The Powers of Observation

I just finished reading a collection of essays by E.B. White and ended up feeling like a complete loser by the time I was done. Like a loser who has done nothing and seen nothing and been nowhere. Not that this was a high adventure collection; mostly it was observational stuff about New York, Maine, Florida. Birds and woodland creatures. A dachshund. He threw in a few misspent youth stories, just to underscore some perilous experiences that hadn’t already occurred to me that I’ve missed out on by playing it safe for most of my adult life. I’m totally sure that’s why he included them. But mostly he didn’t directly write about himself. He wrote about the people and commonplace things around him, and he did this wryly and with specificity, and well enough that he was able to make a very successful full time living at it. I hate him a little bit. And I love him.

I’ve moved on to Thoreau now, whom I’ve learned E.B. White deeply admired and emulated to a certain degree. Where I believe he branched away from Thoreau was on the topic of humanity; Thoreau did not value humanity as highly as the world of nature, I’ve heard it said, and White found this wrongheaded. I like a man with a strong opinion. Hopefully I will find the inner wherewithal to draw my own conclusions after reading him myself, but chances are I will then double check them on Google.

When I say I played it safe, what I mean is I’ve lived my life in the complete opposite way than I intended to when I was 17 and planning my future. Literary career? Nope. Finance. Loft apartment in NYC, furnished in all white and chrome? Try a garrison on a cul de sac in small town New England, thirty miles from where those dreams were dreamed, and no nice things until the cat dies. Glamorous cocaine habit? (Remember, it was the 80s when I thought this all up. Cocaine habits seemed very glamorous at the time.) Reality: never touched the stuff, not interested, score one for coming to my senses. A stream of wealthy men acting as my personal patron of the arts with no strings attached? Journals brimming with exotic travel, exotic meals, exotic missteps, and astounding revelations? How about Motherosity and marriage, an unstamped passport, and last night I tried a new recipe from Cooking Light that turned out pretty well; next time I’ll use black olives instead of green ones.

I don’t know how these diversions in the road happen, but they seem to happen to a lot of people. Sometimes mine feels tragic, but fortunately most of the time I appreciate where I’ve ended up. E. B. White seemed to enjoy life without a lot of exotica, and found things to write about to boot, right? He would have made a terrific blogger. Maybe it’s time to see things differently. Maybe it’s time to see things, period. So here goes.

This morning I attended a meeting in a room with poor lighting and walls painted orange. They served breakfast, which I passed on, but I enjoyed the fragrant aroma of Tabasco sauce and ketchup on nearby eggs throughout the meeting. A woman in her fifties seated three chairs down from me sported several unfortunate streaks of blue and green and pink dye in the undertow of her hair which gave the effect of mold on faded blonde. She was a skincare specialist, she told us. This information merely enhanced the folly of the mold colors. I don’t remember what the actual meeting was about; however, it ended on time, which I respected, but at an hour that required me to park 97 rows from the building at work, which I will not enjoy later. And now, look at that, it’s later. Time to go and observe some things elsewhere.

Things Are Going Just As I Always Pictured Them

I think it's terrific how, as teenagers, we were encouraged to think we were the architects of our future.  That's right, little Christina (I knew about ninety Christinas in my era), just work hard and dream big, and you can write your own ticket!  The world is your oyster - well, yours and your husband Mike's (also ninety Michaels, they all seemed to be named Michael).    Whatever you want to be, you can be!  See the world!  Have the career of your dreams!  The sky is the limit!  It was all about jobs and fulfilling ambitions and that Thoreauvian Suck-The-Marrow-Out-Of-Life crap they made into a movie.

I admit, I bought into it.  I saw that movie more than once.  I even bought the movie.  For inspiration.  And to share with my own kids once they became teenagers.  Oh wait, kids?  I don't recall anyone mentioning kids during all of that dreamy brainwashing.  Motherosity?  Nope, didn't come up.  Not once.  Why would it?  We were supposed to be circling the globe, conquering new worlds, marvelling at how beautiful we all were.  Kids were what our parents had, those old farts.  We were better than that.

