She had hiccups.  She could not stop talking about the hiccups.  Consequently, I could not stop listening to her talk about hiccups.  We were driving down the road, so I was captive to her chatter.

She repeated her talking points:

1)  I’ve had hiccups for a long time.

2)  Why do I have hiccups?

3)  What makes me hiccup?

I replied with bland answers:  “Oh, you have, huh?” and “Everyone gets hiccups sometimes” and “I’m not sure.”

Finally, though she demanded an answer:  “What makes me hiccup?”

And so, in exasperation, I said, “Your diaphragm has involuntary spasms causing you to hiccup.”

Silence filled the car.

Then:  “What?  Mom, I don’t even understand what you said.”

And I said with eye-rolling attitude, “Grace!  You are asking questions which have answers you cannot possibly understand!  Stop asking!  Please!”

As those words slipped out, I thought of how many questions I ask that have answers I cannot possibly understand.  Why did my dad die so young?  Why did my husband have cancer of the larynx of all things?  Why were we infertile–of all people?  Why did our friend Andrew die in Afghanistan when he was just 24?  Why, why, why?

I believe in God.  I believe in a God of answers, a God of justice, a God of mercy.  And I don’t understand so many things, just as my 7-year old doesn’t understand so many things.  I am a child of God, emphasis on the “child.”

Every once in awhile, I have a little glimpse of God as my Father and I imagine Him saying to me, “Melodee, you are asking questions which have answers you cannot possibly understand.  Just stop asking.”

I will trust that Someone has the answers, even if I can’t possibly understand.  That’s enough for now.

I’ve been home for two days now and haven’t cooked a decent dinner yet.  It’s not that I don’t want to cook a decent dinner.  The problem is a lack of planning and time.  Tomorrow I am going to plop some frozen chicken breasts into the Crock-pot first thing in the morning (at the crack of 9 a.m.) so we will have cooked protein around dinner-time.  Maybe I will even transform that into an actual meal, complete with vegetables and complex carbohydrates.  Imagine!  But don’t get too excited because it might not happen.

Tuesday nights are complicated.  I work until 5:00 p.m.  My son has to be at football practice at 5:30 p.m.  My daughter has to be at soccer practice at 6:00 p.m.  Tonight, my husband came home at 5 p.m. (early!) to take our son to practice. (And see?  How could I provide dinner to anyone when I wasn’t even home until 7:00 p.m.?)

You should know that at 4:00 p.m., I said to my son, “Do you know where your practice pants are?”  He said that, of course, he did.  And then, at 5:00 p.m., he did not.  He.  Did.  Not.  So, I sprang into action, upending laundry baskets, digging through folded clothes, pawing through dirty clothes.  As a last resort, I ran into my own room and asked my husband:  “Do you know where Zach’s pants are?”

“They are in the bottom of that basket.”

And sure enough, they were.  Filthy knees, possibly stinky.  I didn’t sniff.  And off he went to practice in dirty clothes.

Then, at 5:50 p.m., I said to my daughter, “We have to get ready!”  We hurried upstairs so she could pull on her shin guards and cleats.  Except, of course, that the cleats were gone.  The shin guards were neatly tucked into her closet next to all her lined up shoes.  Minus the soccer shoes.

I began a frantic search for the cleats.  I was gone when she wore them on Saturday and had no idea where they might be.  I expected them to be in the closet.

I ran laps in the house, searching in all the obvious and ridiculous places (under the kitchen table, inside the dirty laundry basket, on her bed).  I was sweaty and annoyed and frustrated.  Finally, at 6:05 p.m., I called my husband at football practice.  “Do you know where Grace’s soccer shoes are?”

“Oh yeah.  They’re in the van.”  The van he had with him at the football field.

That noise you heard at 6:05 p.m. PST was me screaming.

So, while we waited for him to deliver the shoes, we sat in the car outside in the driveway.  I checked the mailbox and found a small stack of mail.  I stood by the car and sorted it, then opened the first envelope.  And that is how I acquired a large, painful paper cut on my index finger.

We arrived at soccer practice fifteen minutes late.  My finger was still bleeding.  What did I do to deserve all this?  (Besides not cooking a proper dinner for days?)

Tomorrow, I am driving to a chalet in Mt. Baker with my friend, Cari.  We are joining a bunch of women on a scrapbooking retreat.  Scoff if you must, but my photographs are in chronological order from 1993 until 2005.

Aside from the scrapbooking, I intend to devote some time to writing my neglected novel.  I’m nearly half-way through.  I had been devoting all my Saturdays to writing, but then soccer and football games started and I haven’t had a Saturday to myself ever since.  So, during my forty-eight hours on the mountain, I hope to write.

I will put my photographs in scrapbooks during my writing breaks.

