Category: All True Adventures

. . . why would I lie?

Why Anne Lamott Makes Me Want to Cry

A miracle occurred today. I attended an Anne Lamott lecture, the lecture that has been sold out for months. Only, a friend of ours found out that a teacher had gone home sick today and that teacher donated her ticket to my cause. And I didn’t even have to pay.

I had seriously considered lurking outside of the building, sneaking inside, nonchalantly pretending I had a ticket. Or something. But God smiled down on me and preventing me from breaking the law and got me a free ticket.

The college student who introduced her read an introduction that was lifted directly from a book jacket or something. I recognized it. When she walked in carrying a big leather bag and her sweater, I wanted to cry. I felt like some fourteen year old girl swooning at a Clay Aiken concert. The entire room–150 of us–applauded as if she’d already done something amazing.

And she had, really. She wrote books. She writes books. That’s amazing, no matter how you look at it.

She wore black. A black t-shirt. Faded black jeans. Sensible black shoes. But a foresty-green headband on her dreadlocked hair and a matching greenish scrunchy holding the back into a crazy ponytail. She put on her sweater and said “I get hot, I get cold.” And then she took it off.

She read ten pages of her new book. Ten pages about Sam, her now-14 year old boy, a boy who sounded so much like my own boys, like my Shane specifically, with his propensity to whack bushes with a big stick. I laughed in recognition and comfort. (She also mentioned at one point how being at home with a baby is so boring that you want to hang yourself. That is so true some days.)

After she read, she talked about writing, about the process. I’ve read her books and I know. I know what to do, I know how to do it. I just don’t do it. I don’t write because I can’t see the whole road–and she pointed out that all you really need to see is what is in the headlights. You can make an entire journey in the dark, following the illumination of just the headlights.

Then she took questions, but only a few. They were excellent questions, but I wanted to know the following things:

1) Favorite authors, favorite books.
2) What first? An agent? A publisher? How do you actually get someone to say “yes” to your novel?
3) Will you write for Salon again?

I also wanted to tell her that my dad died, too, when I was in my early twenties. “Hard Laughter” spoke to my heart. I wanted to tell her that I have boys who smell and brandish sticks like swords and that some days I am so bored I want to climb out of the bedroom window on a rope of tied-together-bedsheets. I wanted to tell her about the miraculous way I got a ticket, thanks to Beth Stevens’ illness. But all I did tell her at the book-signing afterwards was, “You are the only author I ever wrote a fan letter to.” And she smiled and said, “Well, I’m sure that I would have lifted it up for a blessing, but I never answer letters anymore.” And I smiled and took my book and went home.

I had a fantasy on my way to the lecture that she and I would go out for coffee and chat and she’d definitely want to be my New Best Friend. But she mentioned during her talk that she hates to travel. She hates to mingle. She likes to be alone. She has a boyfriend, a son and about four good friends, but other than that, she doesn’t like to leave her house. She certainly does not like to eat with anyone.

And, of course, neither do I. So, she doesn’t want to be my New Best Friend, but that’s not why she makes me want to cry. She makes me want to cry because she makes me feel normal, validated, uncrazy. She’s a little farther along the path than I, and I can see her bobbing lantern up ahead in the dark and it gives me assurance that there is a path and not just a drop off in the dark.

As an aside, I noticed shoes tonight. Several women were wearing these shoes that reminded me of bowling shoes crossed with “earth shoes”, like the blue suede ones I wore in fifth grade that had the toe higher than the heel, so you were kind of tipped backwards on your feet at all times. And I thought, I need to get out more because apparently fashions have changed while I’ve been wearing my red Keds.

Did You See That?

After church yesterday while I was driving on a semi-busy road, I spotted two small boys trailing after a dog on the side of the road. I slowed down and gawked. They were not in front of a house and there was no adult in sight. I realized I was blocking traffic, so I pulled ahead, did a U-turn and cruised back to where the boys were. They each had a crew cut, one blond, one brunette. The older boy was probably three and the younger was maybe two. They each carried a stick and the older boy was barefoot.

