It All Comes Out in the Wash

 

I know better than to go to the grocery store between four and six on a week day afternoon, because that's when everyone else goes. The food aisles are clogged with carts, shoppers and oblivious small children running in every direction. Turning left from canned goods into the meat and deli aisle is an act of courage. More than once I’ve nearly crashed into another cart. Those darn Fruit Loops end units make visibility impossible.

Even worse than trying to move about the store is the long wait in the checkout line. It seems that everyone has carts filled to overflowing, and patience zapped from the bumper-car-like challenges it took to get them this far.

I try to avoid such shopping situations, but that isn’t always possible so when I find myself at the end of a long line of tired shoppers with a lot of purchases, I grab a magazine and read till it’s my turn. Of course, I always purchase the magazine because who wants to buy a periodical all read and used.

It was during one such shopping trip that I stumbled across an article on the “proper way” to wash clothes. This article went on for four full-colored pages. I was intrigued. How much could there possibly be to washing clothes?

Step one, according to the writer, was sorting. We were to read the labels on each item, then separate them by hand-wash, dry clean, dry clean only and machine wash. I had no idea there were two dry clean options. Apparently the first is just a suggestion, while the second carries jail time.

Next you go through your machine wash clothing and sort it according to the cycle. Normal, permanent press or gentle. I’ve never used any cycle but normal. I figure if a normal cycle is good enough for my jeans, it’s good enough for everything.

At last, the article says, I must separate my dirty clothes by color starting with dark and gradually moving to light, with real true whites reserved in thier own category.

If I was following these instructions, I would find myself with fifteen piles of two or three items of clothing a piece. Please… who has time for that? I have six children who, for every pair of pants I wash, are getting two dirty.

Step two makes such useful suggestion as checking pockets before loading clothes into the washer – where’s the adventure in that? Most of my spending money comes from stuff that comes out with the clean clothes.

The writer says that you are supposed to zip up zippers, button buttons, tie strings, buckle buckles and snap snaps before ever putting them in to be washed. I’m envisioning a sweet tempered homemaker sitting in a rocking chair and watching afternoon soap operas as she works tirelessly preparing her family’s clothes for their exciting laundering experience.

My loading method is to grab a arm-load of clothes in similar colors, stuff them into the machine, toss in some soap and fabric softener and get back up to the kitchen before the soup boiling on the stove over flows.

The next page suggests ways to make your laundry cleaning experience even better. You can add vinegar or table salt to the rinse cycle to keep colors bright and dye from running onto other clothes. This works great if you happen to be walking by the laundry room, with vinegar and salt when the machine hits this point in its cycle. I’m lucky to get back to the laundry room within a few hours of when the wash finishes.

Their suggestion to dry light loads first and then follow up with heavier materials like terry cloth and denim while the drum is still warm sounds good on paper, but in real life, at least for me, it’s just not happening.

I close the magazine with a smile. Maybe someday in my empty nester future I will buy clothes with instructions like “don’t allow water to ever touch this fabric” or “This sweater will do best if it is given its own room”. But right now, my priority is not the brightness of my kid’s colored t-shirts, but how much time I have to spend with the little bodies that I’m washing them for.

 

Twenty-Five Years of Spending

Do you ever experience those cringe moments when you look back into your past and remember some of the crazy things you did, say at nineteen, before you learned better? Oh I do. If you look up the word “stalker” in the dictionary, definition number 6 merely reads Deanne in college…, but that’s another story. Today I’d like to share a few cringe moments from my first years of marriage.

My husband and I will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary in a few days (and for those of you doing the math, I was married at twelve and a half). It’s hard to imagine that our little family of two has since grown into a family of ten with possibly two more joining in before the end of the year.

One of the things that still makes me cringe as I look back over the past quarter century is how many stupid things my husband and I spent our money on. We were an easy mark for salesmen, and if I had a nickel for all the dumb purchases we made, I’d probably have enough too…. Well buy something else.

With a mother and a sister in his family, one would have thought my husband would be a little more prepared for the expenses associated with a woman when we got married. But I remember his unhappy shock during our first major shopping trip together after we’d tied the knot. Shampoo, conditioner, razors, tampons AND pads, nylons, nail polish remover, mascara, moisturizer, lotion, body soup and face soap. He’d never guessed how much money went into achieving the look he’d fallen in love with.

What we also didn’t realize at the time was how much the price to maintain that look would go up the older I got.

Another memory is of a summer afternoon, when a guy with his car trunk full of frozen meat cruised through our neighborhood. The price per pound of the beef was too good to resist and since it happened to be a pay-day we thought this would be a great deal.

