"Sometimes, I Just Hate the World"

We were in Barnes and Noble, Mr. 9 and I.  We hadn't had an adventure together for quite a while; the bookstore was his destination of choice.  He knows it makes me happy, and that fit right in with his plan to purchase a new Wimpy Kid book (for his big brother) and his own copy of the book he's reading in his school's Book Club.  There are enough of them, if everyone shares and reads just what is required for the next meeting.  I couldn't deny him the chance to hold a personal copy.

He chattered about basketball.  The Wildcats played the night before, and we parsed their performance and their footwear.  His mom signed him up for a team at the JCC; she'd pick him up at his dad's on Sunday afternoon for the next round of tryouts.  "I think he just wants Mom to drive me," is all he knows about his father's puerile temper tantrum about Mom signing the kid up for an activity on  Dad's custody week. 

At a certain point, it can be hoped that the father will realize that it's not his week, it's Mr. 9's life.  That point is still somewhere in the fantastical future.  For now, Amster will drive 35 minutes to pick him up and 35 minutes to bring him home because she understands the value of consistent attendance. Mr. 9 has been shielded, at least on the maternal side, from any of the controversy.  All he knows is that he's playing ball.  It makes him very happy.

He held the door for me, like a well-mannered child should, and then we examined the Booksellers' Choices and the Just In shelves.  The Wimpy Kid was right there on the top; he clutched it to his chest as we rode the escalator up to the kids' section.

It was the two of us and a bookseller, all alone on the second floor.  She's seen us before, and, I imagine, she knows what to expect.  Mr. 9 has many questions. He asks for help in locating an author, wonders if other titles are available, and then he finds a compilation of the 10 Best Everythings in basketball.

We spent a long time going through the book.  We stumbled over the foreign names.  I gave him the brief history of Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul Jabaar, leaving out his sexual exploits.  He recognized Dr. J, but most of the other, older players were new to him.  I thanked my lucky stars for a sister who loved the 1960-70's Knicks, and for a husband and a son and a daughter who keep me updated on what I need to know to converse with a well-versed 4th grader.  We argued over the book's anointing LeBron James as The Best Basketball Player Ever - I held out for Michael Jordan.  The debate ended in a tie, we think.

I was captivated by the board books for Valentines Day, and claimed Big Kisses for FlapJilly.  Mr. 9 was curious about it ("It's for the baby, right?") as I reassured him that I was not choosing a bright blue cardboard book with an elephant on the cover for either him or his brother or Elizibeth. 

Did he want me to read it to him?  YES!

And so, we sat in a nook and he snuggled closer and closer as more and more kisses rained down on the heads of the characters.  At the end, we agreed that there had been a lot of kisses, that FlapJilly would love it, and that, YES, he would like a kiss right then, too.

The bookseller smiled from behind the shelving cart. 

He took me to the biography section, and we discussed those people he recognized and those he didn't. The United States presidents as kids... Rosa Parks.... and then a soccer goalie whose outstretched arm looked larger than life. 

Mr. 9 picked up Tim Howard's biography and read the blurb on the back.

He stumbled over Tourette's Syndrome - the pronunciation and the definition. 
"Imagine being in 4th grade math and all of a sudden your body starts twitching and your mouth starts yelling curses at the top of your lungs and you can't do anything to stop it.  You just have to wait until the episode ends."

"You can't stop it?" was all he said as he flipped through the book and returned it to the shelf.  We went on to look at some more chapter books and then, he announced, it was time to go.  We strolled to the escalator, he got on first, and halfway down he turned and said

Sometimes, I just hate the world.

Was it his parents' divorce?  Was it ISIS?  Was it that his brother is taller than he?  "Why, sweetheart?"  I asked.

Why would the world make you curse and twitch and not be able to stop it?  Why would that happen?  I sometimes just hate the world.

If that's not the most precious thing you've heard all day, please leave your entry in the comments below.  My heart leapt out of my chest and enfolded him in a huge hug once we landed on the first floor.  "I know, sweetheart, I know.  You are the kindest kid I know. When I'm faced with something like that, I feel overwhelmed.  So, I try to make my corner of the world just a little bit nicer, and hope that the love spreads out."

