I’ve been scarce around here for several reasons.

We had company for a few nights and did our best to pretend we were on vacation while they were here.  You know, fruit salads and bratwurst on the grill and time at the beach.

And then our cat had the nerve to stop eating which necessitated a feeding tube.  This features random cat vomit and four feeding sessions a day that take forever.  Fortunately, the teenagers have taken over this task.

But mostly I’ve just been spending all my spare time finishing A Prayer for Owen Meany.  I read it when I was 22 or 23.  You miss a lot when you are only 22 or 23.  You don’t know it at the time, of course, but when you look back 24 or 25 years later, you understand how narrow the spotlight of your knowledge and understanding really was.

Here are a few things my almost 10-month old puppy has destroyed:

1)  the cord attached to a lamp while it was still plugged in
2)  three shoes owned by visiting teenage girls
3)  a salt shaker
4)  the living room carpet
5)  various bowls and plates.
6)  other stuff I can’t remember this second.

Look at that baby face!

I’m amazed that tomorrow is Friday, even though every week has exactly seven days and Friday always arrives after Thursday.  The week has been so busy.  Here are just a few of the things that have occupied my time this week:

• Took ailing cat to the vet.  She was diagnosed with fatty liver.  Basically, she’d stopped eating, became anorexic and jaundiced.  The cure?  A feeding tube that now juts out of her neck.  Just what I needed . . . to force feed a cat four times a day.  You do not want to even know how much it costs to cure an anorexic, jaundiced cat.
• Soccer practice!  Lacrosse practice!
• Out of town company arrived and left and will be returning in twenty-four hours. This visit prompted me to replace four burned out lightbulbs.  I also tidied up the backyard and planted some more flowers in pots.  It’s always weird the things I find necessary to do when company is coming.
• Spent the afternoon with the company and most of my family at the beach.
• Work!  Work!  More work!

This weekend, our company will be back for a day.  Grace has a soccer tournament with a couple of games scheduled for Saturday and a couple for Sunday.

And, of course, all I really want is a nap and time to read.  Maybe next week!

A mourning dove chose to build a nest on the front of our house.  After the nest was constructed, either mama bird or daddy bird sat on the nest, even when we walked by.

And then, a few days ago, this happened. We don’t know how or why.

The mourning dove couple is gone and this is all that’s left of their hopes and dreams.

Sad.

Okay, you asked for it.

Here’s what I think about some things, both petty and not.

I was raised to dress very modestly.  At some point, modesty veered into shame when I began to hate my body.  But that’s not why I disapprove of strapless tops and dresses for women.

I disapprove because they are almost always extremely unflattering.  You know who looks cute in a strapless dress?  Taylor Swift because she is lithe and tall and has a small bosom.

The rest of us?  No.  Please.  Just, no.  It’s just not cute.  I even disapprove of strapless wedding gowns.  I just think that most women look better in sleeves.  No more smooshed boobs.  Please.

Seriously.  Look around and you’ll have to agree with me.

*

You’ve probably heard the news about Yahoo hiring Marissa Mayer as its new CEO.  The only reason this news is newsworthy is because Ms. Mayer is pregnant.  I guess that’s big news because everyone is wondering how she will manage to tackle her new job at Yahoo while being a new mom.

I’m sure she will hire excellent help since she has the resources to do so.  I heard someone (on a daytime talk-show) say that she will have be able to take the baby to work with her. That’s what I want to discuss.

I work from home.  I’ve worked from home for almost five years now, starting when my youngest child was four years old.  And I’m here to tell you that a mom who thinks she can work full-time while simultaneously taking care of a newborn  is nuts.  Well, maybe that’s too harsh. Actually, no.  It’s the truth.

Taking care of a newborn baby is a full-time job. Taking care of a baby is a full-time job.  Taking care of a toddler is a full-time job.  You can’t just tuck a baby under your desk and pull it out like a doll when you have a minute here or there.

I assert that if you are working full-time and taking care of babies full-time at the same time, either you aren’t a good employee or you aren’t a good mom.  I would never have been able to do this job when my kids were younger than four.  It was a challenge to balance work and childcare even when my kids ranged from four to fourteen.

Maybe I’m the only one willing to admit that I could not simultaneously care for a newborn baby and work full-time.  Maybe my babies were just particularly needy.  But I think babies should be held and talked to and babied.  How can you do that while devoting yourself to a demanding job?

I have no doubt that Marissa Mayer can be an excellent mother and an excellent CEO.  But she’ll need to hire help.  And then she’ll need to clear a shelf to store all the Mommy Guilt she’ll experience when she realizes that she can’t be in two places at once.

