My son was invited to an after-school birthday party at the beach.  He celebrated the same friend’s birthday at the beach last year, so when he mentioned it, I remembered last year.  Last year I asked, “Will his parents be there?  How will you get there?  How will you get home?  Are the parents staying the whole time?”  And I worried a little.

This year, same friend, same parents, same beach, same everything.

I forgot, though, that the party was today until I received a text message from my son asking me to meet him after school with his swimsuit, boogie board and lacrosse stick.  I took the liberty to add sunscreen and a beach towel to the bag and I met him at school.

He sauntered up to my van with his friend, all cool like a 15-year old is.  I pushed the button and the back of the van slid up and he grabbed the bag and lacrosse stick and boogie board.  I said through the open windows, “Hey, do you need a ride home?” and he said, “I don’t know.”

“Well, text me,” I said, “And let me know when you know.”

Fast-forward a few hours.  My husband, The Good Parent, says, “So when is our son coming home?” and I said, “I don’t know.  I figure after it’s dark.”

At 7 PM, I text my son:  “Any  idea what time you’ll be home?  Or need a ride?  Dad’s asking . . .”

I took a nap.  When I woke at 8 PM, my husband said, “When is our son coming home?” and I said, “I don’t know.  I”ll text him.”

I texted him.   “Hello?”

No answer.

At 8:27 PM, I text again.  “Hey, let me know what’s going on when you have a chance.”

Then, a bit later:  “Please text me.”

At 8:59 PM:  “I’m heading to the beach to look for you.  Please call me.”

No answer.

While I drove to the beach, I thought all those dark thoughts you think when you consider the worst possible outcome.  Had my boy drowned?  And the parents didn’t know how to reach me to break the news?  Were they in a terrible car crash and no one survived and therefore, no one called me?

Honestly, I figured that my son’s phone was in his pocket of his shorts and he was wearing a swimsuit, not those shorts and he just didn’t hear his phone.  Or rather, feel it since none my kids keep their phones’ ringers on.  They depend on the buzz of a silenced phone to alert them.  (Don’t ask me.  I have no idea.)

But.

What if?

I walked down the steps to the beach, walked along the sidewalk and up onto the Pier for a better view.  I saw three separate campfires and strolled by each one, straining to see my son’s blond hair in the darkness.

He wasn’t there.

I headed back up the stairs toward my van.  Before I reached the top of the stairs, at 9:23 PM, I got a text from him.  He was just leaving the beach, safely in the car.  He left his phone in the pocket of his shorts in his bag.

I knew it.

But seriously.  I ought to be fired.  I failed to get any contact information for the parents.  I didn’t know for sure which beach they were going to.  I had no idea what time they’d be home.  I couldn’t remember the friend’s name.  (My son pointed out later that he’d mentioned the friend’s name in his original text this afternoon.  And he reminded me that the friend’s dad is a teacher at the school.  Oh yeah, now I remember.)

The moral of the story?

Don’t do as I do.  Do as I say.  And be sure you know where your kids are and what time they’ll be home.

Stop being so relaxed about everything!  Someone’s gonna put an eye out with you in charge!  And by “you”, of course I mean, “me.”

Don’t be me.

What I hate about being a grown-up are the life and death decisions.  Shouldn’t someone with more education  and experience be in charge of these sorts of things? I am not qualified.

Last night, I stood in my kitchen at 1:00 AM, Lola the Dog curled at my feet.  She’d been retching for hours.  At first, we ran to let her out the back door so she wouldn’t vomit on the carpet, but after awhile, it became apparent that the retching was just . . . horrible sound effects.

I wondered if I should take her to the emergency vet hospital.  Was this a symptom of bloat, that deadly disease that afflicts dogs of her breed?  I just didn’t know.  She seemed to be better than she’d been earlier.  Her gums still looked pink and healthy. But she had some symptoms, clearly.

And so I stood, immobilized.  Lola just closed her eyes and started snoring.

I decided if she could snore, she must not be dying, so we went upstairs and went to sleep.

Three hours later, she woke up and resumed retching.  I took her downstairs so she could go outside.  I wondered again if she were dying because I am an expert at jumping to conclusions and borrowing trouble and assuming that the worst will happen.  She came back inside and we headed back upstairs.  She refused to come into the bedroom, so I left her curled on the stair landing.

