Learning to Wobble

It's obvious that I've not participated in NaBloNoPo, which challenges bloggers to make a daily post in November.  I've been participating in NoBloInNo (No Blog posts In November) this month during which I've failed make even one post this month.  Outstanding indeed.

It's been a bitch of a month of parenting and quite frankly, I just haven't had the energy to even think about this.  I thought the high energy days of parenting were long behind me with the toddler years where I played goalie parent. I was mistaken.  I settled, quite happily I might add, into my current role as The Wallet and Car Keys.

But when Older Boy started testing the limits, well, all bets were off.  And it's a test I feel like I'm failing.

Today in yoga class, oddly enough, the universe spoke to me about parenting through the words of my teacher.  As we all struggled, she told us that she had difficulty with this pose for years.  "You have to learn to let yourself wobble.  Sometimes you might even fall.  But trust that balance will come," she said regarding this twisting pose which tested our balance.  Those words hit this control freak with great force in terms of parenting.  I am wobbling.  And some days I sure feel like I might hit the ground face first.  I don't know what I'm doing most of the time with this parenting thing.

So I'm going to let myself learn to wobble in parenting and know that I can't control everything.  I'm also going to trust balance will come in my parenting.  It's all I have.


Note: I've also been frustrated in dealing with the technical aspects of this site.  People tell me they post comments, yet they never appear or that it's very difficult to even post a comment.  As a result,  I'm looking into moving this blog to another service.  I will post an update when that happens. 

Hair Raising

I'm certainly not the first to point out that many aspects of a marriage require trust. First and foremost, the decision to marry requires that huge level of confidence that you will spend your life with this person. The decision to have children requires enormous trust, devotion and perhaps that third margarita. But of all the moments in my marriage where trust has been absolutely crucial, I am convinced that none has required a greater leap of faith than asking my husband to cut my hair.

It's messy but it's free.

Now I am not talking a simple straight across trim of the bangs or a quick clip to even up the split ends of shoulder length hair. My hair is short and I like it that way, mainly because I am exceedingly lazy about certain personal grooming rituals. Cutting my hair requires the artful use of scissors to create layers and texture. It also requires the use of barber shop style hair clippers with the number three attachment to buzz the back and sides.

When we first got married and were leaving for Peace Corps, I feared I’d look like Troglodyte woman. Not knowing whether our remote island community of Western Samoa would even have hair styling facilities, or sharp scissors for that matter, I began to panic. I’ve tried to grow long hair and it is not a pretty sight. My patience ends when my hair barely creeps over my ears and I immediately run screaming to have it chopped off. So knowing my husband was a tad bit on the anal retentive side, I thought he’d be the perfect candidate to learn the application of scissors to my head.

My stylist, who had cut my hair for years, offered to teach him the tricks of short hair styling. I was impressed when he brought a notepad, asked questions and drew sketches during his lesson. Just to be safe I had my hair cut two days before leaving the country.

Fearing that he might have to cut my hair with a machete, I purchased the As Seen on TV home haircutting kit. I figured it the cuts were too horrible for human viewing, I’d wear a baseball cap for two years. So dreading the day, and once again contemplating growing out my hair, my hair as grew fast and unruly as the banana trees in our backyard in the tropical heat. Humidity, while exceedingly kind to my skin, was not kind to my hair. And I'm happy to report during that time period, I only had one bad 'do that we dubbed the Stare Cut.

Upon our return home, I thought about visiting the salon.  But truth be told, I kind of liked having on demand, in-house hair care.  The other truth was, I was saving lots of money this way.  Short hair is high maintenance.  And I am cheap.

Maybe he can duct tape all my chins up when he's finished.

Twenty-one years later, he's still cutting it although it's a much less hair raising experience.  Now if I could just get him to do my quite neceassary monthly application of 5G Medium Golden Brown, I probably wouldn't spend one week a month looking like Gorbachev.