He nodded.  He agreed that kindness helps most everything, and that his Ben's Bells necklace identified him as someone who cared.  And then, we went on to something else.

But, I've been thinking about it for the last few days.  Kayla Meuller, unvaccinated school kids, Boko Harun... sometimes I guess I just hate the world, too.  If it overwhelms me, how must it feel to a 9 year old?

 

Valentines Day at Amphi Middle School

We proved that one is never too old for arts and crafts.

 There were stickers  

and scissors

and fancy papers

and even more stickers.

There were grown-ups like JannyLou offering assistance, in front

and behind the tables.

The boys and girls were capable of choosing their own materials,

but cutting out a heart

sometimes required an adult. 

The paper's blank back side left lots of room for love notes.

 Many of the valentines were collaborative efforts,

 with backpacks crashing into one another

 

as room at the table was at a premium.

 

 Peeling the backs off the puffy foam stickers required concentration.

So many middle schoolers wanted to participate that we had to put out another set of double tables. 

Of course, some artists made themselves comfortable, oblivious to the chaos.

And, as always, in the end it was all about the love.

We started out with 144 sheets of paper.

We were left with none.

By any measure, it was a very successful afternoon.

TBG told me that it is possible for hackers to penetrate any computerized system in any automobile.  Although it hasn't been reported as the cause of an accident... so far... it is conceivable that someone could hijack your brakes and apply them, full force, while you are tooling down I-95 at 85 miles an hour. 

I could die if that happened was my immediate thought.  And then I went back to watching Zorro. 

A beat or two later the whole thing hit me.  I thought of dying with absolutely no affect.  It was a fact without emotion attached.  I considered it and moved on. 

I type that without judgment, because not judging is the single most important lesson I've learned since being perforated.  I believe that as the amplitude of a situation increases so do the individuality of responses.  At the risk of sounding like R. D. Laing, my experience of you during a period of intensity is not your experience of you nor is it your experience of me or my experience of me.

Going back to a place of horror is, for me, going alone.  Those moments on the sidewalk outside the Safeway are as vivid to me today as they were when they were happening.  The brightness never dims.  The connection is as deep now as it was then.  I can close my eyes and, even as my fingers type these words, I am holding her hand....

That piece is and, I imagine, always will be sad.

The fact that I almost died is another matter entirely.  I believed Nurse Nancy when she told me that I was not going to die; she claims to have said it as more of a hope than a reality but I took it at face value. 

I believed Christina-Taylor's shade in the medevac when she told me the same thing. "You'll be fine," was actually said by the nurse in the seat behind my head.  I didn't know he was there; I saw CTG's face and believed her words. 

Through it all, I was more worried about falling off the slant board as the EMT's carried me from the parking lot to Ina Road where my helicopter awaited.  I was happy to be reassured, because I certainly did not want to die.  It was easy for me to believe what I wanted to hear.

For 14 weeks on the couch, Platonically examining my life and the lint in my navel, I poked around the edges of death.  After three months of thought, I wasn't much deeper in understanding why it is, but I was convinced of what it is.

I'm really not afraid to die.

Don't misunderstand me - I really do want to continue to live. I want to work on developing a fluid gait. I want to watch FlapJilly and her future siblings and cousins grow into amazing young people.  I want to see if anti-vaxxers are vilified and if Republicans can govern.  I don't relish disease or infirmity, but death is no longer looming as the most awful thing ever.

In that context, I really don't care.  Oh, someone can hack into my car and turn the cruise control to 90 while I'm driving on city streets.  I could die.  Oh.

I'm not sure if I'm happy about this situation.  If I approach it from a mindfulness perspective, as Yogi Marsha recommends, then I must not judge.  If I think it stems from being close and then saved, then, as TBG reminds me, the situation is too big for judgment. 

It is what it is.  It's just very odd.

Happy Birthday, Abe



Throwback Thursday...

This was first published in 2011.  It's one of my favorite rants.

