Being Back

Things are funny again. This news is not as big as the news that Addis appears to be cancer free. She will have scans for 2 more years after which the oncologist feels that, for this type of cancer, the danger will be passed.

My field of vision narrowed remarkably back in April. I was spending 6-8 hours a day at the hospital for 2 weeks. I thought about Addis, my family and Addis some more. For the next couple months, there were a lot of doctor visits, unexpected trips to the hospital, and a stay with us when I learned to change an IV bag.

About a month ago, something struck me as funny. Then it struck me as a possible blog post. Then it struck me that blog posts had not struck me for quite some time. Now there's something called Getting Back Into It that I am trying to do.

I emailed a new friend. She had asked me for some advice on homeschooling. I told her what I had done which included the time I wrote down the wrong number of children on the How Many Children Are You Schooling section. My advice was to not do that. On that same sheet, I wrote down the wrong grade for one of the children I remembered I had. I also astutely advised to not do that either.

I call this a Category 3, possibly Category 4 Humility Storm. These storms are bad for my pride. They are good for my soul.

It's good to be back.

The Girl Behind the Reason I've Been Quiet

There is a girl, close to being a daughter of ours. She went to the hospital last Monday with a "bump in her stomach." By Tuesday, surgery had revealed it was a cancerous tumor with affected lymph nodes. My writing has since been redirected to:

caringbridge.org
addisalemwolde (her full name with no spaces or capital letters)

Her prognosis is good and I know I will be writing funny things again at some point. The funniest thing that has happened so far is when I got home from a really long day at the hospital, made an apple pie (out of a box), found out the kids had accidentally dumped it upsidedown on the floor and I gave them forks and Cool Whip. Plates and a table aren't as necessary as one might think.

Fashion and Modesty

We have tried to keep some rules concerning modesty in our home. They basically boil down to: knock and don't come into a room when the door is closed until you knock. And ask permission.

The other morning I was getting ready for the day. I had a pair of jeans on that fit as well as a 50 cent pair of jeans needs to. They need a belt. I was also wearing a tshirt. It was tucked in. I was just about ready to put on a sweatshirt when there was a knock at the door. "Mom, are you modest?" came the question from one of my sons. I looked in the mirror. The only body parts showing were ones he had definitely seen before. "Yes, you can come in." He walked in to ask me a question and stopped dead in his tracks. Silence is not common for my boys. He looked at me. "Whoa, Mom. You look kind of like, a...hillbilly." This was all the cue my other son needed to rush in, bypassing all knocking and asking. After all, there was suddenly a hillbilly in the bathroom. Last he knew, it was just me. He screeched to a stop next to his brother and assessed. "Mom! You're like a worker guy!"

Since then, I have thought some about fashion. I think that being a mom at home who still needs to leave home at times, gives one a rather small menu of clothes from which to pick. There are the outfits that have made my boys ask, "Are those your pajamas?" and while they are not, they could be. There are outfits that have actually made me crabby. And when I go shopping I find that my requirements for clothes usually go well beyond the possibilities that exist. Can it be thrown up on? is a great winnower of clothing. There is also the Old Mom Trying To Look Young Dilemma juxtaposed with Nesting Robin On a Flowering Tree Branch White Hanes Sweatshirt.

So, for now I will be a Hillbilly Worker Guy. That means if I decide to do construction in Kentucky, I won't need to wonder what to wear.

The Temperature of Turkey

I decided to clean out a drawer yesterday. Just one. I called it my Pompeii Drawer because the dust resembled something like a volcanic eruption, not just a neglected Spare Parts Kitchen Drawer. In the drawer I found a meat thermometer. On the meat thermometer was a hook like the hook on a mechanical pencil. In my curiosity, I accidentally broke off the hook thing, but it made me wonder, "Do people really wear these around? Do meat thermometers always come with hook things so that at any given moment, I could pull it out of my pocket and measure the temperature of some meat? I don't know if I'd have room for it and my Texas Instruments calculator...." I have used my meat thermometer one time in 41 years. That is why it is in the Pompeii Drawer. I will probably never use it again. It made a perfectly fine turkey dinner into a nightmare.

I planned to use up everything I could in my chest freezer. The turkey seemed to linger as the meal that most needed to be made. Maybe because we weren't close to a single holiday when turkey is appropriate, the first week of February seemed like as good a time as any. I dutifully defrosted the turkey in the refrigerator. I stuck the turkey in the oven at 2 pm. By 6:30, surrounded by a starving family, I decided to call it done. On a whim, I also decided that tonight would be the first night I would try out a meat thermometer. 155 degrees. Sounded hot. According to the meat thermometer, however, I was well away from the recommended 180 degrees needed for "poultry." Back in the oven went the turkey. I called two friends: "Do they really mean 180 degrees? What if it's been in the oven for 4 1/2 hours?" I turned the oven to 400. I fed the family vegetables and bread. I checked the turkey. 165 degrees. Now it was time to pray. "Please don't let my family die eating this." They ate, they lived, my husband stuck the turkey back in the oven, I found it several hours later and threw it away.

