10 things I learned from my mother

I didn't shower today. I spent the day in my gym clothes; I cleaned the house and and went for a hike. At about 8:00 PM I headed into the bedroom to fold clothes and remembered it was clean pajamas day. And then I realized I could NOT put on clean jammies without first taking a shower. I learned this from my mother. Saturday was the day we changed sheets in my childhood household, which meant we all got baths on Saturday, so we didn't crawl into our fresh sheets with dirty bodies.

Here are ten more lessons I learned from my mother:

 1. It is a waste to throw away moldy food or bruised produce. Try scraping the mold first or cutting out the bad part before sacrificing the food.
 2. Sticking your finger in hot candle wax is a federal offense, because it can burn off your fingerprints. And everyone is required by law to have fingerprints. (This is similar to the "Swallowed gum is never digested; if you continue to swallow gum it will eventually pile up in your body and pop your head off" lesson.)
 3. One isn't *really* sick unless one has a fever or is bleeding from the head. And then it is SERIOUS.
 4. Snickers are the most delicious of the commercial candy bars.
 5. Conformity is not admirable (neither are ostentatious displays of wealth).
 6. Charity - real or perceived - is admirable.
 7. Never pack a cooler for a day trip. Lunch meat, cheeses and other items get unappetizingly soaked.
 8. Be conscious of what underpants you are wearing under what article of clothing; patterned panties under light clothes is tacky.
 9.  Polite slang for a penis is a "horn." (You interpret this. My mom can't explain it.)
10. Homemade cookies are more delicious and virtuous than store bought. In fact, homemade anything is more delicious and/or virtuous than store bought.

Bucket List, you're mine!

I have a vaguely defined goal of seeing all of the 58 official national parks in the U.S. So far I've seen eleven. And, by the end of June I think my life list will jump to fifteen. BMG and I are planning a stateside driving vacation in June - from Miami to Boston. Here is the list of parks we think we can hit:

• Biscayne National Park - 95% of the park is underwater so we'll snorkel and kayak for a day.

• From there we'll head north, swing through Savannah GA, Charleston SC (and Fort Sumter National Monument), before turning west and heading to Congaree National Park in South Carolina. 

• After exhausting this national reserve, we hope to drive inland to hit the most popular park in the system, the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which offers beautiful vistas of eastern Tennessee and the western Carolinas.

• Shenandoah National Park - Classic forests in the Eastern US just south of DC - geocaching for geologic treasures is a featured activities.

From there we hit the metropolitan Washington DC region, which is rife with national monuments, landmarks, historic sites, battlefields and other locations that are dedicated to permanently sharing the natural history of the continent, and telling story of the America as she was settled by Europeans. Thank you President Wilson for creating the National Park Service.

If we can get through this itinerary, I can bring my national park list list to more than 25% of the parks (and all of the parks on the eastern seaboard). Bucket list, you ARE mine!

***

Have you been to any of the parks on the June to do list? What do you recommend we see?

Any parks you've been to that are not yet on my tic list. Which do you recommend I definitely make time to visit. Why?

I hate religious hypocrisy

I am not an actively religious person. I am an atheist on most days, and deeply and sincerely respect the religious beliefs of others. My religious experiences have been largely Christian, Jewish, and Unitarian Universalist. I deeply embraces the values embodied in all gods and goddesses - loving kindness, respect for others & self, reverence for the power of people and the planet.

This preamble is intended to set the backdrop for why I was so INCENSED today - Easter Sunday - when someone on Twitter positioned himself as too respectful of the holiness of the day to have an honest discussion about a multi-year grudge he is holding against someone else. THREE tweets later (apparently not too holy a day to ignore me) this self-proclaimed righteous Easter celebrant said the reason he couldn't forgive was because the offender never apologized to him.