Samoa Earthquake

Twenty years ago, The Husband and I were serving as Peace Corps Volunteers in Western Samoa.  On September 30, just before 7 a.m., a massive 8.3 earthquake occured 120 miles from Apia, the capital city where we lived.  The earthquake triggered a tsunami that crashed 20 foot waves into this tiny island nation.  American Samoa was hit just as hard. 

The photos and stories recount the shocking devestation.  Thankfully, all 35 of the volunteers currently serving are alive but some had frightening stories to tell, like Erica who is truly lucky to be alive.  Matt's blog also recounts the aftermath.

We endured a few earthquakes while serving there, as well as Cyclones Gina and Ofa.  But nothing comes close to what the citizens of Samoa have gone through.  But Samoans, and Peace Corps Volunteers, are tough.  They will get through this.  They will survive.

Get a Room

The Tufts University student handbook now specifically prohibits students from having sex in their dorm room when their roommate is present.  The handbook further prohibits "Sexiling" or exiling a roommate for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity.


They had to have a rule for that?

I am afraid.  Very afraid.

 

Kickin' Asphalt

This column apeared in today's Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

It started as a mere snicker. A tee hee that morphed into the kind of laughter that suggests a Depends might be in someone’s future. And it was coming from the backseat.


I should have kept my mouth shut. Since I’m not known for that, I naively asked, “What’s so funny?” Little did I know it was me.

“Mom,” Older Boy said, in between spasms of laughter, “have you SEEN your arm?”

I then asked stupid question number two. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It sort of just hangs there,” Older Boy said poking it. “You have, like, an arm goiter.”

Younger Boy chimed in. “It’s like tether ball,” he said. “Let’s smack it and see how many times it goes around!”

Charming.

Now I will admit I’ve been lax in my fitness efforts. After getting a brand spanking new resurfaced hip last year, I babied it. I pampered it so much it wouldn’t have been surprising to see me wheeling it around town in a Bugaboo Stroller singing it lullabies.

Actually, I was terrified to use it. And I was under strict orders not to. Not by the doctor but by The Husband. “If I ever see you running again I’ll tackle you,” he told me. But what’s the point of having a new hip if you’re not going to use it?

Since Older Boy took up running, I’ve been a little antsy to lace up my shoes again. But I knew it would have to be on the sly and I’d have to fake a hot flash if busted. I looked forward to everything about running again but one thing: starting over.

It would be just like the day I joined the running craze of the early 1980s. Armed with my copy of The Diet Pepsi Guide to Running, I was twenty-one and ready. The book covered all aspects of becoming road ready – eat plenty of carbs, fat grams are your sworn enemy and hydrate with plenty of, you guessed it, Diet Pepsi. I laced up my pristine white Nikes with a red swoosh and opened the book to the training schedule: Day 1: 3 minutes. Surely that was a mistake. Only three minutes? That was the dumbest thing I could imagine if I wanted to be a Real Runner. I was going to Really Run, for a Really Long Time. And I took off down the street like Usain Bolt.

It was the first and last time that I ever ran that fast.

Two minutes and forty-seven seconds later I was lying on my back in the front yard red-faced and gasping. But I got my first taste of those brain tingling endorphins – the runner’s high. And I was hooked.

Then I got up the nerve to enter my first race. And I was slow. Really slow. A three-legged dog beat me. Old folks outside Dosker Manor Nursing Home offered me hits off their oxygen. They were rolling up the chutes when I got to the finish.

One race under my running shorts, I decided my goal was to run a marathon before I was impossibly old at forty. I beat my self-imposed deadline (the only thing I’ve ever beaten) by a mere three weeks.

At thirty-nine, I was trying to outrun what I thought was the first mile marker for middle-age. At forty-eight, it’s a lot more complicated because now I’m trying to outrun arm goiters, a meno-pot and the occasional hot flash.

But I’m going for it.

It won’t be pretty. It won’t be fast. But I don’t care; I’m gonna kick some asphalt anyway. At least until I get cold-cocked by my arm goiter.

These running socks were apparently designed by and for the peri-menopausal woman.