Doubling My Weight, Normal and "Sacred Hoops"

In less than a week, my family and I will be leaving on vacation, and where we will be going will not have ellipticals, stationary bikes or weight lifting machines.* I am slightly starting to panic on how I will maintain my physical therapy exercises while I am gone. Will my leg get better or worse? I am also trying to cram in exercise before I leave to I am in top shape before I go.

I was at the Y today and saw my friend Mark who had a brain tumor removed several weeks ago.

"I rode my bike and I started exercising again," he told me.

"Are you feeling normal yet? Like you did before the surgery?" I asked.

"I can't go backwards, only forwards," he said.

"I mean do you every forget that you had surgery? Like, you are in the shower or listening to music and you are not thinking about your surgery?"

"You mean like when it isn't present in your thoughts all of the time?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. I was thinking of normal more like a circle that goes around, not like a line where we move back and forth. I was raised Catholic, and I think of it in terms of Ordinary Time. There are time of suffering (Good Friday and Lent), times of celebration (Easter and Christmas) and then Ordinary Time which is neither. I didn't think of this while I was speaking to him, but I think of it now.

"When I look down and to the side, I have double vision still," he said. "How are you?"

"I am doing better, but my physical therapist said the more I try new things, my knee will react and get stiff," I said. "It isn't bad, but I have to think about it. Am I working too hard? Am I not working hard enough? How often should I ice my leg? That kind if thing." He nodded. The front desk at the Y is a busy place on Saturday morning, so I left him to his work.

On the recumbent bike, I was reading Phil Jackson's Sacred Hoops. I got it for the Boy to read. I thought it might help him to calm his mind. I decided to read it first, and maybe highlight the more interesting and practical passages for him. I wonder about this mindfulness and what all of it means. Jackson had an accident early in his basketball career where he ruptured two vertebrae and he was out for almost two years. I thought about my situation with my knee, and the mindfulness of recovery.

When I finished my cardio, I went to lift weights. I started on the leg press and didn't check the weight before I decided to push. Normally, I start with a low weight and work up. Today, I decided to start with a heavy weight and work down. In one move, I doubled what I could lift before. All it took was a change in direction.

* ...that I can access easily. I am sure there are such machines in France, but probably not at the hotels where we are staying.

Michelle & Hillary, and LinkedIn

Many people have seen the Michelle Obama speech at the Democratic National Convention. It went viral on my Facebook feed. I caught her speech online, and I had to stop watching at one point and watched the rest of the next day. Here is where I stopped:

"And when she didn't win the nomination eight years ago, she didn't get angry or disillusioned. Hillary did not pack up and go home. Because as a true public servant, Hillary knows that this is much bigger than her own desires and disappointments. So she proudly stepped up to serve our country once again as Secretary of State..."

This passage haunted me because I lost an election for school board last fall, and I decided to get out of volunteer work in public education. Michelle's comments stung me--it was as if she were calling me a quitter, even though she wasn't. First, Michelle doesn't know me. Second, Hillary was getting paid to be Secretary of State whereas I was a volunteer. Third, if John McCain had won, Hillary would not have been Secretary of State.

In the meantime, I am in the process of figuring out what I want to do next with my life. This is a challenge. Yesterday, I got an email from LinkedIn telling me people were looking at my profile. One of the people was my friend's father whom I got to know fairly well a few years ago. It was then I realized I haven't updated my LinkedIn page since I ran for School Board, and my last entry was School Board candidate. What should I update it with next?

November 5 to December 18, 2015 -- Recovering School Board Candidate

Chilled: Went from gas pedal firmly pressed to the floor for nine months to dead stop

• Did not manage any emails
• Did not take any phone calls
• Did not do any public speaking
• Did not raise any money
• Did not manage campaign staff
• Did laundry, quilting and cooked dinner.

December 19, 2015 -- Recreational Skier, Summit at Snoqualmie

• Effectively utilized Ski Patrol services to escort me from top of Outback to bottom of hill.
• Effectively tore ACL, MCL and meniscus in one fall.

December 20, 2015 to January 7, 2016 -- Injured person in denial.

• Learned how to use crutches
• Learned how to ascend and descend stairs using the "up with the good, down with the bad" method. As a self-learner, I discovered this on a YouTube video.

January 8, 2016 to present: Physical Therapy and Orthopedic Surgery Patient

• Learned to reactive left quadricep muscles.
• Learned to walk using "heel-toe" method. 
• Successfully completed "pre-hab;" stopped using brace and crutches prior to surgery.
• Learned the importance of icing and elevating knee three times a day.
• Didn't swear at children/spouse too much when they weren't being helpful; showed much appreciation when they did.
• Managed to limit use of prescription painkillers after surgery. Used ice, elevation and ibuprofen for discomfort as alternative synthetic opiates.
• Normalized gait.
• Increased extension in leg left from from +5 to -7 degrees in five months.
• Increased flexion from 75 to 145 degrees in four months.
• Continuing to get 45 minutes of cardio-vascular exercise a day.
• Can walk up and downstairs consistently.
• Weened self from use of disabled parking permit except when parking is a real bitch.
• Current Goal: Jogging and running.

Ode to Breakfast Sandwich

I think of you before I go to sleep.
I imagine your savoriness between my lips.
When I awake, you are gone.
Your bacon, egg and cheese on a buttermilk biscuit
will never be mine today.

I search and search until I find
your wrapper in the garbage.

The Boy has taken you from me
Yesterday
While I was walking the dog.

Curse you Boy and your rapid growth
Eating all of the food in the fridge
Leaving me with yogurt
Granola
Blueberries
And Kale
For breakfast.
This isn't bad
but it isn't awesome either.

Rewind

Note: This blog post contains math story problems.

Yesterday, I went to visit Claire Adele at Camp Orkila on Orcas Island. I started out the day in a bad mood, mostly because of myself. The night before I left, I checked Google Maps to see how long it would take me to get there. I've been there before multiple times and I know how to get there, but I wanted to double check. I saw that it was eighty miles to the ferry from my house, so I figured it would me about an hour and twenty minutes to get there since it is mostly highway.

Question #1: How fast (average speed) would Lauren have drive to get to the Anacortes Ferry in 80 minutes?

Answer #1: 60 miles an hour.

Question #2: The ferry leaves Anacortes at 10:20 a.m.. If Lauren leaves at 8:00 a.m., what time would she arrive in Anacortes?

Answer #2: 9:20 a.m.

Question #3: Lauren is going to walk on the ferry. She has to park, pay for parking and walk to the ferry terminal. She might also have to buy her ticket, since when she asked Jack if she should purchase her ticket ahead of time online, he said, "You can get a ticket at the terminal." Also, it will be Sunday morning so she imagines most of the weekend parking spots will be gone. Plus, she hurt her back, her knee is acting up and she still can't run/jog. How much buffer time would Lauren have between arriving in Anacortes to when the ferry leaves?

Question #3: One hour. This should be enough even if everything goes completely wrong.

Question #4: While Lauren is reasonably organized, she likes to have a "target leave time" and a "must leave now leave time." What is latest Lauren should leave for her must leave now time given her unreliable mobility?

Question #4: 8:20, to be safe.

I get up, get dressed, finish slicing the brownies I baked Saturday for Claire Adele and pack them into a box. I packed the rest of her goodie bag the night before. At 8:06, I still have time. I ask Jack to get me a ferry ticket.

