Did you see the episode of “Man vs. Food” recently that featured Red Mill Burgers in Seattle? (Here’s a blog post about the original filming.)  Well, my kids saw it–months ago–and then again recently. (I saw it last week.)

Awhile back we decided to find the place and eat there on a Sunday after church.  I used my handy iPhone to look it up, find the location and get directions.  Unfortunately, my iPhone did not tell me the following crucial information:

1)  Red Mill Burgers only takes cash and checks. No debit cards.

2)  Red Mill Burgers on 67th Street is small and on a Sunday afternoon, extremely crowded. (In other words, you will eat your burgers in your mini-van unless you have better luck than we did.)

3)  Red Mill Burgers is a take-out kind of place, not a sit-down with silverware while servers bring you food kind of place, so you stand in a line at a single cash register, place your order, hand over a lot of cash (for a burger place–for instance, this week it cost me nearly $60 for five of us to eat), and then you stand along the wall to wait with eight other people  for them to call your name.

The first time we ate at Red Mill, I had only $40 cash–which normally is plenty of cash to pay for our usual Sunday lunch at Dick’s Drive-In.  I expected them to accept debit cards.  That day, I bought plain burgers and we shared orders of onion rings and no one got a drink.  Very unsatisfying.

So, last week, I took the kids to the zoo and then to Red Mill Burgers–on a Wednesday afternoon at about 2 p.m.  It was still pretty busy, but we were able to snag two tall tables and five stools and eat inside.  I ordered the burger I saw on the episode (bleu cheese and bacon) and it was really a fine burger, one of the best burgers I’ve ever had.  (Proclaimed to be “one of the 20 hamburgers you must eat before you die.” in Oprah Magazine, they say.)  And the onion rings are amazing. One of my teenagers was unable to finish his burger.  UNABLE TO FINISH.  That’s a big burger.

I realized, after the fact, that dining with four children in a very crowded restaurant while perched on a bar stool, balancing a purse on your lap and trying not to drip ketchup on your shirt is not the best way to experience really good food.  How can you enjoy your hamburger if you are reminding your daughter to not slide to the floor?  And I had to keep saying, “Watch out!  You’re going to hurt your forehead if you keep doing that.” Don’t ask.  I don’t know.

So, if you go to Red Mill Burgers, here are my tips:

1)  Do not take a 6 and a half year old dining companion.

2)  Take a lot of cash.  More than you think necessary.

3)  Go on a weekday afternoon.

4)  Do not put a roast in the Crock-Pot for dinner on a day you eat Red Mill burgers in the afternoon.  No one will be hungry for dinner.

5)  Also?  Parking can be tricky.

Other than that, go for it.  I don’t see how you could possibly regret it.  Unless you’re a vegan or very frugal.  Or allergic to bacon.

I didn’t think I was judgmental.  I just thought I was right.

Motherhood has cured me of a lot of that.  Before I had kids, I had a lot of certainties about parenting.  I was a much better mother before I actually had kids, as a matter of fact.  Turns out that kids haven’t read the manual, either, and don’t always do what the experts say they will do.  (Also?  Nothing like having children to hold up a gigantic magnifying glass to highlight your imperfections.)

But even beyond motherhood, just walking through life with open eyes and ears has made me realize how judgmental I am.  Was.  Am trying not to be.

When I was a teenager, “secular” music (that is, music that was not religious or “sacred”) was a sin.  We good Christian girls did not listen to it, nor did we hang out with people who did.  (I made an exception for Olivia Newton-John.  The music, not the person.  Why am I confessing this?)  But then I met a really nice guy at Taco Time where I worked–I can’t remember his name–but he was a big Motley Crue fan.  Maybe his name was Steve.  We laughed a lot and I realized that he–a heavy metal fan–was just a person like me.  Not scary, but funny.  And kind and a good worker.

When I’m driving, a slow driver or a weaving car will cause me to shout, “YOU IDIOT!”  (I know.)  My daughter will say, “Mom, just because it’s slow doesn’t mean it’s an idiot.”  She’s right, of course.  I judge because I cannot speed.  Dumb and unfair and a terrible example to my kids.  And what if that person ends up at the same place I’m going and we look into each other’s eyes and I realize what a jerk I am?

I tend to think that my preferences should be dictates.  Ask my long-suffering husband who likes to point out that I have about a million rules for living.  For example, no tattoos allowed unless you are a military man or a rock star.  And then I think of sweet friends who have tattoos and who am I to judge?  I am so quick to dismiss trends and ideas and people who don’t fit into my tidy little world view.  And how offensive am I?  Judging someone for something that ultimately doesn’t matter at all?

