My Yoga Mat

"The yoga mat is a good place to turn 

when talk therapy and anti-depressants aren't enough."

-- Amy Weintraub

My yoga mat 5-31-14

"In yourself right now is all the place you've got."

-- Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

Good things happen when I'm on my yoga mat.

I went there yesterday. I need to go there more often.

Because somehow, when I'm snug within its two-by-six foot boundary, things always change for the better.

I am kind to myself.

I respect myself.

I am content with myself.

I find peace with myself.

I can inhale.

I can exhale.

I am open.

I am light.

I am solid.

I am grounded.

I am present.

I see within myself.

I look outside myself.

I accept myself.

I escape myself.

I am safe.

I am strong.

I am gentle.

I am wise.

I am calm.

I am still.

I am good.

"Namaste."

Columbine

"If I choose to look up and not down,

it's because I know what waits below."

-- Sally Brampton, 

Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression

Columbine flower 5-30-14

Columbine is one of my favorite wildflowers.

Happy, sun-drenched clumps of it run rampant along the south side of my house. They remind me of the funny stilt-walkers at a circus with their silly little belled, jester-hat blooms perched high atop long, leggy stems.

Up close, their demure, down-turned blossoms are a particularly delicate and lovely example of nature's wondrously deft hand at intricacy.

According to legend, the Columbine flower is the symbol for foolishness.

If you Google the word "Columbine" though, you won't get images of happy wildflowers. You'll get a startling barrage of words like massacre, rampage, psychopaths, shootings, murders, killers, monsters, bloodbath, horror, rage and tragedy.

Do an image search and you'll be smacked with an even more disturbing collage of photos depicting all of the above.

Sadly, ever since an April day in 1999, this happy, innocent wildflower that never hurt anyone is forevermore linked with unimaginable darkness.

It's the polarity of life, I suppose, the dramatic through-line of all existence, the tug and pull of opposite ends.

Good and evil.
Darkness and light.
High and low.
Happy and sad.
Love and hate.
Yes and no.
In and out.
Life and death.
Beginning and ending.
Now and never.
Here and gone.

I guess I'm writing this to remind myself (and you if you need reminding) that life's not all bad. Even the worst parts -- even the parts that seem unimaginably dark and hopeless when you're trapped in them -- have a flip-side.

Things get better eventually. Wounds heal, eventually. Even if eventually takes a lifetime.

At least I hope so.

I was reminded of this hope yesterday when I saw that despite the mud and blood spattered all over her good name (people used to name their newborn daughters Columbine. I don't have to do a baby names popularity search to know it's probably scraping the bottom of the barrel these days), my Columbine keeps blooming.

My Columbine keeps dancing in the sunshine.

Those silly little fool's caps keep bobbing in the Spring breeze.

Their heads may be bowed, their delicate faces may be down-turned, but they keep on reaching towards the sky.

Listening To My Gut

"You must trust the small voice inside you 

which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide."

-- Ingrid Bergman

Headless Barbie 5-29-14

"Don't try to comprehend with your mind. 

Your minds are very limited.

Use your intuition."

-- Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle In Time

"Call it intuition, a hunch, or a gut feeling --

if we followed it, we just might be happier."

-- Stephanie Sarkis, Ph.D.

I had to make a difficult decision recently.

For me, it was an extremely difficult decision because it involved letting go of something good, something I really wanted to do, a good thing that I truly love.

I knew my gut was telling me, plainly and simply, what I needed to do, but I wasn't ready to listen.

My heart was also giving me multiple mixed up feelings about my options, while my head was shouting out its own tangle of conflicting advice and rationale. People were getting in through my ears and their voices were trying to out-shout those already clamoring inside me and the whole "conversation" was making me sick, literally. 

The more I struggled to supervise the arguments and counter-arguments, to reconcile and sort out all the "what ifs" and "yeah, buts," the worse and worse I felt in my gut. 

My gut was in such turmoil, in fact, that I became seriously, physically ill. I didn't fully understand why at the time, because there were other factors at play as well, but this decision over what I should do about this thing --  it was wrecking me.

And even though my gut was telling me exactly what to do, with all the other bickering going on, I couldn't hear it. More accurately, I didn't want to. Because my gut was telling me one single thing and it was the one thing everybody else was arguing so vehemently against. 

The most difficult thing. 

Long story short, my gut finally got my attention loud and clear by going on an extremely unpleasant and prolonged strike. It refused to budge until I finally broke under the pain, pressure, stress and exhaustion of it all.

My gut won the argument.

Miraculously, everybody else shut right the fuck up.

Turns out my heart and my head didn't really care as much as they were pretending to. They just like the sound of their own voices.

When the difficult decision was done, over, I was so relieved, because the difficult thing turned out to be the exactly perfectly right thing. I haven't questioned its rightness for even a minute since.

