Summer Reading List for My People

Happy two-days-left-of-school everyone!  For those of you who were out before Memorial Day- tell me, is life as sweet as it seems over there in the land of logic and reasoning?  What's it like living in the boundaries of a district which recognizes that forcing people to go to school in June is like sitting through the credits after a movie is over?  Maybe there's a good little tidbit at the end, but mostly you're just passing time.      

And for those of you who aren't out for another week or two, read this blog post from Jen Hatmaker if you haven't already.  It went viral last week, and with good reason.  Apparently a lot of people can relate, including me.  In fact, it was on my mind these last two nights as PG's teacher is still assigning homework- and not just any homework.  Long Division homework.  Do you know what causes more drama than long division?  Nothing.  Nothing causes more drama than long division.  Not even fractions.  Please pray for me, PG, and the innocent box of #No. 2 pencils whose erasers are being worn down to flat little nubs and whose long, sleek yellow bodies are being dented and chipped by rough treatment from frustrated hands.   Mainly mine.

Anyway.

I felt like writing tonight, but didn't really have a topic to write about.  Then I remembered a conversation that I had with 9 last week after he came home from taking the SAT.  I had asked him what the essay prompt was and he said it was something like "Should universities teach pop culture?".  He argued for the case, and while it sounded like he wrote a pretty solid essay, I had to stop listening to him after he told me that one of his pieces of evidence was that "people don't really read books anymore."

Uhhhh, what?  People don't read books anymore?  I'm really hoping that was teenage naiveté. In fact, looking back I'm pretty sure he meant that people don't get information from books anymore.  That would be true.  But if you're my people in my world, you still read books.  Lovely, lovely books- with  bendy spines, and dusty smells, and.... words.

I love books, and I prefer reading them in person (and by that I mean in paper form) than electronically- although truthfully I'll take my stories anyway I can get them. So I thought, since it's summer, I'd give you a list of some of the best books I've read this year.  It's a short list, since I haven't had a lot of extra time to read.  Hopefully that changes this summer.   If you have any recommendations, I'd love it if you'd leave them for me in the comments.

Alright.  Here we go.

Number 1-  Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn.

This is probably the most memorable one I've read all year.  I had brought it with me on vacation last August and meant for it to last me all week.  Instead, I ended up reading the entire thing in the car on the 8 hour drive up to San Francisco.  I couldn't stop.  The whole thing was like a bag of kettle chips (you all remember how much I love my kettle chips).  The characters were deliciously flawed, and all their flaws wove right into the twisted plot in the most compelling way.  Clear your schedule if you read this one.  Not much will get done until you're finished.

Number 2- One Thousand White Women, by Jim Fergus

I liked this one because it is a fiction historical novel that very well could have been true.  The premise of the story is that President Grant, in an attempt to peacefully integrate settlers and natives in the mid 1800's, grants a request from a Cheyenne Indian Tribe to appoint a group of women "volunteers" to travel west and marry  into the Cheyenne tribe.  (In fact, in 1854, a group of Cheyenne Indians did propose to President Grant that he send them a group of white women so they may be permitted to intermarry and teach the natives the "ways of the white man", while also having mixed race babies that would ultimately unite the two cultures).
In reality, the proposal was turned down. However, in this novel, the President publicly rejects the proposal, but secretly fills the tribe's request by seeking volunteers from insane asylums.  The main character, May Dodd, is probably one of the best written female characters of any book I've ever read.  I was astonished that it was a man that authored her female perspective into existence.  And as you might expect, the story that follows is heart breaking, yet so well written that I felt haunted by it for weeks.

Number 3- 11-22-63, by Stephen King
I have to start this by saying that 15 years ago or so, I was reading Needful Things before bed and whatever it was that I read before I put the book down and fell asleep gave me such a bad nightmare than I woke up and vomited.
I seriously vomited.... and then I never picked up another Stephen King book again- until a few months ago.  A friend recommended this, so despite my reservations I cautiously started in on the first few chapters.  After that, it was easy.  I kept going, and 11-22-63 turned out to be the best time travel story I've read since The Time Traveller's Wife.  
The main character, Jake Epping, starts off his time traveling adventures to save a friend from a horrid small town crime that takes place in the 50's.  However, as the title hints, he  soon realizes he can make bigger changes on a global level. The rub is that the longer he stays back in time, the more his ties to the future become tangled. Before he knows it he has a much larger conundrum on his hands than he ever bargained for.  It was a delicious read, and you'll be happy to hear, not once did it make me throw up.

