Dog spelled backward

I woke up yesterday morning with an extra person in my bed - my daughter. She's twelve now, and hasn't climbed into my bed in years, so I asked her what was going on. She explained that she had thrown up in her bed a few hours before. (*She also told me that afterward, she slept the rest of the night in her bathtub.)

The night before, we had a strange bit of behavior from "her" dog, Biscuit.

For background, our dogs stay downstairs in our house. We used to have a baby gate on the stairs to keep them from venturing upstairs (because they had occasional accidents up there), but have removed the gate and they stay down.

**For more background, Biscuit, now seven, is a sensitive dog, especially to weather. She gets very nervous when it rains, and generally hides in my closet during storms or even hard rain. Sometimes, however, she sneaks upstairs and hides under my son's bed during bad weather.

So, Sunday night, Biscuit kept going upstairs. Instead of hiding, however, she kept going upstairs, then halfway down the stairs, then back up, then down, and so on. She finally laid down in my daughter's room, still agitated.

My daughter has a day bed with a trundle, and she uses the trundle as an auxiliary night table, piling books, purse, and other items on it.

When I went upstairs to check out the situation, and to tuck in the kids, the girl and I decided that Biscuit was up there to stay, so we removed the books and other items from the trundle so that Biscuit could sleep there.

The dog stayed up there a few minutes, then came downstairs.

A few hours later, my daughter had thrown up all over both beds. As she correctly noted later in the day, if Biscuit hadn't been acting so strange, she would have thrown up on her homework, her school books, her beloved Harry Potter books, her purse, and more.

She concluded that it was a great stroke of luck. I, however, remembered that dog spelled backward is God. And I thanked Biscuit for taking such good care of her girl.


*Yes, in her amazingly rational adolescent, fever-addled brain, my daughter figured that, even with an extra bed upstairs and a perfectly comfortable sofa downstairs, the best place for her to sleep was the bathtub. Because it was near a toilet. She went to the spare bedroom and got pillows and bedding and removed all the shampoo, soap, and other containers from the tub, and made a little bed there. The best I can figure is that she was running a high fever and was completely out of it. Because that's one of the most bizarre things she's ever done.

**We got a surprise snow event later that night, waking up to 3+ inches of snow that were not predicted, but I don't think this was why Biscuit was so agitated.

NaBlo less of a fail

Seriously, there is almost certainly H1N1 going on at my house. My daughter's teachers kids have it. My son's BFF from preschool's family has it. And I'm pretty darn sure my daughter has it. And my husband. And maybe me.

But September's NaBloPoMo topic is "Beautiful" and there's nothing beautiful about swine flu. So instead, I'll tell you a story.

Tuesday, I was at the post office. I go to the post office a lot, because I'm selling lots of eBay stuff. But there was this guy in line. He was probably about 20 (if you're keeping score, that's about half my age) and completely beautiful. One of the prettiest boys I've seen in a long time.

And then he answered his cell phone. That mini-crush I had going on? Was completely gone.

See, here's the thing. I value manners. Which is why I live in the South. And this beautiful boy? Needed a visit with Emily Post, stat. He discussed his finances, his academic issues, his finances, his rent money, his career dreams, and more, all in line at the post office, surrounded by people. As his conversation progressed, I caught more and more people commenting to each other on the ridiculousness of the conversation. Seriously, once he was gone, people started talking to each other about how annoying he was.

So, as my grandfather would say, "Pretty is as pretty does." Please, please, please, if you must speak on your cell phone in public, keep it short and vague. The rest of us really don't want to know about your rent money or career aspirations. If we did, we would ask.

Vehicular

I want one of these MADSEN Cargo Bikes a lot.

We're looking at replacing our well-loved and well-worn minivan soon, and the replacement vehicle will be smaller and more efficient. I was thinking about the new car yesterday, when Craig and I were running errands in the minivan. A Smartcar drove by, and I was a little envious, because it would have been just right for what we were doing (returning library books, picking up a bag of sand and a few plants). A few minutes later, a person on a Vespa also caught my eye, because other than the sand, all our items would have fit in a scooter's cargo area, too.

