London, Jack's Back and Keeping Up with the McGuire's

No, not "Jack is back." I mean the back that belongs to Jack. On our second day in London, Jack crashed on his mountain bike while riding with the Boy.

Text from the Boy: "He's all good. A bit stiff. He ate shit going on jump 11/13"

Which means he crashed on the 11th of the 13 jumps on the Gravy Train trail at Duthie. Oy. I can't load the picture of his scratched up and bloody back, which is probably for the best. You might not want to see it anyway.

I talked to Jack the night of the crash, and he seemed fine. He has been battered and bruised before.

The second night was concerning.

"I couldn't sleep flat on my back because I couldn't breathe because the pain was too bad, so I slept on the couch. I want to make sure I can breathe deeply so I don't get fluid in my lungs."

Okay. Did you break your ribs or something?

"No, I'm a doctor, even if my ribs were broken or bruised, nothing to do, blah blah blah," he said.

The third night was more concerning.

"I really shouldn't be driving," he said. I can't turn my back and it hurt when I turn my head." This was the week Jack and the Boy were going to do crazy outdoorsy kind of stuff.

The fourth night was totally sketchy.

"I took some of the Boy's old percocet from when he broke his collarbone so I could sleep," he said. "I had to stop taking ibuprofen because I was getting a rash. At least three times a year we get kids in the ICU whose skin sloughs off because of a reaction to ibuprofen." This is typical dinner conversation at the McGuire's, the rare but nasty side effects of over the counter meds.

"I called one of the pharmacists in the ICU to see what they would recommend."

Probably not taking your kid's old meds, but whatever. Jack has a license to prescribe narcotics, and while I know I should dump old pain killers at the QFC drug return center,* part of me is afraid the massive earthquake will hit and someone I love will have a broken leg and we won't be able to find medical help but I will have a jar of pain meds from a surgery in my medicine cabinet. Better Jack taking one pill for legitimate pain management instead of our kids taking it for recreational use.

So now I am feeling bad for leaving Jack and the Boy home in Seattle while I am out and about with Claire-Adele eating in restaurants, seeing plays, visiting parks and museums in one of the coolest cities in the world, especially as Jack is seriously injured.

But then I don't feel too bad. Two and a half years ago, I tore my ACL trying to keep up with the kids and Jack. Now he is the one grounded for not keeping up with the Boy.

* PSA: You should get rid of old pain meds. http://www.takebackyourmeds.org I've done it before.

Do or Die, and My Favorite Drug

Friday, I was having kind of a shitty day at work. I was the only one in the office from my team, which by itself wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, either. I was also having a rough time at home. The Boy was scheduled to come home from camp Saturday, which was good but also stressful. Jack informed me of work schedule for the rest of the summer and September, and it totally sucks. When the three pistons of work, kids and my marriage (notice I don't include anything about my own personal life in this list, because it doesn't exist) all down at the same time, it is it a huge drag.

I didn't pack a lunch on Friday, so I had to punt for food. I could have ordered from Peach and had something delivered, or I could have bought food from the little refrigerator we have in the lunch room. 

Fuck that, I thought. I want a burger. I trekked over to a Belltown pub.

"Do you want a seat at the bar?" the host asked as I was dining alone. The World Cup Brazil versus Belgium was on the three televisions behind the bar.

"Sure," I said. I sat next to a couple who was watching the game. Brazil was down 0-2. The woman's ninety-four year old mother lived in Belgium during World War II. The mother was watching the game from her home in Iowa. I didn't have the heart to tell this woman I was rooting for Brazil. 

Watching this game felt familiar. Two weeks ago, the Boy's soccer team played a tournament in Burlington where they played five games in less then forty-eight hours. The first three games were qualifiers, and the last two were elimination rounds. The Boy's team made it to the finals for their group. For the last game, the boys (young men?) played an equally matched team from Portland sponsored by the Portland Timbers, the MLS team. The Boy's team was sponsored by the Sounders, Seattle's MLS team. Civic pride was at stake.

Both teams played hard. I've never seen a youth soccer game where there was so much heart from both sides on the field. The ball went back and forth, the players charging and sweating and grimacing. Every kid was fully engaged with the game. Parents on the sidelines dropped their usual conversations about life and kids and vacations to focus on the match. It was do or die for both teams.

It was awesome.

So there I was, in a bar on a Friday, watching the same thing play out in Russia between two of the top ten teams in the world. There was no holding back, no doing "just good enough." To lose is to die. These grown men, among the best athletes out of 7.4 billion people on earth, reminded me of the Boy's team in that last game. The size of the audience and the number of people who cared about the game was different, but if you were a parent on that sideline in Burlington in June, it might as well have been the quarter finals of the World Cup.

I am so glad the world has found a replacement for gladiator sports in soccer. Instead of people actually dying, they just feel like they have died when they lose. Sports Illustrated reported that

"Neymar has admitted that suffering elimination from the World Cup with Brazil was the 'saddest moment of my career' and claims he is having a hard time 'finding the strength to play again'."

To paraphrase, he felt like he died. I am sure something in him did die--the dream that he probably had since he was a little kid that he would lead his country to a World Cup victory one day. The dreams of his country died, too.

But Neymar lives, and will play again, even though that doesn't diminish the pain he feels today.

Sometimes life sucks not because you just lost the big game, but because of the thousands of smaller details of your life add up and weigh you down. It isn't one, big, terrible thing like cancer. As a mom, it is the lack of control over everyone else's mood and schedule, being at their mercy, and having no way to escape.

And then my favorite escape came to the rescue...

This week, I am taking Claire-Adele to orientation at the University of Maryland. I have to take three days off of work for this, which I really don't have. I wasn't dreading this trip, but I wasn't exactly thinking of it as a full-filled, exciting vacation as the main gist would be how I am going to part with my first born and approximately fifty thousand dollars. Seems kind of lose-lose. I texted my old friend Kendra who I knew from Chicago who now lives in Bethesda, Maryland to see if we could get together. Kendra is loads of fun.

"Want to see Hamilton?" she texted me back. This summer, Hamilton is at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.

Hell yeah I want to go.

"My husband said I should go with a friend, but he said I couldn't spend more than $300 for a ticket."

I was so excited I couldn't sleep Thursday night. Kendra and I both searched online. The cheapest tickets I could find for Wednesday night was $500. Ugh. I was still hopeful.

This morning when I woke up, Jack was sitting at his computer. "There are Hamilton tickets for $299."

"What?" I said, looking at his screen. Saturday, seats in the first row of Tier 1 were $500. The Kennedy Center must have dropped the price as the day of the show was getting closer. I texted Kendra. She wasn't there. Did everyone know about this last minutes drop in prices? If they did, these tickets wouldn't last. I bought the tickets. If for some reason Kendra couldn't make it, then I'd figure something out. For an hour, I sat waited for her text.