Number 4- The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Okay, so I didn't read this one for the first time this year.  Like most of you, I read Gatsby for the first time back in tenth grade English.  I liked it okay then, but all the symbolism forced upon me by my (probably) well-intentioned teacher got in the way of the whole point of the novel: what it was that made Gatsby great.  Who cares about the green light at the end of the dock, or the giant eyes of Dr. T.J Eckleburg when you have a character who can love someone so wholeheartedly and (in my opinion) foolishly as Gatsby?  Now that I know considerably more about love than I did at age 15, in rereading the book, the character of Gatsby fully broke my heart:  The way he schemed to be close to Daisy, his anxiety at seeing her again for the first time at Nick's, how he took the blame when she ran over Myrtle, how he still had hope and waited under her window until early morning after she went back to Tom.  It killed me.  That poor, poor man.
You know, Nick is really the only likable character in the whole book, but that doesn't stop this from being one of my favorite stories of all time.  It's romantic and hopeful and tragic- and it doesn't hurt that Leo DiCaprio's face is now what I picture while reading this beautiful novel.

Number 5- Wild About Books, by Judy Sierra and Skippy Jon Jones, by Judy Schachner
I'm having trouble thinking of another adult book, and 4 seems like a weird number upon which to stop a list.  So,  I'm including two read alouds here.  These truly are the two best children's books I've read all year.
The first, Wild About Books, was given to me by my friend Alisha.  She said she just thought of me when she read it.  Isn't that sweet?  I'm hoping it doens't mean that I remind her of a bunch of unruly book-loving animals, cause that's kind of what this book is about.  A librarian drives a bookmobile into a zoo and introduces the animals to books.  You know how Pixar movies, while geared towards the kids, usually have little subtle nuances for adults so they don't get bored? That's this book.  The rhymes are intelligent and hilarious, including this haiku written by a walking stick:

A cannibal twig

Silently devours a leaf-

Eating, not eaten. 

(In case you're interested, the scorpion's review of haiku claimed it pretentious.  Ha!)

The other book, Skippy Jon Jones, is just fun and imaginative.  It's about a kitten who thinks he's a chihuahua and has to hide in his closet to have adventures away from his mama. Cute story, cute characters but mostly, I just like that this book gave me cause to walk around my hourse reciting this :

My name is Skippito Friskito.

I fear not a single bandito.

My manners are mellow, 

I'm sweet like the Jell-O, 

I get the job done, yes indeed-o. 

So that's it.  For those of you who are my people, happy reading!  And for those of you who are not, well, you wouldn't have made it this far anyway.  Just being here makes you my people by default.  Lucky you.


Also, a few years ago I wrote a list of my all time favorite books.  If you're interested in seeing that, you can click this link here.  That list has more or less stayed the same.

Have a good night.





 

The Prom Fairy

Hello parents.
I have someone I'd like to introduce to you tonight.  She's very important- in fact, in terms of making the magic happen, she ranks up there with Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, and The Easter Bunny.

That's right, there's a new mythical creature in town and her name is The Prom Fairy.

Are you aware of her?

The Prom Fairy resides in a spacious high school gym in the sky where bright balloon arches and colorful crepe streamers flutter about in the breeze.  Rumor has it that little gnomes bustle about a garden assembling corsages from dusk to dawn, while an endless fleet of limousines are kept polished and shined by tiny worker elves.

What does the Prom Fairy do, you ask?

Well.  The Prom Fairy is responsible for not only making sure that corsages are ordered, but that they are ordered in the right colors.  She also picks up the corsages and ensures that they stay fresh by keeping them in the refrigerator, as opposed to on... oh, I don't know- the kitchen counter? (Not that I personally know any teen who would think that they would keep fresh on a counter in 100 degree weather. Nope. Not me.)