But the cargo bike? Genius. Especially for those of us who love to bike to the farmers' market but then buy too much and have smushed produce from overpacking the backpack.

So click that there link up top and let's all try to win me a bike, okay?

From under my rock

Absentee blogger here. I feel like a deadbeat dad, except I do take care of my kids and I'm female.

Despite my long absence from the world of blogging, I'll skip the update part, because there isn't much to tell. I went to work, I came home, I hung out with the family, I slept, lather, rinse, repeat. Nothing greatly amazing or exciting or even amusing has happened since I last regaled the internet with meme after meme after meme.

Small things that did happen:

My mom joined Facebook.
So did my kids.
My daughter got a cool haircut.
We changed the dog's name to just Klaus.
I gave one of my employees a nickname.
None of my favorite patients died.
One of them grew hair and I didn't recognize her at first, which was funny.
I got to give a kid a bike and have pictures taken.
Our neighborhood started a community garden.
Rock Band: World Tour is the most fun game I've ever played.
My Wii Fit age is several years younger than my actual age.
I cut the grass with a lawnmower for the first time.
I coordinated the remodeling of my parents' new house.
I lost a few pounds.

And that's what's happened here.

There were a few other things, but they don't really bear discussion, or I'm not ready to discuss them, or whatever. We'll leave it at this: I had a rough patch and it's better now. The first quarter of 2009 kicked my ass. But I'm planning to kick the rest of 2009's ass even harder. Because that's how I roll.

So, I'm back. At least for tonight.

Busy

To say that last week was interesting would be the understatement of the year.

Oh, and my husband is in love with Sarah Palin.

Not now!

This week is the calm before the storm. If by "calm" you mean hiring two part-time employees, setting up new cash registers, making a presentation to the hospital's administrators, training a temp to mind the "old" store while the staff of the "new" store is in training, making sure all the training materials have arrived, reserving A/V equipment for training, staying in contact with our corporate district manager, and coordinating with outside vendors to reprogram the cash register POS system.

The storm? Two weeks of training, setting up the new store, followed by the first week in the new store. Sounds easier, actually, than the so-called calm. But it won't be.

When I attended training in January, it was much more exhausting than I expected. At the end of every day, I was tired. Tired from dealing with a roomful of people I'd never met before. Tired from the barrage of new information. Tired from making and tasting drinks all day.

This training will be even more tiring, since I'm the manager and it's my store. I've been working with two of my five employees for the past few weeks, but that leaves three who are essentially strangers. And college-age. (I think that's a good thing, but I may live to regret hiring four people under 21. I'll let you know.) And the "old" store will still remain open during the training, and I'm still ultimately responsible for it.

Pesky human cloning. They need to hurry up with that one.

Oh, and did I mention that I left work early with a killer headache, complete with some delightful nausea? I'm hoping that it's stress and not the flu. Because I really don't have the time to be sick.

But my new store looks fantastic and I can't wait until May 27.

Stress code blue

My blog is actually a good barometer of my life. The frequency of posts is conversely related to the level of activity in my life.

Take this week, for example. I worked the weekend (which means a 4:00 a.m. wake up), my dad arrived (with my kids) at the house on Saturday afternoon, I've got the church pledge drive kick-off party on Saturday, and I'm interviewing new staff for my new store. There are some other, non-bloggable, bits of work upheaval that are generating a lot of stress.

And then last night, a little more drama entered my life in the form of a very unexpected phone call from a friend who let me know that he has entered a residential treatment program for mental health issues. That's his story, not mine, but it definitely impacted my night.

Later that evening, Craig and I were watching "Top Chef" which made me hungry, so I grabbed a box of crack Cheez-its and was happily munching away when I felt, and heard, the unmistakable sound of stress incarnate.

My jaw.

The TMJ, it has returned.

I did what I could to minimize it, and I'm hoping it works. I took a muscle relaxer and wore my delightful appliance to bed.

