Alive

The teenager says that he feels uncomfortable
when they are all having their television show
and I run in and dance through their field of vision
and then run out again.

He thinks it's weird.

I said I am not here to make things comfortable for him.

*

Squeaks and Miracles

Today I wore my squeaky shoe to church.
For some reason last year, the right one started squeaking and it's awesome.

I always announce that I'm wearing my squeaky shoe to the family.
They make no reaction whatsoever to my announcement,
but I'm strangely pleased about it anyway.

When I wear my squeaky shoe to church, I have to walk up to the front to play.
We all try to go up as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, but my shoe squeaks every other step and I think it's hilarious.

It's like I have this really funny joke inside of me that NOBODY else gets.

I was smiling all morning.

Right before we were to start playing, a really special person came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder and told me that her father's brain tumor just disappeared. It's completely gone.

I kissed her right on the face.

What else can you do?

Good things all around me.

*

Looking for Something Good

I feel like I just opened a really really good fortune cookie.

My aunt called with a message of peace and love for me.
She told me to look for something good this Christmas season.
She has a sense of something positive that is coming.
She's feeling good vibrations...

Now I am too.

There's a saying that goes, "You find what you're looking for."

So thanks to my aunt, I am making it my goal to spend this season...

Looking For Something Good.

Join me?

The Last Santa

There comes a time in all of our lives, when we make that last visit to Santa.

I don't actually remember my last visit, but the year that I didn't go up to him is still vivid in my mind. I remember being in the department store, and being surprised by someone's suggestion that I go sit on Santa's lap. I remember a slow burn traveling up my cheeks as I wrestled with the truth of the matter...that in other's eyes I still seemed young enough for Santa....that I felt incredibly uncomfortable with this perception....but that secretly, deep down, I wished I were still brave enough to go up. I don't remember how old I was, but that startling knowledge - that through merely the passage of time, Santa had emerged one year as a stranger instead of a friend - left me unsteady, disgruntled.

Today we visited the mall ahead of the crowds and only twin boy eagerly said he'd like to visit Santa. But when we got there, he looked abashed...like a big boy in the nursery. We stood behind the fake trees, and twin girl joined us, uncertainly interested all of a sudden. A Santa's helper peered kindly through the trees and said, "Do you want to visit Santa? Come right in! Come on! You should come!"

So they trudged forward, feet dragging. Something pulled them forward, something pulled them back.
But they smiled politely and spoke their words of request with plastered smiles, with stiff necks.

We all laughed as we gathered up our things.
I said to the husband, "The Last Santa."
He agreed with a rueful smile.
Then all six of us walked away together, arms looped, smiles real again.

But leaving something behind.

*

What is Good

So I am sitting on the couch with my bass, just holding it.
And it's all dark here and everyone is in bed.
And I'm listening to Richard Bona sing,
and his face looks like an angel.
And I think to myself,

"I want to be good inside.
So that whatever comes out of me

is beautiful."


Here is some Peace and Love.

*

Alarms and Things

Tonight I found five dollars in my shoe.

LOVE when that happens.

And this morning I realized
that when you're not used to setting a clock radio,
the sound level of the radio station at 6am
is way WAY louder than it seemed the night before when you set it.

*

We're All In This Together

There is an "I Voted" sticker stuck, face-up, to the bottom of the inside of my washing machine.
It's starting to get faded.

But I'm leaving it there for awhile.

I sense this wave of optimism in our country, from "both sides" - something that I don't remember feeling in a very long time.

I know that I am a naive and hopeful person, and tend towards the dreamy side, which is why I leave the worrying and the politics to the practical people most of the time.

When there is voting to be done, I read alot, look at things from as many sides as I can figure, and go with my gut.

Then I sort of...leave it in the hands of God and those more capable than me.

But this time I am loathe to let it go.
This time I voted, and I sat forward instead of sitting back.
I am, admittedly, naive and hopeful.
Honestly I really like this about myself.

Whoever we voted for, we are a part of the process, and a part of the results.
I'm trying to hang on to this feeling of newness and oneness we have as a country.
I don't want it to fade.

*

Weird Girl

Weird things happen to me.

Today, I was stung by a bee.

That's not so weird, but consider this:

I was standing in my bathroom, blow-drying my hair,
and suddenly a bee stung my blow-drying hand.

Who gets stung by a bee in their own bathroom?

And yet...
that bee had to figure out how to enter the house,
make its way upstairs into my bathroom,
and then fight its way past flying hair and gale-force winds
in order to sting me.

I give him some creds.

The Bee Who Lasted Until November.

*

Cars and Me

This morning I got my arm caught in the steering wheel,
up to my elbow.

I actually veered onto the grass, and had to stop the car completely
before I could unwind the wheel and get my arm out of it.


And this was just while navigating the driveway.

*

Yum

Does anybody remember Wrapples???

Take an apple....add a Wrapple....wrap the Wrapple round the apple, add a stick....

I want one.

*

Math Facts

Those timed tests are a real struggle for twin girl, just like they were for me.

So we got her some glitter glue pens, and she started working on making flashcards.

After about two were done, she discovered that if you fold the flash cards in half before the glue dries,
it makes a really cool pattern when you open it back up.