She makes sure that the tickets are bought.  She makes sure that the tux is rented.  She attends the fitting.  She also drives the Prom attendee to pick up the tux and grits her tiny little fairy teeth through 45 minutes of the worst customer service ever known to man.

But perhaps the most difficult part of the Prom Fairy's job is the eliciting of information and communication from the Prom attendee, who, tradition would have it, is usually a teenager.  This task requires an extraordinary amount of patience and strategy on the part of the Prom Fairy.

For example, it is not uncommon for the Prom attendee to treat the expected time of departure for Prom as if it's a highly guarded government secret.  This may cause some dismay and stress on the part of the attendees parents (who only want to make sure that they have enough time to capture memories on their digital cameras).  With determination and a few hysterical threats, the Prom Fairy can usually narrow down the ETD to an hour window, which the parents can usually- although reluctantly- deal with.

Prom attendees have also been known to wait until the last minute to make decisions about important things such as transportation.  I recently heard, through the grapevine of course, that she- the Prom Fairy- had a situation in which one of her attendees, despite his parent's pleas and inquiries, did not have a clue of how he was going to get he and his date to the event.  While he didn't seem too worried about it, his parents felt pretty stressed.  Thankfully, the Prom Fairy found a simple solution.  She informed the teenager that if was unable to make a plan, then he and his date would be welcome to go to Prom in the back of his parents minivan, chauffeured by his stepmother with his young siblings in tow.  She also informed him that his parents may or may not be moved to hang a giant disco ball in the van and blast Barry White throughout the entire trip.  Needless to say, the young attendee was motivated, and with a mere 18 hours to go before the start of Prom, cemented his own plans (which thankfully did not involve a minivan or Barry White).

It's my hope that you all, my readers, will embrace this new magical creature with open arms.  Make her feel welcome.  After all, look at how much we owe to her peers: what would the magic of Christmas be without Santa?  Who would buy the presents?  Who would bake the cookies?  Who would put together the bikes and stuff the stockings?  And what about the Easter Bunny?  What would Easter Sunday be without all that yummy chocolate and egg hunts?  Thank goodness the bunny takes care of all that for us!  And of course, there's the Tooth Fairy with her gold coins and dollar bills, standing diligently at our children's bedside.  Where would we be without her?

So thank you.  Thank you, Prom Fairy for all that you've done to make this household's Junior Prom a truly memorable experience.  You rock.

P.S- The secret subtitle to this post is "Dear Parents of the Class of 1992:  A Belated Thank You."
Thank you to my own Prom Fairies- aka Mom and Dad.

Float

This afternoon I pulled a lounge chair onto our pool's baja shelf and sat with my feet in the water as Roo swam back and forth in front of me.  She was ecstatic to have me there, having just ditched the arm floaties for total swim independence.  And since she knew that my parental duties required that I stay present and alert as long as she was in the water, she decided to take full advantage of the situation by demanding "Mama, WATCH!' every time she swam to a new location.

You all know how that goes.  "Mama Watch" is the most boring game in the world, and it became exponentially more difficult to act impressed every time she wanted approval.  It crossed my mind to go mean girl on her and say something like "Oh good, honey.  Tell me, the next 50 times you swim to that rock are you going to expect me to cheer?  Because if you are, mommy is going to run inside and grab a red cup with something special inside to help with that, mmmkay?"

But I didn't.   It was partially my fault that she was so excited.  In the last three years, her dad and I have probably spent over $300 in swim lessons for her.   Girl KNOWS how to swim, trust me.   But Roo, being our most timid and least self-assured child, hadn't ever really gotten the confidence that she needed to believe that she could swim.  So that, combined with the fact that she's our third baby and we were just.... I don't know- tired, is how she ended up relying on her arm floats for three years.  It was just easier.

Matt decided last Monday that it was time to conquer the beast.  He's better than me with this stuff.  While I would have just thrown her in the water and said "Swim!", he talked to her gently and encouragingly.  Funny how that can be effective.  Fifteen minutes later she was floatie free, so it felt only fair that on this afternoon I pay the piper by listening to her joyful pride as she swam around without the assistance of inflatable devices.