When I awoke, it didn't hurt, not exactly, but it definitely felt wrong. The last time this happened, I couldn't eat for two weeks. And while the thought of the easy weight loss that would bring is tempting, it's really the last thing I need right now. Must keep my energy up to get through the next few weeks.

More Ovaltine please?

Facing facts

Turns out that I have unreasonably low expectations for my son, at least when it comes to his packing skills. He packed a perfectly sane assortment of clothing for the trip, and all I did was merge the contents of two half-empty suitcases into one suitcase. I didn't add or subtract or substitute any of the contents. Yay, son!

Turns out my daughter is probably ready to move out and have kids of her own. Well, not quite, but close. See, on our long road trip to Michigan, we hit a bit of turbulence in the form of my son and a stomach virus. As I later told my mother, if the kids had been five years younger and this had happened, I would've been toast! Instead, after vomit #2 (but #1 in the car), I pulled across three lanes of traffic in Nashville's suburbs, pulled into a Walgreen's parking lot, fished out some cash from my wallet, and sent my daughter inside to buy paper towels and baby wipes. And she did it! No argument, no nervousness about going alone inside a store in a strange city. Just grace and aplomb. Even better, she returned, gave me the change, and informed me that she'd made the executive decision to buy the small package of wipes because she figured I didn't want a case of 500. She was, perhaps, a bit less willing to assist me in cleaning up the mess, but she did score points for being very sweet and solicitous of her miserable brother.

Turns out my son is nearly 5' tall and my daughter is already 5'1 1/2". That makes her only two inches shorter than me. She's TEN!

Turns out that when Craig and I have the house to ourselves, we pretty much behave the same way we do when the kids are around.

Turns out getting up at 4 a.m. to work on a Saturday (and it'll happen again on Sunday) is just as hard as one would expect.

Turns out that I'm really, really glad my kids (and my dad) are getting home today. Even though it's only been since Wednesday morning since I saw them, I miss them.

Turns out I like my new haircut (and will post a picture soon).

400

When I was logging on to Blogger, I was planning to write an update-y post, mostly about work, but then I saw that this was going to be my 400th post, so I thought it should be more, well, special.

But for special? I got nothin'. I've been doing this get up, go to work, come home, be tired, go to bed thing this week, and there's just not much left. I did successfully complete my end of my son's homework (quizzing him on his multiplication tables) but I will also admit that I tried to outsource it to multiplication.com (that, my friends, was a nightmare...timed tests make him very, very stressed). But beyond that, there's little to say.

So here's the update-y part of the post: I had my first "performance improvement" type conversation as a manager. Actually, my first AND second. Within an hour of each other. (Yes, that was planned.) It wasn't as hard as I thought it would have been (seriously, I was dreading this). But then again, I've fired volunteers before (THAT, my friends, is hard). I think things will work out, mostly, and I'm quite optimistic about the future in my department. We have some very, very good leadership, and a few potential rising stars in our field. It's going to be fun to watch things unfold through the summer.


This 400th post thing is making me feel pressured to write something good. And the bizarre spike in traffic my site has experienced for the past few days isn't helping the pressure to write well. I like to think that most of the time my writing is pretty good (my boss thinks so, anyway), but lately it's been less-than-creative. Or insightful. Perhaps it's more a function of being tired and maybe getting sick and then being preoccupied about the whole surrogacy thing.

My headspace is a little more occupied than usual because of that, but I don't think I need to spill it all yet. It's, to use the completely wrong word, premature. We're still on "if", not "when." And it may not even work anyway. So allowing myself to spend too much time there is not wise. I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the future anyway (not the distant future, more like the next three, six, ten months), and this particular situation is not definite. And I need to remember not to treat it that way. But then, there are conversations that need to take place, sooner than later. I suppose it's probably time to get Craig back into the mix, right? Given that the couple seems to be leaning toward a tentative "yes", it's probably time to re-introduce the topic. He's not been involved in these exchanges, though he and I have discussed it (briefly) once.

