The Burrow

I love it when all the pieces of my life come together in one place.  I was there this morning and I'm still smiling. Mark Kelly, husband of Gabby Giffords and former NASA Shuttle Commander, is also an author. He's written the story of a space mouse named Meteor, who is tiny and unafraid and, in the end, saves the day. It's the perfect story for my favorite five and six year olds, especially the two who are obsessed with space.  I bought it and I brought it in to leave in the classroom. Of course, Ms. Levine let me read it to the class. Reading aloud from a picture book is a study in contortions. I leaned forward, but that blocked the students on my left.  I slid the book from my right hip to my left hip, but I couldn't keep track of the words.  I struggled, but the listeners didn't seem to notice.  They were absorbed in the story of the taunted mouse who solved a problem. Their smiles were as big as his by the end of the book. I admit that I, too...

Is it a sign of maturity or of nonchalance that I no longer fret before going to the hairdresser?  Inquiring bloggesses want to know. I spent the hour before my haircut at Starbucks with Sgt. Lois.  We talked about her upcoming cruise and my mother's dentition  and silly women in the Happy Ladies' Club as I drank my giant ice tea and she sipped her mocha caramel espresso something or other. I lost track of the time.  Idle chit-chat with a girlfriend is something that I don't do often enough. It seemed to happen more frequently when my days had carpool lines.  I'd forgotten how peaceful those hours can be. I was forty minutes early but the chairs are comfy and the atmosphere is cozy so I snuggled into a padded seat at Style 7 Salon with Mark Helprin's newest opus. Faintly chemical smells wafted over the Grateful Dead on Sirius Radio as I fell deeper in love with the world in my novel.  Jesse surprised me, startled me, pulled me back to the reality as I ...

Forty-five minutes of conversation about caring for my mother took the place of visiting with said mother today.  The owner, the nursing supervisor, and I sat in the office in the pod-castle while the subject of our conversation, my aging-none-too-gracefully-maternal-unit, slept in her recliner.  I didn't ask her if she wanted to join us.  I didn't want her to be there. This is my new reality. I have her teeth pulled without seeking her opinion . I make plans without consulting her. I decide and she lives with the consequences.  I know that she trusts me and that she loves me and that she knows that I love her too, but, until very recently, we were in this together. Now, I'm in charge and she's out of the loop. It's not that she'd be an effective participant in the loop. She can't remember where the questions began, let alone formulate a coherent answer.  I try to break things up into manageable pieces, but the ability to hold onto the information is los...

The Happy Ladies Club took a field trip on Thursday. The weather is finally cool enough to plan an outdoor adventure. There's no worry about rain at this time of year; we can count on blue skies every day. We gathered in the driveway of Matt and Holly Finstrom's home. Together, they've turned a hobby into a thriving enterprise, all on their little half acre of paradise right in the middle of a sub-division.  We carpooled and parked carefully, wanting to be good neighbors, wondering if we'd like to live across the street from a bustling business.  It wasn't exactly bustling.  We were the only visitors that day. We sat in an eclectic assortment of outdoor seating as Matt explained the difference between clumpers  and runners.  The runners grow as rhizomes, sending out an underground root-and-bulb-structure that seeks water... wherever it may be hiding.  The clumpers send up many shoots in a relatively small area; they can be contained by l...

I put the Prince Mustangs t-shirt in my car last week, while they were on Fall Break.  It sat on the passenger's seat, next to me, a reminder that love was just a few miles down the road. I found an excuse every day. I was hungry, I was achy, I missed TBG, I just didn't feel like it. Today, there were no excuses.  I told JannyLou that we had to drive separately to Pilates, and I headed down Oracle to Prince without doing any thinking at all. I put on the t-shirt and my sneakers and my coat of many colors, its pockets filled with rolled up pages of stickers. Buzzed in through the security doors, I signed in, chatted up the administrative staff who keep the wheels greased so that learning can occur in peace, and headed outside.  I was on my way to the cafeteria; the third graders had a different agenda entirely. I was ambushed before I made any progress at all. "GRANDMA!!' "GRANNY!!!"  "MISS SUZI!!!" Why in the world did I put this off? This i...

