this or that?

I am a Pisces. One thing you should know about Pisces is that the two fish swim in opposite directions which means that Pisces, in addition to being creative and empathetic, are often the wishy-washiest people you'll ever meet. Those two fish chase each other in circles. I love it! I hate it! I love it! I hate it! Welcome to my world.

So...I went for a run the other day through this neighborhood near my house. It's right on a golf course and the houses are lovely. There's one that I've always coveted. I used to jog by and the family would be perched on their front porch enjoying the view of the golf course and the Wasatch mountains. They have a little farm house behind them so no backyard neighbors. And the house is pretty fancy. Now there's a Bank Owned For Sale sign in the front yard. I immediately thought - WOW! My dream house is on sale!

Bank-owned dream house. The bargain basement
sale price? $535,000!!! 6 bedrooms, 6 baths, 6100 square feet!

Bear in mind, I've been thinking a lot about downsizing lately. Less stuff. Fewer things. Simplifying so it's easier to focus on the things that matter - which are very rarely actual things. So as I turned up the hill I was struck by this sweet old farmhouse tucked in the middle of suburbia, just up the street from the mansion. It's simple. It's charming. It's small. I stopped running and leaned against the fence to drink it in, imagining a family with 6 kids sharing beds, clamoring for oatmeal in the early morning with a fireplace crackling before they headed outside to feed the animals and help with chores before walking to school. And it seemed so simple and pure. Sort of Little House on the Prairie.

I ran back by the ridiculously big and fancy house, which I still love mind you. But this time I was thinking about the family that I used to envy as they sat on their porch, enjoying their view and their manicured garden. And I wondered: where are they now? Avoiding collections calls, fighting off bankruptcy, hoping the repo man hasn't found their car and it will be there when they wake up, wondering if they can squeeze the family in a 2-bedroom apartment or if they'll have to move back into their parents' basement. I thought about the fleeting moments of pride and joy that they had in their million dollar digs and how it's now juxtaposed with stress and shame and fear.

I'll probably always still want the big fancy house, and the little historic farmhouse but I'm glad that the house we have is somewhere in the middle. Simple and cozy. Affordable but nice. Big enough but not too big. A roof over our heads where we can love and enjoy each other more than we enjoy our stuff.

baby bangs

My daughter is a little hair-challenged. She is beautiful and perfect. But she kind of has a mullet. A baby mullet. So of course it caught my attention when I saw this commercial on the treadmill TVs at the gym. I didn't have my headphones in and I thought, "Surely, this is a joke. A parody." Right?

Oh no. It's for real. It's like a wig. With a headband. For BABIES. Or as their tagline says: for the girl who has everything...except hair. You know, because the trauma a 5-month-old will endure being mistaken for a boy - even when she's decked out head to toe in hot pink and flowers which means the people asking if she's a boy are completely oblivious morons - is just too cruel of a fate for young girls.

Even worse...apparently Tyra did a special on these...things. Maybe that explains her hideous 'do on this season's America's Next Top Model all-stars. Maybe she's rocking the baby-bangs. That may be my last straw with Tyra, which is saying a lot considering some of her horribly self-indulgent "acting" moments when she's welcoming the new contestents and the season where she wore pant-suits to every judging.

As for me and Sloane? We're sticking with the old-school chick-identification mechanisms. I glue a bow on her head every so often and make her wear at least one obviously pink item or a dress every day. And if she touches a truck or a football, I smack it out of her hand and replace it with a Barbie.

Maybe I'll start a Baby Bandana company.
Hard-core bandanas for baby girls with no hair
who don't want to look like the next-generation
of Toddlers & Tiaras.

spray tan or tan tan?

I finally cracked the other day and went to the dermatologist. Not because it had been 4 years since my last appointment. Nope. I’m obviously not a stickler for regular check-ups. I had this little blemish on my cheek that has been there since March and no matter how much Neosporin, Oxy10, hydrogen peroxide, zit buster or toothpaste I put on it, it wouldn’t go away. But I still ignored it. Eventually one of these miracle solutions was going to do the trick. So, I’m getting ready one morning, applying cover up to said blemish for about the 122nd time and Radio from Hell on X96 (my favorite radio program on my favorite radio station) is on in the background as it is every morning. It was the “Ask a…” feature and they just so happened to be interviewing a dermatologist about skin cancer. My ears perked up and what do you know? I found out that if you have a scaly blemish that won’t go away for some period of time it might be cancer. Shit. Really?  I made an appointment that day.

This is a good way to see the "spray tan." I was
the same color as my sister about 4 hours before
this photo. It's like magic. If you could zoom in, you
could probably get a good shot of all those 'nomas on my chest.