But I approached the couple before he and I had thoroughly hashed it out. Because I didn't know if it even merited a long discussion (there was that possibility that they would have been entirely disinterested in such an offer). And now that there is a conversation underway with the other folks, and it's going the way it's going, there needs to be a long, and maybe not easy, conversation with my husband (who mostly does not read my blog, so please don't bring it up to him if you know him.)

But I somehow don't have the heart to bring up such a serious, and life-altering (at least for a year) topic during Oscar week. With our party coming up on Sunday, he's already a bit more stressed than usual. Yes, that probably makes me sound like a big chicken, making lame excuses, but I already knew that, because the conversation I had with my employees today should have happened two weeks ago. (Maybe the fact that it wasn't horrible with them might convince me that this conversation, too, will probably be fine, even if it's not easy.) Because nobody promised easy, right?

A Letter to my Body

Over at BlogHer, Suzanne started an interesting conversation. And, being the consummate joiner, I'm playing along.

Dear Body,

We've been through a lot together. Things seem to be better these days. Maybe because of that radioactive pill I took a few summers ago. It felt strange, conspiring with the medical establishment to kill part of myself, but that part was malfunctioning so much, fighting against the rest of me, that it had to be done.

That summer was hard on us, body. We suffered through high doses of steroids and still sport the changes it caused in our face and belly. Sometimes my face still surprises me when I look in the mirror or at photographs. I don't think of my face as being as round as it is, has been since the summer of 2004.

Up to and including that summer, a lot of my adult decisions were influenced by that pesky thyroid gland. I was afraid to exercise more than walking and a little yoga, because my heart was already working itself into a frenzy, just sitting still. I approached my first pregnancy with more than a little fear: fear that I wouldn't get pregnant, fear that the physical stress of pregnancy would cause my thyroid to spin even farther out of control.

But you worked it out, didn't you? You had no problem getting, and staying, pregnant. You kept me safe, kept the baby safe, even through a car accident. You built two healthy and strong babies and more than enough milk to nourish them beyond a year.

The changes my body experienced during pregnancy were exciting while they were happening, and I was delighted with my new curves. I even let art students share the joy. But after the babies were born, I looked at my rapidly-deflated belly and didn't know what to think of it. The art teachers called and I didn't want to model anymore. I was happy to share my pregnant body, but my postpartum body wanted privacy.

But all that is behind us, at least for now. And I started taking you to the gym. After all, we're not getting any younger, and I want to keep us around for a while. It seemed fair enough that with all you've done to take care of me and my kids, I could spend some time taking care of you. Working out with you feels much better than I expected.

And I'm reveling again. No, we're not 22 anymore. Some of those soft places will stay soft. But we feel stronger, and we're looking pretty good. Craig appreciates and enjoys you.

So thanks, body, for a pretty good 36 years. We've been through a lot together, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Love,
Kaleigh

Huh

Interesting.

The feedback (which, yes, I requested) from my last post gave me plenty to consider. But the message I got from the female member of the couple in question (which I just read today) is also interesting. I'd characterize it as receptive.

Which is interesting.

But, anonymous commenter, no, I won't send you a picture of my boobs. Maybe if you try hard enough you can find a drawing of them from my art school modeling days. I still regret that I never asked any of the students for a copy of a drawing. Because some of them were good.

In other news, Craig and I were supposed to have a date night tonight. Damn those kids and their sick sickness. Not only did sleepover hosts #1 have to cancel because of kid illness, hosts #2 also canceled. And really, we would have been in the wrong to have sent our kids to spend the night with anyone anyway, since they were full of pestilence too. Thank goodness for the buy one, get one free on Walgreen's cough and cold medicine. We may go through a whole bottle before Tuesday. Score one for the drug store, zero for the disco.

And we were even on the V.I.P. list. (Which impressed the crap out of our kids, who really couldn't imagine us at a disco.)