Unfortunately once we brought our new purchases into the house, we realized that our little refrigerator freezer just wasn’t big enough to store all the meat, so we opened the newspaper’s classified section and found a great price on a used upright freezer. A few days later we discovered that the reason the freeze had been so cheap was because it had a broken seal and wouldn’t stay cold long enough to keep the meat frozen. In the end we had to throw away most of the meat and the seal-less freezer. Talk about a deal.

Then there was the two thousand dollar set of leather bound Encyclopedia Britannica that every family with children was required to have. By the time our kids were old enough to read, the internet was in full swing, and we ended up using the expensive volumes to support one corner of our family room couch.

According to the salesman, the Silver King Vacuum had a body made out of the same metal as fighter jets, and a motor that could power a large go-cart. It cost twelve hundred dollars but it was an investment because it was the last vacuum we’d ever need. Turns out expensive vacuums don’t last any longer than the seventy dollar cheap-os from Wal-Mart even if they can withstand the air pressure at 40,000 feet.

And how could I forget the free dinner at Denny’s if we would listen to the sales pitch of the wonder high-chair salesman. Yes I said high-chair, but this was no ordinary child’s seat. It could be converted to a small table or a booster seat and used for eating, crafts and time out. It was a large square contraption with adjustable legs and wheels so that you could easily move it around the kitchen or take it out back onto the  patio and hose down when needed.

Unfortunately what it was not designed to do was support the weight of three children who were using it to race down the sidewalk. In the process they hit an uneven patch of concrete that threw them all, including the wonder high-chair into the neighbor’s evergreen bushes. The kids were scratched up, crying and I hope a little wiser… but the high-chair didn’t fare as well and would not, as promised, last us until we had grandchildren.

At least our marriage has withstood the test of time, and perhaps the lesson here is that money will come and go… mostly go, but finding the right guy who loves you last forever.

My Life is Like a Water Balloon - no matter how hard I try to get a hold of it, something always bulges out

 

I am sitting down at the computer preparing to write this week’s blog, and as I finish the title, I hear the timer go off in the kitchen, signifying that the dish washer is done with its cycle.

I get up to open the door so that the dishes will be cool when I go to unload them, and notice that the kitchen table is 90% cleared off, and so I stop and gather up a pair of scissors, a glue stick and a crumpled napkin from its surface. With the scissors, glue stick and crumpled napkin gone, I can now see how dirty the table cloth is, so I remove it. Under the table cloth is a trail of muddy cat paw prints. How they got under there I can’t imagine, but I immediately head to the sink to get a sponge.

At the sink, I remember that the dishwasher has finished its cycle so I pull open the door. I notice the sink is filled with dirty dishes. It won’t take me more than a few minutes to unload the dishwasher and get the dirty dishes inside.

A fork falls to the floor, and as I bend down to retrieve it I see my son’s basketball shoes that are, for no good reason, sitting in the middle of the kitchen. It isn’t like he’d have any reason to shed them right there. He doesn’t even cook. But low and behold that’s where they are. So while I’m down there picking up the fork, I grab the shoes as well and head for his bedroom.

I find the light on and the stereo blasting even though he’s been in school for two and a half hours, and in one corner, behind the door, there must be twenty-five empty yogurt cartons. The kid is going through a growth spurt because he is eating me out of house and home.

I gather up the empty cartons and head back to the kitchen where I notice that the garbage can is beyond full. A pizza container is balanced on the top of an empty milk jug, with another six inches of garbage on top of that. So, I stomp it all down with my food, pull out the plastic garbage bag and head out the back door.

While dumping the bag into the outside garbage can I notice two pairs of socks and a t-shirt sitting on the edge of the basketball standard. One can only wonder if stripping while one shoots baskets will improve accuracy. I gather up the dirty clothing, go back into the house and down the stairs to the laundry room.

In the laundry room I notice that the clothes from the dryer need to come out, the clothes from the washer need to be switched and there are plenty of dirty clothes for a new load. Once I’ve shifted the clothing and started all the machines, I grab a basket of my husband’s work clothes and head up the stairs to the bedroom.

I plan to set the basket on top of the comforter, but the bed hasn’t been made yet, so I drop the basket into the computer chair and proceed to make my bed. Half way through I notice that my feet are feeling kind of cold. I’d been wearing my slippers earlier, but had kicked them off under the computer desk.

So, I take the laundry off the computer chair and set it on the ground, sit down, slide my feet under the desk and into my warm slippers and then notice I’ve only written the title of my blog... now where was I going with this?

The Three Eagle Mom

My good friend Jan just had her third and last son achieve the rank of Eagle in the Boy Scouts of America program. Last weekend she planned and pulled off an Eagle Court of Honor that made planning a wedding look like a stroll in the park. She then collapsed and slept for three days in a row.