I know the holidays are approaching when the Neiman Marcus Wish Book comes out.  They sell the thing for $15 on-line, but send it to me for some unknown reason.  It's designed for the people who TBG describes as having stupid money .  A friend opined that they might be looking for a bigger and bigger thrill and that involves spending more and more money in order to feel anything at all. It's a problem, I'm sure. I can't look at it as a reflection of the times, as the end of days, as anything other than a guilty pleasure while ignoring football.  Come and dream with me, denizens.  Don't worry what it might say about you. I know just how you feel, because I, too, gasped when I saw this Yes, it's a television that rises, at the touch of a button, from an underground cache . That's an  outdoor, waterproof TV with a 201" screen.   Tell me you don't want it right now. The catalog shows expansive wicker furniture, blankets at the ready, ...

The phone rang at 6:15am.  I cursed as I swung my leg out of bed, knowing that it was the pod-castle before caller id confirmed it.  No one else calls that early. The cheery voice on the other end of the line wished me a good morning, wondered how I was doing, and apologized for calling at such an awkward time. I didn't want to hear any of that.  I wanted to hear that my mother was safe and healthy and unbroken. That information came after the pleasantries.  I was not in the mood for pleasantries before sunrise; I bit my tongue and listened as the caregiver rattled on... and on... and on. The story that was hidden amidst the verbiage wasn't pretty. Two bed alarms rang just after 2:15 this morning.  The lone caregiver in the pod castle attended to the chimes emanating from another patient's room. When the floating caregiver arrived (to provide coverage for her break), she was directed to G'ma's room, where she found my mother on the ground. I don't kno...

The Schnozz needed a check-up.  The little plastic square in the top corner of the front windshield reminded me.  The digital exclamation point on the dashboard reminded me. The new dealership, ten miles closer to my house, had sent me a slew of coupons. So, I called to make an appointment. Close to home might not be the only criterion for choosing a dealership. The girl who answered the phone was lovely.  Incompetent, poorly trained, unable to help me, but lovely all the same.  I couldn't be angry with her inability to schedule an appointment for me, or to find out what service had been done the last time I was in, or to tell me what service was recommended. She had only begun working last for the dealership last week.  Poor baby, she'd been put on the phones without training or education.  It was hardly her fault that she couldn't help me. I give her credit for recognizing the dilemma and seeking assistance.  Andrew, one of the Assistant Servic...

G'ma reconnected with her oldest friend this year.  It's been a mixed blessing. Reconnected is really more than can be said, at least from G'ma's piece of the equation. Her face lit up when I told her that Gladys had written her a letter, but there were no follow up questions.  No wondering about her children, one of whom had been my idol ever since I spied and envied her ruffled underpants as we hid beneath someone's dining room table when we were barely more than toddlers. She didn't wonder about Marty, Daddooooo's friend who introduced my parents to one another after he and Gladys had become a couple.  I spared her the knowledge that he'd died last year; no reason to add another sorrow to a dwindling brain, I decided. The whole thing made me sad. Gladys is, among many other things, a sculptor in stone and wood. I saw this without sound... and didn't miss the noise. She finds beauty and depth and love in each piece. Her letter shared...

The government is open again and I feel fine. Of course, I felt fine even when the government was closed.  My mail was delivered. My airline travel was controlled and inspected. I sent off our tax returns even though there was probably no one there to sign for them. G'ma's physicians still accepted her Medicare benefits as payment. There were even some wonderful benefits to the shutdown. Intrepid Cat caught up on her math skills via  Khan Academy  while on her unpaid vacation. The Pilates Diva and her family finished her belated-50th Birthday Grand Canyon Hike up and out of the campground with nary a soul going down as they ascended. Thee Park Rangers closed the trail at 6am, but gave those at the bottom 48 hours to get out. They had the trail to themselves. ***** I was infuriated along with the rest of you when I saw this.... especially since Rep.  Randy Neugebauer voted along with his obstructionist friends to put that poor Ranger in such an awkward position....