Thankfully the water was relaxing.  As I watched her, I started thinking about how taking off the floaties has really been a metaphor for the mental push and pull that parenting has been lately.  I've felt like every week, sometimes every day, I've been having to ask myself "Are they ready for this yet, or do they need me a little longer?"  It's exhausting.  I've never felt like I have parenting under control, but you know.... when the kids were younger, the issues were more along the lines of "Are they ready for solid food? Should I move them out of the crib?  Can I switch them to a forward facing car seat?"  All these things I could look up on the internet.  Nowadays it's not as easy.

J has been struggling with fitting in.  When we take him to parties, he refuses to interact with the other kids.  He'll go off and play by himself somewhere, or worse, cling near us.  It's maddening.  I want to say "Go!  GO!  Stop hanging on me.  Take off the floaties and SWIM for God's sake!'  (Actually, I do say that.  Not the swim part, cuz that's a metaphor.   Unless it's a pool party, in which case, yes, I do literally want him to swim).    However, he's inherited Matt's shyness and my social awkwardness, which is just about the worse mix of DNA he could have been born with where parties are concerned.  So he clings.  He refuses to take off the floaties and swim independently.

On the other hand, we have PG who announced to me a few weeks ago that she wanted to watch The Hunger Games.  I hadn't let her seen it because it's basically a story about kids being forced to kill other kids for the entertainment of adults.  Dark stuff.  But that's my Gracie.  She's dark like that.  I have to acknowledge that side of her, so I told her that if she read the book and still wanted to see the movie that we'd rent it.  So she did.  She read it in two days.  She was kind of obsessed with it.  So we let her watch the movie and she loved that too.  In fact, my Mother's Day card from her stated that I was "as strong as Katniss Everdeen."

Wow.  Thanks PG.  That's pretty strong.

I thought I had done a pretty good job of judging when it was okay to take off the floaties and let her enter the land of young adult books with more mature themes.  But then she started having nightmares about mutant monkeys with sharp teeth, so now I'm back to square one.  Did I have misjudge and take the floaties off too soon?  

Then there's 9, who we had to force to get his driver's permit last July.  His 17th birthday is coming up and he's finally decided that he wants to get his license.  Yay!  I'm pretty sure that some of this decision was made partly due to the fact that he's going to the Prom this weekend and there is a very real possibility that, unless he figures something out in the next 24 hours, I will be driving he and his date to the prom in the back of my minivan, with all three of his siblings in tow.  Nothing like the threat of a little parental humiliation to motivate a teen to take his own floaties off.

All this was passing through my mind while sitting on the pool shelf, nodding vacantly to Roo and throwing an occasional thumbs up.  To break up the monotony, I called to J: '"Hey!  Why don't you teach Roo to float?"  And J, my middle child who never passes up an opportunity to be an authority on anything, turned to her and then said something very wise and relevant.  For all my pondering about when it's okay to push your child or keep them close, I forgot that sometimes it’s helpful to stop worrying and just be still for a moment.  It’s okay to just sit and let things be where they are.  J summed it up for me in his instructions to Roo:

“Just take a deep breath and lean your head back.  Then peace!  Harmony!   You just float."

A PSA for PMS

Okay guys.  I've been holding onto this post for a while- since October, actually.  I haven't published it because HELLO MARITAL PROBLEMS, which is a pretty good reason to not publish something.  Mr. C hates it when I poke fun at something on this blog that's actually a real true life problem for us.  And I get that.  I do.  However, I've come to believe from talking to my friends and sisters out there that this is a real true life problem for many many many couples.   So really, publishing this is kind of like putting out a public service announcement.  It's something we maybe can all relate to and learn from.  Maybe we can even laugh about it when all is said and done.

So I'm doing it.  I'm publishing this.

(And just in case any of you are still uneasy with this, you should know that I showed him this ahead of time.  I'm publishing this with his blessing.)

Allright.  This post is best said with pictures, so here we go.

P.M.S Week

How I react to messes:

How I react to the kids' squabbles:

How I react to Mr.C:

What all that reacting does to my inner dialogue and my waist size:

Then I feel bad.  I want to make things better.  I apologize to Matt for acting crazy.