In the meantime, I had to two tickets to Hamilton for Wednsday night. The problem of getting rid of an extra ticket was peanuts compared to the thrill of having them. The escape is what I imagine what a shot of heroine is like, when it creeps into your veins, and nothing else matters except the high.  Jack and Claire-Adele were screaming at each about her getting her driver's license. Suddenly, I was less pissed off about Jack's schedule, about my son staying out super late last night, about the crap at my job. I was floating in my Hamilton glow, the anticipation of seeing it again.

Just as the grit in of life's gears was wearing me down, sometimes things fall in my direction. Two weeks ago, the Boy's team won the tournament with a goal scored in the last ten seconds. And Kendra can join me for Hamilton.

The Third Wheel

Monday morning this week I woke up and I was in a bad mood. When I am grouchy, I try to do this exercise where I ask myself:

1. What am I feeling?
2. Why am I feeling this way? Is there a cause?
3. What am I going to do about it? How will I react?

I’ve had to adopt this strategy since I started working again as it is not acceptable or sufficient to haul off and tell people they are pissing me off. But don’t think I’m all zen or whatever. I’m not.

So Monday I am grouchy.  Did I watch too much Ali “being a stay-at-home mom is like being in solitary confinement” Wong and now I am hostile at the three people who put me there?

Yeah, possibly.

This past weekend was my daughter’s prom and Mother’s Day.

First, the boutonniere debacle. Claire-Adele ordered flowers to be delivered for the prom. For Winter Ball, her boyfriend wanted to get her a corsage and she did not see the point of spending an hour of money she earned on something that she’d wear for a night then it would shrivel and die. For prom, she got the point and ordered flowers without fuss. She failed to check her voicemail until Saturday afternoon when she heard a message from earlier in the week from the florist saying they couldn’t deliver her flowers because they were slammed with Mother’s Day orders. She learned Saturday around 1:00. She was leaving for dinner at 7:00.

She was stressed. Jack drilled her with questions: Did you get a confirmation? Did you call them? Did you get your money back? The Boy said he was going to call the florist and yell at them until they brought her a flower. She became more stressed.

I looked at the Boy and Jack and said, "You guys need to go buy some bike parts" as I shooed them out the door. Claire-Adele went to her room and cried.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked. "The roses are in bloom in front of the house. We can make something."

"Leave me alone for five minutes," she said through sobs.

I thought for three minutes. I yelled up the stairs, "I can call Met Market and see if they can get you a flower."

"I am texting Robby," she said. "Okay, call Met Market."

I did. The woman at the other end of the line was as cheerful as a florist could possibly be before Mother's Day. "I can get you something by six. Does that work?"

"Sure." I told Claire-Adele.

"Robby got flowers from the Safeway where he used to work," she said. "Can you cancel yours?"

After the crisis was narrowly averted, neither Robby or I were going to cancel our flowers. Better to have two boutonnieres than none. "Robby can wear two," I said.

When he arrived and flower time came, Eleanor pinned on Robby's lapel the flower Robby brought. Of course she should. He's the boyfriend. I'm just the mom. It is my job to stand back and let her stand on her own. She should take his flower.

But still. I decided to not let a good rose go to waste, so I unwrapped the flower and put it in a vase by my kitchen sink.

Then next day was Mother's Day. Jack and I decided to go for a bike ride, and I was delighted the Boy decided to join us. It was a warm, sunny day, prefect for a ride across the 520 bridge. When we got to the park on the Eastside, we admired the view for a bit and then I was ready to go back home.

"I'm hungry," said the Boy. Which means his hunger has slowly been building for a while and now he was ravenous. 

"Why don't we go back and got to lunch in Ballard?" Ballard is full of fun places to go for lunch on a Saturday. That suggestion was met with ridicule from Jack and the Boy.

"It is only three more miles to Bellevue," Jack said, not looking at the elevation gain. As we left, we rode down a giant hill. Which meant on the way back I'd have to ride up a giant hill. Fuck. And then there was the mile uphill climb. The ride to Ballard is along the water and is as flat as a any ride you can find in Seattle.

Jack and the Boy were consistently twenty yards ahead of me. Once in a while, Jack would turn around and yell "You can do it!" Just because I could do it, doesn't mean I wanted to. And this was Mother's Day. It was supposed to be my ride and it was turning into theirs. I was getting pissed and I was the weak link, holding them back. Plus, I was carrying the Boy's water.

Literally.

We were the sweatiest people Bellevue Square has ever seen. Truckloads of people were dressed up and at the mall on the nicest weekend day of spring so far this year. It was weird. I didn't bring my saddle bags, so I couldn't shop--for much! I did manage to get a little "treat yourself" Mother's Day goodies in my fanny pack from Lego and Lush. The boy got Jamba Juice.

I was in need of some powerful feminine energy after riding with the Boys. And lip gloss.

The ride from Bellevue Square back to the 520 bridge wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. When I got to the bottom of the steep part, I found a mantra--In two months, I'll be in London. London is flat. There are no hills in London. Magically, the hill I was terrified about wasn't nearly as killer as I thought it would be. Evan, my physical therapist, would have been proud.

At the end of the day, I had fun slogging to Bellevue Square, even though I was swearing under my breath for the second half of the ride. I had 16 miles to add to my "Bike Everywhere" log for May.

So why was I so grumpy on Monday? Did I watch too much Ali Wong over the weekend and I was deeply pondering the inequity women face in the world?

Perhaps it is the realization that for so long, my world revolved around them, and that there never will be a day where their world revolves around me--not that it should. Still--I'd like a weekend where I am not the third wheel in my family events.

See the Scar and a Job Offer

The other day, Jack had a young patient who was dying. (As he is a pediatrician, all of his patients are young.) While I can't talk about the kid as it would violate HIPPA (not that I would), I can talk about the dad since he was not the patient.

The man was a younger dad, and kind of rough. Some of the nurses were afraid of this guy. Jack was in the middle of rounds on the ICU floor, when this father caught Jack's attention when Jack entered his daughter's room.

"If you want to talk to me, sit your ass in the chair and look me in the eye," said the dad. The mom knew what was coming, and scurried out of the room.

Jack did as he was told. He sat in the chair and looked the dad in the eye.

"Five years ago," the father said, "I nearly died. I was riding in the backseat of a car, and when I woke up, I was in Harborview hooked up to a bunch of tubes. I was shot five times."

Jack listened.