*****

Mary Ball Washington gave birth to a boy child on February 22, 1732. Unlike many of the stories surrounding this man (think cherry trees and coins across the Potomac and standing up in an open boat as it crossed the Delaware) this is an indisputable fact.

Mary was not in labor on the third Monday of February.  She produced her child on a specific day - the 22nd day of February.  His birthday didn't move around with the vagaries of the federal holiday calendar.

Nancy Hanks Lincoln met her second son, Abraham, 207 years ago today.  Like Mrs. Washington before her, she was not in labor on an indeterminate day sometime in the middle of the month.  It occurred on a certain day, a day formerly commemorated by school children and mail carriers alike.

Alas and alack, these fine gentlemen have been conflated into Presidents and their birthdays combined into a generic celebration designed primarily to afford employees the opportunity for a 3-day weekend in the middle of the winter. What was wrong with the old system, I wonder?  As an elementary school kid I looked forward to those random days off in the middle of the month.  One day, breaking up the routine.  One celebration for each president - pennies examined on the 12th, leadership and lying (not) on the 22nd.

There was no time for a weekend away (not that G'ma and Daddooooo could have afforded to take us anyplace anyhow) and there was no competition between students for who went the furthest and had the most fun.  It was an opportunity to go sledding at Bethpage (the Black Course was used for many things in my youth; this was the best of them) or to meet friends at the bowling alley and then walk to Smiles (our precursor to a 5-and-dime) where we cruised the aisles until our parents picked us up. 

It was grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon on the side, eaten on paper plates and accompanied by the admonition Don't Tell Daddy since the bacon was not exactly kosher and he cared a lot more than did G'ma.  There were snow forts to be built, snowball fights to be fought, snow men to be built. The entire neighborhood roamed from front yard to front yard, creating and tumbling and finding warmth and drinks and the occasional bathroom in whichever house we happened to be in front of when the need arose.

And now?  Now President's Day is always an event.  It's a long weekend for which plans must be made.  It has no intrinsic meaning, no relationship to George or Abe or any of their colleagues.  Their faces are used to advertise white sales and car sales and furniture sales and The History Channel runs back to back episodes of The Presidents but that's about the size of the historical component.  What began as tributes to great men has devolved into spending opportunities for the masses.

Am I bitter?  You bet.  A day off followed by another one 10 days later.... what better way to combat the winter doldrums than that?  A random day, a day to cuddle under the blankets with your sweetie or to do all that laundry that interfered with your weekend plans and so still sits in the basket, mocking you.  A day to explore the neighborhood and have lunch in that place you've driven by 100 times before..... a day just to be.

Sometimes, when I was a girl really was better.

Faces

 

THAT is the only photo I took the day I injured my thumb with stickers, and it was taken the next morning, after a visit to Walgreens.  Perhaps if I'd stopped to take a picture or two, my thumb would have survived in better shape. 

Since I was a slacker on Friday, on Monday I went back to Prince and asked the kids if they'd pose for my blog.  I asked them to decorate one another; once burned, twice shy was my motto. 

The joy is the same.... it's just a different day.
Enjoy the smiles!

Some were restrained, choosing carefully.

 Others couldn't get enough of a good thing.

 Three across the nose... a butterfly in the middle.... the friends took great care to create masterpieces.

 MORE! MORE! MORE! he cried.

 There was some initial skepticism....

 but the gang was as enthusiastic as elementary school kids can be when they are doing something wacky, with a grown-up's permission.

 Pals... silly together.

The girls were hard at work, decorating a friend:

 He was a willing subject... even when they started in on his hair.

They were especially proud of the moustache.

It never fails.

No matter how tired or grumpy I might be, after a few minutes on the Prince Playground, I am filled with smiles and joy.  Who knew that stickers were the ticket to a good time?

 

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished - Tale #2

The Official Adopted Grandmother of Prince Elementary School was on a roll last Friday.  Kids were everywhere, and I had 348 stickers in a brand new book. 

We walked.  We sang.  We shook our fingers at the monkeys jumping on the bed and found ourselves shaking our heads and singing even louder. 

