Sara is Twelve Today

"Twelve" is awesome. The best! This particular twelve-year-old still plays with her American Girl dolls; but she designs racy, biker-chick outfits for them out of duct tape. She is serious about art and will spend hours perfecting a horse-drawing. She will also use the oil pastel crayons to streak her hair. She has a collection of piggy banks, all of them empty, because she can't hang on to money to save her life. She drops into the Gad Chutes at Snowbird, but cannot seem to navigate her laundry pile. There is nothing she loves more than playing practical jokes on me and having me get even. She is going to be an archaeologist - this has been the plan since she was five. But mummies freak her out. Shipwrecks, yes; mummies, no.

She still wants to crawl in bed with me on a Saturday to have a snuggle and read poetry. She comes back from birthday parties freaked out because there were kissing games. She and her friends go up to the school parking lot to ride their rip-sticks for hours at a time. She is afraid of the old dolls in the basement. For how much longer do I get to enjoy these little contradictions?

She doesn't get a "friend" party this year. It's her turn for a "family" party. She gets to decide what that means.
For her, that means tuna melts on English muffins. Partly because she loves tuna; partly because she knows Nate hates tuna.
No birthday cake. She wants chocolate fondue. Suits me fine; but it is hard to stick 12 candles into a plate of cut-up stuff.

Shit! It looks like a conflagration! By the way, I have a wonderful camera, but take most of my blog photos with my phone. That's because loading nice photos onto Blogger takes forever! Does that bug anyone else?

Then, off to Classic Skate! My friend Moira came to meet up with us; partly to skate, and also to hear me dish the dirt about how I'm doing. I filled her in on 83% of the gory details of my messed up life, and I was amazed to find her... supportive! When we talked a little last week, I thought she took a different position. Mostly, though, we skated. I don't recall that I have ever roller skated before - maybe once? But ice skating helps. I got faster and faster, and I could skate backwards. But I couldn't switch from backward to forward rapidly, like I can on ice skates. And I can't pick up my foot to do a cross-over. If I really want to be able to play roller derby, I need to be able to do that. Moira wants to practice! Maybe we'll go a few more times! Classic Skate is great, if you wait until just before they close. At 7 PM, the place is packed. Look out for:

1. Little bittie children on little bittie scooters, darting among the adults like minnows;
2. People who are really, really good;
3. People who are really, really bad;
4. Polygamous sister-wives, holding hands as they skate four abreast and two deep. In long skirts;.
5. The 14-year old boy, six-foot-four and all flailing limbs, windmilling all over the track. In sunglasses;
6. The jump ramp, which seems to be ever-moving, ever-shifting. You never know where it will be next and whether you will be forced to go over it.
7. Strollers.
8. Tricycles.
9. Anyone who comes barrelling up behind you, screaming things like, "Cowabunga!", "Oh, my God! Look out!" "AH! AAAAAH! PEOPLE!" or "SORRY! SORRY!"
10. Ego. I was getting pretty zippy and thought I would cleverly hockey stop to show off for Moira, which sent my flying onto my ass. I am going to have the biggest fucking bruise. Luckily my backside is the kind that...well...absorbs shock. I would be fine if I hadn't landed on my phone. As it is, I think my run tomorrow is going to be interesting.

Unless I forget to mention it, we played laser tag, which made me think of nothing so much as being a really free-spirited Costco checker.

Happy birthday, Sara! Can you stay twelve forever?

[I was strong again today! I know now; regardless of how my problems are resolved, I will be OK. I suspect there are some more sad days coming before I'm through this pickle one way or the other. BUT. I can accept whatever comes because I have super friends, good Scotch, upbeat music and dark chocolate.]

And the Clouds Parted

An AWESOME day today! No misery all day long! I know why this is: I was able to talk to a friend today, and it helped a bunch. No problems solved; no end to the limbo. But I have better understanding of what is going on. I was shown that I had some wrong ideas. This was a huge relief. You know how that can happen? Thank God for amazing friends who can spend a little time talking and listening. I appreciate it.

Sooooo.... I'm smokin' hot today! Motivated! Focused! I had better enjoy it while it lasts. I may be able to get a couple more days off this pick-me-up. In the spirit of a lighter soul, how about "Five Fine Things"?

1. Grandpa Mario met me at the door this morning and rolled my cart full of paperwork into my office for me. Hugs! Kisses! Candy! And he called me (in Spanish) "my queen". I like being a queen.
2. I harassed the third grade girls while they were lined up in the hall. "Hey! Who's gonna do Girls on the Run?!? Look at the cool t-shirts we get! Did you guys get your shoes, yet? " This is a little bit naughty, because they are supposed to be silent when they are lined up. I caused disturbance and got them all riled up. You know those uncles who come over an hour before bed-time and get the kids agitated when you want them to calm down? That was me.
3. My boss Vicki has a bad cold and feels that banana cream pie from Marie Callender's will cure what ails her. All of us at Executive Staff meeting benefited from this treatment.
4. Becca gave me an enormous bear-hug this morning, using the embrace as an opportunity to steal my screaming monkey. I didn't realize until it slammed into the back of my head at high speed an hour or so later.
5. Herminda R. came to the office tonight to tell me how much she loves coming to school.