 So obviously, given all that fastidious planning and drive early on in life, I've just had yet another stellar weekend.  First, I spent a very restful Friday night sitting on the bleachers at Boondocks High, spectating for a middle school cheer competition.  There were a lot of kids there.  Not sure where they all came from.  On all sides of me were seated my fellow beautiful world conquerors, dressed in various sports jerseys and sucking on straws stuck into 80 ounce plastic cups, cups surely filled with the marrow of life.  I wasn't sure how I got there, really, until I remembered that one of those kids down there was mine.  Her team did well and placed second.  I was proud of them, but not so noticeably as some of the female Tom Bradys seated nearby me were disappointed in the results for their own kids' teams.

Saturday morning brought more cheer.  More kids.  More parents.  More bleachers.  Seventh Grader's team took second again!  Naturally.   With all this victory in the air, you'd think it was just another day in my amazing life, and you'd be right.  Because then I did what all those of my generation do after yet another (yawn!) inevitable win: I went grocery shopping.  And then! I engaged in a battle of Actions Reap Consequences with Seventh Grader, who was grounded, despite her athletic victories, for numerous homework violations. Fighting with teenagers over completing book projects on time was totally in my master plan for the future, so you know. As was having my head chewed off by Freshman, who had been busy all weekend with volunteer activities for her own cheer team and was clearly exhausted but this did not stop her from expecting to do whatever she wanted to do on Saturday night. I said no, you can't go out, and I paid the price. The price being whatever peace and quiet I thought I had coming for the remainder of the night. All in the plan. 

Sunday Funday: Freshman fight hangover, meet birthday party for four year old nephew. Apparently, my sister has a bunch of kids too. Not in my manual for the future, either, but by this time I know that a few chapters seem to have been skipped on the syllabus. Superheroes and balloons and many, many children, plus cake. Cake was certainly in the plan all along, but not necessarily with animal superheroes on it. Then again, everyone's entitled to a few "this never happened" memories, so maybe some crazy exotic night of imbibing with the beautiful people would have resulted in superhero cake being consumed in the original architecture. But we'll never know now, will we? Because I'm so damn tired from this weekend full of kids that I missed my alarm this morning, and was almost late for my glamorous job. In an office, with a computer and a water cooler. And a Keurig. Keurigs I did not see coming.

SnowMaGetMeOutofHere

Two feet of snow landed in these parts over the weekend.  My facebook newsfeed is littered with updates from sick-in-the-head snow lovers frolicking - with sleds and skis and frisky, adventure-seeking dogs - in the special white hell outside my window.  They find this fun, while I find myself at the absolute peak of cantankerous.  The peak!  I tell you.  It isn't pretty. 

But you know, to each his own.  If some people find being boxed inside a cold, washed out, colorless world for months on end to be the epitome of childlike joy, I guess I can't stop them from entertaining this delusionary idea.  And I don't try to, really.  I don't rain on their parade.  (Although I daresay that if I did, it might serve to wipe that snow-eating grin off their faces for a little while when they realize they have to first bite through the frozen topcrust to reach the fluffy fun underneath.)  So why, please tell me, on top of being cold and cranky and nearly colorblind from the complete lack of any tint in the atmosphere other than gray and brown and white, why must I be shamed?  Why must people try to change my mind?  Why must I look at the bright side?  Where exactly is that, anyway?  All I see is gray.  Is it bright somewhere?  I just changed the lightbulb over the washing machine, is that what they mean?  It's only a 40 watter.  Not very bright.  They're not trying to trick me into doing their laundry for them, are they? 

So I spent 72 hours cooped up at home with Husband, Freshman and Seventh Grader and truly made a valiant effort to spin it into a less than torturous experience.  Finished the book I was reading.  Cooked cheese and cream and potatoes all mixed up together and served up the resulting Pan of Comfort over many hours of nighttime board games.  Had Pan of Comfort seconds.  Had thirds.  Read the Freshman's assigned novel cover to cover, plus two newspapers.  Exerted a reasonably large amount of energy demanding that Husband devise a solution to the problem of me wanting to drive the fireplace poker into my temple rather than spend another minute fending off my claustrophobic case of cabin fever.  That was most likely the heavy doses of Pan of Comfort talking.  It turns out that eating large quantities of potatoes and cheese no longer creates an inner feeling of comfort for me.  It does create an inner feeling.  Just not that one.