I tried to sleep but worried that I’d made the wrong decision.  Maybe I should have been sitting at the emergency vet hospital, watching an episode of “Chopped” on their big screen t.v. while Lola was in an exam room racking up a gigantic bill.  I slept fitfully until 5:50 AM when my phone received a text message.

A co-worker’s electricity went out (in Michigan) and so I needed to get on the computer to cover her shift.

I walked downstairs and noticed a light on in the family room.  My daughter was on the couch with the dog, snuggled up.  She informed me Lola was making a weird noise and that her stomach was rumbling.  I know, I said.  She’s sick.

Then I worked for an hour . . . but felt somewhat assured because Lola was retching less and seemed calmer, sleepy even.

I finished working an hour later, left my dog and daughter snuggled up on the couch watching television.  I went back to bed just as my husband and son were getting up and preparing to leave for work and school.  I fell into a sound sleep.

When I woke up an hour or so later, I wandered downstairs to check on Lola the Dog.  She was walking around outside.  I called her in and she seemed happy, tail wagging.  I checked her gums to reassure myself that she really wasn’t dying from bloat and that’s when I discovered her gums were white and gray.  Even her tongue had lost its pink color.

I knew that was a bad sign.

Within half an hour, I had her at the vet’s office where she was declared to not have bloat.  In fact, her rumbling tummy was silent by then and her gums were pink and she was happy, happy, happy.

The vet theorized that maybe she did have bloat (but her stomach did not twist) and the gas eventually resolved on its own.  We don’t think she ate anything unusual.  There’s no reason why she should have been sick in the first place.

She was just dehydrated, so they gave her some fluids and some medicine to settle her stomach and sent me on my way.

Then we all lived happily ever after.

The end.

The other day, I drove across town to deliver my daughter to soccer practice.

I parked in the parking lot, tied my daughter’s cleats in double-knots and chided myself for my failure to teach her to tie her shoes.  I keep meaning to do that but somehow never remember when we’re at home and have a closet full of shoes with laces to practice upon. I will probably remember to teach her to tie her shoes on the same day I remember to start teaching her piano lessons.

My daughter opened the van door and scooted out with her soccer ball.  At the same time, a woman knocked at the driver’s side window and I rolled my window down, happy to chat with another soccer mom.

Only she was not a soccer mom.  She was the self-appointed Monitor of the Stop Sign at the Corner of the Park and she was irate.

She said something like this, all in one breath:

You did not even stop at the stop sign!  You rolled right through and YOU!  DID! NOT! EVEN! STOP!  You are a mother!  There are children at this park!  And you did not even stop!  You need to be careful!  You have to stop!

She was a mishmash of judgment and sorrow and fury and busybody and I was so shocked that this woman jogged from the corner of the park, down and around the sidewalk and across the parking lot to confront me about my poor driving skills that I just greeted her outrage with slack-jawed puzzlement.  I said nothing.  She jogged away carrying her burden of self-righteousness while I rolled up the window.

I wonder if yelling at me was satisfying for her.

To be honest, I don’t set out to break the law and I don’t normally disregard stop signs with wild abandon.  After this odd parking lot confrontation I tried to recall exactly what happened at that corner.  Did I stop?  Did I roll through after slowing down since there were no cars at the corner?  Did I even know there was a stop sign?  Was I distracted?  What happened, exactly?  Should I be arrested and thrown into jail for my recklessness?

I don’t know.

But I do know that when I walked through the intersection a little later with my dog, I noticed at least five cars slowing and rolling through the stop signs before turning into the park.  So I am not alone in my criminal behavior.

Not that five wrongs make a right.  Clearly I don’t want to ignore stop signs.

But that woman?  The outraged jogger who chased me down to yell at me in front of my child?  She is not my mother and it was really weird for her to scold me.

For the record, I have never run over anyone while driving.  I’ve never had an accident and it’s been 20 years since I’ve had a traffic ticket.

But you can be sure I will never roll through that particular stop sign again, lest the wrath of the woman who is not my mother explode in my general direction again.

My own American girl is obsessed with American Girl stuff.  She’s had a “Bitty Baby” (aka a baby doll) for quite a few years.  Then a couple of years ago, she asked for an American Girl doll.  She received a blond curly doll for Christmas.

For awhile, the American Girl doll just sat, untouched.  But something recently renewed her interest in the doll.