I have a little more space in my freezer now.

Of Florida and Birthmarks

I just returned from a trip to Florida. I went with a friend. Our last day and night are the inspiration for the following story.

We walked on the beach. Two women were getting married. A fighter jet soared overhead. And then a baby hammerhead shark, very much alive, washed up on the beach right in front of me. I had two instincts take over. Both were perhaps rooted in being a mom; the problem was that they were in conflict. The first instinct was to save the shark. It was the “Oh, Did You Fall Down and Get An Owie?” Instinct. The shark was cute and gasping and helpless. As soon as I reached for it though, the Other Instinct kicked in. I guess I would call it the “Don’t Pet A Strange Dog, It Might Bite You” Instinct. Except this was a shark. Because I generalize the ocean to a mass of invisible, venomous creatures all silently plotting to sting me, paralyze me, drag me into the undertow and eat me, Instinct Two was a formidable barrier to saving the shark.

It was at this point, I compromised. I touched the shark. I’d like to think of it as a reassuring pat: “Don’t you worry. Your Mom will be here in just a minute.” If I had to be honest though, it was really a poke followed by a loud scream. Just in case it was plotting to spin around and bite my arm in two. My scream landed squarely on a woman obviously familiar with shark beachings who then rescued the shark and me and threw the shark back into the water.

Our last night was uneventful until the sound of very loud fighting punctuated the quiet. A swear word and glass shattering made me reach for the phone and then simply hold the receiver in my hand. My friend woke up too. “Call the front desk,” I said, holding the phone in my hand and deciding to stop there. I waited. She searched for the elusive Front Desk Button and told me later, she didn’t think of the number zero. Fortunately, there is a genius out there who invented a system whereby one can simply hold the phone in a stupor and a call will eventually connect to the front desk. I held the phone…the Front Desk answered.

Tony, the night manager, was true to his word. “We’ll send someone right up.” My friend and I peeked through the hole in the door, cursing the smudge.

“Sir! We need to know where the blood is coming from,” said a security guard, now accompanying the night manager.

The mention of blood and an unknown source takes things to a whole new level. Gone was the giddy voyeuristic intrigue. We suddenly felt tossed into a wholly different situation that demanded much more than either of us possessed.

Fortunately, the blood was from the man who had punched the picture frame. “I just need a vacuum,” stated the now calmed idiot who thought if he couldn’t fix his girlfriend, he could at least vacuum up an entire picture’s worth of glass.

With not much more to see, we decided to do what most people would at 2:00 in the morning. Take pictures. My friend is posing by the peephole. I am pretending to smash a picture.

The silver lining is that we did not pay for this last night’s amusement nor did I have to invent stories of heroism when I got home to a waiting family.

Our first day back together, I made a ham. Seemed like the way to say, “Hey. I’m really back and I’m into this all again.” Not like the communication of, say, a meal of Hot Pockets. My son ate a couple pieces of ham, then asked what the “pink thing” was. Before I could answer, he said, “It’s probably a birthmark. Can I be excused? I just lost my appetite.”

Welcome home, me.

Travel Time

We were waiting to board a flight to Denver. The flight was overbooked, and our family of seven was not helping. The woman at the desk was determined that as many of us that could sit together would sit together. She gave me our boarding passes: one was seat 2B. That was sounding awfully close to the front of the plane, a place we hadn't ever been before. "Is this first class?" I asked carefully, thinking she would gasp, snatch the pass from my hand and reassign me to row 35, right by the bathrooms. "Yes," she replied. "You can switch with the person in row 7. Then you can sit by your kids." 

Now that one took me a little while to consider. Wouldn't any good mother gladly exchange a first class seat in order to sit by her children? I wavered, I'll admit. Then it occurred to me. We have a Lap Infant. Everything changed. 

The term Lap Infant is sort of endearing. It sounds cuddly, sweet, desirable. What it actually means is Really Hot Squirming Baby In Your Personal Space For a Really Long Time. Given that reality, I decided that I could legitimately take the first class seat because there were going to be 2 of us. 