And that's when he says this.  

He thinks he's being understanding.   

But he's not.

Ladies, I think you know where I'm going with this. Gentlemen, if there are any of you reading out there,you are probably feeling lost or confused.  Maybe a little nervous too.  All those feelings would be appropriate.

You see, us women know how to read between the lines.  We're quite good at it.  In fact, we're so good that we can read between lines that you gentlemen didn't even know were there.  Now, Matt thinks  that what I hear him say is that he "understands", but that is not what his words mean at all.  His words really mean "Oh, good. She sees her crazy.  I can forget about everything she just said because none of it is going to matter once she's feeling normal again."  

And THAT my friends, is when the real crazy starts.  He thinks I'm apologizing for everything.  I'm not.  I'm only apologizing for my behavior.  Whatever he did that initially upset me.....that I am not apologizing for. In fact, whatever it was has probably been bugging me for quite a while.  I haven't made as big a deal of it because at the time I had logic and stable hormones and sanity on my side.  And just because on this particular day those traits happen to be absent, does not mean that he should just dismiss the argument-THE ARGUMENT ABOUT THE THING THAT HAS BEEN BUGGING ME FOR WEEKS- AND BLAME IT ON MY HORMONES!!!!!!!! 

Do.Not.Blame.The.Hormones.  

Deep breath in.  Breathe out, annnnnddd....

This has been a public service announcement.  Thank you.  

Thigh Gaps: Scarier Than a Break-In

Thanks all for your concern and support regarding the break in.  We’re all moving on.  I think the kids have more or less forgotten about it, and as for me, while it’s still taking up too much head space, I’m trying not to let it affect my mood or my outlook. This is easier said than done most of the time.  I have to confess something to you: I posted on FB a few days ago that I cleaned out my closet.  The reason why I cleaned out my closet was that…. well one, it was really messy and needed to be done, but reason number two was that I actually found myself wondering what kind of judgments the thieves passed on me when they saw the mess of shoes on my floor and the pile of dirty clothes shoved in the corner.  

I am totally aware of how twisted this is.  I may be the only woman on the planet who would be motivated to clean her closet by the fear that the punks who broke into her home would perchance dare to think her a slob.

I don’t know how I got this way.  I’m pretty sure it’s not how I started out, and I blame the insanity of motherhood.

So be it.

Anyway.  Turns out there more scary things out there this week than break-ins.  Do you know what this is?

This would be a thigh gap.  Apparently, according to Lara Spencer on Good Morning America, American teenage girls are obsessed with it.  More than anything else in the world, America girls do not want their thighs to touch. In fact, the more inches of air space between point A to B, the better. 

So, yes, young women have now invented yet another way to tear each other down and make themselves feel inferior, insufficient, not enough and it all depends on how much negative space one does or does not have between her thighs.

Fabulous. 

That’s not even the worst part. 

The interviewer asked the group of girls if boys cared about thigh gaps.  The girls all agreed that boys aren’t even aware of what thigh gaps are, to which the interviewer replied: “ Well, if boys don’t care about thigh gaps, why is it so important?”

Yes.  Because if boys had an issue with thigh gap, then somehow this stupid obsession would be more legitimate.  

Do I really care about this?  No, not really.  Am I surprised by it?  No, not all.  And I think you probably aren’t either.  I suppose I can say that I speak for a lot of women when I say that having been at this game for some time now, we all know that it’s bullshit.  Our brains know that our bodies and their shapes do not in any way reflect our value as humans, as friends, as wives, as mothers.

Except for one thing.

If my brain knows this, then why (WHY) was it impossible to resist the temptation, upon my next trip to the bathroom, to sneak a peek in the mirror to see whether I myself possessed a thigh gap? 

I’ll tell you why. 

It’s because I know it, but I don’t know it.  The voice inside my head that tells me that I’m perfect the way I am- with my flabby thighs, soft stomach and smile lines around my mouth and eyes- is drowned out by the messages of the hundreds of sexy ads I’m bombared with every day.  It’s drowned out by the voices of men in my life- some of whom I love very much- making negative comments about other women’s bodies.  And it’s taken down to a whisper by voices of other women who critique themselves so strongly that I know they must be silently judging me in the same manner. 