"It says you should be at the ferry terminal twenty minutes before the boat leaves," Jack says.

"Okay," I say. I knew I had to be there early, but I didn't know they had a recommended time for walk on passengers.

"It says it may take an hour to process the payment for the ticket," Jack said.

"What?" This is the internet. It is supposed to be faster than anything else. That is why it exists.

I finish getting ready, but I stall as I wait for the ticket. I am now approaching my "must leave now time." I'll have to decide if I am going to leave before my $13.95 ticket prints.

"It is printing," Jack says. I grab it and walk down the twenty three steps to my car. When I get there, I realize I've forgotten my phone. My car has a GPS, and I think about going without my phone. My motherhood brain kicks in and says "Bring in just in case." Motherhood brains are very good at looking at all possible disaster scenarios. I go up the stairs, get my phone, and then back down. If I had forgotten anything else, I would called Jack or the Boy and asked them to bring it to me. Since it was my phone, I couldn't do it.

At 8:22 a.m., I get in the car and program my GPS to the ferry terminal.

"You will arrive in one hour, thirty six minutes," my GPS tells me.

"What!?!" I scream at my GPS. I panic. I wish I could rewind time back to 7:50 a.m. to tell myself to leave at 8:00 a.m. exactly.

Question #5: If Lauren has to be at the ferry terminal twenty minutes before the boat leaves and her GPS is correct, how much buffer time does Lauren have between arriving in Anacortes and having her butt in the boat line?

Answer #5: I am too freaked out to figure this out. I figure I have about twelve minutes of buffer time and I'll get there at 9:48. I'll have to drive fast.

When I calculate this for my blog, I realize I only had a two minute buffer. What happened in my brain? It lied to me so I wouldn't freak out and sob about missing my daughter. I pull out of my street and get on to leafy Ravenna Blvd. It twists and turns and is a beautiful street. Today, at 8:23 a.m., there is a driving school car in front of me that is going--I swear to god--9 miles an hour. I scream and swear and cry for this kid who is probably fifteen and a half years old to MOVE IT NOW!!!! I would lean on the horn, but it is likely that my daughter goes to school with this new driver. Plus, the car has a sign that reads "Taught by police officers!" Getting a ticket would set me back.

The car goes straight, and I turn left. I need to get away from this car and I find a different way to the highway.

Question #6: How fast does Lauren need to drive to make it to Anacortes in time?

Answer #6: Very fast.

Normally when I drive, I sit in the middle lane and drive the same speed as the car in front of me. This time, I shift to the left lane and try to go about ten to fifteen miles above the speed limit. I don't want to go too fast and get a ticket. Jack said if I got ticket, I could have unzipped the front of my dress and flashed some cleavage to get out of a ticket. I don't think I would have done that. I think I would have burst into tears and cried "I need to catch the ferry so I can see my daughter who I haven't seen in a month!!!" Plus, the cop might have wondered why I was dressed like a ho to visit my daughter at camp.

The faster I drove, the more time I shaved of the total time to get to the ferry. There is one part in Skagit County which has a speed limit of 70 miles per hour, which is bad because my GPS had already calculated this into my travel time. Fuck. I drive a 2004 Lexus 300 ES. (Don't get excited. We bought it used with 45,000 miles on it.) While this is a nice and comfortable car, it is not fast. The New York Times in its car reviews compared it to driving a Buick. Seventy-five was about as fast as I wanted to go for fear of something going wrong with the car.

I made it to the ferry at 9:38 a.m.. It was a miracle. I grabbed the first spot to the park. It was far away, but I had time to walk. I went to pay for parking, and the only way to park was to pay by phone! My motherhood "worst case scenario" brain had earned its keep for today.

I had to cross several lanes of traffic to make it to the ferry waiting room for walk-ons. There was a large fence keeping the pedestrians separate from the traffic, but I could figure out how to get to the other side. The ferry was coming in and cars would need to disembark. When they disembark, it is like rats coming off a sinking ship. There is no slow--just get off and away from this boat as fast as possible. I did not want to be pinned against the wrong side of the fence when the cars were released.

So I ran. Yes, you read that correctly: I ran. I ran about twenty yards to the end of the fence so I could get out of the way of the cars. I didn't fall. I didn't trip. It wasn't a pretty run, nor was it fast, but it was running.

I made it to the ferry on time, but I was a little stressed and feeling mildly melancholy. Jack and the Boy stayed home, which was fine. It was nice to have time to myself on the ferry and in the car. After all of that hassle, I worried that Claire Adele might not want me there. I know I missed her, but would she miss me? The hard part about parenting is that it is often an unrequited love--you love your kids more than they love you, and that is expected to be part of the bargain.

At camp, Claire Adele lives in a little bubble where she (and no one else) had parents or siblings. She loves that bubble, and even though this was "Family and Friends Weekend," she might not have wanted me contaminating her pure environment. But I did. I showed up with a bag of brownies, Goldfish crackers, dried cranberries, and apricots from the Farmers' Market. Claire Adele isn't into hugs, and she kind of winced when she saw me. She didn't know if I was coming or not, but my offering of food softened my arrival. We walked and talked and she told me about camp. I got to see the other Counselors in Training, which was nice. We both teared up during the CIT Family and Friends camp fire circle where the staff and CITs talked about previous weeks.

She asked if could take the later ferry at 8:45 p.m. instead of 5:15 p.m. so we could go out to dinner in town. Part of me knows she was motivated by food, but I wasn't so awful that she'd rather eat camp food instead of being seen with me. She  introduced me to her gossip magazine loving friend. They shared reading People and talked about the Karadashians. We got ice cream and I bought her a croissant from a bakery and a sandwich from Island Market, the local grocery store. She told me stories about her campers, whom she loved. All was good, and I got back on the ferry. On the ride back to Anacortes, I got up and wandered around. I went on the upper deck in the sunshine and looked out at the view. One of Claire Adele's jobs at camp was to greet campers at Anacortes, so she had to take the ferry a few times back and forth from Orcas to the mainland.

As I rode home, I thought about the Kurt Vonnegut quote: "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point 'If this isn't nice, then I don't know what is.'" There are times in life where getting places is a hassle, but rarely has the hassle been so counter to what I experienced when I arrived.

Treadmill

I am riding the bike at the Y

The treadmill in front of me

sounds like an untuned violin.

After complaining for months about riding the stationary bike, I was back in the saddle at the Y and I enjoyed it. I read half of this week's New Yorker. Most of the articles are about the evils of Trump. I saw Mark who is recovering quite well from his brain tumor surgery. I know brain surgery has a great psychic cost than knee surgery, but the recovery and bounce back is way faster than knee surgery.

Pokemon GO: Beer, Coffee & Dog Editions

I can't decide if Pokemon GO is the most brilliant thing ever or the work of Satan.

I was listening to NPR the other day as I was picking my son up from music camp. The Boy calls it "band camp." His friend who plays the cello calls it "music camp." Music camp sounds like they are playing Beethoven. Band camp sounds like a bunch of young boys blasting away rock music on their horns. This camp is closer to Beethoven, but not by much. For some reason, the Boy loves this camp. I can't figure out why.