Turns out, that was no lie. It’s nothing major but that little sucker and a few similar scabby welts on my beleaguered chest just so happened to be some kind of pre-cancerous –nomas. Not melanoma. That’s the bad one, I think. But the kind where if you leave them alone long enough, they’ll turn into something bad and then you have to have half of your face surgically removed. So they “burned” them off which is kind of a funny term because they actually use liquid nitrogen so technically they are freezing them off. I’m not totally sure how that is some kind of preventative treatment but I’ll take their word for it. What I do know is it’s two weeks later and I still have the scabs.

So, being a responsible dermatologist, Dr. Nitrogen tells me I should wear my 50 SPF sunscreen every single day, everywhere, all over. Huh. Doesn’t that kind of seem like shutting the gate after the horses have escaped? I mean, let’s face it. I spent some quality time in my teens laying out in the sun with CRISCO for sunscreen. (I’m not alone on this one!) Sometimes, when that made me feel too much like of a piece of meat baking in the sun, I would switch to something more effective. Baby oil. And, even though you’d think I would have listened to all those warnings over the past 25+ years of basking in the sun, I rarely put sunscreen that’s higher than 8, except for my face which gets uber-protection. I don’t know why. Well, actually, I do. If I put anything higher than an 8 on my skin I don’t get tan. And I like being tan. But I don’t like being wrinkled.

Which leads me to this. I’ve been spray tanning for about the past year. No more tanning beds for me. I’ll bake in the sun but getting in that bed nowadays just seems dumb. Not to mention that I barely have time to pee most days so spending 30 minutes doing the tanning thing several times a week is just not an option. Spray tanning however? 15 minutes in and out, 15 bucks and I’m super, George Hamilton-tan in about 4 hours. I actually found out that there’s a celebrity tanning spectrum so you can see where you rank…au natural, I’m a 2. With the help of the spray tan, more like a 6-7. Not GTL but respectable. I’ve even started using this L’Oreal self tanner at home which also works really well for maintenance. But then I have to ask myself – how can whatever chemicals they use to turn your skin brown and stinky in a matter of hours possibly be any safer than the oh-so-natural sun with its Vitamin D and make-me-happy properties?

I’m not sure, but for now I guess I’m going to stick with it and hopefully avoid any more visits to Dr. Nitrogen.

writing muscles

My friend Jeff is a writer and he told me to write every day. That was Saturday. Today is Thursday. It’s the first day I’ve written. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to do something that I find so easy and fulfilling, something that is therapeutic and that I hope to make a career of someday. It’s kind of like going to the gym. It’s hard to get in a routine but once you’re hooked, it’s almost impossible to quit. Kind of like smoking for most people. Wouldn’t it be funny if they had to make a gym-otine patch to get people to quit working out. Hey, man! You’re getting too fit. What’s with the six pack? Dude, you need some help. I’ve got a support group you have to join.

So Jeff says, just write something – anything - every day. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just good practice for your writing muscles. You never have to show anybody. You don’t even have to save it. It’s just exercise. Letting your creativity stretch and get warmed up before the big race.

I kind of like it.

It reminds me of therapy after Steve (the first guy I thought I would marry) and I broke up. Barbara, a granola looking woman with frizzy brown hair and a kind of plain face, was my therapist. She always offered water and then supplied me with an itty-bitty Dixie cup chock full of lukewarm water. That’s not much liquid courage for an hour of self-reflection, is it? Barbara suggested that I write a daily journal to help me sort through all of the emotions of being dumped, to help me figure out who I was, who I had been and even more important who I wanted to be and how to get there. It was like a word game, a verbal map to the soul. So I did it. I wrote. And I healed. And she would ask me if I edited my thoughts as I put them down on paper. Duh. Of course I did. The reason why? Why would I feel as though I had to pretend, to hide or correct this raw expression of my thoughts and self. Uhhh, the obvious answer. What if someone read it?! What if someone figured out who I really was? What if they knew I had deep, dark thoughts, some that were not nice. Some that were just silly or cruel or that I had done some of the things I’ve done.

And, even worse, what if I was the one who figured out who I really was. Frightening thought for someone who had hidden inside a shell, a shadow, a shadow shell for almost her whole life. Always letting other people invent me. Sometimes I wonder if I still do that. There was a character on Star Trek once (bear in mind this is when I used to be a Trekkie because the guy I dated was a twice-a-day Star Trek junkie) who was called a Mesomorph and she basically became whatever her mate wanted her to be. If they liked WWF she was a great wrestler with a penchant for tight shiny spandex and body slams. If they were a foodie, she prepared amazing French cuisine with the perfect wine pairings. If I were on Star Trek, I’d be a Mesomorph. Which is actually probably better than being a Klingon or one of the green slimy chicks. So anyway, here it is, 13 years later and I wonder if this will be the true test. Can I write without editing? And then the bigger test, can I write and share it with people? Writing is somehow like dropping your pants and walking down the sidewalk. It allows people – the ones who know you best and the ones who know you not at all – to see who you really are. All the flaws, all the dimples in your butt, all the unshaven hair that you can usually hide under your clothes are hanging right out there for everyone to see, and critique, and relate to, and comment on. Like they say in Vegas, you’ve got to bet big to win big. Or is it, lose big to win big? I think I’ll stick with bet. Sounds a little more like I’ve got a chance to win with that one. Tomorrow, even more personal insights and growth…and another hour at the gym. Every literary workout deserves a corresponding physical exertion, don’t you think?