"I was dead. The surgeons took out the bullets and put me back together," the dad said. The man opened his shirt and showed Jack a large scar that ran from his neck down past his belly.

"That's impressive," said Jack, a guy who has seen thousands of incisions in his life.

"I've seen death. I've seen other people die," the dad continued. "I am not afraid of it. Look me in the eye and tell me: Is my daughter going to die?"

Jack came home from work and told me the story.

"He wanted me to understand what he had experienced. He needed me to know what he had been through so he could trust me," Jack said. "He needed me to see the scar."

He also realized something else. "You need me to see your scar."

A few years ago, Jack had been guilty of some very bad husbanding. I understand that people screw up and make mistakes, but it is nearly impossible to heal when the person who has hurt you doesn't want to admit that they did. In addition to screwing up, Jack had been reluctant to embrace my suffering from his bad husbanding. I still need an apology, an apology that acknowledges the pain and anguish that he has caused me.

"You need me to see your scar," Jack said. I was just about to give up, throw in the towel, call it a hopeless cause, when he comes through with this. Why did it take an interaction with one of his patient's parent for him to get the message I had been trying to deliver for the past few years? Will this insight stick? Will he remember and adhere to this when he finally does see my scar? Do I want to even bother after banging my head against the wall for the past few years? Can I trust that he will truly see and accept it?

Perhaps the timing of Jack's insight correlated with a conversation I had with my manager the day before, a conversation where we discussed my future role and position, and a forthcoming job offer. Perhaps as I grow more financially independent, inspiration was easier for Jack to find.

Jack's Work Dinners and Focus on the Food

I might get divorced after I post this, but oh well. Four people read my blog, so it’s not like this is going to make the front page of the Seattle Times. The trade-off I make for not publicizing my blog is that I have more freedom to publish my more bitchy thoughts.

Here’s the deal: I had to attend a recruiting dinner for my husband’s job this week. This is a recruiting dinner where he is trying to woo someone to work for him and I get to go along as the wife. At best, these dinners are pleasant as people are generally polite and on their best behavior.

At worst, they are a fresh slice of Hell.

As the wife, I have to be exceptionally well behaved, which generally is not a problem. Since these are recruiting dinners, I can’t openly talk about my kids or complain about Trump or bitch about how much my husband works like I could at other of his work events where I know the crowd. Because of these high expectations, I usually skip the wine course. When I drink, my tolerance for bullshit reaches zero. The last thing that Jack needs is me corking off on something to a recruit. Instead, if they have kids, I talk about schools. If they don’t have kids, I talk about neighborhoods. Five years ago, neighborhoods were a safe topic. Now, not so much given the exorbitant cost of Seattle real estate, especially close to the hospital.

Me: "Can you drop a mil or more on a house that needs $250k worth of work?"

Them: "No."

Me: "Sucks for you. You should have moved here 2008."

Just as I am expected to be on good behavior, there is an assumption that everyone else is on their best behavior, too. That is not always the case, however. Like I said, the bad dinners are horrid. I almost got divorced after one a few years ago. Jack was recruiting a woman who I will call "The University Bitch." I've dropped the university name, as it might "out" her. The likelihood of her knowing my name and reading my blog is zero, so theoretically, I can say whatever I want. But that would be mean. Nevertheless, the University Bitch and her husband were on exceptionally bad behavior. I don't expect people to kowtow to me, but I hoped they would be reasonably civil. I was seated next to this woman so I could talk to her about schools and neighborhoods. I tried to make small talk:

"Jack did his training in Chicago," I said. "We lived there for a long time."

"I considered training in Chicago," the University Bitch said "but it was too cold. I visited when it was 20 degrees outside. I am so glad I went to ---- University instead. It was so much better."

After she insulted the town where I was born and raised, she never looked at me again for the rest of the meal. Which lasted three plus fucking hours. While her husband did talk to me, everything I said was met with a case of one upsmanship. They had three kids, all of whom were born since she was a fellow.

Me: My son is on a Lego robotics team. It is really cool.

Him: My kids built a computer from scratch.

Me: What do your kids like to read?

Him: <Listed a million books until he found one my kids hadn't yet read and talked about it like I was an idiot parent whose kids were going to end up on welfare because they didn't read The Pilot and the Pirate or whatever.>

If this were a blind date, I would have left. But this wasn't a blind date--it was for my husband's job so I sat there for three hell filled hours. I started this little mantra Focus on the food, which got me through most of the meal. If the company is bad, I thought, at least the food here is something to be experienced. The only good thing that came out of the dinner was that I tasted raw oysters for the first time, a win out of what was otherwise the worst dinner experience I've ever had.

We finished eating and the meal continued to drag on. At that point, I got up to pee and didn't come back to the table for fifteen minutes. No one noticed I was gone. When Jack got up to pee, the waiter came and the rest of the table ordered dessert. I ordered bread pudding. They ordered Baked Alaska which is a ten minute spectacle where the waiter sets the ice cream on fire in the middle of the dining room.

Jack and I got back to the car at the end of the marathon meal. As soon as the door thwumped shut, I said, "That was a fresh slice of hell."

"What do you mean? I thought it was great. She is top recruit. I need to hire her," he said.

"She and her husband were both horrid," I said. "If she treats me like shit, how is she going to treat respiratory therapists and nurses?"

"They all love her," he said. "I checked with them."

"Do they really want to move to Seattle?" I asked. "I know her husband has a job that requires him to be here three days a week, but something was off about the whole thing. They never asked about schools or neighborhoods."

"The husband already knows Seattle, so he probably didn't need to ask. I really need to hire her," Jack said. "She has a specialty that no one else in the division has."

"While was developing all of these magical skills that you so badly need, I've been at home taking care of your kids," I said. "And this woman is so awesome? What does that make me? Chopped liver?"

"I really need to hire her," Jack said. "You don't understand."

I was dumbfounded. He was right. I didn't understand. It was slowly becoming clear that I perhaps had made a mistake in placing all of my eggs in this basket that was being carried by someone else who didn't care about or consider my opinion.

"If you don't want or care about my opinion, why did you invite me to dinner?" I said. He did not reply.

Jack offered the University Bitch the sun, moon and stars. She sat on the offer for a long time.

"I think she using this as leverage to get a raise or promotion where she is at now," I said.

When she came back to Jack, she told him --- University had offered her the sun, the stars, the moon and all of the planets. Jack who made another offer which was then re-upped by her current employer. Jack's offer was the best he could do.

"You were right," Jack said. "She used my job offer to get a promotion where she is working."

