A Speckled Trout

It’s been a rough couple of weeks here in Speckled Troutland.  A simple replacement of an old crown has turned into a saga of pain, infection, antiobiotics, barfy stomach due to antibiotics, allergic reaction to prescription oral rinse, and three trips to the dentist within a week.

Sheesh, I’m a weebly mess when I have to have my teeth cleaned so this has put me over the edge.  Or on the edge.

In my desperation to feel better, I said to The Big Daddy, “I can’t find my mouthguard.  Maybe that’s it.  Maybe since I haven’t been wearing it things have gotten worse.  Maybe I’m grinding that temporary to smithereens at night.”

He nodded.

“And my free sample of laser repair cream from Clinique.  It’s a little blue bottle.  Maybe it’s green.  Let’s call it a bluish green.  It says Laser Repair Cream on the front.  Have you seen that because I can’t find that either?  I really need that since this tooth is keeping me up every night.  It promises to make you look less haggy in two weeks if applied twice a day after moisturizing.”

He nodded.

“My mouthguard and my laser repair cream.  They’re both missing,” I said.  Or shrieked.  Or pounded my fists into the mattress.

The Big Daddy snapped to attention and offered this piece of sage advice, “It’s gotta be somewhere.”

“WHAT?  WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?  IT’S GOTTA BE SOMEWHERE?  DID YOU JUST SAY THAT?”

He did.  He said that.

Two weeks ago he had to drive to a big meeting and before he left I told him he needed to fill the tank.  Ten minutes later he called from the gas station because he had locked his keys in the car.  Friday he left his wallet here.  Friday night he left his keys at work.

That is but the tip of the iceberg of lost, misplaced items that he loses on a daily basis.  The things I mother him through.  Did you look in your briefcase?  Do you think you dropped it somewhere?  What about under the seat of the car?  Did you look there?  Did you go out to lunch today?  Maybe you left it at the restaurant.

And all I get in return is  “It’s gotta be somewhere.”

It is a given that I am grinding day and night.

After a perfect weekend with not one, but two parties, The Big Daddy and I were chatting on the way home from party #2.  The dinner party with the prime rib that we’ve talked about over and over because we talk about great meals with gusto, much like the local weatherman forecasting spring’s first whiff of tornadic activity.

The BD had to go and ruin the prime rib honeymoon I was enjoying by asking, “If you had to leave home and didn’t know when or if you were coming back and could only take two suitcases what would you put in them?”

Not only did this leave a sudden acidic taste in my mouth after such a delish meal, but this is the kind of question he normally only asks when there is a Republican in the White House.  Maybe 2016 already has him worried.

I am used to these sorts of thinly veiled panic attacks from him, though, and so I answered quickly and truthfully, “Photos and underpants.”

“Bwahahahahahahahaha,” he chuckled.  “No, really, what would you take?”

“Really, that is what I would take.  Photos of everybody I love so I can look at them and clean underpants to change into for the end times.  In case I realize I’m being left behind and you know, have an accident.”

He was being serious.  So was I.  We went back and forth like that for awhile but there really wasn’t anything else I could think of.

A knife to stab myself?

A Tide pod and Clorox to wash my underpants?

Floss?

Granola bars?

I am lightening my load around here lately.  There is a stack o’ crap in the basement that will be stickered and hauled out this spring for MY LAST GARAGE SALE EVER.  We are down to two vacuums instead of three.  I have pitched dried up paint cans by the dozen.  Have a dog?  Need a kennel?  Free for the taking.  There is a bag of clothes to donate and I’m still at it.  If it hasn’t gotten worn this winter, is too tight, too loose, too short or too tall it has gone in the bag.  I am being ruthless about getting rid of stuff.

Stuff.  Overwhelming stuff.

Last week my mom turned 86.  A darling, vibrant 86.  Believe me, we are well aware and enormously thankful that we have her and she is in good health.

If I’m forced out of my home and into the unknown, I’ll clutch her photo and my suitcase of clean underwear and forge on with hope, faith and a wicked sense of humor.  Just like she’s always shown me.

                                           .

Part of the dilemma of writing a blog is trying to determine which stories are yours to tell.  I could post something new every day, but most of the time the story belongs to somebody else and is not mine to tell.