Oh! And a bonus thing: The guitar books I ordered for Sara's birthday arrived today, in the nick of time. I just have to get her the fancy colored duct tape that she loves so much, and some green paint. I'm going to do her room this weekend, provided she can get her floor cleared off enough that I can get to the walls! Off to Home Depot right now! I will be lucky to make it before they close.

Up To Three

It's a cult: I'm convinced, now.

OK, this all started last summer, when I found a Cabbage Patch head on the front lawn at Butler Middle School. Pink yarn hair, piggy eyes, icky face. Sara pushed it with her toe and said, "That is so wrong." I left her at soccer practice, snuck back and picked up the head. She had no idea, and when she found it under her pillow that night, loud was the screaming... One of my better moments. I definitely buffed my nails over that one.

A few weeks ago, Sara reported that she had found another head (pink yarn hair, again) across the street from her school. Getting this one involved cat-burglary: I had to hoist her over a fence onto private property. Lots of hysterical whisper screams on her part: "MOM! WHAT IF SOMEONE COMES AND SHOOTS ME!?" "If anyone confronts you, throw the head over the fence to me and try to look casual."

She rigged that head so it would fall into the shower when I pulled the curtain shut. I made sure it was still soaking wet and really cold when I put it in bed with her the next morning.

And again, today. I was driving toward Cottonwood Cyclery and a flash of pink yarn caught my eye. I pulled a squealing U-turn (Better hurry! Don't want anyone to beat me to it!) and retrieved the lovely specimen above. When I came home after my run, I hunkered down low in the cab of the truck. She came out to see why I wasn't coming into the house, and when she got nice and close I screamed and thrust it out the truck window at her. It has been run over by a car, so it's head is seriously fractured. It is so creepy, according to Sara, that she won't keep it in her room.

All disembodied... all with pink yarn hair... all within a half-mile radius of each other. Someone is using them for occult purposes.

[PS. I controlled the heartbreak monster reasonably well today. I would say five out of ten. I would have done better if I had gone to work, but the kids were off school. There were some very rough moments, but I was functional. Still focused on making the changes I need to make to get my groove back.]

Girls on the Run

Yesterday was bearable. We went out with some new friends last night, which was a little bit of a distraction. (Although they sometimes innocently said things that made me want to scream - they had no idea.) (I felt like my smile was glued on for much of the time.) I napped in the warmth of a sunbeam for a little while in the afternoon, curled like a dormouse in the bottom of an armchair. I'm small: I can do that. I lay there, drowsing: hearing but not listening to the drone of Simon's long conversation with his parents in England. The washer was swishing away in a hypnotic manner, and I felt relaxed for a minute. Pain free and accepting. After I woke up, I lay there for a while longer, holding still to see if I could maintain the (lack of) feeling. It was a good moment, because I thought, "Ah-hah! You are doing better because you have moved into your proactivity plan and are embarking on a new service project."

Let's talk about the Girl Box. I didn't know this phenomenon had a name, but I was confounded by it when Sara started fifth grade. Up until then, the kids went out to recess and they played: ran around, pretended stuff, played soccer. Every night at supper, I would ask, "Who did you play with today? What did you play?" (This is where it all happens at school - on the playground.)

On the first day of fifth grade, Sara rolled her eyes in disgust and said, "We don't do anything at recess anymore! We just walk around, and sit on the stairs and talk."

"Oh. Well, is that fun?"

"No: everyone just gossips; and the groups just say mean stuff about the other groups."

"The boys, too?" (I got a look like, what kind of question is that? )

"No, Mom [in a long-suffering tone]. The boys are playing soccer."

"Well, go play soccer."

"None of the other girls will play!"

"Then go play with the boys."

It took a couple of weeks, during which she sat on the stairs but cast longing looks at the play field; but then she went out and asked to play with the boys. And they let her. After a while, some of the other girls joined in as well. We are halfway through sixth grade now, and they are still playing soccer.

I am not an experienced parent (poor Sara is my trial-and-error child), so I thought this was just something happening in Sara's class. Turns out it happens all over the place. Girls on the Run aims to get girls in third, fourth and fifth grade out of the Girl Box and re-focus on what they can do, rather than how they look or whether they are sufficiently conformed. The girls have a running club that meets twice a week and trains for a culminating 5k in late May.