I sat on the cement and then on the grass; I must have tied two dozen shoe laces. 

(Yes, Big Cuter, they do know how to do it.  They just don't care.  Don't you remember your permanently knotted Air Jordans in the third grade?  You shoved your feet in, completely disregarding the dangling shoe strings.)

We walked some more, and in between each lap I put stickers on children's' faces.  After the last lap, I rested against a stanchion so that I wouldn't be knocked over and I proceeded to decorate the face of anyone who appeared before me.  By the time I left, all 348 stickers were gone.

I was tired and sweaty when I got into the car.  I drove home and parked and tried to take the key out of the ignition.  My thumb would not cooperate.  Instead, it made its presence known with a stab of pain that shot from the bottom joint through my wrist and up to my elbow. 

I shrieked. 

I leaned over and removed the key with my left hand, shrieked again when I tried to grab my water bottle, and didn't even try to open the trunk.  I brought my injured digit to TBG, with a frown that would not turn upside down. 

He wrapped it with a much too long and much too thick ace bandage, but it was the best we could do from the medicine cabinet.  Dinner was delivered pizza instead of the pasta I had planned; there was no moving that hand... the one without the opposable thumb.

Opposable thumbs are quite useful.  Just try removing the tabbed paper backing from a hearing aid battery the size of a pinky nail without one.  I did.  It wasn't pretty.

I pondered.  I wondered.  I was perplexed.  There was no moment of trauma.  I hadn't banged the gear shift lever nor pounded my hand on a table.  I reviewed my day... yoga... pilates.... walking... tying shoes... stickering faces..... and with that I shrieked again.

I'd mimicked the motion of removing the stickers from the pages and discovered the source of my injury... repetitive stress syndrome from 348 dabs of joy.

 

No good deed goes unpunished.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished - Tale #1

TBG's brother, Uncle Chuck, tries very hard to take good care of his physical being.  That being has betrayed him more than once, but he doesn't begrudge it. 

He's stoic where others (I, for example) would rail.  He accommodates his ailments with moments of crisis, but Auntie Em is marvelous at calming the waters.  He is a kind and gentle soul, without (as far as I can see) a competitive bone in his body.  Team sports were never his thing; riding his bicycle has kept him in shape into his 70's.

There was a time in his life where a pan of fudge could keep him satisfied all day.  As he grew older and wiser he became more vigilant about his diet.  He read, he listened, he shopped.  He thought about what went into his mouth, and he tried to make wise decisions.

For example, twice a week he treated himself to an enormous spinach salad at a local establishment.  He and I used to fork-fight over the last of Hough's creamed spinach soufflé at family Thanksgivings; I can attest to the fact that the man love his spinach.  This was a case where necessity and delight met happily and tastily.

And then, tests revealed substances appearing in unusual amounts in unusual places.  Other tests showed other, even scarier results.  New doctors and new insurance and the general lack of control hospitals engender had us all in a tizzy. 

Gathering information, separating fear from fact, consoling and comforting and conjecturing... it was a very long week.  He was discharged, with newer medications and different strategies.  Questions were left unanswered, but he felt marginally better, and that, for the moment, was good enough.

And then, there was a new doctor and a new opinion and it was obvious to him even if it wasn't obvious to any one else who had treated Uncle Chuck in the last month that the problem was very simple: he had an over-abundance of Vitamin K in his system.... due to eating too much spinach.

He's altered his diet, though it pains him to do so.

Death by Spinach.... what would Popeye say?

The Author's Table

The Literary and Prologue Society of the Southwest, Tucson Chapter, met for lunch today at the Arizona Inn. Melanie Benjamin, author of The Aviator's Wife, was our speaker.  The room was filled to capacity with women of a certain age, dressed in our Sunday-Go-To-Meeting clothes.  In casual Tucson, the few men in the room were all wearing sport coats or ties.  Medallions of beef, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and five small desserts was more than any of us felt capable of eating, but somehow there were no crumbs on the plates as the waitress carried them away.