So after a few year hiatus/ban from these events, I am back on the circuit, much to my dismay. How do I cope? My secret again is to focus on the food. Like a zen archer, I block out most of the other stimuli and drive all my attention on the menu. I prepare days in advance, visiting the website and imaging what I might eat. I figure out how I will get there from work and meet Jack there. I usually try to remember a few facts about the person ahead of time, like their name, where they are from, and if they have kids.

The day of the event, I was happy to be at work where I could focus on other stuff and not get stressed about the dinner. Before I left for work, though, I had to decide--should I drive to work so I would have a car at dinner so I could leave early if I needed to, or should I take the bus, which is far simpler? I decide to take the bus. I figured I could hijack Jack's car to drive home and he could catch a ride with someone else.

I was dreading this event before I got there. One of the women in attendance from Jack's group openly hates me. At dinner she dropped details about my husband that I didn't even know or bother to remember, like his marathon pace time which she announced to the table. She told the group stories she heard from Jack about my daughter whom she has met only a handful of times. Why was his real wife there when this other woman could fill in?

The only non-physicians in the group of seven were me and the recruit's husband, Bert. Bert and I got along swimmingly. It was great. This dinner greatly exceeded my extremely low expections. Bert is a mental health worker with a focus on kids, which I found fascinating. He asked me about running for School Board and was genuinely interested in what I had to say.

That was when I realized why I get invited to these events--I am not there to add to the conversation or offer an opinion. I am there so I can make the other non-physician comfortable, so he or she will have one other person to relate to at the table. Sometimes it doesn't work, but other times it does.

The Earache

Yesterday, the Boy woke up at 6:00 with an earache. Jack got up and attended to the suffering, looking in the ear to see what might be the problem. Impacted earwax was the diagnosis so Jack tried to flush the ear with water then dissolve the wax with mineral oil. The Boy felt better — hooray! I was glad that Jack was a pediatrician and could take care of the Boy.

When the Boy was out of earshot (not that he could have heard with all the earwax*), Jack said he’s seen patients in PICU with brain infections that started as an ear infection. There a millions of ear infections a year, and he tells me about two (0.008% for let’s say King County in a year) who were gravely impacted. After that bit of gloom and doom, I was not glad to be married to a critical care physician. 

Okay, as I am writing I am freaking out about the dangers of  ear infections. See what I mean? I live with this shit every day, and now I’ve shared it with you. You are welcome.

* This might explain why the Boy has been taking loudly and not hearing what we telling him, more so than a typical teenager.

Sleep, or Lack Thereof

The male creatures in my family are conspiring against me. They don't want me to sleep.


I. The Boy

The Boy doesn't turn his devices off until 9:30 or 10:00, after much pleading. After his device is locked and charged, he becomes very chatty at the exact moment I want to collapse from exhaustion. Sometimes he chats about the mundane.

"Mom," says the Boy, "Look how many times I can flip my toothbrush on my finger."

Go the fuck to sleep, I think.

Other times he want to talk about things far from mundane, like his future life plans.

"Mom," says the Boy, "I've been thinking that M.E. is going to be the right choice for me. I like building things and understanding how they are made. I think mechanical engineering is going to be a good fit for me."

Lovely, I think, but could we have had this same conversation when the sun was up?

Other times, the conversation are profound.

"Mom," says the Boy, "I just feel better after a long run. I love getting up in the morning and starting my day running cross country with the boys."

For this, I stay up and listen, and force my eyelids open as he tells me how running is transformative for him. Why does he wait until I am so tired to talk to me? Does he know that he will have an open mike, that I am too tired to respond? That I will expect him to keep it short, thereby putting no pressure on him? Perhaps.

II. Jack

Jack has been on call at the trauma center this weekend. The new residents communicate by text instead of phone calls in the middle of the night. You think this might be an improvement, but it's not.

Before:
Pager screeches at 4:00 a.m.
Jack turns pager off and goes to other room to talk.
I fall back asleep or don't hear pager screeching in the first place.

Now:
Cell phone "pings" at 4:00 a.m.

A light flashes from the phone.

tap, tap, tap, goes the text reply

Swoosh.

pause for twelve seconds

ping
flash of light
tap tap tap tap
swoosh
pause pause pause
ping flash
taptaptapswoosh

Ping...

I am wide awake after the eighth ping. It is like chinese water torture except instead of water it is noise. They could use this method to wake people from comas. I bet I could tset this on someone in a coma to see if they would revive. If they did, I could write a paper and get a grant and be famous for bringing people back to living.

I tell Jack to make a phone call instead of texting. He does. The next night he is on call again. He sleeps on the couch. Thankfully.

III. Fox

Even the dog is keeping me awake. He has been wearing a cone since he was bitten by a raccoon so he doesn't lick his wound. Now when his head itches in the middle of the night, his leg whacks the cone. Loudly. And the cone prevents him from actually scratching the itch, so he just tried harder. The harder he tried, the more it itches and the more his leg whacks the cone. Egads. I pick up the dog, scratch his head, and put him on the bed, where he sleeps like a rock.

I wish I could do the same.

Skiing!!! Part II

This isn't a joke like my blog post from in December when I said I went skiing when I really didn't. This time it is real, as noted by the picture of my snow covered skis. As my kids might say, this time, the shit is real.

I have a friend who says when we are stuck in middle age, we need to think about doing things that make us proud of ourselves. In some ways, it makes obvious sense: don't do things you will be ashamed of. In other ways, it seems like an odd thing to think about middle age. Do we really need to worry about self-esteem? Isn't self-esteem for kids? As I got off the ski lift yesterday for the first time in more than a year, I found a new mantra: I am proud of myself.

It was President's Day. I didn't want to ski Sunday because I feared there might be regularly scheduled lessons and I didn't want to share the bunny hill with 150 kids learning to ski or snowboard for the first time. No thanks. Monday was quiet. While I was getting my brace on, Jack bought me a lift ticket. I told him to get me a beginner ticket--only good for green runs--, but he got me a full lift ticket which was about $20 more expensive. He was more optimistic than I was. I felt like a nervous bride with a supportive father: I knew I could back out at any time. Even though I had my skis, my brace and everything else, I could still bail if I felt like it.

I thought I'd start slow on the Magic Carpet. When I saw the long line, I almost skipped it and went straight to the chairlift. Jack said, "You had better try this first."

I had never been on a Magic Carpet before. When I learned to ski back in 7th grade, we side-stepped up the hill to start. After that, we would take tow ropes up the beginner hill. The guy at the top of the Magic Carpet looked at me funny. I was the only person on the Magic Carpet not wearing rental skis who wasn't accompanying a small child. 

The Magic Carpet isn't that easy. It is easier than a tow rope, which is harder than a chairlift. Tow ropes require timing, balance and the ability to keep your skis in the tracks. If you can make it up a hill on a tow rope, you probably are coordinated enough to make it down. The Magic Carpet requires balance. On a chairlift, you at least get to sit. 