Now I realize that most of you are familiar with the requirements that a young scout must pass in order to achieve the coveted rank of Eagle. And once those requirements are met, the scout receives a great deal of attention and recognition for that achievement.

However… few people (other than Eagle Mom’s themselves) realize how much work is required of the poor scouting mother. There is no scouting mother’s web page, thick paperback program guide explaining the duties of the mom of an Eagle to be, and no presidential letter thanking dear old mama for getting her kid to make the grade.

So, in an effort to correct this scouting oversight… let me share with you the six requirements to becoming an Eagle Mom. (Note: This is simply the opinion of the writer and not of the BSA, because as we know, the writer thinks she is very funny… and the BSA does not.)

Requirement 1 – Your scout must be actively involved in the scouting program for a minimum of six months. This means that you must use whatever means at your disposal to separate said scout from his video games/TV/computer/girlfriend and make sure he shows up to his scouting activities. It is best to keep a large supply of neckerchiefs and holders on hand as these can disappear at a moment’s notice thus giving said scout a reason to complain and waste time getting ready. Also important to note is that dances, hay rides and pretty much anything involving the opposite sex does not constitute required scout meetings.

Requirement 2 - Your scout must demonstrate he lives by the Scout Oath and Law, and find people willing to write letters saying that he does. For Eagle Mom’s this means nagging, lots and lots of nagging. “Did you get those letters written? Did you find that address? Envelopes and stamps are in the same drawer they have been for the past ten years! People need more time than one afternoon to write a recommendation!

Requirement 3 - Your scout must earn a total of 21 merit badges. Moms, that means that you must become experts in 21 different subjects, and guess what… they aren’t stuff we already know how to do, like juggling a crying baby, a frying pan full of hot oil and a telemarketer all at the same time. It’s stuff like coin collecting, ham radios and my favorite… personal management. You know that kid that you can’t get to bring his dirty clothes from his bedroom to the laundry room without following him with a whip? Yup, that’s the one that’s supposed to learn personal management.

Requirement 4 – Your scout needs to hold and carry out a position of responsibility for a minimum of six months. And again, it’s not the type of responsibility that we mom’s would find really useful like say being in charge of the laundry for six months or simply taking Fido on a walk every night like your scout promised when you got the dog in the first place. It means more driving them to meetings, more reminding them to make phone calls and more last minute trips to the store (cause you can’t have a weenie roast when no one was assigned to bring the hot dogs).

Requirement 5 – Your scout must complete the infamous Eagle Project. A fun little activity where for every one hour your scout puts into it; our Eagle Mom must put in five. First she must help her scout come up with a reasonable project. Something a little less dramatic than a star-studded charity concert to benefit the Haitian relief effort , and a little bigger than clearing the table after an especially large Sunday family dinner. This can be a challenging task for the mom of a boy who takes twenty minutes just to pick out a candy bar at the store.

After providing an extensive list of possible project ideas, and then threatening to turn off all electrical devises in the house if they don’t hurry and choose something, an Eagle Mom must “help” her son plan this event, “remind” him to call all those who will assist in the project, “drive” him to the various locations to pick up supplies and make arrangements and then “provide” four dozen pizzas during the day of the project.

Then when the work is completed, the project is done and the video game beckons, she must push again so that her son will complete his paper work and get credit for all her… oops I mean his work.

Requirement 6 – We are almost there. Now that the project is done, the merit badges are sewn neatly down the sash and the paper work is assembled; your little scout must add a statement of his ambition and life purpose. Just a note… they are looking for BIG things like saving the ozone layer or creating world peace. So getting to level 19 on Virtual Quest, saving Princess Alala and conquering the wicked wizard Bladamad will not work, even if in fact that is your scout’s main ambition in life at the moment.

If after completing all six requirements, you and your scout are still speaking to each other, there is one last final requirement, and mom it’s all yours. You get to plan the huge multi-media event honoring your son for all his work and effort in earning the rank of Eagle Scout.

Then and only then can you collapse and sleep for three days straight! You deserve it. And to all the Eagle Mom’s out there reading this blog, YOU are my heroes.

My Basketball Bliss

I’ve been hanging out at a lot of basketball games lately. I have a teenage son who’s good… make that really good at basketball and he’s a member of three different teams. What this means for me, is that I attend as many as six games a week.

Now I have to say that of all the sports I might possibly be required to sit through in the name of motherly love, basketball would be my game of choice for several reasons.

First, it’s played in doors.