I'm pretty sure my heart and my head knew they were wrong all along. In fact, I'm sure they knew they were wrong when they said yes to this "thing" months ago, this thing they ultimately had to give back because my gut said so. 

I'm also certain that my gut was already speaking months ago, but back then it was in a whisper and I wasn't willing to trust it until it shouted louder than all the rest and knocked me over like a wrecking ball.

My head tries to convince me with its intelligent, articulate, thought-out arguments.

My heart tries to break me with its passionate, emotional pleas. 

But my gut? My gut simply knows what's good for me and what isn't.

Plain and simple.

If only I'd learn to listen.

Inside Jokes

"We are so hilarious.

I feel bad for the people who don't get to listen

to our conversations and enjoy our hilariousness."

-- Unknown

Polymer clay heads laughing their asses (if they had asses) off 5-28-14

Every family has its own unique culture with its own unique set of rituals, language, dietary practices, behaviors and religion.

For instance, my family's unique culture includes the ritual of going out to the movies on Christmas Eve.

One of our unique behaviors is calling each other by made-up nicknames. We've gotten so used to our "AKAs" that it sounds really weird when we call each other by our "real" names.

Our family uses words and phrases that would mean nothing to the outside listener. For instance: "I can't catch this fish." This phrase has nothing to do with actual fishing. It is the inability to stab peach slice onto your fork while it slips around on your plate.

Etcetera.

My favorite element of our unique family culture though, by far, are the inside jokes.

If you are lucky enough to live in a family with a sense of humor, like I am, then you know what inside jokes are -- they're the cryptic, funny, (and in our case hugely inappropriate) things you say to each other that only you understand because only you know the circumstances behind the joke.

That's the power of a good inside joke -- knowing that only the people who are in on it "get" it.

I don't think I've ever laughed as hard outside my own home as I have when we are cracking up over something that is only funny -- that is hysterically funny -- to just us.

If you've ever tried explaining an inside joke to an outsider, then you know it's like watching a tire slowly go flat. That's why it's crucially important to keep inside jokes inside, so the funny doesn't leak out.

Obviously inside jokes aren't limited to families. They can exist between friends, lovers, co-workers, teammates -- in any social group. Inside jokes draw the group closer. They provide a sense of inclusion and belonging.

With all due respect to people who say "a family that prays together stays together," I'd like to cast my vote for inside jokes.

I don't want my kids to remember me, necessarily, for the profound lessons I taught or the deep spiritual impact I had on their lives (as if). I don't want them to remember what I made them think about or ponder. Personally, I'd much rather they remember me for how I made them feel when I said something that caused them to laugh so hard it hurt, that made them roll off the couch onto the floor or spit their Starbucks out their noses -- I live for that shit.

Family laughter is a gift. I love it when a joke that starts between two of us spreads to include three, and then all four of us. When we're all cracking up over the same thing and nobody is left out wondering what the hell's so funny -- it's beautiful.

It's probably hugely inappropriate, but beautiful.

Remembering Uncle Louis

"One lives in the hope of becoming a memory."

-- Antonio Porchia

My Great Uncle Louis Klein (far left) with some of his military brothers in Salach, Germany (1945)

When Memorial Day rolls around, I always feel like such a lame-ass. 

Don't hate me for saying this or think I'm unpatriotic, but I just can't get into it.

Yesterday I tried. 

Sam drove me to a couple of cemeteries and I took a few pictures of headstones with flags on them -- the eternal resting places of men I don't know, with unfamiliar names I never heard of. There was a little plot of grave markers for soldiers who fought in the "Sp. Am. War." I quipped that it must have been a war over disgusting canned meat. Sam topped me by saying "Or really annoying email." 

I felt a little disrespectful joking in a place at a time on a day about events that demand reverence. But I also thought it was funny.

I don't come from much of a military family. And I think that's a big part of my problem. I just don't have a personal connection to war -- no tragic stories of loss or tales of heroism -- and whether you agree with me or not, I think that makes a big difference in how a person feels about patriotic holidays. 

The only family member of mine who I know of who served in the armed forces was my grandma's brother, Louis Klein. 

Louis didn't die in the war. He lived to a ripe old age in house full of tchotchkes in Florida with his wife, Elizabeth. Well, he seemed old to me, anyway, because I was just a little kid the very few times I met him.

Like all the Klein boys, Louis was tall and whip thin. Good looking, but in a geeky way.

All I really remember about Uncle Louis was riding in the car with him in Florida, with him  reading aloud every single sign and billboard we drove past. No shit. He read every single one, followed by "Yeh. Yeh." My sister and I thought it was hilarious. I thought my grandma was going to lose her ever-loving shit.

Louis Klein at the Eiffel Tower

A few years ago after cleaning out some of my grandma's things, my mother gave me a photo album that Louis kept during World War II. There are pictures of him in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, in Salach, Germany with some of his company-mates, looking dapper in his uniform on a mountain overlook in Switzerland with some guy named "Smitty".