When I got to the top of the Magic Carpet, I was worried I'd have to dodge fallen snowboarders or obstinate preschoolers who were tired, hungry, and cold, or lost from their group. I turned left to avoid a dozen seated beginning snowboarders sitting on the right side of the carpet. I took off my goggles and wiped off the condensation three times before making the thirty-yard trek to the bottom. My pizza wedge was awesome. I completely avoided facing my body down the fall line, only pointing myself in the direction I was heading. 

"You've done Dave Murray Downhill!" Jack cheered me on, reminding me of the long, black run I've done at Whistler. "Ready for Little Thunder?" Nope. One more time on the Magic Carpet. As I was going downhill, I wondered if there was a way I could practice skiing without actually skiing. Does such a thing exist?

As Jack and I were waiting in line, we saw a little girl with a snowboard crying, "Daddy, no no! Don't make me go!" She pleading, not whining. I guessed that dad was a big snowboarder, and wanted his daughter to learn so they could spend every weekend on the slopes.

"That's the way to instill a lifelong love of the sport," Jack said sarcastically. Jack knows better than to drag an unwilling kid up a mountain.

"That kid needs some hot chocolate," I said. 

I got on the ski lift just fine. Even more remarkable was when I got off of it. My muscle memory which failed me terribly on the Magic Carpet fabulous when I got off the lift. I was careful, but my skis led me to the right place, and I was able to turn and go exactly where I wanted to go. I was able to dodge a fallen snowboarder and a few very slow skiers who didn't clear the offload area fast enough. I was surprised that auto-pilot kicked in so easily. It was as if my subconscious told my conscious to shut up and let it handle getting off the lift. Later Jack told me he was worried that I might freak out at the top of the chair lift, not get off, and ride back down. He wanted me to try to Magic Carpet first to get my ski legs back.

At the top of Little Thunder, I cleared the condensation from my goggles three times, stalling. Once I started down the hill, I started to cry. Why was I up here? What was the point? What was I trying to prove? Did I really need to do this, even though I had been going to physical therapy for a year for this moment? It was too late to change my mind. I already at the altar and had said "I do" to the mountain. I was committed to getting down not via Ski Patrol on a sled. As I went down, I started my mantra for the day "I am proud of myself." I smiled, and I really was proud of myself.

The first turn was torture. I would have to bear most of my weight on one leg. My mind regressed to when I was a 7th grader at Perry Middle School on the Wednesday night ski bus to Snow Trails, and we learned to turn by lifting one leg off the ground. My brain wasn't so sure my body could handle it, but my legs were fine even with the not insignificant additional weight of the ski boots and skis.

I made a few turns, and relaxed. I looked crappy compared to old form when I could fly down the runs off the 7th Heaven Express, but I shouldn't compare my current self to my old one, for better or worse. My old self a year ago was getting ready for surgery. My old self last spring couldn't ride a bike on the road. My old self last fall couldn't run.

I made it down. And I wanted to do it again. After the fourth time, I remembered to face down the fall line. I practiced planting my poles to turn, even though the terrain wasn't steep enough to warrant that much effort. It snowed a few inches while we there, so the snow on the slope was perfectly soft and fresh. The icy patches that were there in the morning were gone before lunch.

Jack took this picture of me at the bottom--and very flat part--of the run.

By the end of the day, I was having fun. I remembered why I liked to ski and was grateful for all of the work I did for the past year to bring me back. Jack wanted me to try a blue run, but I wasn't mentally ready. I remembered my orthopedic surgeon telling me to stick to the cruisers, whatever a cruiser means to me. No moguls, no ungroomed runs. Even though I was wearing my brace, I didn't want to tempt the ACL protection gods. 

There is some bittersweetness in my return to the mountain. In the past two seasons, my kids have gotten significantly better than me. The Boy loves his terrain "steep and deep." When the powder is packed down, he is in the terrain park, practicing jumping, 360 turns and skiing backward. Claire Adele loves Alpental, a place for advanced skiers. Jack has learned how to ski there, too. While I was re-learning to walk, they were on the double blacks. I will probably never ski the same runs with them again except when they are humoring mom. 

I went back to my mantra. "I am proud of myself." Someday, I can be the grandma who takes the little ones on the Magic Carpet, hangs with them on the green runs, and buys them hot chocolate when they get too cold, while their parents shred the gnar on the double blacks.

Trash Talking Mom

Since Claire Adele is out of town on a school trip, it is much easier for me to prepare meals for the family. Claire Adele is a vegetarian, whereas Jack, the Boy and I like to eat meat. In honor of Valentine's Day, I made bar-b-que ribs. It might have been a mistake to make ribs on the day of my "Writing into Wisdom: Exploring Feminine Archetypes" class where we discuss Greek goddesses and taking down the patriarchy, but I digress. I made cornbread as a side dish. Jack usually makes the cornbread while I make the ribs. The Boy was at a friend's house after school, and I didn't know when he was coming home. Jack was working at the trauma center, and I didn't know when he would be home, either. I tried to get everything prepped so that if they came home earlier, dinner would be in progress, but I could stall it if they were coming home later. Aren't I nice?

All of which is my excuse to why I forgot to add baking powder to the cornbread. It came out looking like this.

Normally, it would have been twice as puffy. Jack saw it, decided it wasn't worth eating, and re-made it.

"Did you add baking powder?" he asked.

"I must have forgotten," I said. I bake all of the time, and I never leave out baking powder.

"No," he said, "I'll do it" when I said I would restart it. I was annoyed. Very annoyed.

The Boy came rushing in from doing his homework.

"You forgot to add baking powder?" he said. He brought his phone into the kitchen, looked at the cornbread, and started texting. Never had he been interested in my cooking failures before. He then went back to doing his homework.

This morning, the Boy told me he and his friend made mug cakes yesterday at his house, and they couldn't remember if they needed baking powder or baking soda.

"I thought you used baking powder, so that was what we used," he said.

"Did you texted you friend that I forgot to add baking powder to the cornbread?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "I sent him a picture, too."

Great. Not only is my husband critical of my baking skills, but my son is also trash talking me to his friends. The Boy, who used to be a Momma's Boy, now thinks I am a daft old cow who can't bake. My inner Athena is telling to let the boys make their own dinner from now on.

Paris S__ and Vancouver

A few days ago, I was driving the Boy home from soccer practice.

"Are you going to get a soccer jersey in France?" I asked. "Maybe one from Paris St. Germain?"

"Maybe," he said.

"I don't know what their jerseys look like," I said, so he googled it and showed me at a stoplight.