This boy is my youngest, but not by far the first to express an interest in sports. For two years we spent many a freezing Saturday morning wrapped in blankets watching a bunch of little kids in brightly colored jersey’s and matching knee high socks run up and down the field chasing a black and white ball.

I am not a soccer fan. I don’t understand the game and I find it boring. Yes I know, half the world thinks the sun rises and sets on soccer and to them I apologize. The only pleasant experience I ever had with the game was during my senior year in high school when a good looking blond with well defined quadriceps inspired me to spend a few afternoons on the bleachers with my girlfriends watching his attractive physic run up and down the field.

After soccer it was karate. Which, if you don’t mind my saying so, is about as exciting as watching a room full of middle age women taking an aerobics class. Although we did get a nice selection of colored belts out of the experience. Colored karate belts have a multitude of uses, we discovered. You can tie a baby-sitter up so tight her parents have to come over to undo the knots. With a little imagination, you can rig your sister’s door so that it can’t be opened from the inside. (This is especially effective if she is already inside the room at the time.) And you can create a visually stimulating if somewhat destructive form of art when the belts are combined with a ceiling fan, and tennis shoes.

But I do like basketball. I think its fun to watch the boy’s race up and down the court, jumping and leaping around one another in an effort to get a ball into an overhead basket.

Second, I like the facts that the points add up fast.

As a young girl I grew up in Oakland, California home of the world famous Oakland A’s baseball team. My great-grandfather was a huge fan, and I remember being taken to one or two games when I was little. It was by far the most boring sport ever invented. (Even worse than karate). It seemed to take forever for either team to make a point and by the time they did, I had lost interest entirely.

Now of course, if you played your cards right you could pass the time eating peanuts, hot dogs and other junky baseball fare… that wasn’t too bad. And the organ was always entertaining to listen to. But the nuances of the game passed right over my head. They still do.

Third, I like having the opportunity to make lots of noise in support of my team without people looking at me like I’m a wierdo.

Before the basketball season began, my son chose to play volleyball. Another sport I’m not too fond of. I was actually beaten up in junior high for missing a ball lobbed in my general direction during a rousing game of volleyball in PE.

But what I really hate about the game is how one team has to screw up in order for the other team to make a point. So here are all these cute little junior high kids, focused and determined. Our team serves and the other side stands stone still watching the ball hit the court, waiting for someone to jump in and try to hit it back. Pure humiliation. I can’t very well start clapping and yelling “Way to Go” without feeling like I’m rubbing the failure into the other team like lemon juice on a paper cut.

Not so with basketball. I can yell and scream to my heart’s content and never feel bad about offending the other team.

The one thing about basketball I don’t understand it the fascination many of the coaches and parents have in badgering the referees. I’m no expert, but in the twenty or thirty games I’ve witnesses over the past few months, I have never seen a referee change a call. Not once. Even if the coach pulls him aside and accuses him of being half blind and with a personal vendetta against blue jersey’s. They make the call, they stick by it. Still there seems to be some impossible hope that if one yells loudly and obnoxiously enough, those guys in the black and white stripes will turn around and admit, “You are so right. What was I thinking? It wasn’t really a foul after-all. Thanks for pointing that out to me.”

So all in all, I gotta say, I love watching my son play basketball. And I thank my stars every day that he found his talent in dribbling and shooting. Just imagine if he’d wanted to do something horrible like crocodile wrestling…. or ice hockey. Yikes!

There is Magic in the Air

J. Scott Savage, author of the wonderful Farworld series of fantasy novels, uses the phrase “Find Your Magic” to encourage his young and old readers to find the special talents and abilities they have within them. Savage writes about worlds full of magic and intrigue. He may be one of those lucky individuals who believe that our own world is still full of magic.

Both my grandmothers were such individuals.

Grandma Martin believed that leprechaun still lived in the forest of Ireland, and fairies could be found hiding in a bed of nasturtiums if you knew where to look. Well into her eighties, my grandma declared her conviction in the reality of both Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. And I spent long afternoons curled next to her as she read me poetry and told stories from her own youth.

My Grandma Martha, on the other hand, believed in the magic of nature. She could take me on long walks in the meadows where she lived and name the wild flowers we encountered on the trail. She knew of spots where sweet artesian water bubbled to the surface of the ground and you could press you face against the cool watercress and drink to your heart’s content. And it was through her direction that I found how to crawl down under the blackberry bushes to the large metal culvert below, and sit for hours listening to the water flow below my feet eating juicy berries till my stomach was full.

So, as a grandma myself, I have been trying to think of the magic in my own life that I can pass down to my grandchildren. And though I do have quite a vivid imagination and a love for the out of doors, I find that my magic tends to be more earthy and domestic.