It's a book club on steroids, and no one is shy about asking questions.  A gentleman wondered about pieces of her story, and Ms Benjamin's response was clear and direct: "I'm sorry.  I liked it!"  Her broad smile took the edge off the testy message she was delivering, and I was reminded of Meg Wollitzer's encounter last month.  "I liked your mother's work more," was the phrase which rattled her; "I'll be sure to tell her," was the response. 

How easy it is to forget that the book being criticized is someone's much loved masterpiece, something they hug to their chests in adoration.  It was that image of reader and book which inspired Ms Benjamin to write that kind of book. 

She didn't grow up wanting to be an author; the stage was her passion. It showed in her delivery and presentation.  She moved us along with her, without notes or a drink of water. She had us laughing and wondering and sighing and groaning.  Her story was our story, that of making her way in the world on her own terms... or not... and struggling and failing and carrying on. 

I learned a lot about her as I ate.  As Scarlett suggested last month, this month I again sat at the Author's Table.  Three seats are reserved, for the author, the presenter, and the host.  The rest of them were vacant last month and again this month.  I took myself right there and sat down.

If I'm uncomfortable walking in alone, I'm going to make the best of it.  I galumphed in my grey and red cowboy boots to the front of the room and sat down.  I watched others file in, singly, in groups of two or three, and I watched as the four empty chairs at our table remained unfilled.  They sat empty throughout the afternoon.

I wonder why I never sat there before?  Of course, I shared the table with Billy Collins at the first of these I attended

but I was sitting at one of the reserved seats.

 

Then, it felt like I was supposed to sit there, and I was.  Now, I can choose to sit there, and I wonder why others don't, and why I didn't before.  Is it humility?  Is sitting there a sign of hubris on my part?  Is anyone else concerned about this issue at all?

 

Obviously, I am in need of more intellectual stimulation.  I am spending all together too much time examining the lint in my navel.

Tuning Out the Background

I love the end of football season.  Not the time when it's over, but the month or so leading up to the end.  Hour after hour of talking heads blathering about formations and roster changes and coaching decisions and TBG fascinated, focused, glued to the screen. 

I'm amazed at the intensity he brings to it all.  Without much thought, he can bring up statistics from seasons gone by.... long long ago and just last year... comparing and contrasting and explaining to his uneducated wife the ins and outs of large men running into one another, carrying a pigskin.  He's a great teacher and I'm an avid listener and it works for us - when I pay attention.

I enjoy Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on Pardon the Interruption, and their 30 minutes of (usually) adult conversation keeps me in the sports loop, able to converse with my son and my husband and the young man behind the bagel counter.  The VW service reps were surprised to find themselves talking about NFL draft picks with a grey haired old lady last week; I love being the outlier in their worlds.

But hour after hour of former athletes remembering their glory days wears thin.  I developed a solution that, until last night, seemed to work for both of us.  I take out my hearing aids. I bring my book and my water bottle to the couch beside TBG and I cuddle up.  The television becomes white noise.  Like FlapJilly's sound machine, I concentrate on the blur and not the specifics.  I can read happily while receiving foot rubs and shoulder squeezes.  He has company.  We are both amused.

The sidebar has been exploding as I track my reading progress.  Old series gave way to new books from old favorites which gave way to new books from new authors.  I'm stopping at the Large Type Books shelf first, and finding that my eyes are less tired when the print is huge.  I've been enlarging the font on my Kindle for some time but I find that it's much more pleasant to hold a paper book in my lap than the cold, mechanical, e-reader.  Luckily for me, there are a lot of old readers here in the Old Pueblo, and the library meets their needs with abundant copies of large-print editions of new titles and old favorites.  Almost all the books on the sidebar right now were read in that format, on the couch or the swivel chair, sharing the space if not the activity with my sweetie.

It's been working well for us.  He doesn't have to find a story I want to watch.  If there's a game on, I open a book and we're both ecstatic.  I can block out the cheers and the jeers and the commentary, and he alerts me if there's something he needs to rewind and share.  As long as it's sports related, I'm fine to read by his side; I've created a pathway n my brain that lets the words in and keeps the noise out.