I used to shrink back when someone different entered my orbit.  How could we coexist with such different ideas about the world?  And then, I’d catch a glimpse into that other life and discover the similarities beyond the walls.

Of course, I have definite ideas of things.  I will never get a tattoo.  I won’t have my nose pierced or dye my hair purple.  I have no interest in rap music or understanding Kurt Cobain’s lyrics.  I intend to stay married until I die to the same man (lucky guy).  It’s unlikely that I will ever drink alcohol.  I have no plans to start cursing (much) and I will never, ever find the movie “Borat” funny.  I’d like all boys to wear their hair short and all girls not to call boys on the phone.  In my world, no one has sex outside of marriage and teenagers don’t use the ‘f-word’ on their Facebook pages.

I try to balance on this teeter-totter of ideas and peculiarities and particularities.  I have every right to sort through issues and trivial matters and decide what I think.  We all do.  But I find that I like people who aren’t on my teeter-totter at all, people who free-wheel through life with green mohawks and those weird discs in their earlobes and an interest in remote African politics.  Hey, it takes all kinds!  Who am I to judge?  I like those people, even liberals and people who think abortion is a valid choice and people who like to watch Star Trek.  (Most of them, anyway.  Some of them just get on my nerves and there’s nothing I can really do about that.  That’s the truth.  I never claimed to be perfect.)

I totally believe in absolute right and wrong.  Some things are always right.  Some things are always wrong.  But there is an ocean floating between those two island and that’s where most of us bob.  At least that’s what I think tonight.

Answer:  I have absolutely no idea.  (Question:  Why are you writing about this tonight?)

Only one month until school starts.  One month.  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  We’re racing through summer like we’re rafting down the white-water of a river . . . just paddling like mad, bouncing through the rapids, hoping we don’t spill from our boat.

I am well aware that this frantic pace will not last forever.  Our young football player won’t always have practice five nights a week.  Our daughter will not always be shadowing me, chatting until I am begging for silence.  The teenagers are approaching adulthood with scary speed.  At some point, our house will empty out and we will be shocked to find the cupboard full of glasses at all times and the milk going sour in the fridge.  The bread will go stale before we can eat it.

Meanwhile, when quiet moments come, like today when I wondered where everyone was–but not enough to search for them–I sit down, put up my feet and read.  My back patio door is smudged with fingerprints and several baskets of laundry need to be put away, but I read half of The Help.  When life rushes you along, you have to take advantage of the calm stretches.

This week,  I have two dentist appointments on the calendar–one for my daughter to get x-rays and one for my check-up.  (I hate going to the dentist.)  Our son has football every night.  Nothing else appears on my calendar, though I am scheduled to work forty hours, of course.

So, now you know.  And now I’m going to bed.  (I know!  It’s 1:22 a.m.  Al Roker is probably getting up about now on the East Coast to start the weather forecast for The Today Show–I know this because often when I do my last “Twitter” post of the night, Al is making his first!)

So, there really were a trillion people at Wild Waves on Wednesday and it was broiling hot.  My bare feet burned while scurrying across the pavement.  But despite that, we had fun.  It was so strange to sit in the hot sun in Seattle with sweat beading on our faces–it’s just so unusual for it to be over a hundred degrees around here.  It was the “Hottest Day Ever in Seattle.”

I’m going back tomorrow with the two youngest kids.  My teenagers don’t like Wild Waves.  I know.  Figure that one out.  We’re going to meet some friends–which I can’t believe I agreed to because you cannot fake prettiness or camouflage fatness in a waterpark.  (No make-up, swimsuit, crazy wet hair . . . )  Best not to dwell on that too long.

And so July ends . . . and the weather has simmered down to a reasonable eighty-something or perhaps ninety-something degrees.  I never thought I’d be grateful that the temperature was DOWN to ninety-two.

Now I’m talking about weather.  And will that dullness, I will sign off and get some sleep.

It’s approximately ten thousand degrees here in the Pacific Northwest.  Rainy Seattle?   A faint memory.

That’s all anyone in Western Washington can talk about because it’s so weird and so hot and did I mention so hot? I think we are setting records with our triple digits.  (Nothing for you Phoenix people, but we are not used to this heat.)