I believe in alchemy. Perhaps I can’t turn lead into gold, but I can do something even greater. If I mix sugar, butter, milk and chocolate I can create a fudge that is so creamy your tongue will think it’s died and gone to heaven. And if I add some eggs, flour, baking soda and salt then stick it in the oven… the scent alone will gather my family together in the kitchen like a magic spell.

I believe in poltergeists; evil spirits who lurk in my house and cause mayhem and chaos while I sleep. For instance, I can clean my kitchen spotlessly before I go to bed, and by the time I get up the next morning, the sink is full of dirty dishes, the floor is covered with crumbs and an unexplained puddle of honey adorns one corner of the counter. Some might blame it on a house full of teenagers, but I know otherwise.

I believe in whitelighters, (beings made famous in the TV series Charmed) or guardian angels. These creatures help bring out the best in their charges and help them when they’re in trouble. Except I call them Mom and Dad.

I believe in ogres, invisible monsters that lurk in strange places, like say the drier, and eat huge quantities of unsuspecting clothing. The jeans your daughter has to wear to the party tonight or your husband’s best golfing shirt. But although the ogres will eat anything, by far their favorite treat is single socks, preferably new ones without holes.

I believe we live in a world that is crazy and unpredictable. Natural disasters can destroy the lives of thousands in the blink of an eye, and man-made violence is even worse. Life is fragile and peace is often fleeting. And as we reach our adult years, it becomes painfully clear how little control we actually have over the events that shape us. In a world such as this, I think a little magic can go a long way to enhancing our lives and the lives of those we love.

I think that’s the magic within me that I will be passing down.

If I Could Meet Myself For Lunch

“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you”
—Dr. Suess

There is something about the end of a year that causes one to look to the past and try to find meaning in the time that’s already gone by. Perhaps it helps us prepare for the future, or reassures us that we have done more than breath, eat and sleep for the past twelve months.

The main problem I find when trying to analyze my own life, is that I’m doing it from the confines of my own head. This is certainly a biased angle, but it’s the only perspective I posses.

I wrote a book one time where the main character dies during the first chapter. I tried to imagine what it would look like to see yourself from the perspective of a detached spirit. Would I recognize myself from that angle? And would that slack muscle thing that comes after death, and causes the body to cave in slightly make identifying my lifeless corpse even more challenging?

Having never died, I can’t really say for sure, but I assumed that seeing yourself dead on the ground would be a somewhat surreal experience. And not one that I would be drawn to fantasize about. But what if I could meet myself alive, perhaps sit across the table at an Applebees, share an appetizer and make conversation. Now that would be an experience worth imagining indeed.

Would I see myself, the way I look in the mirror with those special light bulbs that make your skin glow like a twenty-year-old girl in love, or would the multiple layers of chin that I try not to notice each morning as I brush my hair, leap out like a crumpled paper bag around my neck?

I hope I’d like my smile or the way I try to look attentive when someone else is speaking. No doubt we would both laugh at the same funny stories, and that’s important. I once quit dating a young man because it took him nearly thirty seconds to get my jokes and another ten to come up with a polite laugh. It was like watching a TV show where the audio doesn’t match the video and the mouths move moments before the actual words come out. Timing is everything.

We’d talk about our mutual interests of course, our darling baby grandson and why See’s candy is the only chocolates worth eating. I’d hope I wouldn’t be too pushy with my opinions, and I might play devil’s advocate just to see how I respond when someone disagrees with me. Of course, I’d probably see right through that ploy, but still it would be fun to try.

Maybe we’d check out the handsome waiters, and reminisce about how young we use to be. Would I agree with myself that we still feel that young deep inside; deep deep where no one can see? And would we both cringe at that embarrassing thing we did when we were single and still chasing boys?

I hope I’d be polite, and even though I already know all my stories by heart, I’d listen to them again without interrupting and smile and nod at all the right places. I’d like myself more that way I’m sure. And I’d offer to pick up the bill, even though I know I would never allow myself to pay for me and we’d end up going dutch.

As I sat across from myself, could I offer honest constructive criticism of how I could be a better person, and would I be able to take it in the spirit it was meant? Or would I find it hard to be truthful about my weaknesses and get defensive when I brought it up?

When it was time to leave, I think I’d be sad about the separation, until I remembered that it’s me, and we’re always together. And then I would be glad to know I always have someone with me who totally understands how I feel.

So the next time I got too hard on myself or became internally abusive, I could remember what a great person I am and how much fun I am to be with, and I’d realize I need to treat myself with kindness and patience.

And that, my friends, is what it would be like if I met myself for lunch.

(–thanks Carrie!)