I digress, but not really. I'd much rather have my kid playing music three hours every day instead of looking for Pokemon on his phone. And I already give him a fairly long leash when it comes to going around town. This week, I let the Boy ride his bike from the U District to Ballard to visit Card Kingdom to buy Magic Cards.* Round trip it is thirteen miles. I encourage (okay beg) my son to bike to soccer practice at Magnuson Park so I don't have to drive him. Win-win, I say. Good for the environment, and I get forty minutes of my life back. My high school history teacher said sleeping and driving places were the two biggest wastes of time ever. I disagree with him on sleeping, but agree with him on driving. In short, I hate it; therefore, I am happy to let my kids take the bus or bike around town. Seattle Public Schools gives high school and middle school kids who live a certain distance from school an Orca card for travel. I asked someone in transportation once if kids use the cards to go all over town.

"No," he said. "Almost all of the trip are to and from school." Wow. Kids who are given a free pass don't use it.

Until now. Jack and I regularly walk our dog through Ravenna Park. This past week, we have seen groups of people looking for Pokemon, people we have never seen in the park before. In one sense, I am glad these people are getting their dose of Vitamin N,* but seriously, can't they do it without looking at a screen? Are they really communing with the trees and ferns, dipping their toes in the creek? No. They are developing near-sightedness by looking at their phone. People have crashed their cars and walked off cliffs looking for Pokemon. Little kids have left their homes in the middle of the night and were found miles away from home looking for digital creatures.

The upside: When the Boy and I were at the Sounders game last week, I overheard two moms talking. Her daughter rarely left the house until she got Pokemon GO. Her kids met kids who live in their neighborhood who they have never met before. There is a quantifiable uptick in exercise for children in the in the past few weeks. They boys on my son's soccer team joke that Michelle Obama has been trying to get kids to exercise for seven and a half years, and Pokemon GO succeeded in less than a month. My dad saw young people forty to fifty pounds overweight outside walking around Antrim Lake. Jack and I saw a family with three generations walking through the Ravenna woods tonight.

Why did we need an app to get us outside?

Back to NPR. I heard that Pokemon GO was developed by the Google Maps people. They wanted to create a game using Google Maps. There were other games like this before, but Pokemon GO was the one that clicked with people.

Maybe I would understand this better if I understood Pokemon, but could we think of something else? What about micro-brewries? Every time you go to a local micro-brewery, you get a gold star. Maybe you get one for each beer you drink. It could be a pub crawl game.

"Wouldn't you get really drunk?" the Boy asked when I presented this idea at dinner tonight.

"You wouldn't have to drink everything all in one night," I said. "Maybe over the summer or something."

You could do it for independently owned coffee shops. Heck, you could even collect dog breeds. Give each dog a tag or scan their picture. See how many dogs you can find while walking around. I'd might feel sorry for the poor owner of a saluki who might get harassed because their saluki is the only one around for ten miles, but other than that, it could be fine. Dog owners usually smile and say hi to people anyway. Or there could be a combo game: which dogs did you see in coffee shops?

You are welcome, internet, if someone hasn't already created this idea.

____
* I wanted him to load the the "Find My Friend" app on his phone so I could see where he was in case something happened. "I won't get kidnapped," he said.
"But what if you get hit by a car?" I said.
"That would be bad if you looked at your phone and saw I was at Harborview Hospital," he said.

** Vitamin N = Nature according to Richard Louv.

Waiting & Patience; and Half-way Done

"The waiting is the hardest part." -- Tom Petty

I recently met a woman who tore her ACL a few years ago. She is about forty-four, so I am gathering she was about forty when she had her accident.

"One day, your knee is all of a sudden fine," she said. "It stops twitching and aching and you just don't think about it any more."

I am waiting for that day. The typical recovery time for an ACL is nine months. I am not quite five outside of my surgery--just about that the halfway point before I can return to sports, as they at the sports medicine clinic I attend. The hard part is that there are days when I feel pretty normal. I can walk. I can go up and down stairs. I can be on my feet for the better part of the day and I feel okay.

Then I added road biking into the mix. I love road biking. It is one of my favorite activities. It clears my mind and I feel so much better. Plus, I am literally moving forward. I am going some place, reaching a destination, accomplishing something tangible that doesn't need to be counted. I can ride to Matthew Beach,* which sounds better than forty-five minutes of kickboard laps.

In about two weeks, we are going to France. Two weeks ago, I was feeling great about the trip. I was feeling strong and healthy. Then I started to bike on the road. I know biking is making my leg stronger, but by pushing it, it is getting a little sore. I am doing more squats, which are necessary for me to do if I want to run. Tuesday, I threw out my back from squatting too much and now my knee is stiff. Argh! I thought this was all about forward progression? Why does this progress make me feel like I am slipping back?

* How many times do I ride to Matthews Beach, turn around, go home and not see the beach and Lake Washington? Too many. I need to stop from now on. What is the point of riding to Matthews Beach or Gasworks Park if I don't stop and see the water?

Death v. Retirement

"Nothing is certain in life except death and taxes," said someone like Benjamin Franklin more than two hundred years ago. The problem--and blessing--of the certainty of death is that I don't know when it will occur, and right now I need to place a bet. I am going to bet short on my own life. Is that sad, or empowering?

After my father's parents died, my dad figured that their average life span would be his life expectancy. My paternal grandfather died when he was 79, my grandmother 78. My maternal grandfather lived a healthy life into his nineties, and my grandmother died when she was 81. My mother was adopted, so her parents' life expectancy doesn't bear much impact on hers. One could say that their lifestyle could impact her longevity, but now that my mother is in the late stages of Alzheimer's, all of that is out the window.

Last month, I got a phone call from my former employer asking if I would like a lump sum distribution for my defined benefits retirement program (a.k.a., a pension). Instead of the lump sum which I would add to my IRA, I could take out a monthly payment of about $100 now, or have a greater monthly payment of around $700 when I turn 67.5 years old.

Normally, I would crunch a bunch of numbers and figure out which would leave me with the most money in the end. The challenge here is I don't know when the end will be, and I am betting on my own death and health before I die.

A few years ago, I used my grandparents' age of death and figured my life expectancy would be about 80 or so. Both of my grandparents smoked, and I don't. I figure I'd get an extra year or two added, maybe five.

Then my mother got Alzheimer's in her late sixties. She is seventy-one now. She has a chance to make it to seventy-two in October, but it is very unlikely she will make it to seventy three. I did a quick google search to see if there is a greater chance that I will have Alzheimer's. There is lots of data, which I am not going to look through now. In short, Alzheimer's doesn't run in families, but I do have a three times greater chance of getting Alzheimer's than the general population.

So what to do? I am taking the lump sum. If I do get something bad early on, I'll need the money so I can have proper care. $700 a month won't help much if I need care that costs in the thousands a month. At some point, the money stops when Jack or I die, too. There are few different options, but one says if I live for 5 years after taking payments, my family get nothing.

Jack and I have a decent amount saved for retirement, and we should have the house paid off in a few years. I am not as worried about typical months expenses as am I about the catastrophic costs if I need to be in a nursing home for a period of time. If I am normal and healthy, I can live on the cheap. If I am not normal or healthy, then what? I can reasonably say I don't want to be on life support, but what if I end up like my mom? We can't pull the plug on her because there is no plug to pull. I could as if I get to be non-responsive, put me in the middle of the woods alone for a week and I'll die of natural causes, but I don't want my family to have to make that decision either or get charged with murder.