She spends her free time perusing the American Girl website, compiling lists and computing prices.  She tapes together cardboard to create furniture for her doll.  She cleared two shelves of her bookshelf to make space for her American Girl doll’s bedroom.  She longs to visit the American Girl store in Los Angeles.  She asked me to order a special brush so she can fix her doll’s hair.

That American Girl stuff is expensive.  It’s ridiculous, really.

But knowing that my 10-year old daughter is playing with dolls is priceless.  This won’t last forever.

Nothing ever does.

And now, let’s all join together and sing along:

I used to write here with glee, eager to slap words on the page, to paint pictures with a big sloppy brush.  Those were in the days before my kids had Internet access, before my real name was attached to this blog, before people I knew in real life knew that I did this crazy thing called blogging.  Back then, people didn’t even know what a blog was.

Even when I could still imagine I was somewhat anonymous, I always did try to be careful about what I said, aware that my words were out loud even though they came through my fingertips and not my lips.  But I’m even more careful now.  I keep more and more of my observations and judgments and stories to myself.

It’s kind of sad, really.

A handful of bloggers who started blogging when I did have published books and built sturdy platforms around which their tribes clamor.  They’ve appeared on morning talk shows and had blog excerpts featured in Good Housekeeping and have powered on, creating Facebook communities and more.  They go to blog conferences and speak to wanna-be bloggers.  They have cooking shows and cookbooks.  They are everything that I am not.  They are eager to dig up every inch of their figurative back yards to sift through the soil to uncover treasure or bones or something worth something they can write about.

Instead of gaining momentum with my blog, I have dragged my feet and slammed on the brakes.  When others sped up, I slowed down.  I’ve pretty much taken the exit so I could get out of the fast lane.  Five years ago, when I started working full-time and our whole lives shifted (jobs coming and going and coming again), I stopped writing here as much.  The stories I wanted to tell would breach the privacy of my kids and my husband.  I had less time and truthfully, less to describe.  That’s what happens when you suddenly begin spending forty hours a week working at your computer.  What is there to say?  “Today my kids were annoyed that I worked for eight hours.  Then I made dinner.  The end.”

Mostly, I didn’t want to say something I’d regret, to blurt out stuff that would have eyebrows raising.

I never wanted to write a blog that told other people what to do, how to live.  I didn’t intend to shape my daily life into a devotional thought.  I just wanted to write about what was happening, to tell stories that might help me remember and sometimes, help me understand my life.

I write because it helps me think.  It helps me figure things out.  It gives me perspective.

I can never stop writing even though this blog is so neglected.  I am still writing, but more often, in a sound-proof booth so no one can hear me.

And, of course, I’ll continue to putter along here, mostly unnoticed, determined to tell stories from time to time.

In a startling turn of events, I already fixed our backyard fountain. It’s been inoperable for less than a year, so I count this a major victory in my neverending battle against brokenness and failure.  (Hey, what are we talking about here anyway?)

Here’s how to fix your backyard fountain in thirty easy steps:

1)  Notice that the water has stopped flowing.
2)  Spend some time wondering why.
3)  Empty all water from fountain.
4)  Ponder the pump.
5)  Blame the pump.
6)  Ignore the fountain for at least six months, preferably a little longer.
7)  Consider how difficult it might be to remove old pump’s cord and get new cord threaded through hole and behind fountain and into plug-in box thing.
8)  Worry.
9)  Plan to go to Home Depot.
10)  Procrastinate.
11)  Worry.
12)  Purchase pump at Home Depot.  Ask for advice from passing orange-vested sales people.  Try not to notice that you are old enough to be their mother.
13)  Get home, cut open dangerous plastic packaging, realize that the pump output pipe is too small.
14)  Cry.  (Optional.)
15)  Procrastinate.
16)  Return to Home Depot.  Purchase second pump, bigger, better, faster, stronger.
17)  Get home, open dangerous packaging.  Do not cut fingers.
18)  Look closely at fountain.
19)  Scoop out frog eggs and place in giant vase previous owners of your house abandoned when they moved.
20)  Install pump.
21)  Realize that pump is a little overly enthusiastic.
22)  Watch water slosh out of fountain.
23)  Turn off fountain.
24)  Retrieve old pump.  Observe brand name and size.
25)  Order pump from Amazon.
26)  Wait two days.
27)  Install new pump.
28)  Return two pumps to Home Depot.
29)  Observe frog eggs morph into pollywogs.
30)  Celebrate success while listening to soothing sound of running water.

Please.  Hold your applause.