This may be one of those times but I think on the day of big love it needs to be out there in the light.

Recently, I was with some friends and one of them invited a young mom over to join us for a glass of wine.  During the conversation, the mom said she was asked by another mom if she would be bringing Valentines to daycare.  It had never occurred to her and the other mom implied that it wasn’t an option.  “And not some cheap Target cards but something homemade.  Something Pinteresty.”

“How old are we talking here,” I asked.

“One. They’re one year olds.”

The other seasoned mom and I said, “Nononononononononono.”

“NO.  And don’t let anybody guilt you into that.”

That’s life in suburbia with our first world problems.

**********

I texted Maggie about going to the thrift store on Monday since we are both off for President’s Day.  She was up for it even though she had just gone.  One of her little 1st graders is newly homeless and so she went after work to buy him some clothes.

That is life on the other side of town with its real problems.

***********

Happy Valentine’s Day. 

Spread the love.

Ditch the cards.

Be somebody’s champion.

When we moved from Illinois to Maryland, I became accustomed to using the word “soda” instead of the Midwestern “pop.” 

When we moved from Maryland to Kansas and had been here all of three days, I was in a line at the grocery store and said to the woman ahead of me, “If you don’t mind I’m just going to put my soda up here.”

“We don’t say soda.  Where are you from?” she asked.

“We just moved from outside of Washington D.C.,” I replied.

“Oh honey,” she said, “you’re going to hate it here.”

I was amused and kind of scared and I have told that story a hundred times.

Kansas isn’t my sweet home Chicago nor is it the epicenter of world politics, but it has had its perks over the years and has felt like home.  When things go off the rails around here I have plenty of like-minded friends and we commiserate over that which make us crazy and homesick.

Things have been going off the rails a lot lately.

This week the Kansas House passed a bill making it legal for anyone to deny service to gays based on religious belief.  By religious belief they mean Christian because if there were ever a religion that is being oppressed it’s Christianity in America.  

You would think anything that discriminating would never get anywhere in a legit, legal process but this is Kansas, after all.

Proponents of the law say it was necessary because of a fear of lawsuits like the one filed in Oregon when a gay couple was denied service from a florist based on their orientation.

Are florists attracting such blockbuster business these days that they can turn down any business?  If you owned a floral shop and two guys came in with a whole lot of disposable income would you really tell them to go across town because they’re not your “kind”?

Or would you upsell them on boutonnieres like any florist worth their roses would do?

Across the state line Michael Sam stood up and said “Yep, I’m gay and I play football,” and sports enthusiasts cheered for the first guy gutsy enough to say those words out loud.

Here in Kansas we keep trying to shove those people back into the closet but they keep trickling out one by one.

So in a God-fearing state like this maybe a wedding planner need only ask “What would Jesus do?”  He would listen to his mother.  When the wedding in Cana was running short on wine his mother told him to do something about it.  He turned water into more adult beverages and the party got better.

Make the floral arrangements.  Bake the chicken and put it on a buffet with green beans and mashed potatoes.  Make sure the microphones are working for the toasts and that the bathrooms are spotless.  Watch the grooms dance with their mothers and have some fun in the back with your waitresses doing the electric slide.  Hire a bartender who is better at estimating consumption than the wedding consultants at Cana.

Make your customers so happy they tell everyone they know to use you, bank your profits and tip your employees for all their hard work.  Go home and tell your wife that if this keeps up maybe you can take a vacation this year. 

Whenever you doubt whether or not you are doing the right thing, open your Bible and remind yourself that all we have ever been asked is to “Love one another.”

And twenty years from now tell your grandkids about the time that there were people who tried to make it legal to hate others but you chose not to participate.

One of Mark’s favorite movies is Groundhog Day. 

Ned?  Ned Ryerson?

I’m not a fan but Mark says it’s because I don’t get it.  I did, in fact, get it but my failure to love it as much as he did was due to the fact that I got bored watching the same scenes over and over.  It is too much like my real life every February.

Get up, go to work, come home, drag myself into the kitchen to make dinner and then park myself on the couch.  I try to will myself to do something besides nothing, but though the mind is willing (sort of) the body is not.

All month long.