If you asked me what to do before my mom had Alzheimer's, I might have said I'll bet that I'll outlive the terms of the retirement amount. But now I am betting short, and taking the lump sum.

The Knack: The Boy and His Porsche; Me and My Bike

The Boy loves Legos, or used to love them. His Lego room was out of commission recently because Anita and I were painting the upstairs of the house. I have been trying to ween him from excessive computer and smart phone use. In the past, I've gotten him a large Lego set each summer to keep him busy. One summer, I got him an NXT, a Lego robotics kit. I thought maybe if I got him a new Lego set this summer, he would find something new to do besides play Flappy Birds or The Binding of Isaac, the theme of which is a voice tells Isaac's mother to rid Isaac of evil and lock him in the basement before she sacrifices him. The player is Isaac, and he needs to escape. It is loosely based on the Bible story of Isaac. Loads of happiness there. No wonder the Boy would become depressed and angry after playing too many games.

To solve this problem that cost us $400 for the phone and another $40 a month, we bought the Boy a Lego Porsche. It is expensive. Trust me. It has 2,704 parts and it weighs about 15 pounds. Lego had to redesign the box because the set was so heavy the box was getting damaged when it was shipped to homes. We had to get one at the Lego store because they have a different shipping packaging from the consumer shipping. Anyhow, I am out more than $700 to create and then fix this problem. But I am a huge Lego fan, so I wasn't too depressed about it.

"Do you know why we got you this Lego set?" I asked the Boy on the car ride home.

"So I don't play with my phone as much," he said. At least he got the point without me having a spell it out for him.

The Boy got home and opened the box. He was ecstatic. "This is exhilarating! I am getting 'The Knack' back!" "The Knack" is a line from the movie Hunt of the Wilderpeople which we saw last week.

"Ikea says 'Some assembly required.' Lego is 'All assembly required,'" said the Boy as he was building a set that came with 500 black rivets. I figured he had 500 black rivets at home already, and maybe he could have a gotten a discount for using his own rivets.

"I don't hate the phone," I lied to the Boy. I actually loathe the smart phone. "But limiting your time on the phone gives you time to do what you love."

"$300 is a bargain for getting the Knack back," said Jack. "Too bad it cost $400 to lose it in the first place."


Yesterday, while Boy was at "Magic the Gathering"* tournament at a local game shop, I was getting my Knack back. Jack and I biked to Ballard for lunch again. We didn't realize that most of industrial Ballard is closed for lunch on Saturdays, and that is the only time it is every closed for lunch. We did find a place to eat called Gerald's. I saw their fried chicken and waffle sandwich through the window, and it looked great. When I got inside, the woman next to me was eating a breakfast poutine. While fried chicken and waffles** is a southern and Pennsylvanian thing, poutine is Canadian. Poutine is some kind of gravy and cheese served over a bed of french fries.

**** This next section is for women over 40.  You have been warned. ****

I ask the waitress what I should get -- the waffles and chicken or the poutine. Both looked and smelled delicious. The gravy was made from breakfast sausage and cheddar cheese, and the whole thing was topped with a scrambled egg. It was delicious, except there should have been a warning. I don't need to know the calories, fat content or salt levels. I stop eating when I am full. What I wish they did have was a fiber or constipation warning level on restaurant menus, something like this:

     -- Breakfast Poutine: 🚫💩
     -- Mac and Cheese with Pulled Pork: 🚫💩
     -- Caesar Salad: 🌾👍🏼💩💩
     -- Kale and Quinoa: 🌾👍🏼💩💩💩💩

**** You may now continue reading if you are not a woman over 40. ****

Jack and I rode home, me in fear of never moving my bowels again after eating that poutine. We rode about 14 miles, which was good. I rode faster than the week before, but not so fast. Jack rides a bike with Campagnolo gears. Campagnolo is like the Harley-Davidson of the bicycling world--their parts have a very distinctive sound. Campagnolo gears only makes its special noise when it is coasting, and I heard a lot of this noise yesterday while we were riding. I'd be pedaling my butt off, and Jack would be coasting.

Last night, my knee woke me up a few times with stiffness. I had a hard time rolling over without needing to stretch it out. I don't think I've had a hard time sleeping with my knee since a few weeks after the surgery. But nevertheless, I did sleep. And I am getting my Knack back.



* For those of you who haven't had a thirteen year old son in the past few years, Magic the Gathering is a card trading game.

** I just have to share this fun Cliff Claven "It's a little known fact..." story. Nate's Wings and Waffles is a great restaurant in SE Seattle. We eat there after the Boy has soccer games in the Rainier Beach neighborhood. Nate's Wings and Waffles is owned by former Garfield High School and NBA star Nate Robinson. The Boy has to run sprints for soccer, and he has been timing himself. Since he has been running alone, he doesn't know if his times are fast or slow. We googled 100 meter sprint times for boys his age for comparison. The Washington State Middle School track record for the 100 meter dash is held by Nate Robinson!

Fake Shape: Stationary Biking v. Real Biking

Last week, I got on my road bike for the first time since my skiing injury last December. I had been am an avid cyclist. (I am not sure which tense to use in that sentence yet.)

Last weekend, I rode about 13 miles and the next day I felt like I had done half a century (aka 50 miles). I felt the smallest changes in grade, and shifted gears constantly to adjust. I thought maybe I was tired after my first substantial trip and then I'd feel more energetic on the road later in the week.

Nope. I was pooped after a few short road rides this week. This is after spending all of the winter riding the stationary bike indoors for at least forty-five minutes a day. I had thought that riding on the road would be easy after all of my indoor work. Nope. Here I was, riding forty-five minutes a day and thinking I was getting into great shape. Before my accident, I used to exercise regularly--walking my dog, biking, hiking, skiing, doing yoga and whatnot, but I never made a point of getting forty-five minutes of cardio every day like I have been.

I felt like I had been riding a fake bike and I was getting into fake shape. Riding the road bike wasn't impossibly hard, but noticeably harder. I didn't want any kind of harder. I wanted to get on my bike and tear up the road. My exercise routine on the indoor bike for the past few months had been second rate compared to the real thing of riding on the road.

It was like I was eating margarine instead of butter, carob instead of chocolate. Drinking Sanka instead of Starbucks, Cook's instead of Veuve Clicquot. It was like finding out a ring had a cubic zirconia stone instead of a diamond, iron pyrite instead of gold. It was like I was playing with Flegos (i.e., fake legos) instead of Legos.

For the past few months, I had thought I was rocking it when I was really a slug. And my knee is talking to me again. The plum is back. My knee is stiff, my arms are sore from needing to steer and ice is my best friend again. It was bad and I was depressed.

I told Evan about my road biking experience, and he wasn't surprised.

"People ask me right after their surgery if they can ride a road bike and I tell them to stick the stationary bike for a reason," he said. "Baby steps. This recovery is all about baby steps."

Oy. And so it is. He is right, and I will continue to slog on the road.

1968 v. 2016

Why? Why? Why?

What is the point?

Do they want to kill everyone until no one is left alive? Seriously. What is the point of bringing an arsenal of weapons to a night club or an elementary school? A bomb to an airport? A sniper gun to a vigil? Driving a truck through a crowd of people at a national celebration? When does it end for these people? How many people to they have to kill for it to be enough?

I was just a fetus in 1968, but I can't help think that our world is just as upside down as it was then. So far--thankfully--no major leaders have been shot like Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.* were. We still have two political conventions to get through, though.