*

Tattoos.  Listen.  I have seen lovely tattoos.  And I have friends and family with tattoos.  And I love those people.

But I don’t understand the point of tattoos, especially the ones that look like doodles written on a high school Pee-Chee.  Stars and hearts and calligraphy, oh my.   Don’t even get me started on the faded green color or the smeary lines or the ones done on the back of the neck.  You can’t even see the back-of-the-neck tattoo.  Why get it at all?

Here are the people who  are allowed (in my kingdom) to get tattoos:  Marines and rock stars.

And I know that most of you have tattoos because everyone has one these days, so I don’t mean YOU.  I’m sure your tattoo is lovely and meaningful and all that.  But don’t get me started on tattoos written in other languages.  If you don’t speak Chinese, why would you get a saying inked in Chinese on your arm?  (Are Chinese people getting American slogans inked on their forearms in English?)  I just do not get the tattoo craze.

*

Okay, there you go.   Enough recklessness for tonight.

Please feel free to speak up and share your thoughts.

(I have already unwittingly ignited controversy on my Facebook page where I not only complained about making school lunches for my 14-year old, but I admitted that I make school lunches for my able-bodied 14-year old.  How dare I do something for my son when he could do it himself!  Hey listen.  No one ever made me a school lunch after fifth grade.  I quit eating lunch at school after that.  ((Sometimes I’d have an apple out of the apple-vending machine.  They cost a dime.))  I shouldn’t complain, I guess, because I am never going to insist he make his own school lunch.  I’m the mom.  I make the lunch.  But I hate controversy so I didn’t say a word in my Facebook comments.)

From time to time, my daughter wakes me up to ask me urgent questions like, “Are we doing anything today?” or to recount the details of her bad dreams.  So, after the dog woke me early this morning and I’d fallen back to sleep, my daughter woke me and I said (without moving my mouth or opening my eyes), “Can we talk about that when I’m awake?”

It sounds more like this:  “CannwetaaalkboutthatwhenImwake?”

Staying true to myself, I stayed in bed until the very last minute, then rushed into the shower, into my clothes and downstairs to start my work day.

I worked until 2:50 PM and then gathered my lacrosse player, my soccer player and my cat-food-stealing dog into my mini-van.  Then I delivered the lacrosse player, took the lamp-cord-eating dog to two separate dog parks (first one closed, second one perfect) and then took the soccer player to practice.  I sat and read A Prayer for Owen Meany while the poop-eating-dog sniffed around and teenage boys continued to whack their soccer ball over the goal and toward my head.

I finally moved to a different bench.

Somehow, I’ve trained my excessively-shedding dog to expect a treat when I unzip my purse, so every time I’d pull out my phone, she’d push her slobbery face into the purse opening.  This was rather inconvenient.

Practice ended and I resisted my daughter’s attempts to convince me to stop at Baskin-Robbin for ice-cream.  We went straight home so I could cook dinner (soft-tacos, thanks for asking).  By then it was 7 PM.

What was next?  My nightly nap, of course.  I napped at 7:30 PM and woke in time to work again.

And now it’s 1:22 AM and I’m going to sleep.

I only wish I had something interesting to write about.

I would like to discuss the following topics, but then I think of how many people I might offend, so I keep quiet:

Controversial Topics I’d Like to Discuss But Probably Never Will:

Strapless tops and dresses
The pregnant Yahoo CEO
Tattoos
Gun control
Movie-ratings and why people should heed them
False eyelashes

But I do have opinions.  And maybe one day I will recklessly share them.  Ha.

And today I napped all afternoon.

It.

Was.

Awesome.

Tomorrow is a rare day.  We have no sports scheduled.  The calendar square is empty, except for the pesky notation that I have to work tomorrow night to cover someone’s shift.

But other than that?  Glorious freedom.

Unless, of course, you count all the tedious tasks that await me, all those neglected things that have just piled up like so much junk mail, like the literal junk mail pile for instance.

My dream is that I will have enough time and determination to:

1)  Clean off my desk.

2)  Box up and return third-grade school curriculum.

3)  Send off books I promised to a few friends.

4)  De-clutter and organize laundry room.

5)  Clean kitchen, price new refrigerators, shop for groceries.

First, though, I’m sleeping in.  Grace went to VBS all week, so we had to wake up earlier than usual.

In other news, my dog chewed a lamp cord into a dozen pieces.  I’m just shocked she didn’t electrocute herself.  (Get it?  SHOCKED?  Ha ha ha.)

Yawn.