paranoia

Lake Powell is a beautiful and amazing place and oodles of fun. But there is no denying that it can be a dangerous place, if you're not careful. Especially for little kids. You hear about the tragic stories and your heart always breaks while you file the story away for future paranoia. But a couple of years before Tagg was born, we witnessed it first hand.

We were cleaning up our boat, Liquid Courage, in the slips on a sunny Sunday morning in October after a quiet, perfect, romantic weekend celebrating his birthday with just the two of us. All of a sudden people were running down the docks screaming "Kamberlie", asking if we had seen a 3-year-old little girl with blonde hair. We hadn't. The first time they ran by, we went back to cleaning and packing. But after the second fly-by, when the tension in their voices had ratcheted up and we figured that she maybe hadn't been wearing a life-jacket, the panic in the air was palpable and we joined the search, even jumping in the water and diving below the docks following little trails of bubbles. After 45 minutes or so of futile searching, the docks went eerily silent. Like the countryside in the mid-West before a tornado. Unnerving.

I will never forget looking across the slips to the houseboat where her family was. It was kaddy-corner from us, the boat was still pulled about half-way out of the slip so volunteer searchers could swim around the edges and under the boat. There was a young blonde man on the top deck, head in his hands, staring bleakly at the water below. It's a picture that I will never, ever forget. The traumatic certainty. The indescribable despair. The unspeakable guilt. They all twined together to form a perfectly tragic tableau that I am certain that young man and his family did not deserve. Scott and I ran away. Fast. We did not want to be there for the inevitable. Hope had rushed from those docks so quickly that she pulled the very air you breathe with her and left only an unquestionable vacuum of tragedy in her place. As we race to our car, they gave us a lost child flyer and then searched our car as we left the park. The divers found her body a week later. Like the picture of that man on the top of the houseboat, Kamberlie's name and smiling blonde mischievous face is etched in my memory for all time.

So, needless to say, the thought of taking our precious 1- and 3-year-old babies to the lake was nothing short of terrifying. How do you keep them safe for a whole week with all of the water which is hundreds of feet deep in places, the engines with their carbon monoxide fumes, the heat, the bugs (you remember the Arachnophobia story, right?), the slides, the cliffs, the sun...so many hidden dangers for a paranoid mom! Heck, our nephew found out the hard way a few years ago that he had a pretty sever peanut allergy. One stray peanut M and M, 3 hours from medical help and we were dousing him with Benadryl and hoping we wouldn't be summoning LifeFlight. You just never know.

So we debated not even bringing the kids, but it's a family trip and we are all family. So that's when it's time to kick in it into parenting overdrive. So we got geared up...the more shit you have, in my opinion, the safer you will be, so we:

• ...bought two little Pea Pod sleeping tents from One Step Ahead so the kids would be confined at night - no sleep-walking out the back door and into the water. We'll deal with the therapy for fear of confined spaces later. The tents were awesome! The kids actually had a ball playing in them before and after night time. And they fold up to the size of an over-sized Frisbee. Highly recommended!
• ...brought carrying-slash-containment devices...the Maya wrap and a Baby Bjorn backpack. Perfect for Sloane. I would face her out from my chest in the backpack so she could see what was going on and still have my hands free to help put stuff away or grab Tagg's hand. And the Maya sling is great if you want to put the baby on your hip but still have use of your hands. And sometimes your sad little biceps just get tired of holding 25 pound babies on your hips.
• ...invested in some Toddler Tethers. I only say "invested" because much like the stock market, sometimes you put money in expecting a great value and you don't get much out of it. The little wrist strap was okay for Sloane who just couldn't wear her lifejacket 24x7 (believe me, I tried. it's just mean), hates holding hands because she's so independent and loves to run...straight for the water. The tethers gave her a little freedom for our evening walk on the sandstone to throw rocks and gave me a head-start if she bolted for the water with no officially-sanctioned flotation device. Which she did. 
  