I rolled down my window and said, “Hey, where’s your mama?” The big boy said, “We’re catching my dog.” The dog was now out of sight, around a bend. The smaller boy was now standing in the middle of the road, talking to me.

A car was coming up behind me, so I pulled forward and off the side of the road. I had my own four kids in the car, but I couldn’t leave these two little ones by the side of the road. This road is regularly traveled and although the speed limit is 25 mph, usually everyone speeds. There is no sidewalk. A woman was walking a dog, heading toward me and the boys. She was on the other side of the road, but I wondered for a second if she might be the mother. She wasn’t.

A small pickup truck pulled up and the guy rolled down his window and asked me if I knew where the boys lived. I said, “no,” and said, “Should we call 9-1-1?” He nodded, but then he pulled his truck ahead of mine and parked. He walked back down the street and took the boys by the hands and led them back to where I was parked. The dog-walking woman said she knew where the dog lived, back quite a few blocks. The man started walking the boys to that house.

Now I was comforted and worried. A strange man now has these two little boys by the hands and they are willingly walking with him. I asked the dog-walking woman if she was going to follow the man and she said that she was going to make sure the stray dog got back home, too. Even though she was following the man, I still drove my car slowly in circles until the man delivered the little boys to a duplex. He knocked on the first door and a very young woman answered the door with a broom in her hands. She seemed completely unconcerned that her barefoot child had been found blocks from home. She gestured toward the other side of the duplex. The boy went inside and the door closed.

Then the man took the other boy to the other front door. Same thing. Door opens, young woman seems unsurprised by the turn of events, small boy goes in, door closes.

When the man walked back to my car, I said, “What did they say?” He said, “They didn’t even notice the boys were gone.”

I thought briefly about calling Child Protective Services. But I didn’t. But what kind of parents let their small children–a two year old and a three year old–out of their sight? These children (one barefooted) walked two-tenths of a mile from home. They crossed a street alone. One had on no shoes. They could have been hit by a car or abducted. They had no idea where they lived.

What stupid, stupid parents.

Here’s the funny thing. Those kids will probably grow up to be stellar human beings–bright, over-achievers–because they had to fend for themselves. My kids–my overprotected “no you cannot watch an R-rated movie or spend the night at someone’s house if I don’t know their parents” kids will probably end up living at home until they are 35, watching MTV and eating Frosted Flakes for dinner while I bleach their socks and scrub their toilet.

What I Lost

Today, for a second, I thought I lost my mind. Then I thought I lost my boy. Then I thought I lost my mind again.

My husband asked repeatedly throughout the day: “Does Youngestboy have a ride home from school today?” I kept saying, “Yes, he does.” My neighbor, Beth, (I think of her as Saint Beth, she’s so wonderful) usually takes him to and from school. So, after dropping off the twins from school, Husband runs an errand. The twins get out of school at 2:55 p.m. YoungestBoy’s school is dismissed at 3:20 p.m.

At 3:15 p.m., I’m out in the backyard, hacking away at the ivy while Babygirl plays nearby, and suddenly, a conversation with Beth pops into my head. She told me Thursday that she could take YoungestBoy to school today, but not pick him up because after today’s field trip, they were going to just stay in Olympia and visit friends.

Had I lost my mind? Apparently!

So, I grab Babygirl and rush inside and try to figure out what to do. Husband does not have a cell phone with him because he broke his charger. My nearly-11 year old twins are home. DaycareKid is sleeping and won’t wake up until 4 p.m. I decide to throw DaycareKid’s carseat in the car and put Babygirl in it and drive to the school (which is less than a mile away). Babygirl screams when I attempt that. Okay. I buckle her into her beloved stroller instead. I tell TwinBoyA that I’m going to get YoungestBoy and that I’ll have my cell phone with me and that he is not to answer the door.