All that went by the wayside last night.  I was finishing Douglas Preston's The Kraken Project, happily roaming the hills of New Mexico and the beaches of Half Moon Bay with the AI main character when, from outside my personal space, I heard Pauley Perrette's perky Abby Sciuto voice. She cut through the white noise of sports - he was watching NCIS and didn't tell me.

I don't watch a lot of tv.  Justified, The Americans, and NCIS make up my play list.  I can watch them all day, every day, old episodes and new.  They make me smile.  I cannot read when they are on the tv. 

You're watching NCIS?!?! You didn't tell me?!?!?! Did I miss much?!?!?

Yes, I'd missed five or six minutes.  He thought I was doing what I wanted to do, and didn't want to disturb me.  Sure, we could rewind so that I could catch up with what I'd missed; it was a new episode, after all. 

I put down my book and joined the team as they salvaged a vet's reputation. 

I wonder if Pauley Perrette wants to know that she alone has the power to take me from one realm to another?


 

Vaccination Blues

The town which nurtured my children in their youths is in the news these days.  There's a youngster recovering from chemotherapy for leukemia and a unvaccinated cohort of classmates who are putting him at risk for measles.

The little one can't be vaccinated; his immune system is too weakened by the cancer treatments.  Should he become ill, the consequences could be grave.  The school has a No Peanuts policy because "some children could die" but refuses to consider a requirement for vaccinations.  Though the school nurse was careful to insure that all his classmates had received the vaccine, that doesn't protect him at recess or assembly or on the playground, waiting for school to start.

It's personal for me.  I was president of that school board.  We brought great changes to that district, not the least of which was not rehiring a long-time superintendent, and we paid a heavy emotional price for doing so.  There are still people who won't speak to me. 

We knew we were in the right.  My file of faxes (this was before the internet made communications instantaneous) reminds me of the vitriol which came our way.  A great many well educated people took us to task, blithely ignoring the fact that we had information which they did not.  I could understand their frustration, but personnel issues belong to the employee; the Board was forbidden to speak on the subject in public. 

Without our data, it was easy to see how those who loved her could assume that we were acting out of spite.  She'd been there forever; why couldn't we let well enough alone for eighteen months until she retired gracefully? My response was two fold: "those eighteen months are some child's first and second grades, I was elected to be sure that they are outstanding years"; and "we know things which you do not."

It made no difference to many; people were entrenched in their positions.  Others were able, after much time and energy, to come to the conclusion that when people you respect act in ways which seem incongruous, it behooves one to wonder if, perhaps, they are operating with more information than is generally available.  With that respect must come the concomitant belief that their actions, while surprising, come from a place of caring, where the needs of the many outweigh the fears of the few.

It's time for that school board to remember that, I think.

This will not turn into a rant about vaccines.  The bad science underlying the current wave of unimmunized children has been well documented.  The parents who are making these decisions grew up in an era where they and their schoolmates were receiving new technology - vaccines for chicken pox and measles and mumps and rubella.  They knew no one who suffered. 

Now, as parents themselves, they are .... I just don't know.  Are they trying to look smart, claiming to have read up on the issue and made an informed choice?  Are they seeking a cause celebre? Are they trying to set themselves apart from the rest?  Can they really be so misinformed?

Are they eschewing the polio vaccine as well?

It's impossible to argue with a zealot.  I've tried and failed.  They know what they know and, there's no talking to them.  Listen to this cardiologist from Arizona, telling the world that his children are not polluted by vaccines, that they are pure.  He is looking forward to the time when they have the opportunity to contract a childhood disease.

I can understand the paleo diet, but paleo medical care?  Seriously?

We are all part of the herd.  We share this planet.  We are responsible for one another.

My granddaughter shouldn't be put at risk simply because she is too young for the vaccine and others are not accepting their responsibilities to society.  I wonder if these parents ever consider the social contract.  Do they honestly believe that they exist in an island? 