The photos are tiny 3x2-inch black and whites with deckled edges.

It's a sparse album. There are blank spaces where many of the photos used to be. I don't know who removed them. But in almost all of the remaining pictures -- the ones with Uncle Louis in them and otherwise -- everybody looks like they're having a grand old time.

I don't know what rank Louis held, or what branch of the military he served in (I'm guessing Army.) I can't tell much of anything from the pictures, and there's nobody left in my family who can tell me. 

On the album's inside cover he wrote "Property of Louis R. Klein, A.S.N. 35751735, Co. B. 1264 Engr. C. Bn." It may as well be hieroglyphics.

Yesterday while the burgers and dogs were on the grill I got the album out.

I looked at the pictures, I read the captions, written with a fountain pen in Louis' own elegant handwriting.

And I felt something.

Not patriotism.

Not loss. 

Not pride.

What I felt was more like a little twinge of a wish that instead of laughing at Louis' idiosyncrasies and Elizabeth's unusually flabby arms, I'd had the presence of mind and respect to sit and listen when Louis told stories about his life, about his time in the war. I'm sure he told stories. The man talked all the time. 

I felt the feeling that I often feel now, as I get older, that I had the chance to go back and know some of the family that I've lost, to ask their younger selves the questions that didn't occur to me as a child. I wish my 46 year old self could sit down with Louis over a cup of coffee and a slice of Elizabeth's pie and just chat a while.

Memorial Day is about remembering those who died in service to our country, as well as those who died after serving our country.

And yesterday, I remembered what I could about Uncle Louis. I looked at his photographs, at his handsome, geeky face, and wondered about things I'll never ever know, but sincerely wish I could.

Maybe I'm not as unpatriotic as I thought.

Maybe I got it at least a little bit right after all.

Yeh. Yeh.

Escaping Into Music

"One good thing about music, 

when it hits you, you feel no pain."

-- Bob Marley

"Music is supposed to be an escape.

It's supposed to be somewhere you go,

where you can be yourself, 

or be whatever you want to be."

-- Joel Madden

"Music should be your escape."

-- Missy Elliot

When I'm struggling through something -- whether it's an emotional something, or a physical something, or just a general "life" something -- often the only way I can get away from that something, get it off my mind and take a break from it, is to drown it out with music.

I shove my ear buds into my auditory canals as far as they'll go, turn the iPod volume up way past the recommended "safe" limit (hearing damage be damned), climb on my bike and go.

I did it yesterday.

For 3 hours I pedaled and listened to everybody from Eminem to Amy Winehouse, from Peggy Lee to Quiet Riot, from Florence + The Machine to Deee-Lite as they helped me temporarily escape from my issues. 

It's like a timeout for the little bastards.

If you happen to pass me out there on my bike, you might see me singing along. 

Or not. 

It depends.

Either way, when I got back home, I felt better.

My issues were still there, but they didn't seem as overwhelming.

The timeout gave me some space, some breathing room.

There's a reason psychologists use music as therapy. According to the American Music Therapy Association, music can help promote wellness by giving people a way to manage stress, alleviate pain, express feelings, remember things, communicate, and heal physically. And that's just the short list.

All I know is, music is a good place to hide when I need to escape from the barrage of thoughts and feelings rattling around inside my head, my heart and my body.

And you don't have to be struggling with something to go there. 

Music doesn't discriminate. Music will take you in no matter what, whether you're troubled, or whether everything is perfectly fine and rosy.

Music.

It's an equal opportunity good thing.

Taco Night

"Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction,

how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be

in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer."

-- Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

Taco night carcasses 5-24-14

"Tacos."

"Tacos?" I echoed.

This seemed to amuse him. "Tomatoes, lettuce, cheese."

"I know what a taco is!"

-- Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush

Taco night.

It's always good.

A Day Of Rest

"Rest and be thankful."

-- William Wordsworth

Self portrait 5-24-14

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day,

listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky,

is by no means a waste of time."

-- John Lubbock, The Use of Life

I took a day off yesterday, which almost never happens.

If it's good enough for God, I guess it's good enough for me.

By a "day off," I mean I didn't exercise/work out, which is a pretty big deal seeing as I get all twitchy and anxious at the merest mention of being grounded. But with my tendency to overdo it, my body's been paying the price.

When my first thought in the morning changes from "Yay! I get to take a bike ride!" to "Fuck, I have to take a bike ride," red flags go up. When I don't have enough energy to even walk up the stairs without my stiff and swollen legs burning with oxygen debt -- yep, more red flags.

Usually I have to force myself to take a day off, especially when it's a perfectly gorgeous day like it was yesterday. But gorgeous day or not, I simply didn't have the energy to do anything about it.

So I gave myself a -- gasp! -- recovery day.

Instead of hammering 3 hours into the wind, I hung upside down on my inversion machine to get the lactic acid moving out of my legs. I did some mild stretching. I sat in an ice bath, which felt blissfully refreshing. I wore compression tights under my jeans all day, and then even slept in them.