I walk as fast as possible, out of our circle and down the path through the woods to the school. One bus is leaving as I hurry around the building to the front. I see children but I do not see YoungestBoy. I speak to the guardian of the children, a blond woman holding a clipboard. She not only does not know where YoungestBoy is, she is not sure who he is, either. Have I now lost my boy?

The principal strolls up. She knows nothing. She tells me to check in the classroom. No boy.

I now frantically push my stroller out the building and back up the path towards home. I am breathless and sweaty and worried. Have I truly lost my mind? Where is my boy?

I round the corner and see Beth’s van in my driveway. Turns out her friend in Olympia canceled their plans and Beth forgot to tell me.

Ack!

All’s well that ends well, I guess.

Yesterday, I went bowling for the first time in years and years. All I have to say is if you haven’t been bowling for a long time and your bowling skills are rotten, be sure to bowl with little children who are worse than you are. And use the bumpers. I almost scored 100.

Happy VD

What a day. Just like any other, only more.

The baby’s decided that 5 a.m. is a fine time to wake up for a ten minute snack. It’s sort of okay with me because that means she’ll sleep until 7:30 a.m. or 8 a.m. I literally staggered out of bed and to her room this morning for ten minutes, then back to bed for more glorious sleep. You’d think I’d go to bed early since I love to sleep so much, but the thing is, I love to sleep in the mornings! At night, I’d rather be awake, being uninterrupted and quiet.

The twins had a friend sleep over last night, so first thing this morning, my husband bought a dozen donuts. I had finished showering by that time (with Babygirl in the bathroom with me throwing extra washcloths into the tub and flinging the shower curtain open and getting sprayed with water). Dear husband took her for a ride in the car so I could finish getting ready in peace. Then he returned my baby to me and went to work. Yes, it’s Saturday, but yes, he worked, as usual. He tends to wait until Saturday to write his sermon, which tends to bug me, but what can I do, really?

During Babygirl’s nap, I worked on the wall in “her” room which we are currently sleeping in. It needs to be painted before we move the crib back in there and move our bed back into the master bedroom. When she was born, our sleeping situation was completely jumbled up. I slept with the baby in the master bedroom, while YoungestBoy was moved (he begged to move) to the twins’ room. My husband slept in YoungestBoy’s old room on the king-sized bed from the master bedroom, while I slept on the queen sized bed in the master bedroom with Babygirl until the day she fell off the bed. Since then she’s been sleeping in the crib.

Right before Christmas, we bought new twin beds for the twins and moved them downstairs to the spare room. YoungestBoy got their old room all to himself with the queen sized bed, Babygirl ended up alone in the master bedroom with her crib and when Babygirl started sleeping through the night at 11 months, I joined my husband in the king-sized bed in the baby’s new room (which was YoungestBoy’s old room). We didn’t move the crib into that room because it needs paint. And I know if I don’t paint it before we move the crib in, we never will. Who wants a baby to breathe in paint fumes?

And why have I procrastinated on painting? Well, one wall (where the window is) was covered with two layers of hideous wallpaper which was then covered with even more hideous fabric which was stapled on. The entire mess had to be removed, then the wallpaper paste had to be removed and the staples pried out and the holes filled in. I ripped the wallpaper off years ago (literally), but the staples and a few strips of wallpaper paste remained until today. During her nap, I got out the Diff to remove the final remnants of paper and got out a utility knife and needle-nosed pliers and pulled out the staples. It took two hours, long enough to watch almost all of the horror movie about Chucky the doll. I’d never seen it before.

Being the horrible mother that I am, my boys were downstairs watching television the whole time I was upstairs working. They were quiet, too, which was a miracle. I finished the job just as Babygirl woke up.