Hope your weekend is full of dreams that come true like I imagine mine will be.  (Ahh, clean laundry room, decluttered desk, fridge full of unspoiled food . . . I dream big.)

Twenty-five years ago, I married my first husband.

He’s still here.

Well, he’s not here-here because right now he’s in Colorado on business, but he’s still here, married to me.  I know.  That alone demonstrates his bountiful patience and good-will and kindness.  He is among the steadiest and calmest people I’ve ever known and that’s just one of the reasons I love him.

Tomorrow we’re ditching the kids and our jobs and the puppy and our house for twenty-four hours and we’re going to San Diego to celebrate our silver anniversary.  (I just have to swing by the airport to pick him up before the celebration begins.)  (And I have to walk the dog, take Grace to VBS, work, pick up Grace from VBS, deliver our houseguest to the airport and discover a cure for the common cold.)

Who would have guessed on that July day so long ago that twenty-five years would slide by in such quick fashion?  I would have taken more pictures and written more words if I had fully realized what a vapor life is.

We’ve lived in five states, had four kids, seven cats, two dogs and a few fish.  We have lived in three apartments, one townhouse, one parsonage, and three houses.  We still agree on a few things:  we don’t like raw tomatoes and we don’t like coffee–though he is a social drinker from time to time.  You can also count on this:  I’m usually running late and he’s always early.  I have a messy desk and his is so tidy that it doesn’t look like anyone owns the desk.  He’s an early bird and I am a night owl.

We’re growing old together.  I can’t think of a better way to grow old.

I’m going to the airport again in the morning.  My husband is leaving on yet another trip, this one for business.

I am staying home.  Again.  NOT ALONE.

My biggest dream in life has been reduced to this:  I want to be in my house alone.  For a week.

But that dream will not come true until the day it does and on that day, I am sure I will cry and wish with all my wrinkled heart that I was not alone and I will remember this night when I dreamed of being alone and I would kick myself if only I were flexible enough to do so.

In other news, after work today, I dropped off Zach at lacrosse practice at the YMCA.  He has to be there at 3:30 PM.  Grace’s soccer practice started at 4:45 PM and was located about ten minutes from the YMCA.  It’s pretty boring to arrive to practice an hour early, so today, I had a plan.

I took the dog with us and looked up online and found a dog park near the YMCA.  Perfection!  We found the park and discovered that dogs were allowed to unleashed but the park was not fenced.  Bad idea for me with a rambunctious puppy.

But I met a nice dog-lady (dog people are the nicest people in the world) and she told me about two other dog parks.  So, we chatted a little more and then got back into the van and headed to the second dog park.

Inside this enclosed dog park were . . . no dogs.  Lola sniffed around some, ran back and forth a few times, looked with disinterest at the tennis balls we found and so we decided to head to dog park number three.

Dog park number three looked promising.  It was located behind a humane society.  We approached the gate and discovered the closing time was 4:30 PM.  It was 4:30 PM.

So, three dog parks, no actual running around with dogs.

Some days are just like that, I guess.

Oh!  And guess what?  It rained today!  Just sporadically, but it enough that I kept saying, “I can’t believe it’s raining!” and flipping on the wind-shield wipers.

Now, to sleep so I can be semi-alert while avoiding semi-trucks on the freeway tomorrow.

Between work, soccer, lacrosse and the eye doctor, I haven’t been doing much besides working, driving around and waiting.  We do like our new eye doctor–but I can’t figure out what takes so long during our visits.  There might be one other person in the waiting room, two women working behind the front desk . . . and yet, we were there for two hours.

Last week, Grace and I had back-to-back appointments and we were there for three hours.  We practically needed to bring a snack and a change of clothes, we were there so long.

Summer is barreling past faster than the speed limit, and I’m spending all my time at the eye doctor or waiting for a child’s sports practice to begin and end.

* * *

A misguided part of my brain harbors a poisonous kernel of jealousy.  I know it’s poison but it’s still there.

I thought I was jealous of the woman I know who is starting her life over or the one I know who has just had a baby or the one who is heading off to college.

But really, I am jealous of myself . . . of who I was when I was young and unencumbered and of who I will be when I am old and unencumbered.  (That is a might big assumption there, that one day I will be unencumbered.)  (Notice how I assume without pause that I will one day be old.  How arrogant of me.)

I have some internal flaw that keeps me from resting.  I’m the princess and the pea is buried in me.  I wonder if someday I will rest in the moment and stop thinking that those other selves are lucky because they aren’t me, right here, right now.

I hope so because I know for a fact that one day I will look back at this moment and long for it.  Misty water-colored memories and all that.