My daughter is at camp for a month. While there are many things I dislike about overuse of smart phones, I do like the way my daughter follows current events. She reads the feeds for CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Washington Post to make sure she gets different political perspectives. Both of my kids knew about the shooting at the PULSE night club before I did because they read it on their smart phones.

She is without internet for the entire month. She asked me to send her clippings about the Presidential Elections and politics. I don't know if I should send her news of terror attacks or shootings. She was at camp a few years ago when there was a mass shooting at a camp in Norway. I can't decide if I am glad my kids are old enough to read the newspapers or not. Claire Adele was one during 9/11. Thankfully, she wasn't old enough to know what was going on.

Today, my kids are old enough to understand. I suppose every generation has its disasters, but I don't recall as much happening in my youth. There was a major plane crash at O'Hare when I was in elementary school when I lived in suburban Chicago. The Challenger blew up, and that was about it. Maybe I have rose colored glasses, but I don't think so.

Please let us pray for peace.


* I was just going to call him MLK, but decided to spell his full name out. I suppose it is special to be so famous that you are recognized by your initials, like JFK, FDR or LBJ. I am sure there are others, but those are the first who come to mind.

Keeping Up with the Crowd

Last night, the Boy and I went to see the Seattle Sounders FC play Dallas. Jack drove us to the Light Rail and we took the train down to Century Link stadium. It was almost one month since we went to the Copa America game. I can tell my progress since my surgery by my ability to ride the Light Rail. Going to the the Light Rail, I was able to walk down the three very long flights of escalators, a feat I hadn't been able to do before. Escalators are relatively easy because I can hold both handrails and I feel like I am moving fast just because the steps are moving beneath me.

When I got off the train, I was able to keep up with the fast moving crowd heading to the Stadium. I wasn't left in the dust, trailing behind mobility challenged senior citizens like I was before. I was able to navigate the inside of the stadium just fine. Only once did my son tell me to move faster, and that was when we were heading to our seats. We had seats in the lower front section, and we stood for the entire ninety minute game. I went to get dinner and water, leaving our seats, navigating the stadium for food.

One the way out of the stadium, we followed the crowd to the side exits. When we walked around, we realized there was a disabled exit at the center of the stadium. I didn't need it. I made it out fine. I passed an elderly couple. The woman was struggling to walk; her husband was holding her hand. I thought about how I looked so many times, and gave them a wide berth as we passed. I don't think I would have even noticed or paid attention to them if I hadn't had my surgery.

The Boy and I passed the disabled parking section right at the front of the stadium.

"These spots would be really hard to get out of with all of the people walking by," the Boy said.

"These people still haven't made it out of the stadium," I said. "If they are truly disabled, it will take them a while to leave their seats and make it back to their cars." I knew from experience.

The Boy helped me navigate the crowd. I didn't have to even ask--I think he has grown so used to helping me that he didn't even realize he was doing it. There was one section where we had to climb two flights of stairs to get to the Light Rail. One stairwell was further down, but didn't have a mass of people.

"Let's take the one on the left," he said.

"I'll have to go slow," I said.

We headed over to the open stairs. He climbed in front of me, going only as fast as I was going. Like the elderly couple we saw moments earlier, two people moving at a plodding pace are safer in a crowd than one person moving slowly. He stayed with me as we crossed the street. I was faster than him in moving to get on the Light Rail. I am a former Chicagoan who is used to standing armpit-to-armpit on a crowded train. Two months ago, I would have been afraid to get on a train where I couldn't get a seat. Now, I jumped on the most crowded train I've ridden in Seattle. I was worried I could fall, but that fear was smaller than it would have been last month after the Copa America game.

Two months ago, I wouldn't have done this, go by myself with the Boy. A few months ago, I never imagined I'd be normal again. I feared my entire exercise life and interaction with the public would be at the YMCA on the stationary bike. But here I was, out and about. The months of boredom and immobility are starting to fade in the rearview mirror. I still have work to do. I still can't run. Jack would like me to work with Evan so I can spring ten yards so I can get across the street. Soon, I think. Soon.

The Worst ACL Story in the World, and Athletes

In early May, about two months after my surgery, I heard the worst ACL story in the world. I was dropping my son off at his soccer try-out. As he was off warming up with the other boys, I was standing on the sidelines talking to other parents. Heidi asked how I was recovering, as she always does when she sees me. The parents on the Boy's soccer team have seen me every few weeks since the accident, except for when I was in hiding directly after the accident and surgery.

"How are you doing?" she asked, and I told her. I was still in the phase of using the disabled parking spots so I wouldn't have to walk too far. I was evaluating slopes versus stairs: which would easier for me to go up or down? Perrin, one of the other dads, told a story about his ACL tear and surgery, but then how he didn't go to PT and now he still limps.

"I am an example of what not to do," he said.

Another mom who I had never seen before and will probably never see again, was part of the conversation. She knew Heidi through their older sons. This women floated into my life for four minutes, told a story, and left. I happen to remember it because it was the worst ACL story I've ever heard.

"There was a girl on my daughter's soccer team," she said. The girls both played on the most elite team in the club for their age range while they were in high school. "This girl was really good, clearly one of the stars. All of the parents and kids on the team knew this girl was special and on her way to a top scholarship. Then she tore her ACL."

Playing soccer is a common way to tear an ACL, across all ages and genders.

"The girl had the surgery and she did all of her rehab. She worked really hard to get back in shape and was ready to play again. In her first game back, she was out there playing without a brace. I don't know why she wasn't wearing a brace, but she wasn't. Then, a girl from the other team plowed into her. The girl had her injured leg planted when the other kid crashed into her, and then she went down. She broke down into sobs there on the field. She knew she had re-torn her ACL. All of the moms on the sidelines were crying. We had watched this girl go through her first injury and work so hard to come back. It was so horrible."

That was the worst ACL story in the world. A young athlete's career was ruined not once, but twice. That girl will never get back her high school years playing soccer. To take one year off is hard, but two is horrible. No only is she not playing, but all of the other kids are getting stronger, faster and better skilled while she is on the bench. There is no way to be Pollyanna about this one--that was why all of the moms were crying on the sidelines. I start crying just thinking about it. We could say "At least it wasn't a permanent injury," or "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," or "Maybe if Title 9 hadn't passed this girl would never have gotten hurt," but none of that makes this situation tolerable for that young woman who worked so hard at something she loved.

When I am at physical therapy, I see lots of athletes there. Most of them are duffers like me, who got hurt on the weekend or playing a rec league sport. But there are a few there who are professional, semi-professional, or college athletes. These are people for whom sports are a job, a profession, a potential livelihood, even if only as a scholarship that pays their tuition, which nowadays is not a small amount of money.

There is a young man where I got to physical therapy who is a football player in the European sense of the word. I don't know his name, so I'll call him Armando because I like the name Armando. He has a British-y accent, so maybe his real name is Alistair. I like Armando is better.

Armando plays soccer full-time. I don't know where, but I do know he tore his ACL. He is there every time I am at PT. He is usually smiling and chipper, hanging out without a PT at his side, working out in a self-directed program. Once in a while a physical therapist will walk by and tell him what to do next. When I first had my crash, there was another guy there who had a similar routine who I figured out was a professional football player (in the American sense).