I don't usually do volunteer work involving kids. What do I know about kids!? But I thought I would do this because Guadalupe School is going to participate and most of the teachers in the childhood programs are tired and fed up of little kids by the end of the work day. Plus a lot of them are in grad school and have to go up to the U. when school is done. Grad school has receded into my past. And I like to run. And I'm a girl.

I also teach the parents of some of these kids, and I know that the adults are concerned about high rates of diabetes and obesity; that many parents work multiple jobs and don't have a lot of time to be active as a family. Plus, the Girl Box thing irritates me. Now that I'm old and feisty, I think, "HEY! Who gets to flip a switch and kill my playfulness? Spare me." I suck at conformity. That's why I was never part of the in-crowd.

Those are all good reasons. Plus at the training yesterday, I recalled that running has been pretty helpful to me. I remember that, when I was sick a couple years ago, going back to the track at the rec center for the first time was not fun. I was dizzy from the exertion of getting from the car to the track. I sat on the bench, gasping like a fish. Walked ONE TIME around the track, gripping the rail. Then I went home and slept for about three hours. I wrote on my blog about how life was going to suck forever more! Woe is me! (I know, it was dumb.) Next day, two times around the track, holding the rail. Walking, then running gave me something to focus on and a fixed point to refer to when I thought I wasn't progressing. Now I hardly ever think about it, so when I was filling out a questionnaire yesterday and it asked, "Have you had experiences in which running was helpful to you?" I thought, "No not really. I just like it." Then I remembered: hell yeah! Not only the gradual progress at the track but the words of the people who ran there. I remember that, on one of my first days back I was staggering along, clutching the rail, and this old guy who's there a lot said,

"Well, what's up with you, Speedy Gonzalez? Rough night last night?"

"Yeah, something like that."

Generally, people don't talk much at the gym. But the regulars would occasionally pause to say, "How many laps did you manage today?" or "Pretty soon I'm going to have to get out of your way again."

I had forgotten about all that. [reproachfully intoned] How soon we forget and take it all for granted. Yeah, whatever.

At each session, we'll talk about issues that are troublesome to girls this age; then we train. There are units on friends, gossip, etc; units on self-care and nutrition; they need to come up with a community service project that we will carry out in May; then we finish with the race. It's a fund-raiser, so all you local blog-readers should cough up your $25, come to Sugar House Park and run in it!

As a bonus, the other volunteer scoaches (who are assigned to Guadalupe from outside the school community) seem cool and we had a lot of fun together. And the t-shirts are green! I hate pink girl-shit, and green is my favorite color. Portentous.

Today sucks again. I woke up absolutely miserable. But I need to stick with my plan. For today, that means a) Guadalupe administrative work; b) planning a skate night with Moira, seeing if Diane can come over on Friday, seeing if Blanks can join us for supper on Sunday; c) start the quiet phase of changing the things that I need to change. For about a week, that'll just be working through some things on my second blog and doing some research. Step by step... What else today? Everyone else is skiing. I have laundry; curried chicken pot pie; my traditional Valentine's strawberry trifle (we don't really celebrate Valentine's Day, but this boozy, lovely trifle always makes an appearance); Home Depot for the paint to finally paint Sara's room; long run. Step by step...

The Gyno Got it in One (Day 14)

Today SUCKED! Easily one of the worst days I have had. That is SO not fair! I wonder if Fridays are worse because they are so quiet at the office. Trying to drink from a fire hose is pretty distracting.

I went to a new gyno today. All the usual stuff: peed in the cup; got my finger stuck; donned the gown; asked if she routinely refrigerated her lube....

Why is it that doctors seem to have no way to share medical records? I had to fill out a massive new set of history forms for the scrutiny of the new doc. She raised her eyebrows at my uh, "impressive" medical history. Oy! I prefer to impress in other ways. I am super-healthy, actually. My entire health history can be neatly encapsulated within the year 2009.

Who is my oncologist? (I refrained from rolling my eyes. Well, there may have been a mini-roll in there, before I got control of it.) No oncologist. No oncologist? [Omygawd!] Am I not being treated? I told her that I was refusing what I know to be over-treatment and that I felt confident about that decision. My prognosis is fabulous: I am cancer-free. She was a rather school-marmish looking lady, and she has perfected the purse-lipped look of disapproval.

She did like my heart though. Again, the eyebrows while listening. "Are you an athlete?" "Well, just a runner." She nodded. "You sure are! Your heart is barely awake!"

I thought, "How right you are."

After the appointment, I paused on the stairwell landing and leaned against the wall for a moment. Have you ever noticed that stairwells are excellent places to pause and think? No one ever uses them. Sometimes a door slams above or below; but it's always remote. I have a couple of students who like to meet with me on the stairs at Guadalupe. Today I tipped my head back and looked at the ceiling.