I wonder if this is how it went in pioneer days.  Working feverishly until the cold swept across the prairie and then Ma and Pa would settle in the cabin until the March winds blew the first hint of spring.

I wonder if Ma lounged on the sofa with her ipad scrolling Facebook and Pinterest while watching The Biggest Loser.  Did she become more alert when her phone dinged of a new email?  Groupon?  Thai food?  Goose Creek sale?

What is Goose Creek and why do I get emails from them all the time?  

Even Valentine’s Day does little to perk me up as I have always been disappointed by the expectations of that day.  While flowers are being delivered at a record pace I insist that it isn’t necessary to buy something for me on that day.  Do I really mean that?  I don’t even know the answer to that so how is my husband supposed to figure it out.

To add misery to a miserable month, I had to get a crown replaced.  I made dozens of excuses to put this off until it got to the point where the dentist’s office was no longer going to let me off the hook.  There I found myself on a dismal Friday morning with my shaky, anxiety-riddled self sitting in the dentist’s chair for a two-and-a-half hour appointment.

The old crown was not giving up the fight very easily and if my darling dentist drilled any longer I think she would have hit my spleen.  At one point, she gave me a break and her assistant (who happens to be gay and can talk hair products like a pro) asked us if we’d watched the Superbowl.  “I only watched if for the commercials,” the dentist said.

Looking at me, he then asked what my favorite commercial was.  “I loved the Coke one,” I told him and then the dentist piped in that Coke was always about being inclusive so what in the world was all the fuss about.

We all agreed, and then Cutey Patootie Assistant asked, “Do you guys want to know what my favorite commercial was?”

“Sure.”

“David Beckham.”

“Oh yeah.  I forgot about that one.  He is pretty hot,” I said.

“How could you forget about that one??!!!  Girrrrrrrrrrrrl……when I saw David Beckham running around in his underwear I was like I’ll take a pair of those whitey tighties and you can include him.”

That conversation has made me giggle all weekend, and though Cutey Patootie Assistant isn’t named Phil he sure felt like a welcome blast of fresh air.

When Will first came out to us he was a mere fifteen years old.  My first reaction was utter fear for him.  In one of our many talks that followed, I asked him if any of his friends knew.  They did…….for is anybody ever shocked to learn that someone is gay?

Rather early on I said to him, “I’m not asking you to keep it a secret, but I don’t think you need to share this information outside of your circle of friends right now.  Maybe down the road but not just yet.”

He agreed because besides being born gay he was born agreeable.

If I could take that back if I would.

While I will likely always fight the fear of somebody hurting him, the unspoken truth of my request was because the whole idea of him dating freaked me out.   All of my kids were late bloomers when it came to that, but sometimes I wonder if over time I made my problem his problem.

After high school he spent four years at college in rural Kansas which hardly offers a variety of dating options outside of straight, conservative, Baptist farm boys. 

Now he is home, employed, and confident and has decided to put himself out there in the dating world.  I am not holding my breath this time but being rather being pleady with my prayers. Pleasegodpleasegodpleasegod let there be one great guy out there who thinks he hung the moon.   One guy who makes him love life even more.  One guy that we can’t wait to cram around the table for Sunday dinner.  One guy that will embrace the annual-after-Christmas-family-bowling tournament.

Just one guy………

Recently, Will met someone for a beer and we all pounced on him for the details later.  What did you think?  What’s he look like?  Did you like him?  Are you going to go out again?

“Well,” he said, “it was okay except everything he talked about was being gay.  I mean I know I am, too, but that’s not all I am.”

A rising tide lifts all boats.

That kid is our tide.

When the idea of Super Bowl parties were in their infancy, Mark was in graduate school.  One of the guys in his lab invited us to the home of he and his wife to watch the big game.

Mark was going to decline the invitation because of the general weirdness of the guy but I prevailed.  “No, we have to go.  These things are supposed to be fun and so what if he’s a little strange?  He’s probably going to invite the whole lab and the rest of those guys are always fun.”

Against my husband’s better judgement we drove to our first Super Bowl party hours before the game was set to start, and there in the driveway was our host anxiously awaiting our arrival.

“Well, this doesn’t look good,” The Big Daddy said after noting the absence of any other cars.