We have air conditioning–a rarity in these parts–but tomorrow I’m leaving the chilliness of my house and taking the kids to our weekly outing to Wild Waves.  I predict a million other people will also be there.  I know.  You totally wish you could be me.

Dream on.

Today, even in the shade, it was hot.  Welcome, Global Warming.  I thought you’d never get here.

However, we have air conditioning, so I’m wearing a sweatshirt as we speak.  And slippers with socks.  (I am very attractive while working at my computer.)  And my knees and nose are cold.

I tried to sleep in today.  My “sleep-in” days are numbered with school approaching at an alarming rate.  Last week, I had to wake up the kids to go to Vacation Bible School.  Today?  At 7:00 a.m. my sweet, annoying little daughter came in to ask me some inane question which I can’t remember because I was asleep.  She came in several more times until I was delirious with frustration and fatigue and maybe a little rage.

The best ten dollars I’ve spent this summer was definitely the inflatable pool that sits on my deck.  The water’s already warmed up and my daughter and her dolly slide down that little slide into that small pool with great glee.  It’s hilarious to watch the variety of sliding she does.  The boys are all content to stay indoors in the chilly air.

My 11-year old had the first official day of football practice which will now take place Monday through Friday from now until eternity.  Forever and ever, amen.  And it was a billion degrees, but he seemed happy to go and practice.  I dropped him off and took my daughter to the pool where I sat in the warm shade and answered email on my phone and followed Twitter and participated in a Facebook party.  I am so technologically advanced and also addicted to my cell phone.  I know.  Don’t you want to be me?  Or at least text me?

Tomorrow morning I have to take the 11-year old to get shots for sixth grade.  What a pain, in more ways than one.  So, no sleeping in.

Just in case you were wondering, working full-time during the summer is no fun.  The kids don’t entirely understand why I don’t have summer vacation, too.  However, I am lucky to work at home, plus I was able to rearrange my schedule so I have Wednesdays off until 7 p.m. . . . which is why you’ll find us at Wild Waves again this Wednesday.  You won’t see me, though, because I have special powers of invisibility when I’m wearing a swimsuit.

Long before I became a mother, I thought children were molded, not unfolded.  I thought you held them in your hands and shaped them with warm nimble fingers.  I thought you offered a logical explanation (“Rinse your milk glass and then the milk won’t get dry and sticky and hard to clean”) and they would assimilate this information and incorporate it into their daily routines.  I thought you whittled them into miniature replicas of you.

I might not have such fixed ideas about the nature of children if I weren’t the mother of adopted children as well as biological children.  The traits of the biological children are so vividly recognizable as the traits of my husband and me that I must conclude that the traits of my adopted children must be duplicates of their birth parents’ traits.  So behavior that seems inexplicable to me (the aforementioned dried milk in glasses, for instance) likely has a reasonable, organic basis.  (Perhaps their loathing of math can also be explained.)

My daughter inherited my curly hair.  She’s articulate and stubborn and slow to warm up to new situations.  As a baby, this reticence to embrace new situations revealed itself at three months of age when someone other than me held her.  She screamed her head off and refused to be comforted until I took her home into her own room.  After that day, no one could hold her but me and on some occasions, her dad.  No one else.  Ever.  She would shriek and freak out.

She clung to me like a barnacle.  For months I did everything with one hand, including peeling potatoes.  I took her everywhere.  She had no babysitters.  I thought I’d have to homeschool her since I couldn’t imagine her letting me out of her sight.

But when she was about four, she began to venture away sometimes.  She’d talk to other adults.  She became friendly to people at the pool.  By the time she turned six, she was able to go to kindergarten.  Her public school teacher would sometimes let her call me when she missed me a lot, but by halfway through the year, even the phone calls tapered off.

My baby girl grew brave and independent.  Usually.

But sometimes, like today, she reverts.  Today, when I dropped her off at VBS (Vacation Bible School), I was stunned when she left her group and ran to me.  She burst into tears, rubbed her eyes and begged me to stay with her.  I have no idea–I guess her tank of braveness and independence ran dry–so I told her she could come home with me but she’d miss all the fun–or that she could stay and have fun.  I refused to stay with her.  “Moms aren’t allowed,” I explained.  I gave her the choice:  Come home with me or stay and have fun.

She cried and cried.  Finally, her group headed to the activity and I said, “You need to decide” and she wanted to stay and have fun but she wanted me to stay, too, which I refused to do . . . so I gave my phone number to the 17-year old in charge of her group and told her that if she needed to come home, Shelby could call me and I’d come get her.