Hello hypocrite. Do you know the Christian message of Easter? Surely even the twice a year Christians remember the Sunday School lessons that taught us that Jesus died for our sins. And in so sacrificing His Son, God was forgiving us for the wrongs we had done to Him and each other. The very point of Easter is the spiritual wiping of the slate. No questions asked. All Christians have to do is accept Jesus in their heart and...voila! Forgiveness! God doesn't require an apology to forgive his believers. So this person's Twitter proclamation of it being in poor form to discuss another's sins against him - on Easter of all days - merely tells me this person is 100% missing the point of the holiday.

I'm not in a position to comment on the multi-year grudge - I don't know the back story. But simultaneously claiming religiosity AND a fundamental misunderstanding of Easter makes me wonder what other points the grudge holder is feeling.

That is all.

(Please don't die.)

BMG's surgery is tomorrow. I don't want him to die.

If I'm blessed and he doesn't die, I also want him to be completely cured of what ails him.

That is all.

Woof woof!

If I were a dog I think I'd be a Tibetan Spaniel. Or maybe a pug. I may just be saying that because I love pugs, but maybe I love pugs because I could be one. The American Kennel Club describes pugs as "multim in parvo" which means "a lot of dog in a small space." That COULD describe me. Look at this cute dog. They are longer than they are tall, have fluffy chests and bottoms, and described as intelligent and aloof. I COULD be a Tibetan Spaniel.

I've been thinking about this because I've had a body image breakthrough.

I haven't done any interviews, but I'm pretty sure that greyhounds don't ever wish they were chihuahuas. Because that would never happen. A greyhound is a greyhound and a chihuahua is a chihuahua. Period. They are both dogs, but their bodies are constrained by their breeds. Dogs can't change their diet, exercise more, or have a procedure done to become a different breed.

I think there should be different breeds of the human species. If there were I think it would help people like me, people who struggle with trying to make their bodies look like something they are not, understand that there is a limited range within which their bodies can change. That's not to say that a person can't be more or less healthy within her breed, but an apple shaped woman will never look like Kate Moss, and a woman of short stature will never look like Charlize Theron.

Unbeknownst to my parents, my experience of my childhood cultivated in me what I once thought was an inherent and permanent hatred of my body. In the beauty of my middle age I know this isn't the case. But it sure is easy to slip back into the old patterns of self-loathing.

I'm buoyed by the notion that I'm the human equivalent of a Tibetan Spaniel. Now when I see a person whose hair or abs or nose I covet, I assign them a breed. And when I do this I tell myself that I admire the breed, but I'm a Tibetan Spaniel and I'll always be a Tibetan Spaniel.

It helps.

*****
What dog breed would you be if you were a dog? Visit the American Kennel Club website to learn more about dog breeds, and share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Diving Down a Ladder

I'm swimming with people who are as familiar to me as my closest friends, but are in fact known to me only through work. We are swimming in a pond in the high desert of Utah or Colorado. Red mud as dry as stone surrounds the base of the natural pool and the water is warm. The area is deserted and our cries of delight echo off canyon walls that surround our swimming hole. One of the women in the crowd enters an opening in a nearby cliff wall, and emerges from a cave one story up and perhaps 15 feet from the edge of the pond. Unfurling a brilliant royal shawl she yells, "We need more purple!" and prepares to dive from the cave into the pool.

Sensing danger I yell, "I can do a back flip!" And I do a back flip in the water, elegantly arcing my back and dipping my body back into the water. The force of my reverse dive is tremendous and I feel my self continue to sink towards the bottom of the pond. I keep sinking. And sinking. I start to panic. "Does this pool have no bottom? Oh my god what if I just keep going? Will I reverse course and begin to float back to the top before I run out of air?" I try to physically alter my path but the momentum of dive forces me to keep moving downward rather than upwards. I am frantic and try to soothe myself by saying, "No one has ever dived forever. You will eventually slow down. When you do you can get to the top. You will be fine."

