Wordjanitor Strikes Again

I did something different this year in preparation for Mother's Day. I asked for something. Specifically, I made a breakfast-menu request. And so, my day started with amazing cornmeal blueberry pancakes. TG (being TG) did more than standard recipe-research due diligence and came up with a very tasty formula. The best part of Mother's Day is that I get to be a mom to this amazing, intelligent, goofy ten-year-old sidekick. He's the kid who takes a shirt, tie, and jacket to his grandpa's house in the woods so he can dress up for my birthday dinner and Mother's Day breakfast. And he's the kid who surprises me with the facts he has amassed in his curious mind. He asked whether I knew what Thomas Edison had invented. Thinking the answer was obvious, I went straight to "incandescent lightbulb." True enough, but he was referring to the electric chair . Yeah, I didn't know that. And I gladly admitted it. Edison had more than 1000 patents, why...

As I was driving to work in my sensible car, the local classic-rock station started playing songs that were popular when I was in high school. U2 is now classic rock. Not even early-career U2, mid-career U2. I cursed out the radio -- probably drowning out Bono crooning "in the name of love" or something equally inappropriate to have cursing as accompaniment. Ah, but that was just one of the rude awakenings that have arrived at my doorstep in more frequent numbers these days. Or, if not rude, they're just not terribly polite nor invited awakenings to my advancing age. I kept finding long blonde hair here and there in the house. I accused the dog of having an affair. Then I realized they weren't blonde. They were gray. And mine. Alas. And why is it that my gray hair comes in completely straight while my brown hair remains characteristically corkscrewy?

I went to an event last week where they handed out candy canes with words attached to them. The words, individual to each person, served as the night's conversation topic. My word was perfectionism. My first reaction was just that I was no longer a perfectionist. Too easy. Once upon a time, I was a perfectionist. Or, better stated, I was someone who strove to be perfect. I hadn't actually perfected perfectionism. If I couldn't be perfect, I could try to make everything I did perfect. For example, I worked as a magazine editor. I developed a high set of production standards and a microscopic eye for detail. If there was an error, whether typo, scratched film, misaligned color plate, or some other ant's-eye-view thing, I'd find it. Would anyone else notice? Maybe 1 in 500 people. Would that person care? Maybe a 1 in 500 chance. But it gave me a sense of control where life didn't allow it. It gave me something I could fix and a change I could see.

I've never been one to do things the easy way. It's not that I come to an Robert Frost-ian intersection with the options of a smooth highway and a dirt path covered with rocks, snakes, and who-knows-what-else and think "Oooh, that looks fun!" But somehow or other, I often end up on the more challenging path. True, when it comes to recreation, I'm more likely to take the dirt path and experience all of the scenery along the way. Four-lane highways get you from Point A to Point B, but life is more often in the journey, which makes two-lane back roads much more fun. Perhaps that's why I like Jeeps . I want to be prepared for the road ahead. Or I think I look bad-ass driving a bright yellow Jeep in a tank top and my hair going all medusa in the wind. I digress...

I have a picture of tornadoes on my refrigerator. Each is a different color and hovers precariously close to the ground, about to touch down. In the midst of all the swirling is a little stick figure with a small umbrella saying "Hey tornadoes, one at a time. Get in line!" Sure, I can yell at a tornado and it will listen! Hmmm... Last week was less than fun. Lots of different dramas emerged from various quadrants of my existence. I had some health stuff to handle;

Avoiding danger in the long run is no safer than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. - Helen Keller I recently decided to do something for myself. Pedicures and massages are great and all that. I guess shopping does it for some girls. OK, lots of them. Maybe even legions of them, given stacks of evidence ranging from

I got a boo-boo on my knee. A good friend invited me to go hiking yesterday. Yes, absolutely, ok, let's go. I didn't bother asking where, how far, and all of those details. It didn't really concern me. And who am I to turn down an excuse to be outside with trees and dirt and stuff? So off we went to Sunol Regional Wilderness and hopped on the trail along Alameda Creek to Little Yosemite. It looked to be a pretty mellow ambling walk along a well-maintained

I realized my invisible superwoman cape isn't working. I sent it to the wrong dry cleaners and they used some sort of solvent that neutralized my superpowers. That's what I get for trying to save a buck.  OK, honestly, I was never quite comfortable in the tights either. The stilettos gave me blisters. And the leotard always gave me a wedgie , which made the cape useful until I remembered it was invisible.  Why is it that superheroes always have such ridiculous wardrobes ? If they're superheros, wouldn't they have the special powers to save the world in jeans, a t-shirt, and flip-flops?  My ego has always tried to convince me that I could simultaneously climb Everest, juggle flaming chainsaws , work full time, keep up with @, and figure out how to live without snobbishly good dark chocolate as the fourth food group (the others were fruits & veggies, tofu, and whole grains).  Hmmm... There might be a wee bit of exaggeration there. But it sure sounds like a fairly...