I used to feel like such a slug compared to these super fit specimens of humanity who were recovering from the same injury I had. I--a middle aged women who was only moderately fit--didn't feel like I should be breathing the same as as these elite athletes. What if my mediocrity wore off on them? It would ruin their lives.

These guys kind of strut around the physical therapy room. They know they are stars. I added "kind of" to strut because there is a modesty about them, too. They don't at all seem arrogant because if they weren't injured, they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Now, as I am further coming along in my recovery, I am better able to understand what these people have lost, which is much more than I have lost with my ACL tear. I can understand a little bit, but I can't really imagine. My life changed with my injury, but it didn't radically change direction. I didn't lose my livelihood or my dreams. And yet, these men strut into physical therapy with what appears to me to be a healthy sense of optimism, working hard, like the modern warriors they are. Maybe these young athletes have a better sense of proportion than I do. Maybe they have sees the truly career ending injuries and are grateful they can recover.

I don't think all is lost for these guys. I read somewhere about the difference between elite soccer players and others is their decision making ability on the field. Many athletes--elite and non-elite--can have the same high level of conditioning, but the difference lies in how they read the ball and how quickly they can think. I hope that is the case for Armando, and that he will be back on the pitch soon.

Fake! Or, The McGuire Family Field Trip to the Police Station

I was at the Post Office on Saturday mailing a box of food to Claire Adele at camp. It cost $8.26 to mail the package, and I paid cash with a $20. The clerk gave me a $10 bill as part of my change.

It looked funny. My first thought was "This is fake." There was an edge that was off and there was a line across the top, but it felt like real money paper. I thought the Treasury Department might have made a misprint. I told the clerk, "This looks funny."

She took it back and held it up to the light. "You can see the watermark," she said and handed it back to me. I looked at it, but I didn't see the watermark. It was almost three o'clock in the afternoon. I thought maybe the light was bad or my glasses were dirty. I didn't want to admit that I didn't see it. I remember reading* that the feel and texture of bills are distinctive. All U.S. currency is printed on cotton paper made by the Crane company. This bill felt like a bill, even though I couldn't see the red and blue string flecks in the paper. This bill was a few years old. I thought maybe it had been through the wash a few times. Plus, I couldn't compare it to another $10. All I had in my wallet were twenties from the cash machine.

"I can give you another one," said the postal clerk.

"No," I said. "That's okay." The little voice in my gut that said this bill was funny was quelled by my brain that didn't have any tangible proof.

"Maybe it is worth more than $10," she said.

"Maybe," I said. "That is what I am thinking."

This bill was odd, and curiosity got the better of me. I took the money.

I didn't think about it again until Monday when I had to pay my dog walker. The initial flash that something was wrong with the bill was now screaming louder. I didn't want to pass "funny money" on to her. Over the weekend, I had acquired another $10 bill. At the post office, I didn't have another one to compare it to, but now I did. The other bill had crisp microprinting. The other bill had raised print for the serial number and the "20" in the corner was printed in a fancy ink. I showed it to the Boy and his friends. They were convinced it was fake, and were delighted to be detectives.

"The print is really blurry compared to a real bill," the Boy said.

"And this real bill has a watermark. This other one doesn't," his friend said. I thought maybe the watermark could have gotten washed out over time.

I called my dad. He is a retired accountant and fountain of obscure knowledge. "All bills have a line through them," he said. I held both bills up to a bright light. The real bill had an invisible thin line running down it with the words "USA TEN--USA TEN" that appeared when held up to the light. The fake bill had nothing. Bingo. My hunch was now confirmed.

"It feels like a regular money, though," I said to my dad.

"Sometimes forgers will bleach one dollar bills and then print a larger denomination on it," he said. That explained why the bill felt real even though my alarm bells with otherwise ringing. This one was cut crookedly, though. Why would someone cut it if it was previously a one? It didn't matter. This baby was fake.

Can you tell which is fake?

Now what? First, I was glad I didn't pass this fake bill off to my dog walker. That would have been bad. I thought about taking it to the bank--they should be able to tell if it was a fake. I looked online. One website said to call the police, so I did.

"Where did you find the money?" the dispatcher asked.

"At the U.S. Post Office," I said.

"Did you take it back to them?"

"No. I read that I should call the police."

"Oh," she said. I guess counterfeiting is not a busy business these days in the police world. "We can send out an officer or you can come in."

The Boy wanted to go to the police station with me, and Jack went along, too. At first he was annoyed that I took the bill. "You knew it was funny," he said. "Why didn't you get a different one?"

"First, it was only $10. If it had been more, I might have questioned it more at the time," I said. "Second, it seemed different and I was curious. Why was it different? I wanted to know. I guess my need for novelty trumped my need for $10."

I felt better when I went to the station. At first, the officer couldn't tell it was fake until I showed her the regular bill's watermark and line.

"I worked in retail fifteen years ago, and I saw some really bad fake money. This is one of the best fakes I've seen," she said.

"What about this line across the top?" I asked. "Could the Treasury have made a misprint?"

"The Treasury shreds any imperfect money," she said. That made sense. If imperfect money was out there, how could anyone tell the good stuff from the bad?

"What happens next?" I asked.

"I'll turn it over to a detective and they'll turn it over to the FBI or Treasury Department."

My good deed for the day had been accomplished.


* Okay, I didn't read it. I saw it in an episode of Remington Steele when I was a teenager.

Dad and Medical Marijuana: The World is Going to Pot

My dad graduated from high school in 1961, but he is not a child of the 60's. My dad was more Buddy Holly that the Grateful Dead or Jimi Hendrix. He wore button down shirts and khaki pants. He graduated from college in 1965, got married in 1967 and I was born in 1969. When the hippies were flourishing, my dad was already an old man working for the man. My father is a retired accountant who busted people for fraud. He is a rule follower, which has been fine because the rules generally have worked in his favor. While my dad never said anything bad about hippies, he never smoked pot or took drugs. Sure, he smoked cigarettes until he was thirty and drank Miller Lite, but nothing worse. My dad's brother was in Vietnam. My uncle was one of two people in his platoon who didn't do drugs. Instead of smoking pot, he lifted weights and was into body building.

Fast forward to when my brother is in his twenties. My brother has a major mental illness and self-medicated with marijuana and other drugs. Michael was not shy about his thoughts that marijuana should be legalized. One Christmas Eve in the 1990's after dinner and opening presents at my grandmother's house, Michael and my mom got into a very heated argument about legalized pot. Most people when confronted with someone who is not fully rational will nod and smile when a person presents their idea. They might not actively agree, but they will not argue the opposing view. My mother didn't see it that way. She was fine with Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign in the 1980's, not recognizing the complexities that surround addiction and mental illness, let alone the dual diagnosis like my brother had for both addiction and mental illness.

Fast forward another twenty-plus years, and my dad was kvetching when Ohio had a referendum to legalize marijuana. He posts stuff to Facebook once in a blue moon, but he posted that he was voting against legal weed. Which is fine.

We have legal weed in Washington. When the referendum passed, my dad asked how we voted. Jack and I split our vote. I am not in favor of criminalizing people for drug use, but I wasn't sure I wanted to live in a town covered in pot fog.

In the past few weeks, the governor of Ohio signed a law legalizing medical marijuana in Ohio but it won't be available until Sept. 8. One of the diseases listed for treatment was Alzheimer's.