Early this morning, we received a phone call that J. had died in the wee hours of the morning. J. was an 85 year old man from our church in good health until suddenly he was diagnosed with widespread cancer. Being a pessimist, when I originally heard the diagnosis (after he had a CAT scan), I said, “It’s going to be days, not weeks” or “It’s going to be weeks, not months.” I can’t remember now, but sure enough, it was barely more than a week. This was exactly how my dad died. His liver was riddled with cancer and he slid into death very quickly.

J.’s son and daughter-in-law are close friends of ours. Our kids all play together, so this afternoon when my husband visited the family, he offered to bring the kids to our house to play for the afternoon. So again, I had a houseful of kids. They all played well together (if you call tackling each other in the muddy backyard playing well) and had a good time.

When the baby went to bed tonight, I went out shopping. I went to Old Navy and bought a bunch of shirts and pants and two baby gifts–all on clearance. I love the clearance racks. Then I went to Marshall’s and shopped the clearance racks again and came up with a pair of sunglasses, a pair of sandals, a gift for my mother, a pack of 12 board books, a computer game for my son’s birthday, a two-pack of black tights for me, and a shirt, all for $50. The man behind the register commented on my optimism–buying sunglasses on a rainy, February day. Doesn’t he realize that it will be summer in approximately twenty minutes? That’s how fast the seasons change in my world.

I finished up my adventure at Target, buying boring stuff like laundry detergent and napkins.

So, Happy VD. That’s Valentine’s Day, for the young and romantic. For me, just another day, only more. Don’t get me wrong. My sweet husband remembered to remember me with chocolate, flowers, a teddy bear and a card. He’s a good guy. I’m just a low-maintenance girl who is happy just to shop the clearance sales.

So, Are You Ready for Dessert?

I trudged my way through this day. Babygirl wanted to go outside first thing this morning, so I sat in my slippers and bathrobe and fleece jacket with an afghan wrapped around my legs and shivered. When I finally convinced her to come inside, my husband was awake and ready to take her for a ride in the car–this would give me time to shower and get dressed in peace.

He eventually brought home a sleepy looking baby. She’d taken a nap in the car. He then announced that tonight he was taking me to the fancy-schmancy local restaurant that overlooks the Puget Sound to celebrate my birthday. (Which is not until next Wednesday.) He telephoned the babysitter and made reservations. He said that Beth would call back and let us know if she could babysit. Then he left to run some errands.

While he was gone, I went outside with the baby (again). When she consented to coming back inside, I went from task to task–laundry, dishes, sweeping, picking up toys, putting away clothes, washing the bedding–until finally I decided to clean YoungestBoy’s room thoroughly. Grace “helped” me.

Two hours after he left, my husband returned and shocked my socks off by telling me he was taking all four kids to the park. Wow! Fifteen minutes after he left, he called to say that it was colder than he thought, probably too cold for Babygirl. He’d have to bring her back. They were gone almost an hour, though, start to finish. In that stretch of time, I’d cleaned up the twins’ room.

I feel like a cleaning woman today. A cleaning woman with a birthday.

During the course of the day, the phone rang and it was the babysitter telling me she had to check with her mother, but she was pretty sure she could babysit. I said, fine, let me know when you are one hundred percent. A while later, Beth’s mother called to confirm and offered to drive her over. Not long after that, the babysitter called again and said she definitely could babysit. “Great,” I said. “Ten minutes to eight?” she said. “Yes!” Then later on, another call from the babysitter asking if her 7th grade niece could come, too. “Sure,” I said.

At 7:00 p.m., Babygirl went to sleep for the night.

At 7:50, the doorbell rings. Standing at the door is Stephanie. But we had called Beth. I said, “Hello!” and she came inside and took off her shoes. I went directly into the kitchen and whispered to my husband, “Um, I think you hired two babysitters! Stephanie is here!”

He looked stunned. He said to Stephanie, “Did I call you?”

With a puzzled look, she said, “Well, your number was on my caller I.D., so I called Mel and she said you needed me tonight.”