"Eat the whole thing, but be careful not to touch the filling," he said very seriously as he handed me a grayish tuna sandwich. Huh? OK, don't touch the tuna, just consume it? That's comforting. As was the fact he was wearing bright blue gloves. You don't want the stuff on your hands, just in your gut? Hmm... My breakfast was in fact a standard-issue hospital cafeteria tuna sandwich augmented with a lovely condiment of radioactive isotopes. Mmmmmm? Or Hmmmmm... Next task, remain absolutely still on a table for two full hours while nice people in lab coats use a screen to track the glow as makes its way through my digestive tract. I have an oddly convenient ability to fall asleep during medical tests. I actually slept through most of this one, until the last 30 minutes where I was fairly convinced my upper arms were going to catch fire from the position into which they'd been forced. (Good news, no actual scorching.) Yesterday's little snack-and-glow was t...

I've spent the first two months of 2010 growling at myself for picking the high-deductible medical plan, given how much time I've spent with the medical community thus far. I like rice and oatmeal as much as the next girl, but there's been precious little variety beyond that since November. Two weeks ago my esophagus and I had a photo shoot (think internal vogue-ing on enough valium to make a horse levitate). I expected to awake to answers, not "We'll have biopsy results in ten days." The concept of biopsy threw me; it somehow wasn't a word I was expecting. But it was less the potential of what it might mean than the nebulousness of not knowing the next step. Boy howdy the Serenity Prayer does come in handy when you're scratching for control you're just not going to get. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the differenc e. I knew I couldn't change the te...

Admit it, the first image that comes to mind when you read " Chuck E Cheese vs. the BMW " has something to do with oversized rodent carnage and tire tracks. If you're over the age of eight, the BMW automatically wins in this scenario. Hands down. As visually oriented as I am and as satisfying that image happens to be, this is a different story. I recently described myself as a duck with one foot nailed to the floor, wearing a circular groove in the floor. I've often used the un-nailed foot to kick my own ass for making mistakes, saying the wrong thing, failing to meet my own expectations, not having the answers, losing my temper, blah blah blah. For the last few months, I've been actively taking steps to loosen that nail. It turns out, I've had the tool in my hands all along -- a hammer. I was just accustomed to using it to ensure that darn nail would keep my flappy foot firmly fastened. I looked more closely at that hammer, turned it around in my hands only...

@ and I took Lucas to the "bark park" today. I know of few better places to take a six-year-old kidlet and an 80-pound dog who have been surrounded by various sets of four walls during a week of downpour. We spent nearly two hours among the other sun-seeking dogs and their drivers. When we first started going to the dog park, both @ and Luke would stay close to me, with Luke eventually giving in to curiosity and dogness to venture forth and join the ranks of random pooches enjoying the park. Today, Luke never stopped moving. He wandered, sniffed, wrassled, chased, mounted, marked, marked, marked, sniffed, lather, rinse, repeat. He gently stopped by when another dog approached @, just to be nearby. He's fun to watch with his big slobbery dog grin as he jogs to and fro. But watching @ today was even better. He followed Luke here and there, saw dogs he wanted to meet and talked to their people, and introduced Luke to potential pals. His favorite dogs of the day were tw...

Growing up, I was the smallest kid in class. Not cute, perky small. Just awkward -- definitely not one to fit in. My mom used to take me and my brother to Elmer's Barber Shop so we could get haircuts at the same time. Striped barber pole out front and a guy with a waxed mustache. People always assumed I was a boy until the onset of puberty provided distinctions to the contrary. And at which time my hair went into a freakish Rosanne Rosannadanna phase that is truly best forgotten. All of that ensured I got picked on a fair amount, but it wasn't life shattering. You're small, homely, and painfully shy. You get used to it. You also get used to fighting back or standing up to it. You do the cornered squirrel thing and show your teeth. After the pediatrician announced that I wouldn't break five feet, three days of angry crying sparked some sort of growth spurt. My uncle helped find someone to cut my hair in a way that actually looked good. And my confidence on the socc...

smell of woodsmoke and wet leaves, feel of brisk air and misty rain, dark of evening masking suburbia as i walk on the evening of solstice There are plenty of holidays to keep everyone amused this time of year. But for me, winter solstice has the most meaning. This is the longest night. Tomorrow the nights will get shorter, the days will stretch longer bit-by-bit. It marks a turning point that doesn't have retail mania and free shipping. The leaves have fallen, the nights are darker, and so many things are seemingly in stasis waiting for their next act. And that next act is rebirth, growth, reaching for the sun. It may look like everything is dead, brown, wilted, but there is plenty happening in preparation for the coming of spring. The rain is cleansing, removing the dust, restoring the damp to the ground. I am not very different. This year has brought me many things. The arrival of fall marked many of them. As the leaves fell from the trees, I was uncovering aspects of m...

I'm big on metaphors. Some might consider it an affliction. Maybe it's the lapsed writer/poet in me. Maybe it's because I consider words to be playthings. Sometimes it's definitely to make a point when people are so tied up in the context of a thing that they need to see it in an entirely different language. (I have a whole slide deck on chocolate chip cookies, pecans, and network switches...) In the moment, I don't always know why I do what I do. Other times, I know the symbolism exactly. I live the metaphor. The day I went to the courthouse to file the original dee-vorce papers, I next went to a park where I could look out over a big open field to the hills. I wanted to see uncluttered distance, undeveloped space leading into trees. It had to be organic, growing, uncontrolled. After another courthouse visit, I found myself in a shoe store . Mind you, I consider shoe stores as entertaining as dental offices. But I was taking more steps. You can't do that ...