This witch of doom and gloom is not who I am. Here's my theory, for which I expect an honorary doctorate in dime-psychology: waiting for the abatement of sadness is a passive thing. Like waiting to heal from an injury. And I'm on the "sad" treadmill 'cause I'm passively avoiding the larger issue: there are things I need to change about myself and my life; and I have been procrastinating. It's time to go in pursuit of my better, stronger self. Which way... Which way...

Heartache and pain? Soooo.... I should takethe route that addresses the loss of confidence in my capacity to love and be loved. In fact, allowing that capacity to become diminished by circumstance is chicken-shit. Under it all, there is a lovable and loving girl. I think I'll go retrieve her.

How? Through service. Through friends. Through fun. Also through a bit of reflection and an injection of extra courage.

For a few days last week, I had another blog, which I deleted; and then another with a very similar name, also deleted. The language was just flowing out of me. I was shocked at my virtuosity. But it was so...what? Revealing. Tender. I was disgusted and deleted the damn blog entirely. Twice! I have been getting a lot of mileage for the last year or so by channeling my inner hedgehog. I think I will try again and overlay a little privacy; I need to write difficult shit in a way that my cousins, my colleagues or my mother-in-law wouldn't appreciate. Then I'll retire it when it has served its purpose.

And I'm done counting the days.

A New Stage

Ranting! Now, my ranting fluency level is very high. So much verbiage to howl at the moon! I love to rant about politics! About education! About the environment! About beef! About Burma! About immigration! It's so fun.

Ranting in solitude to the mirror about what an idiot I am? Alone in the house, pacing the sunporch? While making Nathan's bed? Hands clamped on either side of the laptop? Declaring my anger at myself to the contents of the deep freeze? Ah, yes. The frozen marinara knows how to keep its secrets.

To a fly on the wall, I'm sure I am hilarious. Does it help? No. I really only like to rant for amusement.

Don't See THAT Every Day! (Long March, Day 13)

Between all of us on this multicultural staff, we know a lot of alphabets; but not this one... Mark thinks they're runes. Anybody out there know for sure? A piece of chiffon with runes on it is a rather unusual thing to find in a bag of donated stuff. The fact that it was wrapped around $550 makes it even more interesting. Luckily, I know where all this stuff came from, so I can easily find the (retired, LDS) couple that gave it to me. (Gasp! She's secretly Wiccan! That must be it!) I'll tell them that they can have the money if they hand over the story.



So, Day 13 was not as good as Day 12, for some reason. I am trying to figure out what was good about yesterday, so I can replicate it. I had a positive, strong e-mail message from a friend in the morning... I attended an interesting, animated meeting... Could either of those things change the composition of the day? Maybe the e-mail did it.


I should remember that a week ago I was much sadder than I am today. I'm working through it. I'm just impatient, as usual. Patience is a huge part of this process - no wonder I'm being so tiresome. Somebody just smack me.

OK, so let's focus on the positive. I'll make a list of things that made me happy today.

1. A little chit-chat with the other track-users at the gym this morning. One of the ladies who is often there when I'm there has a cute haircut.
   


2. I brought a grapefruit for my supper that was super sweet and yummy. I peeled it and ate it like an orange, picking the tough skin off each section.
   


3. A square of chocolate: dark, espresso, truffle. Who knew you could get all those qualities to come together for one mouthful? I was at a loss for any more wonderful adjectives to describe chocolate.
   


4. Surprising Julia, the Adult Education kitchen helper, with a little present for her birthday.
   


5. My earrings, which are pretty.
   


6. Seeing my old colleague, Dorothea. We worked together for 16 years before she retired; she comes in to substitute for an absent teacher once in a while. She came to work tonight with a plate of her special cornbread in one hand (you know, food is emerging as a pattern, here...) and a white jeans-jacket in the other. She's tired of it, and she knows I've always liked it. This is how I acquire most of my clothes! Luck.
   


7. The fact that this evening's class was kind of disastrous. That may seem counter-intuitive; but I was proud of how the staff handled it. We had TWELVE volunteers who did not come in tonight. Everybody snapped to it, worked together, combined study groups, shared tutors and made the evening run smoothly. We didn't have to send any students home. Nice work, teachers!
   


8. Loud shrieking. When the twelfth tutor, Richard C. called in, he told me, "I'm at the garage. They told me my car would be ready at 6:00, but it's 6:45 and they're no where close to finished. How would you feel if I didn't make it in tonight?" I held out the phone to the office full of scrambling teachers and said, "Hey, guys! How would we feel if Richard C. didn't come in tonight?" As one, the entire office full of women screamed at tops of their lungs. Then we laughed hysterically.

So, yeah; some good in the day, in spite of heartache.