Your feedback, please

Let me preface this post with a disclaimer: no decision has been made. All parties involved, in fact, have not discussed this for more than a few minutes, and no discussion at all has occurred that involves all the parties at the same time. So don't expect anything to come to fruition in the immediate future, if at all.

Something's been tugging at me. Keeping me up at night. Waking me up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night. While some people might say that God is talking to me, I'm not entirely convinced. But I do know that if something is forcing itself into my consciousness, I need to pay attention.

I'm seriously considering being a surrogate mother for a couple I know.

They never asked. They never even expressed any interest in pursuing such a course of action. They've been trying to conceive for some time, and at some expense, and it hasn't worked. Craig and I, on the other hand, practically looked lovingly at each other across the table and conceived our kids. Fertility? Is not a problem for me. I've carried two healthy pregnancies to term, both resulting in healthy children.

And before you ask, I don't want another baby. Not in the least. Craig and I are both very, very happy with our family's size and have no interest whatsoever in increasing it. The children, too, do not want another sibling. So this is not coming from a place of "I want a bay-bee!!!" I don't. I'm not sentimental about pregnancy, nor am I sentimental about childbirth. In fact, I'm pretty much resigned to the idea that if this happens, I'd have another Cesarean section. After two sections, I'd be hard pressed to find a doctor in this conservative medical town to attend a VBAC. And honestly, I don't know if I would want to make the emotional investment in trying again. After what happened last time, I don't think I'm up for the disappointment of trying and "failing."

This couple? I don't get to tell their story. It's not mine to tell. I'll just say what I feel. They would be wonderful parents. It's a horrible injustice of random, cruel nature and nothing more that they haven't made a baby. I hate to see wasted potential, and they just ooze "fantastic parents" potential.

It's a leap, I know, to go from idly musing about how it sucks that some people who should be parents aren't to thinking that I can do something about it. And maybe it's just a bit narcissistic on my part.

But it's keeping me up at night. And maybe there's a reason for that, a reason bigger than what I can comprehend.

Science fair

I just finished my portion of Susie's science fair project.

Let that sink in for a moment.

See, these science fair projects are serious business. Last year, Susie and two friends teamed up to do a pretty good experiment (the effects of different liquids on tooth enamel), and they took third place. I'm convinced that they would have taken first if I had been more proactive and helped them more with the graphic design of the project.

This year, Susie has a new partner and a new topic. The two girls chose nutrition as their topic (at my suggestion...after all, I have good resources at work), and their experiment was good: for one week, they ate a typical diet and kept a food diary. For week two, they first planned a "balanced" diet based on the recommendations at www.mypyramid.gov (good stuff there, by the way), then kept a food diary again. The food diary was input (mostly by them, but also by me) into www.my-calorie-counter.com, a good-enough site that calculates calories, fiber, fat, and the like.

My portion of the project involved taking that data and feeding it into an Excel spreadsheet, then creating a zillion graphs depicting the recommended calories, fat grams, etc., comparing them to the actual calories, etc., consumed, then overlaying the percentage above or below the RDA the girls consumed.

I learned something that I didn't tell the girls. True, it's not a scientific sample, but the results played out as I expected. Susie, as a middle-class white kid with post-graduate-school-educated parents, had a pretty darn good diet in her "control" week. Her nutritional intake was very similar in weeks one and two. Her partner, on the other hand, is economically disadvantaged, African American, and has a less-than-stable family situation. I don't know her mother's educational attainment, but I suspect it's minimal based on the contact I've had with her. And this girl's diet? Is a mess. It's almost a textbook diet for how to get heart disease, an epidemic health problem in the lower income African American community. Her sodium intake is generally 2-3 times the recommended daily limit. Her sugar intake is high. Her saturated fat is high. Her fiber consumption is about half of what it should be.