And the fact that my own voice gets drowned out and looses it’s power?  That’s scary.

Never before have I felt more overwhelmed at the thought of raising a girl in this society. 

PG happened to be in the room eating her cereal when the whole thigh gap story was on, so I was able to talk to her and tell her my problems with it.  She listened and took in all that I had to say.  It was nice.  However, the time for that is SO limited.  In a few short years, everything I say will seem so lame to her and her friend's adolescent opinions will hold more weight.  How in the world am I going to teach her to value herself in this superficial culture of ours?  Especially when I myself still struggle with it?

(By the way, I think I may have a bit of an answer for that.  I think the best way for us to take the focus off of superficiality is to engage in meaningful service to others. I guess you could say that it’s ironic that I would choose service to others as a way of combating the “good girls please others” mentality, BUT call me crazy....wouldn’t you think that it’d be hard to worry about the size of your thigh gap if you were in the midst of helping another survive for another day by providing them food or shelter or some other necessity?)

Look.  The reason I was compelled to look for my own bullshit thigh gap is the same reason why I felt like I should have a clean closet lest thieves break into my home again.  It’s craziness, I know it’s craziness, but getting past the I’ve been taught the “pleasing others” lesson looms nearly impossible for me.   Judging from the volume of social media that zeroes in on a girl’s insecurities such as thigh gap , I’d say it’s a difficult lesson for others to discard as well.  Here we are, fifty years past the women’s movement and our girls are still being taught the same lesson.  We’ve just made the lesson more covert, and they’ve just become more adept at reading between the lines

I don’t have anyway to end this, except to restate what I’ve already said earlier in this post: 

I don’t know how we got this way.  I’m pretty sure it’s not how we started out. I blame the insanity of being a girl.

So be it.  

  

Break In

So our house was broken into this morning.

I suppose it makes me a bit of a drama queen to harp on this and blogging about it, but if ya'll will bear with me here, writing is how I process things sometimes.

(The fact that I'm even using language like "processing" most definitely makes me feel like I'm being over dramatic.  I'm not even sure that the way I feel right now is process worthy.  I feel pretty calm.)

(In light of the above sentences, if I'm not being a drama queen, I guess I am definitely guilty of over thinking things.  I'm debating with myself over whether or not I need to process my feelings.  WTF?)

(Never mind.  It's apparent from all of the above sentences that I'm a wreck.  I just needed to write all that to see it. See?  We've come full circle to my original point- writing is how I process and understand things.)

Deep breath.

Okay.  So I returned home from tutoring today, unlocked the front door to my home, took one step inside and noticed that a drawer to the table in our foyer was pulled open.
My mind registered it as odd.

I took another step inside and saw that the cable box and DVD player were pulled out and that their wires were hanging off the shelf like strands of hair.
I froze.

What a weird thought process- to be looking around your own house and to know that things are very very wrong and yet to have your disbelieving mind still try to rationalize it.  I thought to myself, "Well, maybe we left it this way this morning?".  Even as I slowly leaned forward and saw that the desk was pulled out from the wall and that the antique piece that we have in the dining area had all it's drawers open, I was still trying to come up with an explanation besides the obvious one.

Fortunately, my legs weren't as interested in rationalizing the situation.  They took one, then two steps backwards and then I was out the door.

I crossed the lawn to the sidewalk and called Matt at work, who then instructed me to stay out of the house and to call the police (That instruction was a total formality.  He knew I wasn't going back in. I only called him first to touch base with reality because everything felt so odd.  I called the police immediately after I got off the phone with him).  

You all don't need the details with the police.  They were fine.  Came out and did their thing.  I doubt we'll ever hear back from them.

Here is what I need to get off my chest.  Again, please bear with me if I'm being too dramatic.