*****

This is the second anxiety dream I've had in the last week that involves a panicked response to diving into what is, unknown to me, a bottomless pool in a desert.  It is a beautifully transparent anxiety dream, so transparent that it delights me. It also takes place in a location I consider to be a peaceful and tranquil space, the high desert of the Western U.S. I love that my subconscious is thoughtful enough to transport my sleepy manifestations of stress to a place that soothes me, to a place that compels me to slow down. And, if that weren't enough, a part of my who is witnessing the panic has the presence to use words to help me calm down, to recognize my own power, and simply say "You will be fine."

This new dream is a sign of growth. My anxiety dreams USED to involve climbing up and down wooden ladders. Any kind of ladder. I remember a long ago dream about climbing rigging on the exterior surface of a submarine in the dark. There was another than involved racing back and forth across a hotel atrium and six story glass windows, and eventually climbing to the top of one and not being able to get down. I was often with strangers in strange places taking unexplainable actions - all fraught with fear of falling, fear of what I would find when I finished my steps down or trip up the ladder.

*****

What do you dream of when your psyche needs to be rid of negative energy?

#Fail (or my 2012 flower buying adventure), by Clownface

For sentimental reasons, BMG and I decided to send flowers to his mother for Valentine's Day this year. (We picked out the flowers BMG's dad gave to his mother last Valentine's Day, which was their last Valentine's Day before he died.)

I gullibly decided to take advantage of the WBUR offer to make a donation in exchange for having Winston's long stemmed roses sent to BMG's mom. I haven't donated to this public radio station in a while, so it seemed like a win-win.

After four failed attempts to make a donation through the radio station I quit. Instead I ordered flowers through my credit card shopping portal. 1/2 the price, and zero the hassle.

Here's how it went.

Try #1 - Thursday night, on my computer at home
I enter my "MIL's" address into their portal to validate it - a required step in the donation process. Alas, I make a mistake (unbeknownst to me) and they won't validate the address. Although I am given the option of proceeding anyway, I am afraid the flowers wouldn't get to their final destination so I abandon the process.

Try #2 - Friday night, using 3G in a restaurant bar
I pull up the radio station's web address on my iPhone, using the Safari browser/app. I am directed to their news portal immediately. No obvious link to their "Support us" portal on the mobile site. At the bottom of the page, in tiny print, I find "Switch to full site" link. So I switch to the full site. I find a "Support us" button and am redirected to a portal where there is no option to order flowers through the radio station. I abandon the process.

Try #3 - Saturday morning, using my wireless iPad at home
I click on the radio station's app on my iPad. I click the "Support Us" button and am redirected to a page promoting their Fall 2011 pledge drive. I abandon the process.

At this point I remember the radio station send me appeal letters to the home I share with my boyfriend of five years, addressed to me and my ex-boyfriend. Afraid, through the power of databases, that the flowers sent through the radio station to BMG's mom might come "from Clownface and her ex-boyfriend" I decide to call the radio station to make the pledge/place the order. "If I talk to a person I can make sure my name is changed in the database," thinks I.

Try #4 - Saturday morning, using a telephone
After nosing around the public radio stations website, I find a phone number (again, small print). I call. The phone room is noisy and the person who answers has an accent indicating she may not speak English as her first language.

She asks for my name.

I say it.

"Would you like to spell that for me?"

"No, but I imagine YOU would like me to spell it for YOU."

I spell my first name - eight letters. She reads it back using the military phonetic alphabet. Two errors (25%). I correct them.

I spell my last name - six letters. She reads it back using the military phonetic alphabet. One error (18%). I correct them.

Realizing this interaction may not have the desired results of efficiently placing the most correct donation/pledge, I abandon the process.

And then I visit my credit card's shopping portal. In under 10 minutes I browse several arrangements, choose two dozen pink roses, and complete the order online. The cost is 1/2 of what the radio station donation would have been, I get an extra benefit on my credit card, and I feel good about the gift for BMG's mom.

Sorry public radio. Sorry philanthropy. Your ability to meet my needs using four available technologies all failed.