Poor Husband.  He tries.  He took me for a walk.  It was outside.  I was cold.  It actually wasn't bad, to be honest.  The snow had stopped and the wind had temporarily died down, and some faint kind of yellowish glow from the sky reflected off the whiteness everywhere, rendering me blind so that I had to rely on him to keep me from meandering into the middle of the road and getting hit by a car.  It was like he was taking his pet mole out for some fresh air.  His legs are about twenty times longer than mine, so it was really more like a frantic scurry for me, enhanced with cold and blindness.  It was nice.  Then we went back home, and the madness descended upon me all over again. 

Now I'm reading The Road, which happened to be one of the few remaining unread books on my shelf and what I pulled down upon regaining my sight and needing something else to do so I wouldn't hurt anyone.  It was either read another book or eat all six of the chocolate pudding cups in the refrigerator, which I decided wouldn't feel so good on top of the lingering Pan of Comfort experience.  Did I choose well?  Considering I now find myself 100 pages into a novel about a post-apocalyptic world of gray ash and blackened trees and people wrapping plastic and ripped up coats on their feet to serve as "shoes" while they try to survive?  Um. 

Tonight will be better.  Tonight I will eat vegetables and not look out the window.  I will find something to watch on TV that features palm trees and blue skies.  I will not snarl.  I may toss The Road into the fireplace.  That will feel good, and will be warm.  It will be all right.

Two More Weeks Til the Super Bowl

I've just finished reading The Elements of Style for fun. That should sufficiently catch us all up on the thrill ride that is my life since I last tended to my blog. No doubt the construction of that last sentence also makes clear that I could probably stand to read it again, and perhaps this time I should take notes. Or, I don't know, maybe that's just my grammar paranoia showing. Maybe the sentence stands in completely correct form. At any rate, who knew that "finalize" is not a proper word but a bastardization borne of business-speak? Maybe everyone knows that. Or that "enormity" should only be used to express a sense of monstrous wickedness? Or that too much can be asked of a hyphen? 

Actually, hyphens are a particular pet peeve of mine, so I was on board with this sentiment. This morning I reacted with grinding teeth to the hypheniza...tion...I've lost confidence that I have just used a real word, but anyway, the word "powers" was used in a news article by a newspaper of strong repute, but was split like so:

 "power-
  s".

 Really, newspaper of strong repute? Have you no pride? You sicken me. I had to go with "you sicken me" because I still cannot keep straight the difference between "nauseous" and "nauseated", even after being schooled by Misters Strunk and White. For decades I have laid claim to feeling nauseous, when it turns out that is incorrect usage. Maybe it's a true statement, I don't know. I guess I'm asking. Have I been 'sickening to contemplate'? I did recently suffer a week's worth of upset stomach, but I don't believe anyone has contemplated me with said effect.

What this really boils down to is I am putting off watching football playoffs, which it appears I won't be able to put off for much longer. Husband has popped his head in here three times since the first game started to see what I was up to. "I'm finishing my book" only worked twice, since it was about a six page-long book, so I've resorted to "I'm writing my blog!" This inspired a disbelieving raise of eyebrows, but it was the truth. Really. I wrote my blog! But now I guess I am out of excuses. I can probably poke around in the kitchen for a few minutes, making an elaborate show of preparing potatoes for baking. But then I will for sure be doomed to yet another Sunday evening of sports-watching. God help me. There better be a stellar Downton Abbey episode waiting on that DVR for me later.

Winter. Rhymes With Splinter.

It has finally snowed. The trees look pretty. Now if it can begin the melting process, life will be good.

I hate winter. ...I guess I don't need to sugarcoat it like that, after all we're probably all adults. If winter were a person, I would hire Casino-style gangsters to surround it and reduce it to bloody wreckage using blunt weapons. No need to even drag it out to the desert first. Just let it bleed out right in its own frosty creation. It is the most despicable time of the year, and I have been in an increasingly foul mood since it began.

