might have fallen in love
too ― with that gigantic metal building.  He acted like it was just any other metal building you might see on any other farm, but I saw that droplet of drool fly from his beard as his body started twitching when he looked at all the space inside those four walls.  I know he was thinking about all the useless junk unique found objects he could store in a place like that if only … oh, if only… he had a building like that. 

During the trip back home Dean was reinstated to his previous status with Pierce and all was back to normal.  During a ten hour car ride there's plenty of time to be alone with your thoughts and I have a feeling both Pierce and Dean were thinking about combines and tractors and gigantic metal buildings.  I can't swear to it, but during that one quiet moment when the Netflix movie wasn't playing on the Kindle Fire, Myra wasn't trying to convince her mom she "wasn't criticizing" and Emerson wasn't wishing my iPhone battery hadn't died during Angry Birds ... during that single quiet moment, I think heard "if only ..."

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If Wishes Were Horses

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!