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Many years ago, I sat with some friends in the bleachers of the gymnasium of the elementary school and watched the Christmas concert.  First the choir would perform and then the whole school would have a sing-along.  It was great fun and the ending meant the official start of the winter break.

When the last song was sung and the kids started filing back to their classrooms to get their things, nobody moved.  Finally, one mom spoke up and said, “Well, girls…….our party’s over.  Kids are home for the next two weeks.  Merry Christmas.  I’m stopping at the liquor store.”

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Our summer break began much sooner than usual this year.  The Boy Child was done the first week of May and Mallie Bee got out early since she was a senior.  My quiet days alone are now about dirty dishes, food disappearing, a constant messy house, youtube videos played over and over, and the t.v blathering on.

I will miss this all come September, but for now I wonder if it is possible for kids to get bedsores.

I believe it is. 

The Boy Child is home for the summer and a thrifter like his mama, so we made a trip to Savers the other day.  As is our routine, we separated to look at different things as soon as we walked in the door.

He was looking for shorts, I was in the home goods.  As I was making my way to the back of the store, a woman stopped me and said, “Will you look at these?  Can you believe how cute they are?”  I looked around to see if she was talking to me as I had never seen her before and she sure seemed familiar with me.  “This is my first time here.  It’s amazing.”  Yes, but it’s a secret.  Don’t tell anyone.

I made my way to the pillows and there she popped up again.  “I mean it’s just crazy how much great stuff is here.”   I know.  I come here all the time.  Once, I found a pair of Donald Pliner shoes…………..$200.00 shoes………..for $7.99.  Never. Been. Worn.

“Donald?  Donald who?  What are you talking about?”

Donald Duck, and now you need to move along.  I’ve no time to chat with strangers.  This business takes concentration.

These are my hydrangeas.  I have five of them.  They are all this big.  I think they take steroids at night.

These are my roses.  I have eight of these.  I think they’re buying steroids from the hydrangeas.

When all of this was planted ten years ago, we also put in two blue hydrangea bushes.  I would get maybe 2-3 blooms combined from those two.  One day, I was talking to a gardener and she said to yank them.  They don’t do well in this zone, they’ll probably never bloom, get rid of them.  I was going to, but they were healthy-looking and so I left them alone, content to live with their measly output.

This is what my blue hydrangeas look like now.  I look at them a couple of times each day.  I do the happy dance.  If you stop by my house I have to show them off.  I can’t believe they’re so gorgeous, and all those cold, spring days over all those years when I’d whisper, “Come to Mama”……finally paid off. 

I was driving The Big Daddy to an airport shuttle at 4:30 a.m……….why does he keep leaving me……….and we got on the subject of gambling.  I know plenty of people who do it and like it, but I have never been inside a casino let alone dropped quarters into a slot machine.  Not once.

It is not because I’m tight-fisted and don’t want to part with money, but because I am afraid I would be one of those people who got instantly hooked.  Intoxicated by the next big “win” and before you know it the savings account is gone, the checking account is gone, the car’s been repossessed, the house is in foreclosure, and we’re sitting on the stage of the Dr. Phil show.

I would be crying.  The Big Daddy would be saying he loved me, I complete him, something about wind and wings and together, baby, we’ll make this right.  Dr. Phil would give me a righteous stink-eye.

That’s the t.v. version.

The real version would be him tossing me out on my risky ass for losing everything we earned.  So instead, I end up at Target.  With milk on sale at forty cents less than the grocery store, times two gallons, why, that’s an eighty cent savings……………and $76.00 later I’m thinking I should kick my own ass and head to the boats.

In the twelve years Henry and I have been cruising the hood, he was never one to poop on a walk.  He preferred his own backyard, and while I always carried a bag I rarely had to use it.

That changed about a year ago when he decided it wasn’t a bad idea to use a public space for that purpose and would sometimes go twice.  Thanks.  While I see people swinging their bag of crap all the way home, I like to clean it up and get rid of it.  Fast.  Pronto.

In my effort to use less plastic bags, I am often searching for a bag to take along with me.  As a last result, I will use the bag the newspaper comes in.  Not only our are daily papers too thin these days, the bags they come in are even thinner making them a poor choice for scooping poop.

On Henry’s 2nd movement of a twenty minute walk on a lovely spring morning, I only had a newspaper bag left to do the deed.  I strategically rolled it down my arm so I could get this job over fast.  I picked up the poop and it felt hot………like right out of the oven which I guess it was.

That’s when I discovered there was a hole in the bottom of the bag and I was clutching a pile of shit in my bare hand.

I screamed.  I freaked.  I wiped my hand ten times on the grass.  I cut the neighborhood stroll short and went home to take a long, hot shower.   When that was over and I had taken some deep, relaxing breaths, the rest of the day went much better.

Bare-handed shit picking up.  My new barometer.

We are five weeks away from The Big Wedding.  Many things are starting to move at a faster, more frenzied pace.

But not everything.

In January, after The Big Daddy and I had feasted at the table of Holiday Munchies and Spirits for a solid month, we had a Come To Jesus about getting in shape for this wedding.  It would be the perfect occasion to get our act together with family and friends coming from all over to celebrate with us.

It’s not going so well.

Every Sunday night I have a conversation about starting the week with a longer walk at a faster pace and better food decisions.  Eight hours later I’m nursing my coffee and looking for a reason not to walk.

The Big Daddy is better than me about exercise with his bike riding.  This week, he was going to ramp things up with an early wake-up twice a week to do a hard ride before he goes to work.  Day One had him bagging the idea and sleeping in another hour.

Slack is the glue in this marriage.

If we don’t get our asses in gear, we’ll need to RSVP for two more, what with the extra 10# and the gobbler that used to be our neck.

It could get us another helping, though.

Last week, I had the good fortune to hear Anna Quindlen speak.  This is the 2nd time she’s come to Kansas City to promote one of her books, and both times I went to see her. 

Ms. Quindlen is the dream friend.  She is smart, funny, loyal, and an unwavering supporter of women.  She gets how women think and casually drops pearls of wisdom in nearly every sentence.

It has been my good fortune to have friends like Anna.  Women who can discuss Hillary Clinton or Kate Middleton in one breath, give a movie review and name five places to go for drinks after, who have strong opinions on politics and current events, and who make it their business to stay informed about things that matter.

And then there’s the other kind.

I recently had to spend a few hours working with that kind of woman.  Why must they talk incessantly?   It was constant………the chatter about nothing.  The subject of private vs. public schools came up and she asked the two of us who have kids in the public school system about a high school close by.  She heard there was a lot of problems with fights.  No, never heard that.  Are you sure, she asked.  Yes.

Well, she said, I’ve heard that school has a lot of “transitional” people.  Transitional people?  You know, renters.  The low income type.   

I don’t think there is a single community or school system that is immune from the economic hardships that have been going on these last few years, but the more immediate problem wasn’t the renter types in a public school she knew nothing about.

It was that she never stopped talking long enough to pay attention to a single thing.

…………….because I was digging in the dirt all weekend.