Reasons I would execute winter:

Snow sucks. Snow has served no purpose in my life since the fifth grade. We're talking nearly thirty years of pointlessness. Sure, I faked it when the Tornadoes were young enough to think frolicking in it for hours until their toes turned blue was fun. Those were the occasions when I snuck back inside the house at the earliest possible opportunity and waved all further encouragement to them through the window, watching from my nice, warm, dry vantage point as they gleefully crashed their sleds into the thorny bush at the bottom of the hill.

Snow Days suck. Did someone not tell the school system that Christmas vacation falls during winter? Is it really necessary to roll the dice like that and close school for a week when, inevitably, we are going to end up with another kajillion days off due to inclement weather? I say once the stockings are emptied, kids should get themselves to the freaking bus stop and go learn something. They'll get their time off, and it will suck. Maybe if we cancel Christmas vacation, though, I'll be less likely to tear their heads off on snow days when they ask if they can have all their friends over. But probably not, because the point, see, is that it snowed a whole freaking lot. And so driving is prohibitive. And I don't feel like risking my life to get your friends over here so they can empty our pantry of all the things that were supposed to last until next Thursday, when I will next be able to buy more groceries. But that's fine. We'll just eat saltines until then.

Being cold is hateful. Some idiot once said to me that they would rather be cold than hot because you can always put on more layers until you are no longer cold, but there is only so much you can do to cool off. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The smartest thing I've ever heard is "Let's buy a condo in Miami!" (It was only slightly smarter than when he said "Marry me!" but quite a lot smarter than when he said "Facebook is just a silly fad.") Sadly, we haven't bought a condo in Miami, because our house is full of expensive teenagers. So for now I must settle for piling on sweaters, because the only other solution for bone-weary coldness is to just go to bed and hibernate, and I can't do that. Because my house is full of teenagers.

If I continue enumerating the reasons that winter deserves to die, my foul mood will soar to heights from which I may not be able to return. Therefore, instead I extend this offer. To anyone who wishes to give me a free condominium in Miami, I will return the favor by giving something of equal or lesser value. Perhaps you need help figuring out how to use your new smartphone. Or maybe you are longing to provide for someone who will completely ignore your existence. Or you could have a lot of extra food lying about that you will just have to recklessly throw away if someone doesn't come by and hoover it all up. The answer to your dilemma is teenagers. And I know just where to get you some.

Working From Home, or Reindeer Are Ugly

Now that we have achieved a safe rear view distance from the mayhem of the Christmas season, lovely and magical though it was, I can begin thinking clearly again. Due to the arduous demands of overspending online and wrapping mass-produced items in paper with friendly/adorable reindeer printed on it, trivial things like thinking clearly and eating leafy green vegetables are set aside between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to be resumed only once the shredded scraps of four-dollars-per-roll reindeer paper have been disposed of and the mass-produced items held within have been assimilated without a trace into the overabundant collection of mass-produced items that everyone already owned. Now, finally, I can have a salad and reflect.

Strike that. School vacation. Continued mayhem, different flavor.

The Tornadoes are at that adorable age where they can neither be left to their own devices while I go to the office nor have any desire to spend a waking minute in the company of anyone older than themselves. This makes for a truly touching experience. Instead of spending this week engaged in quality activities with them, or putting on attractive clothes and leaving them in the paid care of others while I interact with other adults all day, both of which evoke fond memories of Christmas vacations past, I will pass the next several days ricocheting between pointlessly staring at the screens of my remote access workstation, knowing full well that I can't actually accomplish anything this way, and being coldly ignored by my own children in favor of a stream of other people's kids who are apparently never fed anything at their own homes.

Oh sure, I suppose I can still use this time to reflect. As long as none of my thoughts require more than three seconds to complete, as that is about how much time elapses between teenagers throwing open the pantry door to rustle every packaged food product inside before grabbing something and walking away with the door left open. I will repeatedly tear myself away from staring uselessly at my work screens to close that damn door and then yell uselessly down the stairs that the kitchen is now closed, dammit, and then I will return to staring uselessly at my work screens. Perhaps on my journeys from desk to pantry door, I will reflect. But before you start framing up helpful hints about reducing the quantity of packaged food choices and replacing it with healthier options that we can all prepare together, to the health and bonding benefit of all, let me point out that I've used the word "adorable" twice in an ironic manner, once to describe reindeer and another time the Tornadoes. In the last twenty-seven days, neither of them (the Tornadoes, that is, I can't speak for the reindeer) has turned down a single proffered sugar-laden baked treat. Trust me, they are not adorable right now. (Still the Tornadoes. Although, if you have ever seen an actual reindeer, well.) I will eat my hastily prepared salad over the kitchen sink in solitude, if it's all the same to you.