I talk to my dad once a week, if not more, to hear how my mom is doing and how he is doing. As you may know from previous posts, my mother lives in a Memory Care Unit in Columbus, Ohio because the demands of her Alzheimer's were too great for my father to manage. My mom is officially in Hospice, is wheelchair bound and has to be spoon fed pureed food. She doesn't talk, but she can smile. When she isn't happy, she blows raspberries. We have no idea how long she'll live--week? months? Probably not a year, but who knows? These things are impossible to predict.

As I am talking to my dad, he brings up medical marijuana as a possible cure for Alzheimer's.

"Some studies show it could reverse Alzheimer's," he said. "I am not sure how it would work. If she were to come back, she would have large gaps in her memory for the past few years. I wonder though if I could get her some medical marijuana. It won't be legal here until Sept. 8.

"If she makes it that long," he added after a long pause.

Before Washington had legal weed, we had medical marijuana available. People could be advised to take cannabinoids in non-smokable forms for pain relief and for neurological disorders, among other things.*

"I wonder how I could get her some," my father said. The man who has been against pot his whole life is considering medical marijuana for his wife who was also against pot her whole life.

Jack overheard the conversation between me and my father. As fast as my dad was asking questions, Jack was googling for find out how many years I would get in prison for sending my dad pot thought the mail. He was freaking out, shaking his head "no" at every suggestion.

"It is illegal to possess pot in Ohio," Jack said. "You can't bring it into the state." Then he found the article online about the governor legalizing medical pot. He continued to google.

"You can't bring it on an airplane," Jack said. "It is illegal to bring pot to an airport." Driving? The longest road trip I've taken as an adult has been to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Driving to Ohio would take days. I could drive there, but if God wanted people to drive that far, He wouldn't have invented airplanes. Given my schedule, the odds of me driving to Ohio in the next three weeks are slim to none.

Jack ruled out driving. "Our luggage might then smell like pot," Jack said. "We might not get into France if drug smelling dogs smell pot in our luggage, even if there is no pot in it then."

"Maybe you could mail it," my dad said. "You could pack in coffee beans or something." Jack was turning purple at the thought.

"It might be a federal offense to mail pot to another state," Jack said.

"I don't think FedEx uses drug sniffing dogs," my dad said.

A few weeks ago, I talked to my brother. He said my mother was the luckiest woman in the world for having such a devoted husband who takes care of her so well. He is right, but now it is official: my dad would do anything for my mom, including skirting federal laws to get my mom some relief.

My dad asked how come pot can be so bad for someone like my brother but okay for someone with Alzheimer's? It has been shown the pot exacerbates schizophrenia. I suppose it is like chemo. A healthy person wouldn't poison their body with radiation, but it could save the life of someone with cancer. Or it could be like alcohol. Many people drink but aren't alcoholics.

"Maybe I could get her a prescription here and have it filled in another state," my dad said.

Jack furiously googled. I relayed to my dad, "You need to be a resident of Washington to get an authorization and it needs to be written by someone who has a license here."

There was no way my father could drive my mother to Seattle for evaluation. (Technically, he wouldn't have to drive all the way across the state. He could stop in Spokane right on the Idaho border.)  My mom has a massive wheelchair and needs someone to change her diapers. "You could get a medical flight out here," I said. "I have no idea what it would cost. $8,000? $25,000?" My father didn't agree or disagree. I think he was thinking more of the challenge of moving her than the cost.

"Maybe you could get some legal weed in another state," I told my dad. "Maybe Washington, D.C. You should also talk to her doctor. There are different types and doses. You just can't give her pot brownies or whatever."

Now I am thinking of edibles, the bane of the middle school and high school teachers and administrators. Maybe I could send my mom some pot brownies in mail. That might be hard to detect. The last time I was at Seatac Airport, the security lines were long. They had a guest relations person there helping people navigate the scene.

"Which line is the shortest?" I had asked.

"The one to the right. It has security dogs," she said.

Maybe I could bring pot brownies through the airport if I wrapped them in a plastic bag and didn't go through the dog line? Was it a bomb smelling dog or a drug smelling dog? Claire Adele once got stopped coming back from Japan by the TSA dogs because she had dog treats in her bag for Fox and the dog went berserk. Maybe I could make mocha brownies? Would the coffee mask the post smell? Do edibles smell like pot? Can a dog tell? Are brownies too obvious? What about banana bread or pumpkin bread or cranberry muffins? Would it look suspicious if I tried to ask which line didn't have the dog? I bounced these ideas off Jack.

"If you get caught, I'll pretend I don't know you," he said.

"That will be hard, Dad," said the Boy. "You are married. It would be hard to prove you don't know her when you live at the same address."

I googled states with medical marijuana. Pennsylvania was on the list. Maybe he can pop over the state line and pick up a dose.

This conversation was surreal. If you told my family back in 1990-whatever when my brother and mom were screaming at each other that one day my father and I would be trying to figure out how to get my mom some weed, the world would have stopped spinning on its axis. What a difference a diagnosis makes.

*I just read a letter to the editor in the Seattle Times from a 68 year old veteran with spinal injuries complaining that since medical marijuana dispensaries are now rolled into recreational pot shops, actual medicines are harder to find. The guy has a point.

Television Shows vs. the Internet and Smartphones

As you may know, the Boy is struggling with a little bit of an internet/smartphone addiction. The problem is that he can get a wee bit crabby when he has to disconnect to eat dinner, go to bed or have a life.

I was talking to a friend and she lumped watching television in with screen addictions. I get it. Growing up I knew people who used to have the television on all day--game shows, soap operas, the news, talk shows, old movies, and sports. Newton Minow famously called television the vast wasteland, and he was right. He said when television is bad, nothing is worse. He also said when is good, nothing is better. His famous speech to the National Association of Broadcasters in 1961 is boiled down to the "vast wasteland," but it is more complex and rich than that.

My husband is also guilty of too much phone screen time. He read an article in this month's Psychology Today about internet use interfering with marriages and other relationships. Jack told me all about it, and saw his own failings. When he was working last week, I didn't see him much. When he was gone, my mental image of him was a guy looking down at his phone.

Once you start thinking about your own internet use, you see it everywhere else. How can I tell the Boy to stop using his phone when everyone else is looking down? I took the Boy out for coffee recently, and almost everyone waiting in line was looking at their phone. We were at dinner and saw a family of six eating. The family was two grandparents, two parents and two young adult children. Five of them were on their phones, with a few looking at the same phone together. The twenty-something girl had her phone face down on the table. She looked miserable. We thought of asking her to join our table. We saw a couple on a date sitting at a bar. He was on his phone for fifteen minutes. She looked bored. Jack thought about going up and talking to her to see what the dude would do if someone starting hitting on her.

The Boy is not alone. He is surrounded by people who are looking down. We've made smoking illegal in many public places, but you can check your smartphone anywhere.

Smartphones are useful. All in one, they are

• Watches and alarm clocks
• Phones
• Texting devices
• Calendars
• Timers
• Maps
• Music players
• Podcast players
• Email browsers

They are also video game consoles and internet portals.

Stephen Colbert wrote someplace that he advised his kids to watch television, but good television. I thought he was crazy at the time, but now I see his point. Which is better--watching a well scripted television show for twenty minutes or looking up cat memes for twenty minutes?