This morning my legs feel much better, but I'm still really wiped out.

So I think I'll do something really wackadoodle and take two days off. I know, it sounds crazy, but maybe I'm getting a little wiser in my old age.

Intellectually, conceptually, I know how important rest and recovery are. But in reality, I've always had a hard time doing it. I've always been a "bigger, better, faster, more" kind of athlete. Sometimes to my own detriment.

But maybe I'm turning a corner, or making a realization, or simply learning a little tiny bit about how to take better care of myself.

Better late than never, right?

Who knows? This could be the start of something good.

Maria's Thumbs

"If you're feeling out of kilter,

don't know what or where,

find the sore spot and work it out."

-- Eunice D. Ingham

My footprints, with thumbprints 5-23-14

If you are lucky enough to have a good massage therapist, then you have a good thing.

If you are lucky enough to have a good massage therapist who is also skilled at Reflexology foot massage, well, then I don't even have to tell you what a good thing you have, because you already know it full well.

Maria, my massage therapist is all of the above.

I struggle periodically with some chronic health problems that nobody seems to know what to do with. But Maria can take one look at my face, and then get to work on my feet, and the problem at hand. 

She did it yesterday. She didn't fix the problems, but she was able to temporarily relieve my pain so that I could catch my breath for at least a little while, and that was all I could ask for.

Reflexology is more than just foot massage. It's the art of applying very specific types of pressure to very specific points on the feet that correspond to different parts of the body. So by working her thumbs across my soles, toes, ankles, etc., Maria can trigger a healing response in my stomach, my eyes, my liver, my intestines, my lungs, my shoulders, my hips, my sinuses ... pretty much anyplace.

And I don't even have to tell her where it hurts. Her deft little thumbs are like super-sleuths that search my feet for clues and apprehend the little culprits that are causing all the trouble.

There are nay-sayers out there who pooh-pooh Reflexology as hocus-pocus, or pseudoscience, or a psychosomatic placebo. Frankly, I don't give a fuck what they think. Science has failed me time and time again with its pills and potions and practices, which quite often have unpleasant side-effects that leave me feeling even worse than before. In fact, Maria's had to get me over reactions to medications that were supposed to "help."

Pooh-pooh if you want.

But I'm a believer -- in Maria's thumbs.

They're 2 good things.

A Well-Stocked Freezer

"One morning, as I went to the freezer door, I asked my wife,

'What should I take out for dinner?'

Without a moment's hesitation, she replied, 'Me.'"

-- Unknown

Frozen soup 5-22-14

"How to thaw a frozen turkey: 'Blow in its ear.'"

-- Johnny Carson

I didn't feel good yesterday.

Actually, I felt really shitty. The last thing I felt like doing was cooking, or eating.

On days like that, I'm super glad that there have been other days when I've felt better and had the energy and foresight to stock my freezer with lots of homemade soups and other good things.

So I thawed some delicious homemade chicken soup in the slow cooker so that it was all heated up and ready just in time for supper. Somewhere I found the energy to whip up some cornbread (yes, from scratch). Then I spent the rest of the afternoon in the recliner with heating pads on my sore tummy, watching the Indians beat the Tigers in 14 innings of some of the most exciting baseball of the season so far. 

In baseball terms, my freezer is kind of like my pinch hitter.

It steps up to the plate when the regular hitter is taken out of the lineup.

Luckily, the soup was a hit.

My Neon Yellow Cycling Jersey

"Think! Always wear a high visibility jacket."

--Top Gear, Episode 9.5

Self portrait 5-21-14

"The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up."

-- Marilyn Monroe

"It's no fun to be yellow. 

Maybe I'm not all yellow, I don't know.

I think maybe I"m just partly yellow and partly the type that

doesn't give much of a damn ..."

-- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Some road construction has shunted a bunch of traffic onto my cycling route.

I ride the same route every day, so the cars that pass me are used to seeing me, and for the most part they are all really good about giving me plenty of room.

But these new re-routed drivers seem not to know much about how to drive around a rider on a bicycle. Plus, they're driving pissed because there's a detour, also they're on unfamiliar roads and are probably staring at their phones or GPSs instead of the road ahead, so I'm not sure most of them even see me before they swerve dramatically, or sweep past dangerously close.

Also it's been raining a lot, and while I like my usual  all-black ninja-look (my friend Bob calls it my Spiderman Suit), I decided to up the safety factor and got a neon bright yellow jersey so that I can be properly seen.

I've never been a big fan of bright neon colors, in my workout gear or elsewhere. I prefer to blend in with a darker, more subtle approach. My mother often put a pair of hi-vis orange gloves or a hat in my Christmas stocking for me to wear running so I wouldn't get shot by the deer hunters. I never wore them. I also never got shot.