And what do you know?  She never called.  She had fun.

I understand her.  I feel introverted and scared and shy and I’d really rather not interact with people some days.  I remember being worried about speaking out loud during Sunday School class when I was a little older than her.  I hated middle school and never had anyone to talk to because I just couldn’t decipher the code everyone else seemed to know.

So when push comes to shove with my daughter, I try to not push or shove.  I try to let her tip-toe into the world at her own pace.  I hope that she’ll stop looking back to see if I’m still waiting and watching, that she will understand that I’m always waiting for her, even if she can’t see me.

Mostly though, I just hope that tomorrow morning she doesn’t cry.  Or I might.

My life is like interlocking blocks in a Tetris game . . . all flipped and rotated just to pack more in.

I need some breathing space.  Some margin.

I don’t even have a hem I could let out at this point.

When I woke up this morning in a rush to get the kids to VBS, I told myself I could take a nap after I delivered them.  Instead, I cleaned and did some laundry and then it was time to pick them up again, so I could return home just in the nick of time for my phone conference and four hours of work.

My husband called during my work shift and said he’d take our daughter to the pool and our son to football so I could have three hours to myself.  What did I choose to do?  Shop?  Walk?  Drive around aimlessly?

No.  I took a nap.

When I woke up, four more hours of work.  Half an hour of pointless computer wandering and now, to bed, only to get up early to take the kids to VBS.  And what will I pack into the two and a half hours of time I’ll have in the morning?  A MILLION LITTLE PIECES.  That’s what.

Twenty-two years ago I was twenty-two years old.  My tux-clad father escorted me up the aisle of our rather homely little Assemblies of God church, where he handed me off to my husband-to-be.  I wore a wedding gown of taffeta that I sewed myself in the dining room of my dad’s brown-carpeted home.  (I returned home in January of that year after college to work for six months and plan the wedding.  My husband-t0-be lived in Texas with his family during that time.)

My wedding was simple.  I had contemplated eloping, but ran into two obstacles:  1)  My dad; and 2) My husband-to-be.  A friend of the family convinced me that my dad would be sad and hurt and disappointed if I didn’t get married in a church.  And my husband-to-be told me that if we didn’t have a wedding in my church, we’d have to get married in his church in Texas.  So, fine.  I planned a wedding.  Whatever.

I cringe a little bit now because my wedding probably broke all two hundred million rules of wedding etiquette.  For instance, I didn’t serve anything but cake and mints and punch and coffee at the reception.  I know!  I didn’t really feed the people who came to my wedding.

It was cheap.  It was plain.  Someone arranged the flowers for me for a hundred bucks.  My friends sang.  It was barely a wedding at all, really, especially considering I didn’t feed anyone at all . . .  also, there was also no dancing and no drinking.

But no matter.  Hopefully they’ve all forgotten about it by now.  And, hopefully, the bridesmaids have forgiven me for dressing them in bright purple dresses with bubble skirts.

Twenty-two year old.  Twenty-two years ago.  Although a lifelong pessimist, I assumed that choosing a spouse and planning a wedding meant I would also choose my life and plan its events.  How wrong I was.  Turns out marriage is not a bed of roses, a walk in the park or any other cliche’.  Rather, marriage is plain-old messy life–but life lived with a spouse.  Marriage does not detour you around life’s rocky spots.

Two years after my wedding, my husband couldn’t find a job.  My forty-seven year old dad was diagnosed with cancer and died four months later.

Our infertility was diagnosed. I spent a lot of time crying.

My husband accepted a job that paid a pittance.  We adopted twins, we moved to Michigan.

My husband was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer and had two surgeries.

We got pregnant (surprise!) and had a homebirth attended by an Amish midwife.  We moved back to the Pacific Northwest.  Welcomed another baby (SURPRISE!).

Twenty-two years ago I married a good man who still makes me laugh, a man who keeps his promises, who calms the storms in our lives, who wants to live a worthwhile, productive life of service.  He takes plenty of naps, reads about theology, watches political shows on television, loves football season, genuinely cares about people and adores books.

And finally, he’s stopped thinking that I’m going to turn into a cheerleader and wake up with a smile on my face and start describing the glass as half-full.  He laughs at my jokes and understands that sarcasm is my love language.  He rocks.

Happy anniversary to us.

(They say the first twenty-two years are the hardest;  then it gets easier.  Fingers crossed.)