The absolute worst moment in all of this came when I reentered the house.  It'd been about 15 minutes and I was still waiting for the police, but by this point, I was pretty sure that there was no one inside.  My friend came (thank you Lord, in times like these for the gift of friends) and stayed with me while I walked inside to check it out.  There was still a part of me that had been hoping that I was being silly, that there was an explanation, and that everything else in the house would be undisturbed.  But when I stepped into the hallway and looked through the door to the master bedroom and saw that all my drawers had been dumped out, clothes strewn across the floor, and jewelry box open, my blood turned cold.  Looking the other way down the hall gave me a view of the kids room, where their toy boxes had been pulled out.  The drawers in the linen cabinet were pulled open.

I was so reluctant to even move from the spot I was in.  I guess that's because that's the point when I had to accept that some absolute strangers had been in my house, rifling through my drawers and putting their disgusting hands on my stuff, my family's stuff.  There was no rationalizing it anymore.  Now all I could do was deal with it.

So that's what I've been doing.  Dealing with it.  Mostly by disinfecting.  The feeling of being violated is very prominent. I know that's normal.  (Not to trivialize, but my drawer full of "good underwear"  was all over the floor and now I just want to burn it.)  I've also stared down any stranger who happens by my house in the last few hours.  Everyone is a suspect.  I hate being distrustful like that, but can't help it now.

Mostly though, I'm trying to keep perspective.  My family is safe.  I have good friends, both near and far, who either helped me directly by being there today or indirectly by just empathizing on Facebook.  Like I said, thank God for friends.

And thank God for karma.  May she find these guys and kick their lily livered big fat droopy arses from here to the north pole, and when they get to the pole may it come into direct contact with their family jewels and may their pain be excruciating.

And may they then be poked in their eyes by a pair of large reindeer antlers.  And then may they be eaten by polar bears.

With extra sharp teeth.

And razor sharp claws.

Amen.  

Taking Grace on the Road

I've been thinking a lot lately about living a more graceful life.  Not graceful as in less clumsy- although I did drop a pretty large jar of coconut oil yesterday on my foot and could potentially benefit from a more graceful life.  But that's not the type of grace I'm talking about. Nor am I referring to Gracie, my daughter (in case the title misled any of you). I'm actually talking about grace grace. You know. The spiritual kind. The kind that allows one to let go of negative emotions in lieu of compassion, empathy, kindness, and understanding.

 Maybe it's been motherhood or maybe it's just been my mid to late thirties, but somewhere in the last few years I've become much more wary of anger and judgement and much more aware of grace.  Maybe that's just a natural part of getting older. (By the way, are you guys familiar with that Ed Sheeran song that says something about a woman's face "crumbling like pastries"? Lately that line goes through my head everytime I see my reflection.  Seems to me that I'm going to need a big dose of grace just to survive the aging process.)

Anyway, I decided in the last few months that a tiny stockpile of grace could only be a good thing, so I started consciously trying to practice it.  Instead of giving in to my short fuse, I tried to step back and offer kindness or compassion in place of anger.  I still messed up every day, but for the most part it was good.  My kids and husband were targets of my anger less often. I felt less stress.  I hated my white tile floors less.  Zen was practically oozing out of my pores.  But my friends, I made a fatal error.  I began this quest for grace during high season out here in the desert.

Let me tell you about season, for those of you who don't already know.

For the most part, the months of January to May are the best time of the year out here- and I think every senior citizen in every snow region from Washington to New York City to Canada  knows it.  They all come and infiltrate the desert with their expensive town cars, poor driving skills, and sense of entitlement. I've complained written about them before here in this post.
I am not lying when I say that currently one in every five cars out here have an out of state license plate.
That means that 20% of the people that I'm on the road with daily have NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING OR WHERE THEY ARE GOING.

(Sorry for yelling, but it felt necessary to convey the frustrating experience that is driving during season.)

(Also, it's probably clear from my tone that I haven't really mastered grace in the long term.  I can only manage grace in the moment, but that's a start. Right?)
  
Practicing grace on the road during high season out here in the desert turned out to be a bigger challenge than I was prepared for.  I mean, I did good for the first few days.  For example, when I saw a car turn left onto the wrong side of the divider, instead of marveling at the driver's stupidity, I had the presence of mind to pray for his/her safety.