I have to leave you now, because it is time for the bright spot of my week. I have to place a call to my employer's tech help desk, located in an overfriendly Midwestern state, to seek assistance getting remote access set up on my new laptop. I can't wait to talk to an over friendly midwesterner. It might be the only cheerful voice directed at me that I hear all week.

The Fifty-Seventh Happiest Place On Earth (Approximately)

Last weekend, my Groom excitedly escorted me to his thirty year high school reunion. Here is where I pause, so as to recover from the multiple mind-blowing facts packed into that declarative sentence.

Anyway, we don't get out much these days. So preparing for this momentous evening entailed many wardrobe changes, hair adjustments, makeup applications, and checking of the profile in the mirror accompanied by the traditional sucking-in-of-the-stomach. Me, I just threw on some jeans and hung out on Facebook until he was ready. I kid!

(This is pretty dicey territory, you know. My Groom is generally not too thrilled about blogness featuring, well, him. But in fairness, he pretty much knew five minutes into the reunion that he would wind up here.)

We both cleaned up pretty thoroughly and put on something nice and drove for what felt like three and a half days to meet up with all of his old football buddies. I am not at all kidding when I tell you that my Groom was giddy with anticipation.

The reunion was held in the dingy back room of a dingy restaurant which probably should have given up about a decade ago, judging by the decor. Apparently, this is where all of the reunions have been held. The deterioration was painfully obvious even to those of us who had never been there before. And I haven't even gotten to the attendees yet. We were greeted in the dark parking lot by a woman and her husband out grabbing a last minute smoke before heading in to "face the music" as she put it. She immediately recognized my Groom. Sadly, he did not recognize her. Inside the lobby/pizza buffet area, we collected our name tags and a stapled alumni directory. On the directory cover we were pronounced "Blue and White Sponsors" of the reunion. My Groom confessed that he had "added a little extra" to the ticket charge to help with the exorbitant cost of putting on the event. My Groom is especially fond of attracting appreciation in an understated manner. I love this about him, partly because it often lends itself to comic moments of revealed naivety about what other people value. Like high school reunions, for instance.

Out of a graduating class of about three hundred, twenty-four made an appearance. I would say the overriding theme of the night for most of those present was Closure. Football buddies? Not so much. Mostly people to whom football players did not give the time of day. Just about everyone remembered my Groom. My Groom, however, recalled about five of them. Heads of hair? Also not so much. Plenty of big, round bellies, though. And lots and lots of Old. Old as far as the eye could see, which wasn't all that far since everyone kept reaching for their reading glasses and grumbling about the name tag font being too small.

Thankfully, one and all remembered my Groom as being a kind person. This helped when it came time to find a place to sit for dinner. We selected a table full of strangers (they were all tables full of strangers) and passed an enjoyable hour or so sharing a dinner of lukewarm Italian food and stories of Where We Are Now with three lovely couples whose names I never caught. My Groom's Blue and White Sponsor money helped provide all present with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert.

After dinner, someone produced a camera and corralled the twenty-three strangers plus my Groom to pose for a group picture. It didn't look right at all. It looked like my tall, full head of hair Groom standing in a crowd of amiable senior citizens. That was about all the reuniting he could take at that point, so we hugged a few strangers and left.

It's been an interesting few days watching my Groom absorb the lessons of this night. Lessons like not everyone found high school to be a glorious experience. And even if it was a glorious experience, people may not show up because life has not continued to be quite so glorious for them. And twenty-five dollars doesn't buy what it used to, such as chocolate sauce for the ice cream.

Anyway, it was a lovely evening and a nice way to wrap up a week away at Disney World with the Tornadoes. There is really nothing to say about our trip to Disney World. It went exactly the way such a trip is manufactured to go, and now we own headbands with mouse ears on them. And now, we are on to Christmas.