So anyway, I bought this bright, highlighter yellow jersey and have begun wearing it to combat this annoying new traffic situation.

Yesterday it was a good thing I was wearing it.

I was riding up behind some old fuck in a pickup truck who put on his right turn signal. He started to turn right, and then just as I entered the intersection he did a sudden U-turn and headed straight back at me. He hit the brakes. I hit the brakes. I yelled "What the fuck?" He honked -- what, to emphasize what a jackass he was?

Anyway, I escaped unscathed, and I credit my neon yellow cycling jersey for making me highly visible enough that I didn't get killed by an old fuck in a pickup truck.

Good. Fucking. Thing.

My Garden Is In

"We spend our lives hurrying away from the real,

as though it were deadly to us,

'It must be up there somewhere on the horizon,' we think.

And all the time it is in the soil, right beneath our feet."

-- William Bryant Logan, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth

Pepper plant 5-19-14

"Seeds have the power to preserve species, 

to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity,

to counter economic monopoly 

and to check the advance of conformity

on all its many fronts."

-- Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education

Cauliflower plant 5-19-14

"Gardening is cheaper than therapy, and you get tomatoes."

-- Unknown

My little vegetable garden is finally planted.

For the moment, it looks all neat and tidy and organized standing at attention in orderly, labeled rows in the dark, fertile, weed-free soil.

I know it's just a matter of time before the zucchini are sprawling lasciviously all over the cauliflower and I won't be able to tell where the tomatoes end and the peppers begin. Soon, weeds will sprout up and try to wreck all my hard work and I'll be back out there, ripping them out by the roots. 

But for now, everyone is behaving.

I love looking at my garden. Several times a day I find myself at the back patio door staring out at how promising and hopeful it looks. It makes me feel good. And also a little bad ass.

Pretty soon, I'll have all the free, fresh veggies I can eat. And stocking the freezer with homemade tomato sauce made with tomatoes and peppers and basil that I grew myself may sound super domestic and homey and old-timey. But it's not.

It's non-conformist. It's insurrection. It's revolution.

I feel like a little rebel every time I pick a zucchini, or a head of broccoli, and bring those little fuckers straight into the kitchen and cook that delicious, fresh shit up for my family. It's like a "fuck you" to the overpriced grocery store chains and retailers and pollution-belching trucks and canned vegetable makers. 

Fresh veggies are good for you.

Be a bad ass.

Grow some.

Crossing Off Stuff On A List

"Having come to the conclusion that there was so much to do

that she didn't know where to start,

Mrs. Fowler decided not to start at all."

-- Rachel Crompton, Family Roundabout

To-do list 5-19-14

"I love lists. Always have.
When I was 14, I wrote down every dirty word I knew on file cards
and placed them in alphabetical order."

-- Adam Savage, "Step One: Make a List," 

Wired magazine (Oct. 2012)

"I love the ritual of drawing up lists,
and there's something wonderfully satisfying
about ticking tasks off."

--Shaida Kazie Ali

Yesterday was a productive day for me.

Because I made a list.

It wasn't a long list. Just three simple things. I wanted to mop the kitchen floor, plant my vegetable garden, and make a meatloaf for my guys' supper.

Even though it was a very short and unimpressive list, for me it was a lot to do in an afternoon without getting distracted by other brighter, shinier things.

I am not industrious by nature. I am more of a natural-born procrastinator. I do stuff, it's just usually stuff I feel like doing rather than stuff I should be doing. I can put off real responsibility for a long, long time.

But there's something about writing tasks down on a list that makes them more do-able, or urgent, or something. A list sort of stares me down sternly and over the top of it's glasses. 

I imagine that if my to-do lists actually had faces, they'd look a lot like this:

Maggie Smith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

And so crossing stuff off because I actually did it ... that feels really satisfying. 

It feels like accomplishment.

So yesterday I made a list. It was a short list. A list with too many items is too daunting and makes me feel overwhelmed and then I'm likely to ignore the whole damn thing.

But three items? I can handle a list like that. 

So after a long bike ride, a beer and a  banana, I put the baseball game on the radio and got busy. And guess what? I did all three things.

Now my kitchen floor is all sparkly and shiny.

Yay!

Now my garden is full of neat, tidy, labeled rows of baby pepper plants and tomato plants, broccoli and cauliflower plants, zucchini and basil plants, with my zombie scarecrow standing sentinel over them all. 

Yay!

And my guys had a delicious meatloaf for supper, which they'd requested, hence its presence on the list. (What is it about dudes and meatloaf?) Anyway. 

Yay!

I'm no math whiz, but according to the list, I think that makes three good things in one day. Make that four, because I didn't get spanked by the stern lady. Which (depending on who you ask) is also a pretty good thing.

The Family Glue

"That's what I meant," said Pippin. "We Hobbits ought to stick together, and we will."

--  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings

Paper dolls 5-18-14

"You are stuck with me till the world falls to pieces..."