It's so easy.  Forget to clear the inbox for a day or two and suddenly the pile doesn't seem all that much bigger if I just add one more item... or two... or ten.  Go on vacation and stop the mail and open it before you go to sleep. There's not enough energy left to pay the bills and sort the requests for donations and the invitations to benefits and enter them into the calendar.  Into the inbox they go. And then the box is full.  Tackling it will take time and effort.  Decisions will have to e made. Filing will have to be done, and that requires moving and bending and I know I should get up from the desk and just do it but the next piece of paper in the pile is interesting and leads me to search for an address and pen a quick note to a friend and then I've lost focus and the desk is getting messier and messier. I traveled twice in three weeks; I never cleaned up after the first trip. And so there are piles within the pile.  Health insurance must be c...

Economy Comfort is an airline oxymoron; four extra inches of leg room doesn't make up for the fact that the seat cushion reached only to the middle of TBG's thighs. I wondered why I was so comfortable, sitting in the middle seat, my feet barely reaching the ground. This leg length discrepancy has been an issue for us ever since we bought our first couch. Paying for the discomfort is an entirely different experience, though. ***** By the time we unwound ourselves in Houston, we were half way to pretzel-dom. The Houston Airport is almost as busy as Atlanta. This trip we had the privilege of changing planes in both of them. We rode monorails between terminals and tried to find something neither fried nor candy coated to eat, having learned long ago that airplane food is less than fresh or tasty. I treated myself to a Popeye's chicken breast and was pleasantly surprised by the juicy texture and the crispy coating. It's a good thing that there are no calories on vacatio...

The Best Laid Plans.... I have photos. I have stories. I have insights and observations and I want to share them all with you. Unfortunately.... It started when we got home from Ft. Lauderdale last night. The clock on the mantle read nearly 9pm, but we were still operating on Eastern Daylight Time; midnight was encroaching and we were exhausted. Still, knowing that the best way to fight jet lag is to get on the new schedule as soon as possible, we unpacked, and watered flowers, and brought in the huge box sitting on the front doormat Remember Pandora? I wish I had last night. I opened the damn thing and found Comcast's new box and cables and wires and easy instructions all of which are designed to speed up my internet access. I think. All I really know is that Comcast is exerting all kinds of pressure to get me to install the new system. There was a message on the answering machine, reminding me to order my equipment. That should have been another clue. The d...

I hope that there are 1000 new denizens this morning.  After my talk yesterday morning, how could they resist?  It occurs to me, writing earlier in the week, before I've left Tucson for the PMA Annual Meeting , that newcomers to this blog won't have any frame of reference, dropping into the middle of my life today.  Therefore, I am going to reprise an oldie but a goodie, a post which gives a brief but thorough look at my life as I see it. First posted March 1, 2012, with a little bit of editing today, here's the last of five posts I've written before I left for vacation. What Do I Look Like? "I believe that I have known you for &&&&*** years "  wrote Ami, who I knew as Amy when our parents moved into the same neighborhood 6 decades ago.  Her family came a little later than ours; her house was on the cul-de-sac that was a wooded area with a stream when my folks moved in.  Only a weeping willow remained of the vegetation after the builder...

Today, I will deliver the Keynote Address at the Pilates Method Alliance Annual Meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. One thousand or more pilates professionals will be in the room.  My assignment is to introduce myself, my Pilates journey, and the Youth Pilates Program here in Tucson. I'll be followed by a 20 minute mat class, presented by twelve middle school boys and girls, who've been practicing every Sunday since January. My hunch is that no one will remember much of what I've said after they've seen the kids perform. That doesn't make it any easier to compose the speech. The video portion of my presentation is completed, ten days before the event. Some of my slides were too grainy and small to be blown up to jumbo-tron size. Some of the pictures I wanted I just couldn't find.  I keep forgetting to go down to the hospital and get my xrays. I wonder if I just didn't want to expose that much of myself before strangers. It's an interesting co...