"When I google 'Paris S,' it came up with 'Paris St. Germain,' 'Paris Shooting,' and 'Paris Syndrome,'" he said. Jesus, I thought.

"What's Paris Syndrome?" I asked.

"What happens to tourists who are excited to go to Paris and then are extremely disappointed," he said. Egads. That is not what I need the Boy to look up. This will be our first big urban vacation as a family. Normally we go to places where there are mountains, beaches and/or hiking. I am a little nervous of how he'll think of Paris. He isn't a city Boy.

Fast forward to yesterday.

"I am looking forward to going to Vancouver," Jack said yesterday morning before we got in the car to drive to Paris. He was the only one.

We left yesterday for our trip to France, except we didn't leave for France, we left for Vancouver, British Columbia. While Vancouver is a great city and I like visiting it, I just wanted to go straight to Paris.

Vancouver is a short hop and a jump from Seattle, and wow--all of a sudden you are plopped into the middle of a cosmopolitan town.* There are great mountain views, great water views, great parks, great restaurants and great shopping. Yay! It is awesome. When I first came here when Claire Adele was in first grade, I couldn't believe I had missed out on this city my whole life. When we first moved to Seattle in 2004, I was afraid of the hassle of the border crossing, just as I was afraid that I didn't know how to ride a ferry to the San Juan Islands. In both cases, I got over it when I was invited by friends to go both places.

I digress. We are in Vancouver. The kids have lost count of how many times we have been here, which is kind of cool.

Yesterday morning, Jack said he was looking forward to our brief trip to Vancouver before we head to Paris. He was the only one. He worked all weekend and overnight Wednesday, so I was doing most of the pre-trip planning and packing. It was bizarre to pack for the drive to Vancouver and then the flight to Paris. This kids didn't know what to put in their backpacks. I brought a million books, knowing I'll leave half of them in the car at the Vancouver airport.

Why are we in Vancouver if we are going to Paris? Because it was significantly cheaper to fly out of Van to Paris than from Seattle. The Canadian dollar is super weak, and I am assuming fewer Canadians want to take international trips when their currency is in the toilet.

"But Lauren, even if it is cheaper, there is a cost," said my friend Sangita who is spending three weeks in Germany this summer. She is right. Let's say we are saving x dollars on the flight to Paris from Vancouver. We are spending x times 75% to go to Vancouver for three nights--two nights before we leave and one night after, plus the long drive between Vancouver and Seattle, which can be as short as three hours or as long as five if you stop for lunch, have a long wait at the border, and traffic in both cities. Which sucks when it is bad. Which is exactly what happened yesterday.

The challenge with car trips is that there is no precise departure time--it is squishy, which I kind of hate. No one is motivated to get their butt in gear like when we travel by plane. We planned to leave "around ten," which meant we left at 10:45. The night before we left, the Boy realized he only had three pairs of underwear that fit. When I heard that, I was actually surprised he had any underwear that fit given that he has grown six inches taller since the last time he got new undies. So Jack and the Boy ran to the mall and were there when it opened yesterday morning. Nevermind we could have bought underwear in Van or Paris--they ran the errand before we left. When Jack got back, he realized he had to finish his notes from call on Wednesday night. Argh. Were we ever going to leave?

We finally did leave. We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Bellingham (which was awesome, by the way) and the kids practiced their French during lunch. I was getting ready to say, "Nous sommes quatre," to the hostess and "Merci" to the waitress, but I didn't because they spoke English.

After lunch, we hit border patrol and had to wait for forty-five minutes, to then get stuck in stop and go weekend traffic into Vancouver. The Boy had said previously said he was worried I would embarrass him, and I couldn't figure out why. Then we were stuck in traffic, and Jack and I started bickering. He was going to make a left turn on a red, and I panicked. In Seattle, everyone runs reds. At best, it is annoying and at worst it is dangerous. The light turns green and you have to check to see who is flying like a bat out of hell through the red. When I drive in Canada, I try very hard not to be a jackass so they don't look at my license plate and think "stupid American." 

"See!" yelled the Boy. "Don't embarrass me in France! Just talk quietly." He had a point.

We finally got to the hotel after being stuck in downtown gridlock. I was pissed. Why didn't we just fly direct to France from Seattle and skip this hassle? We could have taken a forty-five minute train to SeaTac from our house and been in Paris the next morning. But no. We had to come here. 

When we got to the hotel, everyone was exhausted. The Boy was pissy, and he discovered he forgot his jacket and toothbrush, even though he was up at 6:30 a.m. poking around the house, looking at his phone half the time. Maybe if he got off his phone for a bit, he would have remembered his fucking toothbrush and jacket. So Jack, Claire Adele and I went to get the Boy a toothbrush and the rest of us coffee. Fortunately, he was old enough to leave alone in the hotel. I was happy to leave him behind. My head was throbbing.

We got back, and gave the Boy a sandwich we bought for him at Starbucks. Miraculously, his hanger went away. The Boy, Jack and I went to the pool while Claire Adele stayed in the room and checked her 850 text messages she missed during the five hour car ride to Van. Seriously. Social media for a teenager is like being a middle manager in a large corporation--she can't keep up with the group chats for her clubs and sports teams. I feel sorry for her. This is what she has to look forward to for the rest of her life. In our hotel room, there are pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the rose window from Notre Dame. The Boy found it curious that there were pictures of Paris in our hotel room in Vancouver.

In the pool, I finally relaxed. For the first time, I was glad we made the stop in Van. The Boy and Jack played ping pong on the patio and I talked a woman from England who was trying to prevent her seven year old son from cannonballing into the pool. I laughed. "It's vacation," I told her. "My kids are older, and I now relish when he was seven."

"Every age has its cross to bear," she said. She was right. That also applies to husbands.

After the pool, we found an Addidas shop and bought the Boy a new jacket. His soccer team jacket was so ratty. He wore every day. I washed it before we left, and couldn't get one of the sleeves clean at all.

"That's epoxy," the Boy said. He built rockets at Rocket Club. That black goo would never come off. 

The new jacket looked really good on him, to the point I couldn't say anything for fear he wouldn't like it if I liked it. We got the jacket, and went to the same Thai restaurant we've gone to every single time we've been to Vancouver. I would love to try a different restaurant, but that didn't work out. It was okay, the kids and Jack loved it. We tried new food there, and it was awesome.

When we got back to the hotel, the four of us went to the pool. The Boy was dancing in the hall. 

"I am finally getting excited about going to France," he said. 

"Were you nervous?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "It is a big international trip and all." Maybe a small dose of Van will help him inoculate him to Paris, which would be a good thing.