But what's most disturbing about her results is that her intake of "bad" stuff (fat, saturated fat, sodium, sugar) was markedly WORSE during the Food Pyramid week. I'm not sure why. Perhaps her mother was not able to provide a balanced diet that adhered to the eating plan the girls had designed. I know her mother did not understand the plan, because she called me last Sunday evening, after I'd dropped the child off at home, asking me, "What is this mess she just handed me?" The "mess" was her daughter's food chart. I went over the project with her, explaining the experiment and what they were trying to accomplish. I explained portioning and what foods needed to be consumed in what quantities. The family does not have a computer, so I couldn't direct her to a website.

I talked to the girls today about their results as I was creating the charts. I was gentle when I told Susie's friend about the issues in her diet. I explained that she needed to look at product nutritional labels when she and her mom went to the grocery store. And I beat my favorite dead horse. Lunchables? Are the worst thing in the world that kids can eat. Except maybe rat poison.

The girls did a great job writing up their findings. And I'm about to head to the office to print all these beautiful charts (in color), as well as some pages from the food pyramid site. They'll put the whole thing together and (hopefully) win a prize next week.

I hope they learned something. And make changes accordingly. As they wrote in their report, "It's hard not to eat too much salt and sugar."

Mom, don't read this

Okay, if you're easily grossed out, stop reading.

Somehow the conversation between Craig and me comes to prostate health. Let's blame the television. I blame it for everything else.

And he asks how old he's supposed to be before he needs to get that checked out. I tell him. And then he asks if it's possible for the doctor (she's a woman) to maybe wear a cute outfit (boots? leather?) before she checks him out for such ailments.

And then he keeps it up. "Will she maybe wear a wig? Will she get into a character? Will she get a costume? Will she spank me first? Could she pull my hair a little?"

As I write this, he's still talking. "She can't just go at this willy-nilly; it's an event!"

Am I wrong to document his sickness to the internets? Because, in his words, "If it's wrong, I don't wanna be right."

I hope to God that my doctor doesn't read this blog.

Growing

My children are, by all signs, in the midst of a growth spurt. Normally, they take turns with the growing. My son will almost catch up to his sister's still-superior height, then she'll shoot up, physically proving that she is the big sister and he's the little brother.

We, the parents, are given a bit of warning when the growth spurts are beginning. The child, who normally has a, well, normal appetite, suddenly is starving. Like, tapeworm starving. And sleeps more than normal. A week or two later, pants are outgrown (which, for girls, is okay...long pants can turn into capris until they get tight).

The boy is taller than he was the last time he saw his grandparents, about six weeks ago. And the girl won't. stop. eating. The boy, usually an early riser, has been the last to awaken for the past few days. The girl, who is currently sleeping about a meter from me, looks much more like "woman" than "baby", even in sleep. Which, I suppose, is fitting, since she's chronologically closer to womanhood than infancy.

It's a roller coaster so much more amazing than any we'll ride tomorrow.

8 Things for 2008

As promised, my eight lofty, yet attainable, goals for the upcoming year.

1. Utilize my gym membership. I had a good streak going for several months, but I got out of the habit after a bout with the flu. This business trip, with the two-week hotel stay, could get me back in a good exercise routine. If I lost a few pounds, I wouldn't be heartbroken.

2. Keep my desk clean. I used to have a really, really messy desk at work. I resolved, about a year ago, to spend a portion of Friday afternoon making sure my desk was clean before I left. I've done well with that and am trying to increase the frequency of the desk purge to daily. Hopefully that will spill over to my purse.

3. Stealing this one from Zoot. I'm going to take the dogs, particularly the big girl, on longer walks. I'm sure she'd be a better dog if she got more exercise. Plus, she's getting a little chubby, which is cute but certainly not healthy.

4. Eat more fruit. If I had my druthers, I'd live on cheez-its, dinner rolls with butter, and country fried steak. With macaroni and cheese on the side. Unfortunately, that's not a sensible diet for anyone. Adding a couple of pieces of fruit might help me break the cheez-it addiction.

5. Ride my bike more. I live downtown. I work downtown. I do a lot of things downtown, and I feel pretty stupid driving around, looking for parking, when I live under a mile away from most of the things I do. Our house isn't in the downtown core, but it's an easy bike ride to get most places we go. If I bothered.