We went in with our beer offerings and dove headfirst into a long stretch of awkward small talk.  “So,” The Big Daddy asked, “who else are you expecting?”

“Nobody.  Just the four of us.”

The Big Daddy looked my way but I didn’t meet his stinkeye.  It was a party, nonetheless.  One doesn’t need a houseful to make fun.  Four can be fun. 

We mingled in the kitchen for awhile as they finished making the food and eventually went into the dining room to eat.  The hostess came out and said to her husband, “Bear, can you help me a second?”

“Sure, Penguin.”

Bear?  Penguin?

They both came out with more food and she put hers down and said, “I love my Big Bear.”  He growled and said, “I love my little Penguin,” and then she said ARARARARAR and shook her butt back and forth.  He said, “That’s what the penguin does,’ and they smooched.

And me and The Big Daddy said to ourselves, “What the f***.”

Every time she needed him for some help she’d stand in front of him shaking her rear and saying “ARARARARAR” and he’d get up and kiss her and they acted like this was the most normal thing ever.

Back and forth, in and out of the kitchen they would go and The Big Daddy and I didn’t know what the hell to make of this party.  Once when they were both in the kitchen Mark pointed to the salsa and said “ARARARARARAR” and shimmied in his chair.

And I nearly peed myself laughing.

By the time the game actually came on we had a few too many beers in us.  Whenever they would leave the room The Big Daddy would say “ARARARARAR” and cop a feel next to me on the couch.  I would growl at him and we would laugh and snort. 

“Well, you two sure seem to be having a good time,” the Real Bear said to us.  “We were going to invite some other people, but then we thought it wouldn’t be as much fun.  Isn’t that right, Penguin?”

“ARARARARAR,” Penguin said.

Since we were new to the whole Super Bowl thing, we didn’t know that it lasted for hours and that’s a long time to be drunk and all alone with a Bear and a Penguin.

When it finally ended we said our thank yous and goodbyes and got in the car.  “What just happened in there,” The Big Daddy asked staring out the windshield and into the window of hosts.

“I have no idea,” I answered back.

It’s been years since we’ve even been to a party for the Super Bowl.  “It’s too much socializing with my football,” The Big Daddy growls.

I twerk back.

ARARARARAR.

I painted all day Friday and Saturday.  I was going to finish Sunday but I crawled out of bed and everything ached.  Every. Single. Thing.  Since the only thing left to finish is the hallway with its five doorways I decided to take the day off.

Five doorways?  That is radonculous.

So is painting.

I thought that during my painting marathon I would come up with a couple of great writing ideas for the week, but instead I mainly thought about what it must be like to hire a professional painter.   Who even does that?

The random thoughts and observations that kept me from getting bored while I rolled…..

*Why do stores lock the dressing rooms so you have to track somebody down to try on clothes?  It drives me batty and if I hadn’t already determined that said frock was ABOUT TO CHANGE MY LIFE, I’d leave in a huff.

*I think Jennifer Lawrence is peaking too early which is never a good thing.  Look at Justin Bieber of late for proof on that one, although she seems infinitely smarter than him.

*Since Friday I have heard “Say Something” by Christina Aguillera multiple times on the radio.  New favorite song.

*I usually don’t watch the Grammys but Sara Bareilles is up for album of the year.  The Blessed Unrest.  I have worn it out.

*I never miss an episode of “The Good Wife.”

*Except for Will, we all had MLK day off.  Maggie, Nate and I met at Savers for some thrift store shopping @ 50% off.  I found an Ann Taylor jacket for $6.50.  It is going TO CHANGE MY LIFE and the dressing room wasn’t locked.

*I have friends who wouldn’t set foot in a thrift store.   They so don’t get it.

*I get up early in the morning so I can read the paper.  No matter how bad I’ve slept I still would rather get up early enough to read the paper than sleep in.

*My hairdresser got me to stop using shampoo.  I’ve washed my hair with conditioner only for nearly three years.

*I’ve never had a facial, pedicure or manicure but I have had an upper GI, CAT scan and three surgeries.

*Did you know that “How I Met Your Mother” is on 24/7?  Me either and then Mal had a long winter break.

*If I could rent a monkey to sit and pick the paint out of my hair I would.  Time for shampoo?