-- Ottilie Weber, End of the Line

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Time for true confessions.

True confession #1: I am really, really, really lazy and careless when it comes to family togetherness. Aside from the three guys who live in my own house, I can be pretty damned lackadaisical and a whole lot of who-gives-a-fuck when it comes to family visits and birthday parties and holidays and events and family ties and shit.

True confession #2: I hate that about myself.

After my dad passed away almost 10 years ago, as my kids have grown older and busier, as my sisters have moved farther apart and as their kids have grown older and busier -- there's been "drift" -- it's grown harder and harder to get too jazzed about that kind of stuff.

But I have this brother in law, Russ.

Russ and my sister live in California, which is far, far away.

Unlike me, though, Russ doesn't let drift happen. Russ gets extremely jazzed about maintaining family togetherness. He is the kind of guy who'll fly to Michigan from California, then buzz down to Ohio and visit us because he happens to be in Michigan. It's not on his way. It's not convenient. But he does it anyway. It's that important to him.

He did it yesterday.

Russ set aside the better part of the day to drive all the way here so he could have a couple of hours with my sons, his nephews. And then he drove all the way back to Detroit to catch a flight home to California.

At first I was all like, "Who does that? Wouldn't it be a lot easier for him to just go to Detroit? Sit in the airport and read a book, for chrissakes." And then I answered my own question. "Russ does that." It's who he is. He's the guy who tries to hold us all together.

He's the self-appointed family glue.

So Russ drove down and we went to our favorite Middle Eastern restaurant. It was nice, catching each other up on what everybody's been up to, over Kafta rolls and hummus instead of over the phone or the internet.

Left to me, we'd all just keep drifting apart and lazy-ass me would probably just let it happen.

But luckily, we have Russ. He's like the skewer in the Kafta kebab.

Without him the whole thing might fall apart.

So it's a good thing we have him to hold that shit together.

Tiger Balm

"Take a look at my stripes, chest looks like a tiger arm

And I'm hot as Tiger Balm, fire like a five-alarm

And it's set onto ya barn, get ya fire-fighter on."

-- Lupe Fiasco, "All The Way Turnt Up"

Tiger Balm jar with letter beads 5-17-14

"Tiger Balm aims to deliver health and well being through proven oriental wisdom.

Our belief is that no one should be constrained from leading a full and active life

because of aches, pains and everyday discomforts."

-- Tiger Balm philosophy,  TigerBalm.com

Tiger Balm advertisement

Two days ago I strained a muscle in my calf. It hurt. That's a bad thing.

So I put Tiger Balm on it.

Now my calf doesn't hurt. That's a good thing.

Besides, why wouldn't you want to use something with "more striking power than a flying tiger?"

It just makes good sense.

Use Tiger Balm.

The shit works.

One Good Enough Thing

"Don't think that you are not good enough;

others will think that for you."

-- Vikrant Parsai

Red-winged blackbirds 5-16-14

Someone was telling me about these eleven bald eagles that circle the sky around sunset over a nature preserve near my house.

So last night, around sunset, I packed up my camera stuff and headed over there. I hadn't recorded a "good thing" for the day yet, and I figured a sky full of bald eagles at sunset would do the trick.

Guess what? No eagles.

I saw a bunny. I saw a deer. I saw some geese. And I saw lots and lots of red-winged blackbirds.

These blackbirds were particularly noisy and vocal -- as if they were squawking "Hey, look at us! Up here! We're birds too, you know. So what if we're not fancy schmancy bald eagles. They're overrated anyway. What, aren't we good enough for you? At least we had the decency to show up, for chrissakes. How's about snapping a picture of us guys?"

And so I did.

Sure, bald eagles are majestic and regal and impressive and all that shit. But so are red-winged blackbirds in their own way, with their bright red and gold epaulets, like they're wearing little military dress uniforms. It was almost dark, too dark to see much color or detail, but the twilight was just good enough to capture their silhouettes against the darkening sky.

Sometimes good enough is good enough.

And for today, that's a good enough thing.

Silent Films

"Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo."

-- Mary Pickford

Self portrait 5-15-14

"The silent film has a lot of meanings.

The first part of the film is comic. 

It represents the burlesque feel of those silent films.

But I think that the second part of the film is full of tenderness and emotion."

-- Pedro Almodovar

I have this yellow Post It on my desk that says, simply, "Blancanieves -- watch this movie."

My friend Jill wrote it and stuck it there months ago.

When Netflix finally got their shit together and offered the film, I downloaded it, and then it sat there in my queue, unwatched, for weeks and weeks. Yesterday, when nobody else was home and I had an afternoon all to myself, I finally watched it.