The father of the 7 year old makes this point :

 "If you choose not to immunize your own child and your own child dies because they get measles, OK, that's your responsibility, that's your choice. But if your child gets sick and gets my child sick and my child dies, then ... your action has harmed my child."

Or, how about this: Your right to make a fist ends at the tip of my nose.
*****
Here is a link to a graphic explanation of vaccines and the current controversy.  Thanks to John E Simpson for the connection.

Meditation 107

I was cranky and I didn't want to go.  I was hungry and there is no time between Pilates and the start of Meditation to eat anything but a Kashi bar in the car as I drive.  I have so many rooms to clean at home and so little energy in the evening; I thought I'd go home and straighten out some piles. 

Somehow, my better self prevailed.  I drove down Campbell to the hospital, parked and strolled across the concourse to the Cancer Center, where Yogi Marsha leads us in contemplation. As I drove, I inhaled Peace and I exhaled Calm and by the time I arrived in the lobby I was surprised at how ready I was to be there.

I didn't judge my emotions.  I noticed them.  I remembered Yogi Marsha's three options: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral.  I noted that my emotions were unpleasant.  Actually, I said it out loud, to myself and whatever spirits were in The Schnozz at the time.  "So, these are unpleasant feelings."

I didn't try to change them.  I just noticed that they were there.  I didn't try to talk myself out of the blues (I know that doesn't usually get me very far) or berate myself for feeling sorrowful on a sunshiny day.  I didn't look for logic or a rational explanation for my distress.  I just noted that it was there.

I sat atop a cool, just-the-right-height-for-my-feet-to-reach-the-floor, tiled end table while I waited for the doors to the Meditation Room to open.  I paid attention to my hips sitting evenly on the surface, to my feet planted firmly but not harshly on the ground, to my back settled gently and directly above my pelvis.

 A lovely lady in the chair beside me laughed with me as I smiled to myself - G'ma would not have approved of my perch.  Not at all.  There are chairs available, young lady... I could hear her reminding me that furniture had a purpose and was not to be abused.  Somehow, she didn't make me move.  I was comfy, Mom.

There were two newcomers to our group, women my age who confessed to having a hard time stilling their minds.  After sharing mindfulness stories and a fifteen minute silent meditation and the Meta Suta, we walked out together.  They were intrigued but felt that they hadn't accomplished all that was intended.  I shared my first class experience and was delighted to hear that they would be returning for more.

It's not a simple thing, to quiet the mind.  There's a counter-intuitive piece, a piece that wants to be immediately connected to the action outside my eyeballs.  To go within, to concentrate on my breath and nothing else, takes a piece of myself I did not know existed.  It surprises me every time.  It's a fragile thing, disrupted by a cough or a banging from the floor above.  I'm aggravated when it disappears, and I struggle to find it again.

Still, I try not to judge.  It's an unpleasant sensation.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  I don't have to do anything to fix it.  It just is. 

For a snarky New York heathen, a person who is used to pummeling problems into submission, it's a new construct.  It expands my horizons while making them more manageable. 

Does that seem contradictory? 

Perhaps you should meditate on it for a while.

Watch The Super Bowl With Me

It's been on all day.  TBG and I have done other things, but the backdrop has been The Big Game.  Bob Costas appearing in the middle of the afternoon, telling a heartwarming story.  Puppies ran down a short ramp and nibbled on kibble from bowls labeled Seahawks and Patriots (Seahawks won, based on number of noses in the food).  Old games were reprised.  Talking heads tried valiantly not to repeat themselves. 

It was like Christmas carols in the background on December 24th.
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The sun came out as the morning wore on, and the rest of America will have a chance to see why we love the desert Southwest.  It's been pouring all week, and Arizonans have been grumbly.  We are used to our sunny skies, and feel out of sorts when there are clouds.

To prove the point, for the first time this season, University of Phoenix Stadium opened the retractable roof. TBG opened our back door in solidarity.
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Deflate-gate has been less of a topic than I'd expected; perhaps everything that can be said has been said. 

NBC wanted to show the NFL's pressure certification procedures, but the league denied them the privilege. 