And lastly…….

I need a good book to get me through this cold, gloomy month.  Any suggestions?

My mom reads three different newspapers every day.  Most of them repeat the same news stories, but each of them caters to their local readers in different ways.  For my mom, a longtime obituary reader and at the mean age for that page, it is how she starts her day.

When I was a young girl, I remember her hunched over the kitchen table and spread out newspaper shaking her head over news of the death of a stranger.  Aloud to no one she would say, “Thirty five and three kids.  Good Lord.”

I have followed in her footsteps  Often I give the obit page a quick skim, but when time permits I linger over the Cliff note, published version of a lifetime story.

There have been a couple over the years that I have torn out and saved.  The one where a poem of the deceased was featured.

“But I am moving west along this superhighway, not to return.  I am following my fathers.  I have left nothing behind – no people, no possessions, no regrets.  In the old stories, the souls of the dying it was thought, vanished into the west.  I’ve always liked the sound of that.”

Or the English teacher…….

“She admired a well-constructed sentence, a strong character arc and a clever mystery twist: she would put her book down when it was time for Jeopardy or The Colbert Report.”

Sometimes obituaries go viral like this one.

“Those who’ve taken her lessons to heart will continue to ensure that a cold drink will be left for the overheated garbage collector and mail carrier, every baby will be kissed, every nursing home resident will be visited, the hungry will have a sandwich, the guest will have a warm bed and soft nightlight, and the encroaching possum will know the soothing sensation of a barbecue brush upon its back.”

Or this…………

“I believe we are each of us connected to every person and everything on this Earth, that we are in fact one divine organism having an infinite spiritual existence. Of course, we may not always comprehend that. And really, that’s a discussion for another time. So let’s cut to the chase: 

I was given the gift of life, and now I have to give it back. This is hard. But I was a lucky woman, who led a lucky existence, and for this I am grateful.”
 
After our friend, Vicki, died, some of us were discussing her funeral a few weeks later.  How it was so utterly perfect Vicki.  “I came home and started a death file,” one of my friends said.  “I want written directions that my family will have so they know everything I want.”  We all nodded and maybe we weren’t ready to start our own file, but we were certainly thinking about it.

The Catholics have put hard and firm brakes on eulogies during the mass.  They have found them disruptive to the service, but seeing as how death is the ultimate disruptive event I’m not buying that argument.  For who better than family and dear friends to tell a church full of mourners that one story that makes everyone smile through their tears and grateful to be among the heartbroken living?

There are some of us who will always start our day reading about the end of strangers’ lives.  In the course of that habit one is bound to come across that brief funny/sweet/poignant/loving story in black and white of a life gone too soon.

Moving west ahead of the pack until our own name appears on that page.

Mark is taking back-to-back business trips and so while he is gone I’ve decided to paint the living room and dining room.

This is a ridiculous idea, but since I cannot bear to turn this job over to a professional because they don’t love this house like I do (and since I am capable of painting)…..it is mine to execute.

So far my execution would make a professional cringe and I am having my usual freakout about color.

White.  It is going to be white because all the rooms I love in magazines and Pinterest are white, but it is making me jittery.  Who freaks out over white walls?  Unless there’s so much in-your-face-whiteness at the moment that it looks like the psych unit of the county hospital.

I needed a dose of Vic so I headed to my favorite paint guy at Ace Hardware.

My first trip was for supplies but I had an ulterior motive.  When I was home my mom showed me a tool chest that recently was given to her by my uncle.  Inside were carpenter tools that belonged to my grandfather and great-grandfather.

It was a collection of the working life of two men, and since there was precious little to hand down from one generation to another it holds special meaning.

Inside was this……..

…..and I told Mom that I had to show it to Vic because he would appreciate it more than anyone I know.

He did, too.  Loved it.  Called over the other helpful, hardware men to show them this little piece of paint history.

I put it back in my purse and Vic said, “That’s a nice Coach purse you’ve got there.”

“Thank you.  This was an inheritance, too, from my cousin’s wife.  I love it.  But, jeez, Vic, you’re a guy.  How did you know this was a Coach purse?”

“Because I know a lot about a lot and that purse needs a good cleaning.  Saddle soap.  Aisle two.”