Can't figure out why those timed tests are so hard for this one, no siree....

*

To The Polls

Tonight the phone rang, and I answered it.
My mouth dropped open and my eyes got really big.
I started gesturing toward the phone with my eyebrows really high,
waving my hands to get the children's attention, pointing at the phone, and pretending to mouth words to them.
I put my hand over the mouthpiece and with great emphasis said,
"It's MITT ROMNEY!" they all gasped.
They started running around shrieking to each other while I shushed them and paced the floor,
phone pressed to my ear.
"Mom," one of them, breathless, rushed back up to me, ecstatic,
"Mom. WHO is Mitt Romney?!!!"
I waved them off pretending to listen intently.
Then I beckoned them to come, and with finger to my mouth,
in turn pressed the receiver to their ears.
They responded beautifully,
awed, reverent even...
and nodded importantly to each other.


The masses are easily impressed.

*

Perpie

I commented on my cousin's blog just now and the word verification was:

Perpie


I felt really bad typing it in,

like my computer thinks I'm a lawless degenerate and I'm confirming it.


Kind of has a friendly ring to it though, sort of like:


"Hey Perpie, you're a lawless degenerate, but, I like you."


*

Concentration Is Our Game

According to Gizmodo.com, a US company has developed a headset that reads your brainwaves. Oh joy.

Here's what the website says: "NeuroSky's prototype measures a person's baseline brain-wave activity, including signals that relate to concentration, relaxation and anxiety. So, if you're playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour and you lose concentration, you could find your shot buried in the rough if you fail to keep your Zen-like concentration." For more, read here.

I'm thinking that I could use one of these gadgets.
I'm not a gamer, but it could be said...
it could be argued...(possibly)
that I do lose concentration every once in a while.

I'm wondering, could a tool like this give me a little shock when I speak aloud my intentions but then immediately go in a different direction?

"I am going to do the laundry."
(Heading upstairs, away from the laundry) Zzzzt!
"Ouch!"
Zzzzt!
"I just need to get something first!"
Zzzzt! Zzzzt! ZZZZT!
"Okay, okay OKAY I will do the laundry and then
I will do that other really important thing that I was going to do instead."

It could work.

*

Sleeping In

Woke up early this morning and read in the dark by myself.
I'm not someone who can usually fall back to sleep once I am up,
but today somehow found me curled up under a blanket again on the couch.
I hovered in a state of near-sleep until voices and little tremors of footsteps stirred some vague part of the house.
Whispered conversations near me, and shushes, and silence again.
I fell asleep then and dreamed vividly.
Waking, I found myself still alone.
It seems they had found me, and then gently left me to my sleep.
After 9 am now, and yet still gray and cold and early-ish outside and in.
What a beautifully slow way to begin a Sunday.

Neatness Counts

Looking over my calendar I realized how every January I start out with such high hopes.
Not in making any crazy resolutions, mind you, just hoping that this year I'll be able to keep my calendar nice and tidy.

But each month it gets steadily worse, until finally by around September it just degenerates into this:



*

Clean Phone

I lost my phone on Friday.
On Tuesday, I reached inside the dishwasher to empty it,
and there it was, lying in a pool of water under the heating coil.

I think of how it was all alone in there, buzzing hopefully every time we called it.
Its little screen filling with water, its battery corroding, its red light fading...
Eventually losing the will to live, sending all messages straight to voicemail.


*

Dreams

On Saturday night I had this dream that I was driving in the car with girl twin and there was a tornado coming (one of her worst fears), and during the whole time I had this sense of control and calm and feeling like I knew exactly what to do. I turned off the road into this field and drove over the ground toward this low area. Then I got her out and we lay down flat, me partly on top of her, and I just kept telling her to keep her head down. The tornado went right over us, and we could feel the "eye" of it, and the little suction, but we were safe.

I told her about the dream on the way to the imaging center this morning for the scan, and what I thought it meant -- that this was something she was really afraid of, but that I was completely in charge and completely in control, and that I would take care of her through it, and that she would be safe with me and everything would be alright.

So on the way home, when we were both smiling with relief of the tears and the fear and the awfulness behind us, she says,

"Now what do you think you'll dream about, Mom?"

I said, "Well, I think I'll probably dream about the thing that you are most happy about and most looking forward to, like Christmas or something."

There was this long pause and then she said really quietly,

"Thank you."

*

His Favorite Shirt

He wore this today,
and yesterday too.
I highly suspect that he slept in this outfit,
but I am not going to ask,
because I am way happier not knowing.

.

In the Zone

I had dropped two of them off at the high school, and turned down Main.
Thinking about the day ahead.
Warm car-seat makin' me cozy.
Not driving too fast.
Careful near the elementary school, children could run out.
Leaves on the trees so autumn-ish.


"Mom."

Just easing down the street.
Looking forward to getting back home.

"Mom."
"Mom."
Two soft voices now enter my consciousness.

I spy little faces in the rearview mirror.
Kind, funny, forgiving little faces.

That's right, I have two more, don't I?
They were so quiet back there.
Drove past their school.
Again.

No matter. I'll turn around.
Again.

They say, "It's okay, mom."
And they grin at each other.


I think it is okay.


.