Maybe that's the new operating plan: deny, deflect, defer.
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Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth are the game's announcers.  After spending the basketball season listening to Bill Walton's stream of consciousness drivel, it's a pleasure to listen to men who can create a grammatically correct, complex sentence which also is relevant to the game.
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Blue Apron sent me the ingredients and I created spicy drumsticks and cleriac-apple-celery salad and toasted tortilla chips. 

I'm proud of the fact that the left over Christmas napkins match the left over football plates.



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We're enjoying the Chevy Colorado ads.  "You know you want a truck,"  is the tagline.  On some weird level it speaks to me.... and as I type these words I hear my children groaning as they remember my oft repeated desire to build a road, to drive one of those wonderfully huge and powerful bright yellow back-hoe-front-loaders.... and even though I am obviously not the demographic Chevy has in mind, I'm intrigued.
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"Intercepted at the goal line"  ... five very exciting words!

After the commercial break, we saw the interceptor being escorted off the field with his arm in an air cast.  It's a violent game, played by large human beings, and sometimes they get hurt. Still, it's an odd job where broken bones are not uncommon.

In a player bio earlier in the day, a mother described her playing-in-the-game-son as always mean and violent. There was no affect in her voice; it was terrifying. 

I often wonder how far we've really come from the Roman Coliseum.
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No score after the first quarter. It's a good thing the Budweiser puppy and Clydesdale commercial and the #MakeItHappy Coke commercial and the Mexican avocado commercial kept me interested.

Then, again, it's only right that they should.  According to the Wall Street Journal a 30 second spot in the 2015 Super Bowl cost $.5 million.
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17 seconds left in the half, Seahawks at the 20, Russell Wilson throws a touchdown pass into the end zone, Pete Carroll eschewing a sure three points with a field goal by having confidence in his quarterback and his 6'4" receiver. 

This game hasn't been thrilling, but it has had its moments.
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Katy Perry atop a shiny mechanical animal, wearing flames. Shiny chess pieces dancing on a checkerboard. Lenny Kravitz couldn't afford pants without holes for the Super Bowl, according to TBG, who was bemused by the dancing sharks and surfboards which followed. It looked like a zumba class, but it was colorful and fun.  Missy Elliott rocked the house and then Katy Perry sparkled on a flying comet above the crowd, with fireworks and a light show and her big, happy voice filling the stadium.  And then half time was over.

It wasn't Bruce Springsteen or the Rolling Stones, that's for sure.
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It was a curiously chaste show, more Disney than Vegas. 

It was something I'd feel comfortable watching with a little girl or boy by my side.  Coupled with Always' #LikeAGirl campaign, and Nissan's lessons in fatherhood, and Nationwide's overflowing bathtub warning parents about childhood accidents, and the Charger's paean to the wisdom acquired with old age, the Super Bowl seems to be remaking itself into a family friendly event.
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The commercials are bordering on preachy, dangling on the edge of maudlin. It's a succession of 60 second Nicholas Sparks stories, set to Woody Guthrie.

If that's what it takes to get through to some people, I'm all for it.  In the meantime, I'll enjoy the fact that Big Cuter called his dad "after that commercial to tell you I love you!"
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Another interception, and Tom Brady is not smiling.  His Patriots are down by three points, and he just threw the ball away.  Russell Wilson is so big and so fast that he "couldn't be caught in flag football," according to TBG, "let alone get tackled" as they pound down the field so that Wilson can casually toss a touchdown pass to a veteran receiver.

I am paying attention to the game, as well as the commercials.  I promise. 
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Tom Brady threw a touchdown and now three points separate the two teams. 

I'm missing Daddooooo and our nickel bets right now. With the score tightening, one or the other of us would be on the phone, razzing the other, with G'ma in the background admonishing him to "Be Nice, Herbert!" 
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And then there was a touchdown and a turnover and suddenly the Patriots were up by 4 and taking a winner's knee as Tom Brady won his 4th Super Bowl.  The boys are arguing over the play call at the end and bemoaning the fisticuffs as I smile to myself.

Football is over.