Yesterday, I friend sent me a text asking me "Dean Martin or Def Leppard?" I spent five minutes googling and I sent her a picture of Jon Bon Jovi in his prime in an Versace ad. (I would post it here, but it is bordering on inappropriate. It doesn't need a blackbox, but almost.) Maybe that is a bad example of internet search searching waste of time because that was fun. But I spend too much time looking up stuff that adds no value to my life. Once at dinner we were discussing high schools and we looked up how many foreign languages were taught at Evanston High School. I need to know this why?

Instead, I'd rather have the Boy and the rest of my family plopped together on the couch to stream a Netflix movie or television series. The kids loved Parks and Rec with Amy Pohler and Chris Pratt. My dad introduced me to Modern Family, which is one of the wittiest things I've seen on television. My parents, especially my mom, have wonderful taste in television shows. She introduced me to Friends in the first season. Her favorite episode was when Joey was in a musical about Sigmund Freud. She watched Seinfeld in the first season, too.

My brother and I watched a lot to television growing up, some good, some awful. We wasted lots of time watching reruns of Green Acres while my mom was upstairs smoking and talking to my grandmother on the phone, but we would also bounce around and play with each other while we watched. My brother and I watched so many episodes of the Brady Bunch we played a game called "Guess the Story." It was like "Name that Tune" where we would see who could identify the plot the fastest based on the opening scene. Unlike the internet, our shows ended and the news came on and we were done. There was nothing to watch, so we turned it off and went upstairs. The internet never ends. There is always more.

Ironically, the best thing now about watching television is the internet, which is where my argument becomes so confusing. We can watch a series like Parks and Rec from start to finish on Netflix without commercial breaks whenever we want. There is a pause button so we can stop to eat dinner and come back where we left off.

What has better writers: the people who script The Colbert Report or the people who write cat memes? Breaking Bad or "Annoying Orange"? I vote for television writers.

So this is my new plot. If my son wants screen time, I am trying to tune him into television instead of the smartphone.

Painting the Closet

Hello readers! I have been off line for a few days. I almost started that sentence with "I am sorry," but then I realized women in general apologize too much, and then I stopped. I read somewhat that proper blog etiquette is to tell your readers when you are taking a break, but this one just sort of happened. I am so rusty I am having to remember how to type, which is crazy frustrating. I digress.  -- Lauren

It is summer here in the great Pacific Northwest, as we are told by the Summer Solstice and not the actual weather, which is gloomy. It was lovely in April and May when the kids were in school, but now it is Sucksville. Anyhow, my kids are home (or were home--Claire Adele left last week for a month at camp) and I have had less time to write. The Boy is having a hard time managing his screen time and I have a hard time telling him to get off his screen while I am sitting at my desk working on a blog. This is the first year he has had so much digital access, and like a kid in the candy shop, he needs to read every meme, see every YouTube video, read every Instagram post and play every game. I feel like the parent with a cigarette dangling from my mouth and a beer in my hand telling my kid not to smoke or drink. Yet, unlike my son, I know the difference between work and play and I feel bad for not writing. Not bad for you, dear readers (all six of you whom I love and adore!) who don't get to read my posts, but for me because I love to write. Yes, this is a selfish blog. It is all about me.

I read a really neat blog post by Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal called Creativity is Like Breathing. In short, people in need to live in order to write. Not everyone is like Victor Hugo who can hole himself up for fifteen years on an island* and come back with Les Miserables. Unlike Hugo in Guernsey, I have been living these past few days connecting with my family.

I also have been painting. Not painting and drawing like Matthew Inman does in his very colorful blog, but painting the walls of my house. Anita** has been helping me and I want to use her up before she finds a real job.

The Boy is tired of me painting the upstairs. "Put down the paintbrush,” he said yesterday while I was thinking of other projects Anita and I could work on before she finds a full-time job. While the Boy enjoys sleeping in my studio office in the backyard (a.k.a. “The Shed”), I think he wants the upstairs of our house back.

Yesterday, Anita and I finished painting Claire Adele's room. I am learning lots of new things about our house by digging in the corners. Her room has lumpy stucco all over the walls. In one corner, there was a part that wasn't stuccoed. I deduced that underneath the plaster was wood paneling circa 1970 under that matches the wood paneling in her closet. Egads. Why couldn't I find the gold treasure in the corner? I complain to Anita about our crappy little house.

“I guess it isn't that crappy,” I say to Anita trying to be upbeat about my abode until I find phone wires that aren't attached to anything. “Okay, I guess it is crappy."

Anita and I painted the downstairs stairs/closet to the basement yesterday. One side of the stairwell has what was once nice v-edge tongue and groove wooden paneling until a previous owner slopped over it with one coat of white paint. The paint didn’t fill the dark cracks and the grooves in the v’s were still the same color as the original wood. The other side of the stairs/closet had unpainted drywall. Both sides were filthy beyond cleaning. Only paint could make it look nicer. Since Anita is willing to do anything, she cheerfully agreed to help me paint the stairs/closet.

What is a stairs/closet? you ask. This is like a German word where I mashed two words together to make one word. Since we do not have a real closet on the first floor for coats and other stuff, we use the landing of the stairwell to the basement as a storage place for brooms, mops and random tools like gardening gloves, a hammer, and a screwdriver. The Boy’s collapsible soccer goal stays there, along with my gardening gloves. When I have guests over, it is really convenient to dump crap (soccer balls and stuff) on the landing behind the door. The basement is unfinished and had a dirt crawl space which is unusable for anything but storage. Technically, the entire basement is a crawl space since the ceiling is about 5’11’’ inches tall, which is okay for Jack since he is 5’10.’’ I have to keep the stairs/closet clean enough so we can go down the stairs when we need to get a new roll of toilet paper or paper towels. The stairs/closet is like the tide on the beach that ebbs and flows—sometimes it is more closet, other times more stairs.

Did I mention we have a crappy house? Really, it isn’t that bad. It is just a little “interesting,” like the distant cousin who can’t get a job, plays too many video games and reads about conspiracy theories on the internet. This cousin might have great stories and can talk about movies and books, but something is a little off about the whole thing, but nothing criminal or evil, so they kind of grow on you but still find them somewhat annoying at times. The same goes for my house.

So Anita and I painted these horribly dirty walls with super primer that covers all dirt*** and then gave them a coat of very pale pink paint I found in the basement which we mixed with the leftover “Old Lace” paint that I used in Claire Adele’s room.

The stairs/closet is too nice now. I thought I’d be happy to see the dingy stairs/closet all bright and shiny, but no. I somewhat regret painting it, in the same sense there is loss when you lose twenty pounds and have to get rid of that great old sweater that was the prefect color and fabric, but it just doesn’t fit anymore. You’d rather not have those extra twenty pounds but you still miss the sweater. The fresh coat of paint hides the oldness and quirkiness of my house, as the plaster hides the paneling in Claire Adele’s room. I liked the fact that that I had a corner of my house that was hidden from public view that was old and dingy, reminding me of what the house was like years and years ago, pieced together in a hodge-podge manner.

* Hugo was actually exiled to Guernsey. It wasn’t exactly a vacation.

** Anita is a recent college graduate who is looking for full time work. She is wonderful and Anita isn't her real name, but if you want to hire her full-time in your global health non-profit, ping me and I'll get you in touch.

*** Wouldn’t it be great if real life came with super primer that covered all of the dirt?