The 7 of us staggered onto the plane. I plopped down in seat 2B with my computer, my diaper bag, my backpack of lame tricks to keep my lap infant happy and my Lap Infant. The man I was sitting next to smiled. The rest of first class did not. Suddenly I realized. There is an understanding among first class seaters. 1. You will not be loud. 2. You will not jostle nor bump the seats around you. 3. Your stuff will fit neatly under the seat in front of you. 4. You will not touch the back of the head in front of you. 5. You will only touch the tray table when there is a reason to touch the tray table. 6. You will not be a Lap Infant. My right eye developed a twitch. My "I'm A Really Good Mom In Control" persona switched into high gear. I knew I suddenly needed to be Martha Stewart Entertains A Baby for the next 2 hours so that the people around me, who paid about 10x more for their seats than I did, could feel like their ticket was worth it.

All told, we did all right. We broke every rule but not on a continual basis (number 6 aside). I had a good conversation with the man next to me. I learned that in first class I would get a single Twix bar, a bag of pita chips and my garbage picked up more often. 

I learned that economy class is forgiving and smily. I learned that being scrunched together gives a little more grace. I learned that the temperature of a baby does not get cooler even in first class. 

Body Scents

I love to go to Bath and Body. Not often. Just enough to check out what is new and sometimes, to buy what is not. I will buy pumpkin scented lotion in February and tropical mango candles in October. I will dutifully keep my coupons for a free drop of lotion if I buy $65 worth of aromatherapy candles. 

I got the usual cheerful greeting from a woman, holding a basket, looking for all the world like a blossom. Radiant, happy, full of potential probably because she smelled so good and lived in a world of tangerine invigorating wrinkle reducing skin serum. She smiled at me in sort of a pained way. The way a blossom might smile at a Christmas tree in March. Then she asked me this question: "Do you have a personal scent?"

There were oh so many places I could go with this one. I immediately thought of the conversation my husband and I had had just recently when we were getting ready for bed. We both needed to jump in the shower and Joel remarked, "Whoa. One of us smells like chicken." 

"I hope it's you," was my reply. 

As I sorted through what I could possibly answer Bath and Body's Hopeful Blossom, I noticed my boys were getting right to the task of generating their own personal scent. The best description I have would be Coconut Bubble Gum Cinnabon Sparkle. They view tester bottles sort of like the dessert line at Old Country Buffet; the more the better.

I was finally able to say that no, I did not have an intentional personal scent but was just looking around. I shopped in the Reject Smell section of the store, and as I did, I pondered what scent I might choose for myself, if such a thing were even possible. 

Thus, I landed on the idea of bleach. Bleach says, "I'm clean and practical." Bleach says, "I'm a responsible adult." Bleach says, "If I've invited you over for a meal, you can feel free to use the wooden cutting boards and the kitchen sponge." 

I didn't ask if they carried my newly invented personal scent in a lotion. I bought a $3.00, 8 ounce bottle of Vanilla Bean Holiday soap and wondered if I had time to stop at Target for a $.97, 2 gallon bottle of bleach. It comes in lavender now too.

Have you ever had....?

When I make meatballs for supper, they are already in ball form. When I make hamburgers, they are already patties. Chicken breasts? Boneless, skinless, sometimes even seasoned. Salmon is filleted, hotdogs are in tubes, spaghetti sauce is ready in the time it takes to open the jar and warm it up. This is all to give the back drop to Joel's question about deer. 

"Have you ever had deer that wasn't in a sausage form?" he casually asked me one night. 

"No. I didn't know it came in another form except for sausage, or maybe strolling across the yard and lying twisted in a ditch," I answered. 

"Well, Pete and Jen have 60 pounds of deer meat in their freezer. Pete said it's in all sorts of cuts, ready to cook and really good." 

"How did they get 60 pounds of ready deer meat in their freezer?" was my next question. I was hoping that maybe there had been a big sale on prepackaged deer, feeling though, like that was somewhat unlikely.

"He shot it and cut it up," Joel answered. Sort of like one might describe the way coffee is made: "Oh, he ground the beans and put them in a filter...."

"He shot it?" I clarified. "It didn't die near his yard or get hit with his car?" 

What followed was the ole' I Just Need a Gun, A Hunting License and a Day In The Woods Conversation; the conversation with the This Is Really No Big Deal undertone. However, there is another undertone worth paying attention to called How It Really Is With Us. Joel shot a pheasant one afternoon. What followed was something pretty close to a B horror movie right in my kitchen. It would have been called "Night of the Crockpot Pheasant Whose Feet Rotted On the Counter." The feet stunk. The pheasant stunk. We ate about 3 bites in order to claim that we had been self sufficient, not relying on some far flung region of the world to feed us. I would not let the kids near it. Even after several hours in a crockpot, it still looked like guaranteed bird flu. Some people like to claim that things they hunt "taste sort of like chicken." Or, that they "liked it, it was just a little gamey." They are lying. This tasted nothing like chicken; and "gamey" has a sort of complimentary adventurous feel to it. Rotty with Bite is much more accurate.