They both turned to look at me. I said, “Oh! When you called, I thought you said–Hi, this is Bethany–not Stephanie!”

Both Beth and Stephanie were at the school science fair. Stephanie mentioned being at the Science Fair, which is where my husband told me Beth was . . . well, it all just led to a big comedy of errors. Okay, well, in other words, I screwed up. My husband took Stephanie home–I tried to pay her $5 for her trouble, but she refused–and Beth arrived. I told her what happened and she laughed and I said, “Is your name actually Bethany, by the way?” She said, “No, it’s Elizabeth.”

We drove to the little restaurant. We eat there infrequently because, although the food is good, it’s scarily expensive. We ordered and then chatted and watched the ferry boat approach the landing. We ate our salad (me) and chowder (him) and ate all the bread and chatted some more. And then more. I yawned and said how hungry I was. I said, “Hey, what time is it?” And he pulled out his cell phone and said it was 8:55 p.m. I watched a middle-aged couple across the room literally staring into each other’s eyes until drawn together by magnetic force into a kiss. I said, “That couple is definitely not married.”

Then we waited longer. Finally, the waitress approached with a big friendly smile and said, “So, are you ready for dessert?”

I said, “We haven’t had dinner yet. So, no. But we are ready for some dinner!” All with a smile and a laugh.

She was mortified but we thought it was hilarious. At long last, dinner arrived. Halibut with crab and hollandaise sauce for me, prime rib for him. The food was good, but not as good as I remembered.

Then the bill came: $82.02 with tip and tax! ACK! I just had no idea it would be quite that expensive. I examined the receipt to see what each item had cost until my husband said, “You are embarrassing me.” He said, “You only turn 39 once,” and I think that’s probably because it’s too expensive to turn 39 twice!

At any rate, now I’ll have to sell my kidney for grocery money. Happy Birthday to Me!

My Impressive Feat

Our downstairs toilet has been malfunctioning for a long time. Maybe a year. My husband is not handy, but he likes to be helpful, so he bought a $7 item last year that he thought would help. It was a small box containing the “guts” of the inside of the toilet. Only problem: said parts were not the problem.

I knew what the problem was because I drained the tank and stuck my hand into the murky depths and felt around. The flapper had deteriorated badly and so the water ran all the time. I couldn’t tell why the handle didn’t work, but the flapper was definitely a problem. It was not sealing at all.

However, I have a bit of a time issue. I have so very little time to myself outside of this house that I am loathe to spend it at Home Depot. If I get out of the house, I grocery shop alone so I can think straight. Is this package a better deal than this package? What else do we need? Is that man coming into the store wearing a skirt? That sort of thing.

Or I go to the YMCA. Or a movie. I don’t want to spend precious time trolling the aisles of Home Depot.

So, our toilet has made noise sometimes, leaking water. If it doesn’t stop after a bunch of flushing, then I’d turn off the water at the source. It’s the least-used bathroom in the house, so I just ignored it. Sometimes, the boys used it and I didn’t know it and it smelled like an outhouse. Blech.

But my Helpful Husband decided today was the day. He wanted to fix it. I drained the tank, removed the faulty flapper, removed the handle and put it all in a zip-loc bag for him. I told him to tell the guys at the store that this was what we needed. Sure enough, five bucks later, we had the parts.

So, I installed the handle. Installed the flapper. The handle still didn’t work. I peered into the other toilet that worked and figured out that the reason the handle didn’t work was because the chain was too long. So, I shortened the chain. Twice. And voila! I have fixed the toilet! Half the time, I was holding Babygirl in one arm and she supervised.

Now, if the repairman-handyman guy we have used before had done that, it would have cost $50–at least. It cost us $5.

What is really pathetic is how good I felt after I fixed this toilet. My life has become a little tiny snippet in which a repaired toilet is cause for celebration and good vibes for the remainder of the day. I felt like I didn’t have to accomplish another thing all day because I had reached my quota.

But I cooked dinner anyway.