* Parts of this city, like any other major city, are kind of grungy. Yesterday, we saw a clean-cut blond girl wearing a Lululemon jacket and smoking a cigarette walking down the street. The jacket covered her butt, and we discovered she wasn't wearing pants, just underwear. Very strange.

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?

Relative Empathy

Last week, I was at a luncheon where former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly spoke. Kelly did most of the talking as Congresswoman Giffords had a difficult time speaking as a result of injuries from being shot in the head. I didn't realize the degree of her disability. She seems bright and cheerful in photos. She smile might be a little off, but other than that she looks healthy. It seemed there was a struggle behind each word she spoke. She has a difficult time walking. It seemed that attending this luncheon with 1,500 was exhausting for the guest of honor. It probably was not as exhausting as the month of therapy while she was recovering from a gunshot wound, but exhausting nonetheless.

Kelly made a comment towards the end of his speech. He had recently had surgery on his arm after he had a pole vaulting accident. ("Yes," he said. "Pole vaulting.") He was complaining about his arm one morning over the breakfast table, and he said Giffords replied, "You have to be frigging kidding me."

This made me think of relative empathy. Can we have empathy for those who are suffering less than us? Clearly, getting shot in the head is way worse that hurting an arm, but for the person whose arm is hurting, it is still a big deal when they can't get dressed or make lunch. They might have pain, even if it is temporary. Are they not allowed to complain? Are we in a competition of who hurts the most?

I hope not. And yet...

It can be hard to have empathy for people who are struggling with problems far less complicated than our own. To be clear, I am not talking about people who are whining about imaginary problems. Jack is growing through a challenging time in his job. To outsiders, it would appear that he is fine, but he is disappointed in himself with some aspects of his own work. The job he has now has so many tasks and expectations that he can't possibly do them all, so he picks what he thinks is in most need of attention. His focus tends to be on the good of the organization while neglecting his own development. He worries about the long-term implication for his career by sacrificing other external parts of the job.

I have been a volunteer, a stay-at-home mom and a budding politician for the past sixteen years. I feel like Gabby Giffords listening to her husband. Jack is worried about whether or not is career is perfectly awesome, whereas I don't even have one.

But then people who are suffering health-wise from issues far greater than a torn ACL might not think I have reason to complain. I was told by one friend I injured myself doing a leisure activity. I am fortunate enough to have time and money to ski, and I have good health insurance that pays for surgery and physical therapy. Jack and I have saved enough money for rainy days that we can pay the out pocket expenses without deciding which bill we won't pay that month or charging it to the credit card. Then again, Jack has a good enough job that we can afford to save money and still take vacations and ski. We still make choices. We drive old, used cars. I wear old clothes. We live in a small house that had what my friend Sarah gently called "deferred maintenance."

To be clear, I am not complaining. Of all of the problems in my life--mother dying of Alzheimer's, a son who struggles with adolescence, a knee that isn't fully recovered--money isn't one of them. When I look at my life, I could easily say it could be better, but it could be worse. My mom didn't die when I was twelve. My son recognized he has some problems, and that gives me infinite hope that he will pull out of this tailspin. If one were heartless, one could say, "All parents die. Being a teenager sucks. Middle age people have bodies that fall apart. What's new?" Well, this is all new to me, even if collective humanity has been experiences these things for ages. I've never watched my mother die, but Roz Chast has, and she wrote about it in Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? I got it from the library Saturday, and I've read it twice. Having empathy gives us to the chance to learn about things that haven't yet happened to us--yet.

I haven't been to church in a million years, but I think of the song I heard growing up, "Whatever so you do, to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me." I understand the sentiment. Those who are hungry or homeless or ill or other otherwise suffer need an extra dose of compassion and support from those who have more to give. Yet, I thought it was kind of weird that we would figure out who is "less" than us. Is that condescending? Do we need to compare? I have a friend from college who married a man who became very wealthy. She is tall, thin and athletic. She has two beautiful, intelligent sons. On the surface, she really has nothing to worry about, but she still has worries, concerns and problems just like the rest of us. One of her problems is people telling her she doesn't have problems and she should just shut up. I think that is incredibly harsh, and frankly wrong. Who am I to say she doesn't have problems?

Or, is this why we have tribes? Is this why tall, skinny, rich women tend to have tall, rich friends? Because they can give each other and get back empathy? Does this apply to everyone?

Maybe the point is empathy is empathy, all the way around.

Surface Tension

While I was in Ohio, I visited one of my closet friends from high school, Betty. We went to a coffee shop after dinner and talked for about two hours. I saw her in January when I visited Ohio, but we hadn't really talked since then. Betty has a job, two young children and a husband who travels. Between her limited time and a three hour time difference, it isn't simple to keep in touch.

I talked about my life; she talked about hers. Betty is everything you could want in a friend: funny, empathetic, a good listener, caring, and intelligent. She asked me how I was doing with my mom's illness, my knee, and losing the School Board election last fall. She asked how my dad was coping with my mom's illness and his subsequent loneliness. She asked about Jack and how we were recovering from his betrayal that I first learned about two years ago. She asked about Claire Adele and the Boy. I talked about dealing with the Boy's reorganization of his teenage brain and his frustrations with friends. While the Boy is generally pleasant, he is capable of epic mood swings. As my friend Sarah says, "The Boy has a large emotional range." Yeah.  And it is awful to be on the receiving end of his tantrums.

As we were talking, I didn't think I was being excessively whiny or complaining. I was more or less giving her an inventory of my life, as we commonly do when we haven't seen each other in a while.

"How is the job search?" Betty asked.

"It has been on hold since the knee injury," I said. My daughter's piano reminded me of the emotional and physical energy required for healing. It is one thing to continue to work at a job you already have when you are injured; it is another thing to look for a new one while recovering.

"What about getting back into education?" she asked.

"The entire new School Board except one director campaigned against me," I said. "I have no clout with that group. I can't return to advocacy in the current environment. Nor do I want to. I decided to go big or go home when I ran. I lost, so now I am going home. I can't go backwards. It is really difficult that I spent nearly ten years in that arena and I really can't go back."

"Have you looked for a job at the university?" she asked. She works in a university setting and she knows we are close to UW.

"There was an opening for change management position to support the new payroll system roll out," I said. "I applied for that."

"You sound perfect for it!" Before kids, I had worked in Change Management.

"I didn't hear anything back," I said. I didn't tell her there were probably 300 other resumes that came in for that job.

"Oh," she said. I didn't tell her about the other half dozen jobs at the university I applied for. Betty paused.

"How are you managing all of this?" Betty asked.  Translation: Wow, your life is in a bad place.