So now I'm back to thinking about this deer who is different from a pheasant in so many ways that make it all the less appealing to actually prepare and eat:

1. It has a personality

2. It is the type of animal people put on calendars and greeting cards

3. It will not fit into my crockpot

However, this Friday I will be buying grainy bread and dark chocolate. I will be helping to complete a meal of venison stew that our dear and, may I say, very brave friends are bringing to our house. Pete would like to take Joel out hunting. I will remind Joel that we have already had deer once this year. It was at least 60 pounds, probably more. It was in the form of a condiment that ran along the entire passenger side of our suburban. 

 

Innocence Lost

Who knew the shark video from the library should have had a rating, an "explicit content" sticker, a giant head with a bigger mouth saying, "Not appropriate for your children."

It's been way below zero here for a really long time. Eventually, I will probably start showing full length movies during morning play break but for now, I am still doing documentaries. Maybe it's that I feel like I am still doing school when animals are being filmed and educationally spoken of. That's in contrast to trying to make, say, a study guide for "Finding Nemo. A lot of my opinions changed though, this morning. 

I got off the treadmill. I had been listening to John Piper on Romans 9. My head was filled with thoughts of election, sovereignty, irresistible grace. I walked into the room where my kids were watching the shark documentary I had checked out from the library and instructed them to watch. I came in at this part: 

"The male shark finally manages to get a hold of the female's gills. As he grabs onto them, he lacerates them, causing her to lie still. The male now brutally and violently implants himself in the female. Finally finished, he swims away while she lies exhausted and injured." 

There is plenty of photography to accompany this statement. The photographer/sicko remarks on the rarity of such close footage of this sort of behavior. I am catatonic. "What are they doing, Mom?" awakens me out of my stupor, not to give an answer but simply to say, "Wow. Who's ready to go upstairs?"

The forecast for tomorrow is 8 degrees. It's time to go outside to play. I think it is still too cold for the deer to be making plans.

Are Wildberry Poptarts a Fruit?

I used to be quite familiar with health food stores. I knew where to find what I needed and what the things in the bins were that I didn't need. I was following a recipe garnered from some recently issued magazine like "Cooking Light." Ten ingredients? No problem. Ten ingredients, 45 minute prep time, 3 servings? Didn't bat an eye. 

I was in a health food store last week. The first thing my kids and I found was the bakery. I asked my son to get a chocolate chip cookie for me. "This one?" he said, pointing to a gluten free cookie. "No, the one below it." "Oh, this one?" "No," I responded. "That one is fat free. Mommy is pointing to the one with all the chunks sticking out of it." After successfully selecting the cookie of the day, we headed to the "bins." The bins are another name for a whole bunch of grainy, nutty, dried, leafy collections in plastic containers. However, there is a shining star amidst the wheat free organic nonprocessed whole grain fig bars. Its name is Malt Balls. They are the biggest malt balls I have ever seen. One could almost imagine a round of golf with them. They do not seem to fit in with their neighbors (carob raisins and sunflower trail mix.) But they are glorious, and we buy them. 

At the checkout line, my baby begins to chew through the plastic wrap that surrounds my cookie. I look in our cart and assess the absence: absence of nutrition, absence of the food pyramid, absence of anything but dessert. The child in the cart behind us is eating an unpeeled organic carrot. His mother is buying an organic free range chicken and bread that required the better part of an acre of grain to make. I sigh. I remember my days of starting a meal with ingredients whose most recent memory was a garden. Now I wonder. Are Wildberry Poptarts ever organic and do they count as a fruit?

Name That Smell

Mom, my toenails smell like Cheetos.... Mom, the baby's toy smells like mushrooms.... These are two of the latest "smells like" situations we've had. There are probably many more, it's just that no one has taken the time to smell them. 

All of this has given me pause to reflect on the issue of what is clean and how important is it? Just this week, the news reported that the products used to make babies smell like babies (not mushrooms) are potentially dangerous. The comment I particularly liked was, "We don't think a chemical build up in anyone's urine is a good thing." So now, all those times that I was planning to give our baby a bath but never got around to it, seem rather fortuitous. Clean was overrated. Likewise, a germ free house. Earlier this year, I heard that kids are more prone to allergies and asthma if they are not exposed to germs. That's a good news/bad news situation. None of my kids has allergies, but what does that say about the house? How deep does their resistance go? The bright side is that perhaps they could go to a Third World country.... and drink the water.

Blogging 101

Today, my brilliant husband showed me the elementary aspects of setting up a blog site.  So, here it is.  Actually, I'm dishing out ice cream while my humble husband finishes.