6. Give more of my time to help others. Delivering meals on wheels was so easy and so rewarding that we'd be crazy not to sign up do continue throughout the year. And I'd like to find more things we can do, as a family, to help out. Especially in our own neighborhood.

7. Finish the book. Along with exercising, that's part of my two weeks in a hotel plan.

8. Get more photos printed. Not everyone wants to look at a tiny camera screen. And computers crash. I really love the photo book I made of our wedding pictures. The next step would be to make more, like for vacations, birthdays, holidays, or whatever.

2007 in review

At the end of last year, I made a list of goals for this year. Let's see how well I did.

1. Vastly improve my cooking skills.

Not really. I've been so busy with #2 that the kitchen has been neglected. But I've sorted out a few good dishes and my palate is probably better. Oh, and I'm better at baking bread. So maybe I can get half-credit.

2. Change jobs in an upward direction.

Check!

3. Help my church develop a religious education strategy for children with disabilities.

Huh? I don't remember writing that. Definitely didn't do that.

4. Be more present when I spend time with the kids.

I'm gonna say yes on this. I think the kids would agree.

5. Do at least three catering gigs. The two I did this year went well. I can do even better next year.

Not so much. How about zero instead?

6. Keep blogging.

Obviously. I even went to BlogHer!

7. There are several things I'd like to do better: singing, being a better wife, getting more exercise, increasing my community involvement....okay. I'd like to get an iPod or MP3 player for myself.

a. just did karaoke the other night, still enjoying the afterglow
b. ask the husband on that one
c. until last month, I was doing great...and will do better in January
d. yes, I've done that
e. yes

Obviously, some of the things that I thought were really, really important this time last year have slipped in the rankings a bit.

And yes, I think you're being completely reasonable to expect an "8 things for 2008" post this week. I assure you it'll be done by Monday. Because making deadlines? Is probably on that list.

But aren't you scared?

I guess NaBloPoMo got me all crazy, what with two posts on the weekend.

Over the past few weeks, I've been putting in more hours than usual at work. We've got a couple of very big projects going on, and that's sometimes meant that I leave work closer to 6 p.m. than my usual pre-5 p.m. departure.

Do you know what the difference between leaving work at 4:45 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.?

It's dark.

As I've mentioned, my commute is atypical for Memphis. I walk to work. Until a few months ago, my walk was one city block, then I entered the safety of the well-guarded campus where I work, then was across a parking lot, across a street, then inside a building that is connected to my department (door to door, about 1500 steps). Road realignment and other construction projects have removed the back entrance from service (temporarily), increasing my commute to about eight blocks outdoors, six of which are not inside the campus. (Which, incidentally, has prompted more than one person to note that I seem to be losing weight. I think they may be correct.)

When I tell people that I walk to work, most people express envy, telling me that it must be nice to save all that money, to get exercise, and so on. But a few people, especially those familiar with my neighborhood, say something else. "But aren't you scared?" they ask.

Let's consider the dangers involved in my commute.

I cross two streets. I don't have a crosswalk or a traffic signal for either crossing, but the traffic patterns make for a safe trip across the street. I suppose there's potential for injury, but it's pretty slim.

I walk in a residential area and then on the sidewalks along busy streets. Streets with plenty of car traffic but little foot traffic.

What should I be afraid of?

I'm not afraid of being hit by a car, or even a bus. I know how to look both ways before crossing, and I give myself plenty of time to wait for a safe opportunity to cross. I suppose there's the outside chance of a driver losing control of a vehicle, but those kinds of freak accidents are freak accidents, and I don't spend time worrying about them. (Plus, I'm just as likely, if not more so, to be injured while driving in a car in such a situation.)

Oh, I know.

I should be afraid of the people who are on foot. The people walking to the bus terminal, to a bus stop, to somewhere, wherever that may be. People who don't, for whatever reason, probably economic, have the use of cars. People who might be pushing shopping carts full of aluminum cans or their personal stuff. People who might ask me for a dollar.