I imagined myself being a tightrope walker being unaware I was 300 feet in the air, and then having someone tell me. I looked down and saw the people looking like ants while I was floating above them and freaked out. I thought, She's right. This is really hard. How am I coping?  

Betty is a dear friend and meant no malice. Her only fault was being empathic, which is the opposite of a fault. I have other empathetic friends, but this was a high density conversation about all that is going on in my life. When she asked, "How are you managing?" the surface tension which was keeping the liquid from overflowing burst. My cup was overfilled, held together by exceptional laws of physics. When the tension was released, my emotions poured out, not at that exact moment, but slowly: when I got back to my dad's empty house, when I was flying home, when I went to dinner Saturday night with Jack and the kids and the Boy decided to have a snit fit which then expanded into full blown tantrum by the end of the evening. By Sunday, I was a wreck.

It is a minor testament to resilience that I could manage to keep moving and maintain a reasonably positive outlook. At the same time, a little pessimism doesn't hurt. It is what inspires and motivates us to makes changes. Okay, I can't end on this Pollyanna note. I want to say my life is a mess and I need to clean it up, but sometimes life is just messy, and there are things that can't be cleaned up. I can't change my mom's situation. I can't go back and re-run the School Board election. I can't change that I have a teenage son who is at times my favorite person in the world and other times my least.

While on the stationary bike this weekend, I read Roz Chast's Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?* It is her graphic novel memoir about her parents' slow deaths. She had no control, but she could collect her insights and write them down.  I laughed in recognition when she wrote and drew "The Aisle of Tears" which sold adult diapers, adult wipes, pureed food, and other things my mother needs. She talked about the dining room at the Assisted Living Center being like a high school cafeteria with its cliques and unofficially assigned seats, which I also saw where my mom now lives, but on a much smaller scale.

Reading Chast's book made me realize that there are parts of life that just suck, and there is very little we can do about it except get through it. There is no shortcut through suffering: it is part of the human condition. Reading her book, I felt like I was in a conversation with a friend who was guiding me through the wilderness of aging parents. For now, my experience with my parents' aging is not up close, but from a distance. She turned her and her parents' suffering into art, a story that resonates with people like myself who are going through something similar.

Sharing coffee with a friend, telling her how I feel, that is good way to make it all a little more bearable.


* I used to like Roz Chast but now I love her.

13 and 47, and Male Bonding

The Boy turned thirteen today and next week I turn forty-seven. His due date was my birthday but he arrived a week early, with the same birthday as Queen Elizabeth. I was talking to my dad and he remembers being thirteen. I told him about a mini-meltdown the Boy had last weekend.

"This is a big year," he laughed. "I remember puberty. Lots of changes."

In many cultures, there are rituals for boys at this age. The Boy has a few Jewish friends who have had their Bar Mitzvahs. Those kids studied for months and then had a big party. I am sure the boy was looking at the new iPhone that one of his friends got for his Bar Mitzvah, and overlooked the years of Hebrew school.

The boy wants a cell phone for his birthday. I was tired of nagging him about his homework, and didn't want another devise to compete for his attention. He has his own computer for his homework, which is bad enough. A few months ago, we checked his browser history and we discovered he was watching Dr. Who in the middle of the night. While the content was not questionable, the 1:34 a.m. video watching was, not to mention it violated the "no computer in your room" rule. No wonder he was a crabby jackass in the morning. Miraculously, when we kept his computer downstairs, he was in an infinitely better mood in the morning.

I told the Boy that he could have a phone if we could go three weeks with him taking initiative on his homework without me nagging him. It was a vicious cycle for both of us. "You don't like to nag me, and I don't like to be nagged, so let's stop it," he said.

But it didn't work. Fearing failure to live up to his end of the bargain, the Boy became more tense. He felt apart towards the end of Spring Break. I was in no mood to have another device that would be a non-productive source of distraction.

Jack was a bit more gentle. "Should we get him a phone?" he asked me.

"No way," I said. "Forget it. What do you think?"

"Well..." he said, being noncommittal.

This week, Jack talked to the Boy. "Do you think your mom wants you to have a phone?"

"Probably not," the Boy said "She probably thinks I acted like an asshole this weekend." He seemed remorseful for his less than stellar behavior.

"Why do you want a phone?" Jack said.

"So I can text my friends," he said. He rattled off the names of classmates and boys on his soccer team, all nice fellows. He was feeling left out. As much I would prefer my son to have real life friends instead of virtual and digital friendships, I can see where he would feel disconnected.

Jack reported this conversation back to me. "I am thinking maybe we could take him tonight to get a phone," he said. "At least he didn't make up some lie about wanting a phone for safety. He says he wants a phone so he can text his friends."

I relented. If Jack was okay with it, I suppose I could be, too, even though I'll be the big bad monitor. After school, I told the Boy that his Dad would take him to get a phone when his homework is done. I decided their trip to the Apple store would be a male bonding experience.

My forty-seventh birthday is coming up, without any fanfare, milestones or hype. No puberty for or rites of passage (unless heaven forbid the other M comes my way.) In some ways, I feel the same as I did when I was thirty-five or forty. Today, the Boy said birthdays are overrated. I disagree for anyone under thirty. Each year is so different, but as an adult, the years thankfully start to feel the same, with fewer or no major adjustments or changes. I was reading Alexander McCall's Smith's retelling of Jane Austen's Emma the other day. There is a line where Emma graduates from school, and feels as if it is the end of the world. In a sense, it was the end of the world that she knew. As an adult, milestones aren't that often--maybe moving to a new city or getting a new job, getting a divorce or seeing the kids leave the house to go to college. We don't have new things every year, or just because we are forty.

Today, though, I felt old. I don't mean i felt old when I thought about the numbers on my driver's license, but I felt what I expect it would feel like to be old. Yesterday, I was gardening with a college student who has helped us out of the past year and a half. She helps with odd chores and keeping an eye on the kids. I was not in pain, and my mobility was getting better. As I was walking up the twenty-two steps to the house, I felt like I was eighty. I was reminded of a few older people I've seen around the neighborhood. They can walk fine and get mourned, but maybe they use a cane, or walk slowly. They might have a limp, or a stiffness that prevents them from bending over. I reminded myself of those folks. Bizarrely, I felt better after that. At least those people are outside and getting around, I thought. So can I.

Speaking of the elderly, today is Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday. I saw a picture of her taken by Annie Leibowitz. The Queen is standing on steps outside surrounded by her dogs. She has one leg on one step and one leg on another. A casual observer might not notice that or think anything of it, but I noticed. The photo said, Here is a ninety year old woman who climbs stairs. She is able-bodied and spends time outdoors. I should be so lucky one day.