  For Tagg, we had heard that people strap one end from kid-ankle to adult-ankle...just in case. But between the tent and the fact that he was utterly exhausted every single night, we never needed to worry about more confinements for him. Frankly, I wouldn't buy these again. Not easy to clip on to a life jacket and you don't seem to get much more value than if you just tied a rope to your kid or hooked them up to a dog leash. 
• ...overpacked sunscreen, bug spray and 1st aid kits. Plus a book about how to deal with emergency toddler medical issues. Shut up. I didn't have cell service so no access to Google and WebMD, which usually help me function as my own cheap physician. We did find out that the foaming Coppertone Waterbabies sunscreen is a huge hit with the kids. They will put this stuff on, by themselves, all day long. Tagg still begs for it. Mwahahaha! Evil plans at work.

So we had plenty of safety gear but frankly, I think it's mostly just having our paranoid-parent antenna up and at high alert all day and all night long, all the time. Your radar is constantly scoping the surrounding area for potential danger - they could fall off that, eat that, go underwater there, skin's looking a little too pink, where's the hat, when did you last drink water or juice. You screech "NO," "STOP," "CAREFUL," and holler cautions all the live-long day. Diversionary tactics are key. Leave the death-trap, sweetie, and come play with some cottonballs. Wait. Dammit. Those are bad too, if you put them in your mouth!

The parental relay was in high-efficiency mode. Me: You have Tagg? I have Sloane. Scott: Yes. I have Tagg. You have Sloane? Me: Yes." And then you're on duty till the next hand-off.

I'm a pretty paranoid person on a good day, but this was like Olympic-quality baby patrolling. But the good news is that we made in through the trip without one sunburn, one band-aid...not even a diaper rash. Very happy about that!

So we got back from the Lake and we were both exhausted! I wonder how soon we will be able to wind down and get back to normal. Or maybe this is the new normal.

happy birthday, mom!

 

Today is my beautiful mother's birthday. I am not sure how old she is and I don't really care. She is not defined by the number of years in my eyes, but by the love and patience and humor and joy she shares with everyone around her every year.

Having a Michael Jackson moment at
the Grand Canyon, before there was such a thing as
Michael Jackson moments. This may explain my fear of edges,
and my love of red sandstone cliffs.

I was looking through old pictures tonight, after running into mom and dad sharing a lovely, romantic dinner at Tuscany, and I can't always remember the moments or the outfits or the events but I do remember so clearly the love. Mom taught me to cook, to sew, to love reading and 50s music, to appreciate a good crossword puzzle. She has been an inspiration for patience and unconditional love and dedication.

I'm not sure who was teaching who how to cook
in this one. And, why-oh-why, was I always wearing a
mid-riff belly shirt?

I love her quilts, every stitch is an "I love you." I love her blue eyes which transmit clarity and honesty. I love her hands, which have always hugged us and shared and created with us and led all of us to be good people, and now they do the same for our grandchildren.

I love my mom's jacket, the three Xmas stockings and
the fact that the shit-eating grin on my face
in this picture is identical to the one Sloane gives me.
I think they call that "paybacks." 

Mom with her girls in 2010.

Family cruise in Cabo...those ARE my kids!

I love that she taught us to draw and paint, and do puzzles, and crochet and needlepoint, and make pottery, and plant flowers and plants, and bake bread and iron everything from shirtsleeves to pillow cases. I love her potato salad and Thanksgiving dinner and french breakfast muffins and that she gives my dad shit when she beats his ass at cards and that she gets tipsy off two glasses of wine or one margarita shooter with the sombrero on and a whistle-blowing amigo shaking her head when we're in Cabo. I love that she will rock out a Wii wakeboarding run or hula-hooping and just as easily makes Jello, feeds you Sprite and puts a cool rag on your head when you have a fever.

Mom with her next-generation girls (notably Ute fans) in 2010.

I love that she hand-made us angel food cakes with custom frosting for every single birthday and hid Easter egg baskets for us until we were in our 30s. I love that she drew paper dolls for us and helped us make dresses and outfits for them to wear with the little tabs.  I love that she is a more passionate football and basketball fan than most guys I know. I love that she has 300 snowmen and Santa Clauses and her house looks like a Christmas shoppe (intentional E on the end) during the holidays. I love that she tells me I am a good mom and a good wife and a good person and that I see pride in her eyes when she looks at me.

Happy birthday, mom. I love you more than you know.

we call it the muppet tree but...

...but seriously. What the hell is this?

After some research (thanks Google) it seems to be a Cotinus coggygria also known as a smoke tree. Which is actually a shrub. Whatever. It looks like something out of a wacky cartoon or a sci fi movie. Weirdest tree I've ever seen. I was totally ready to rip it out but now that it has a name besides "weird muppet tree" I'm kind of digging it. It is nothing if not unique!