It's a silent film, black and white with music, set in 1920s Seville, and is the story of a girl named Carmen, who happens to be the daughter of  the once great matador Antonia Villalta. The film is essentially a retelling of the Snow White tale, complete with evil stepmother, poison apple, and a merry band of bullfighting dwarfs who find the girl nearly drowned -- and amnesic -- by a riverside after a failed attempt on her life engineered by the stepmother. The dwarfs name her Blancanieves, or "Snow White", after the famed fairy tale, and she joins their bullfighting act. And the girl's got skillz, which she learned from her father, even though she doesn't really remember it.

This movie was thoroughly imaginative and captivating and charming but also haunting and tragic. And there's this rooster that is pretty fucking terrific.

Don't be dissuaded by the fact that this film is silent, and black and white, and foreign. You won't miss the talking, I promise. Plus, all of the inter-titles are in English, so it's OK if you don't know Spanish.

I don't want to say a whole lot more about the film, because I don't want to spoil it for you.

All I have to say is that it's such a good thing and I am so glad Jill told me about it. 

Oh, and this --

"Blancanieves -- watch this movie."

A Nap

"Let's begin by taking a smallish nap or two."

-- Winnie the Pooh

Polymer clay sleepy head 5-14-15

"I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four."

-- Yogi Berra

"There's a nap for that."

Sleep school rule number one is "Don't nap." 

Ever.

So I don't.

I can't even remember the last time I fell asleep during the daytime. 

Well, actually, I can. It was yesterday.

A nap ambushed me. It sneaked up one me from the tall grass and pounced. Hard.

I was taking a little post-bike ride, post-lunch break with my feet up in Big Daddy's recliner, about a half hour before I had to get Leo from school. I wasn't planning on falling asleep simply because I just don't do that anymore.

Nearly two hours later, Leo was home and I was just barely waking up. He had to walk home because I never showed up. I'd slept through his multiple texts and calls, as well as "where are you?" messages from my husband. 

That never happens anymore. 

It felt so damn good, though. 

I didn't beat myself up about it, because it was a sabotage nap. I never saw it coming, and there was nothing I could do about it anyway.

I was afraid it would fuck with my sleep last night, but it didn't. Not even a little bit. I slept like a very sleepy drugged baby. I even slept through my alarm this morning and got up an hour and a half late, in blatant violation of sleep school rule number two, which is "Always get up at the prescribed time."

Whatever.

Playing In The Rain

"And it's such a fucking glorious feeling."

-- David Levithan, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Self portrait 5-13-14

"An unexpected downpour and I'm just giving myself into it.

Because what the fuck else can you do?

Run for cover? Shriek and curse? 

No -- when the rain falls you just let it fall 

and you grin like a madman and you dance with it 

because if you you can make yourself happy in the rain, 

then you're doing pretty alright in life."

-- David Levithan, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

At what age does it happen that we finally decide we are too old, or too mature, or too well-coiffed, or too well-dressed, or too important, or too busy, or too grown up, or too whatever to go play in the rain, or to simply give in and stay outside when the downpour falls and let ourselves get good and soaked?

When I reach that age, I'll let you know. I hope it's never.

I credit my mother, in part, for my feelings about playing in the rain. She used to shoo me and my sisters out the door when the rains came. We'd put our puddle boots on and go stomp in the muddy trenches along our dirt road (we called it "making cement.") 

I can remember how the dark coils of my sisters' wet hair looked through the see-through translucence of the drenched hoods of their nylon windbreakers. 

Also, the rooster-tail spray off bike tires speeding across rain-soaked pavement is singularly pleasing, especially when you're already so wet that it doesn't matter. 

There's something about being out in the rain, on purpose, when everyone else is cowering indoors, that feels a little clandestine, a little forbidden, a little crazy and outside the lines, which probably explains why I liked it so much. And why I still do.

I doubt my mom thought super deep about sending us out in the rain. I think she was just trying to get us out of the house. So what if she had an extra load of wet laundry to do afterwards? She was doing laundry 24/7 anyway, and rain is, well, water -- no biggie.

I still like getting caught in the rain, especially on a run or a bike ride when it falls in welcome relief after a string of oppressively hot summer days. Thunder and lighting don't even bother me. I've had people slow their cars alongside me and roll down their windows to offer me a ride, and I always say "No thanks. I'm good." And I am, even though they look at me like I'm crazy.

I think it's ironic that people don't like getting their hair or their clothes wet in the rain, but they regularly take showers and soak their clothes in machines full of water.

Make up your minds.

I don't typically dole out parenting advice, but here goes.

This summer, when it rains, send your kids outside to play in it. Don't make a big deal about it. Just act like it's a perfectly normal thing to do.  Because it is. You let them run through the sprinkler don't you?

You can watch from the window, or you can join them, which will either up your cool factor a ton, or embarrass the shit out of them, which is always a fun bonus.

And if you don't have kids, just go out there anyway, especially if your mother never let you. When everybody else is popping up umbrellas and racing for cover, go ahead and stomp in the puddles. Get soaked. 

It may not be so great for your hairdo, your makeup or your clothes, but it's good for your spirit.

You know what the one good thing about a rainy day is? 