When a car cut me off by turning right in front of me even though there was no one behind me and they could've saved me the need to brake wildly by waiting a half a second, I was able to conjure up some empathy by remembering that my own grandfather is on the road and may make the same mistakes.  I would want other drivers to offer him grace.

I do confess, when someone honked at me because I stopped for schoolchildren in a crosswalk, I did roll down my window and ask him if he'd prefer if I'd run the pedestrians over- but I managed to do so in a joking manner with only the slightest hint of sarcasm.

And when a driver with Washington plates failed to move until the last second at a green left turn arrow, thus leaving everyone behind him to sit through another red, I was the only one of five cars who did not honk at him.  I figured the other honkers spoke for me.

However.

Turns out I have a limit. (I say that as if it's a surprise.)

The other week I was picking the kids up from school.  Nowadays I avoid the Devil's Lot by picking them up on a corner in the neighborhood across the street.  I had stopped for a truck in front of me who had double parked to let his kids get in. Upon beginning re-acceleration (key word there, as I had just put my foot back on the gas), I passed a young lady parked on the side.  She was getting her baby out of the back seat.

And that's when it happened. She yelled at me to slow down.

(This is the part where, if I was telling you this story face to face I would expect you to say something like "Oh, NO she didn't!" just so I could say "Oh YES she did!" back.)

(Let's pretend that we had that exchange.)

OH YES SHE DID!  It was too much.  After weeks (WEEKS!) of biting my tongue and being witness to countless numbers of idiots drivers making deadly mistakes on the road, she was going to yell at ME when I hadn't even hit 20mph on my odometer?

Not caring that my kids were in the car, I slammed on my brakes.  I rolled down my window.  Bug eyed, I leaned out and yelled "LADY!!!!!!  I WASN'T EVEN GOING 20 MPH!"

And she started screeching back at me about how there was a school across the street and how I needed to slow down.

So I screeched back "I KNOW THERE'S A SCHOOL ACROSS THE STREET!  I AM HERE PICKING UP MY CHILDREN!  YOU DON'T GET TO YELL AT ME TO SLOW DOWN!  I'M THE ONE WHO YELLS AT PEOPLE TO SLOW DOWN!  ME!  NOT YOU! ME!"

Those words actually came out of my mouth.  I'm not proud.

The good new is that she probably didn't hear me in her determination to drown me out by repeatedly screeching "Slow down!"  in the same manner that little kids cover their ears and shout "LALALALLALA" when they don't want to hear something.

I wish I could say that that's when the absurdity of the situation hit me, but it wasn't. (That didn't happen until I actually sat down to write this.)  I did have the presence of mind however, to realize that in that moment, I was being a terrible role model to my kids.  I guess if I really thought about it, I would've realized that I was also being a terrible role model to that new mom as well, but that's another topic.

And while I was still angry enough at her to imagine scenarios where I got to tell her off and say things like "Welcome to parenthood lady!  You and your baby against the big bad world.  Get a grip." (Wouldn't that have been SO satisfying?), I also realized that I was in the middle of a big grace fail.  Huge.

And there's the thing about grace.  It doesn't require perfection.  In fact, imperfection is it's starting point.  So you get to start over.  And over.  And over.  And over again, until you learn the lesson grace is trying to teach you.

So, I took a deep breath and chastised myself for yelling at a mom with a newborn carrier.  I am truly ashamed of that.  And I remembered back to when I was pregnant and waddling through parking lots, how offended I would get towards the drivers who zipped past me.  Maybe they weren't going faster than 20 either, but to someone who was new at trying to protect an tiny little life, it didn't matter.  I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, and felt like there should be more people working on my side.

Between that and the fact that I realized she was the reciepient of some pent up anger I'd been feeling towards the other idiots on the road  snowbirds, I was able to clear my head.  In fact, I saw her cross in front of me a few weeks later in the Target parking lot and the urge to put my car in park and rev my engine at her was very, very small.

Thank you, grace.

For my desert readers, approximately 75 days until the end of season.  That's 75 opportunities grace allows us to start over, and I have a feeling I'll be using up every one of those opportunities.