Wait a minute.

I'm one of them, right? Because I'm walking, too.

Almost fifteen years ago, right before we got married, Craig and I bought a house in Cooper-Young. The neighborhood, at the time, was in transition. It had had some bad years, resulting from the growing suburbs beckoning to young families. When the solid middle class abandoned the area, things got dicey, and crime rates soared. The crime was diminishing, businesses were moving in, and Craig and I (wisely, I might add) saw a great opportunity to buy a house that would easily appreciate in value (it did, more than we thought it would have).

At the time, Craig was working at a video store, often working nights, and I was alone in the house a lot. And I was mostly fine with that. I would often walk from our house to the neighborhood coffee shop (we just had one car), and I frequently made that walk alone, in the dark. Maybe that was stupid. Maybe I should have been afraid. But it never occurred to me to feel anything but confidence. I was in my neighborhood, on my street, surrounded by my neighbors.

Maybe I'm still stupid, if that's what I was then. Because I don't feel scared walking in my neighborhood. I don't feel scared walking past the construction parking lot (I've gotten to know the men who work there, and I tend to think they're looking out for me). I don't feel scared walking on the sidewalk on a well-traveled street, especially when I can see homes owned by my hairdresser, by other people I've gotten to know by living here.

I'm walking in my neighborhood. If I'm scared to do that, then why the hell should I live here?

I might just be a little sad when my walk gets short again. Maybe I'll keep taking the long way home.

Ask, and you shall receive

Apparently the universe read my blog yesterday. And the universe also seems to think that I needed a day to work on the book. Which is a perfectly reasonable explanation of why my son spiked a low-grade fever yesterday. And held onto the fever today. Which is why I'm at home.

Dedicated employee that I am, though, I did go in to work at 6:30 and stayed until 8, bringing work home with me, and tethering myself to computer and cell phone. I've received no less than four calls so far, which has inflated my sense of my importance at the Corporation. If this keeps up, they'll have to get me a Blackberry.

Hey, universe, I was only halfway kidding on that one.

Oh, and YouTube? With all those video clips from Grease? You're dead to me. Because that's all my son wants to do.

Universe, I'm kidding there. If he weren't watching Grease videos on the internet, he'd be keeping me from doing important things, like blogging.

If I really focus, I might get 5,000 words written today. That would be awesome.

Five years

Five years ago yesterday was a bad day. One of the worst.

Things were normal until I got home from my part-time job, teaching at my children's preschool. There was a message for me. I returned the call to Edie, a mom who was involved in La Leche League and Attachment Parenting International. We had children who played together, and I assumed that she was calling to set up a playdate.

I remember how gently she spoke to me. It was clear that something was very, very wrong. I was on the phone right next to the television and I remember sinking down to the floor when I comprehended the news. Our friend Christie had been in a car accident the day before and was going to die momentarily. They had delivered her baby via c-section. Edie and Allison were going to the hospital to see the baby and hopefully see Christie before it was too late.

I remember crying like I'd never cried before. On the floor, with my small children coming over to comfort me. And I recall calling the hospital to find out what was happening, being frustrated as I was switched between departments, being told she wasn't on the census, being told she was in surgery. Finally Craig taking the phone from me and explaining what was going on: she was an organ donor. She was already gone.

The rest of the night is a blur of telephone calls and emails. Since she and I were co-leaders of a parenting group, I had to inform the families involved in the group. And the national organization. And her books' co-authors.

It still doesn't always feel real to think about her not being around. My memories of her are wrapped up in strange things. Cans of Progresso chicken soup. Homemade chili. The television show "24". Her goblets that I thought were so elegant when used for water. And the wine charms that hung from her kitchen cabinet pulls. I never did dig up some of her hostas she had offered that summer, and when I look at my hostas, I regret that.

I've already written this story here, but I needed to process it again. Thanks for bearing with me.

But it's also another anniversary. Nineteen years ago I met my husband. Which is pretty great.