The rain.

A Gothic Garden Tool

"Listen garden tool, don't make me introduce you to my power tool."

-- Eminem, "Won't Back Down"

Self portrait 5-12-14

I got the best gifts for Mother's Day.

I got a whole bag of my favorite dark roast Sumatra decaf, from Sam.

I got a whole pound of M&Ms, from Leo.

And I got a bad ass Gothic looking garden tool from my very thoughtful husband.

So about this garden tool ...

My grandfather had something like it. It's not quite a rake, not quite a hoe, but a long-handled, single clawed hook that is exactly perfect for maneuvering around and in between plants without disrupting everything else in its path.

It was the only thing on my one-item birthday list. And even my super-tenacious husband couldn't find one anywhere. Trust me, if it was out there, he'd have found it.

But he didn't give up.

"American Gothic," Grant Wood, 1930

He talked to a guy who knew a guy who happens to also be our plumber and who has a workshop full of all kinds of great stuff. This guy is pretty super-ingenious at making and fixing just about anything. And he happened to have an old 3-prong claw rake that he said probably belonged to his grandfather, which makes the thing more than 100 years old. The claws can be removed and re-configured with screw-down clamps, so he removed all but the single center claw, cleaned it up and delivered it to my husband's office just in time for Mother's Day.

(He also gave us the extra claws. What a sweetie pie!)

I plan to start using it today. My garden plants are sitting in flats, all ready to go. But first I have a few weeds to deal with, and I've got a bad ass hook to do it with, so those little fuckers better watch out.

As for the self portrait?

With all due respect to Grant Wood, I just couldn't resist.

A Grown Up Lunch Date

"I'm not making art, I'm making sushi."

-- Masaharu Morimoto

Play Doh sushi 5-11-14

My, how times have changed.

When my son Sam was little, a "lunch date" usually meant a fast food kids' meal and a trip to the toy store.

Now that he's all grown up (he turns 19 tomorrow), Sam's tastes have matured, a lot. Yesterday, we had a perfectly lovely lunch date at a sushi restaurant (his choice), followed by some upscale shopping to replenish his work/school wardrobe.

He wears a suit and tie to work and classes nearly every day, so he needed some new dress shirts and shoes.

Way back when, he'd have balked at the merest mention of dreaded clothes shopping. Now he shops like a pro. He knows exactly what he needs, goes in and gets it, has membership benefits and coupons that slice the final tally in half and then shave 40 percent off that. I just tag along, try to keep up, stand back and watch him work, and help carry his shopping bags.

As for the sushi, of course there was a day when, like most little kids, he preferred hamburgers and french fries with a toy in the box. He wouldn't have touched raw fish with a pair of ten foot chopsticks. Now, he gets positively giddy over the prospect of yellowtail sashimi and a rainbow roll.

It's Mother's Day today, and while I do sometimes miss the days when my boys were little and wish I could pick them up and hold them one more time, I also love where they both are now -- young men, confident and capable and becoming who they're meant to be. Naturally, with growth comes change, changes in what they do, what they like, and even what they eat.

I'm not opposed to change. I'm intrigued by it, actually. And I hope I'm the kind of mother who'll never interfere with either of my boys "becoming." I'd much rather tag along as an observer and watch the fascinating metamorphosis unfold.

God forbid I should ever stand in the way of such a good and beautiful thing.

Ice

"I used to jog but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass."

-- David Lee Roth

Vintage ice trailer 5-10-14

"Ice burns, and it is hard to the warm-skinned to distinguish

one sensation, fire, from the other, frost."

-- A.S. Byatt, Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice

I ice my feet a few times a day, every day. In fact, I go to bed every night with cold packs on my feet.

Sometimes I ice my ass.

Sometimes I ice my legs.

Sometimes I submerge my whole lower body in an ice bath.

Sometimes I even ice my eyes. Yes, my eyes. When they are all itchy, red and inflamed from allergies, an ice pack is the only thing that shuts off the histamine reaction and calms the irritation and swelling.

The pull-out drawer in our freezer is filled with frozen ice packs of varying sizes, shapes and uses, so there are always plenty to have in rotation. When one gets warm and melty, I can just switch it out for a freshly frozen ice-cold one. And they all get used. All the time.

It may sound unpleasant, and for someone who doesn't particularly enjoy cold it definitely can be, especially at first. (I once gave myself frostbite, actual for-real second-degree frostbite that peeled and everything, from falling asleep with ice packs applied directly to my sore heels. It was painful afterwards, but while it was happening, my feet were blissfully numb and I was asleep, so I never even felt it.) 

Lesson learned.

But used correctly, applying ice to what hurts can be an incredibly effective pain reliever. It even has a smart-sounding science-y name, cryotherapy, which means "cold cure." 

For me, applying ice where it hurts is like hitting the off switch, or the reset button. 

And when it comes to pain, off is the best possible thing.