Also?  I will breathe in crisp mountain air and walk on mountain trails.

So, you can see I’ve got my work cut out for me.  And that’s why I have no more time to devote to this blog entry.  I must sleep so I can wake up, load the dishwasher, pack some clothes, find the notes for my novel, shove my laptop into its bag, lug the scrapbooking supplies and photographs to the car-trunk, throw some clothes into the dryer, and remember to take my pillow with me so I can sleep while I”m gone.   Also?  I have to go pick up Cari.

I feel utterly guilty leaving my family for forty-eight hours.  But I’m going anyway.

Have a great weekend!  (And thanks for all the nice comments on my previous entry.  Someday I’ll get around to answering your comments which appear in my email box.)

I started blogging on October 11, 2003.  Here’s the post.  I had about twelve readers, online friends I knew from a pregnancy message board.  I remember the first comment I got from a stranger.  I was freaked out and a little outraged that a stranger would leave me a comment.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I didn’t even really understand what a blog was, nor did I know that so many blogs existed.

I used to write with wild abandon since no one in my real world knew about my blog other than my husband.  I described my days (often full of snot and cabin fever) and my feelings and my opinions about whatever.  I obsessively checked my statistics to see how many visitors I had, where they came from, how long they stayed.  I clicked on other blogs, built my blogroll, left comments wherever I went.  I was a Blogger.  I blogged pretty much every day.

Being a plain old blogger led me to being a paid blogger and my stint at Clubmom.com.  That job led me to unveil my secret blogging life to some people in my real world.  And suddenly, I felt like I was writing on an overhead projector.  My blog became less private, less of a haven.

Now, six years later, my online world has become very public.  My Twitter leads to my Facebook which links to my blog.  My children are my Facebook friends.  My mother reads my blogs.  Other Facebook friends (college buddies, childhood acquaintances, the neighbor down the street, etc.) have access to every blog entry.  People from church–both old and new–can stop by and read my blog whenever fancy strikes.  The category of things I no longer talk about has grown exponentially leaving me to wonder what, exactly, I can possibly talk about.  (Things Not To Talk About:  Teenagers, Family, Job, Church, Marriage, Politics . . .).

I’ve been working online for a website full-time for almost two years.  I have hardly any time at all to read blogs and I rarely leave comments.  I know my pool of readers has trickled away even though I never, ever check my stats any more.  I can tell because I have so few commenters anymore.  It’s a far cry from the hey-day when I’d have thirty or forty comments on a post.

It’s kind of sad. And I sort of don’t care.  Except when I do care.

I think about starting over, a brand new, super anonymous blog, but then, I’d have no readers.  And why write if no one reads it?  (Catharsis alone?)  Plus, I don’t have time.  And my brain has dried up like a raisin, all wrinkled and gummy.

I’m never going to start another blog, though.  (Never say never, but I say never.)

Really successful blogs have a plot.  Or a deliberate purpose.  This blog has neither.  But it’s mine and we have a long history together, sort of like a relative you have to invite over for Thanksgiving.  (Disclaimer:  Not that I’m talking about My Relatives or My Thanksgiving.  Obviously.  Maybe yours, though.)

And yeah, I know there will be no comments because my blog is a vacant lot and what is there to say, really, to this sort of an entry?  But on the positive side, at least I’ve managed to come up with something to say without offending anyone I actually know.  Unless you are offended and I know you.

Also?  Yoko Ono annoys me.  Who knew?

My husband likes to remind me that my life is most likely half over.  I suppose this is meant to spur me to a greater appreciation of life and deepen my desire to absorb every moment, but really, it just makes me feel old.

I’m at that age when I see a college student and think he must be in junior high.  I cannot believe that professionals–doctors, even–are young enough to be my children (if I’d been a teenage mother).  My college friends have kids in college and the very thought of that blows my mind.

When I study my face closely in the mirror, I can’t help but notice the soft wrinkles gathered around my eyes.  I’m losing elasticity while sprouting gray hair at my temples.  I fear that my back will refuse to bend without warning.  I am all age spots and spider veins.

I feel old and tired.  Even though I’m just middle-aged and sleep-deprived.

I think these thoughts at every change of the seasons.  Today, a chilly wind accompanied us to school.  Summer has evaporated leaving only cold sunshine and a promise of rain tomorrow.

The ending of each season propels me closer to The End.  And I really, really, really hope the story of my life will be told with gusto and humor and compassion before that final page.

But today I am boring and tired and uninteresting, unworthy.  My daughter, however, is beginning to read, has mastered Yahtzee and has the most perfect blond ringlets.  She brings laughter and recognition to my days.

She is sunshine and rainbows.  I am fog.  I am tired fog, in need of immediate sleep.

Twenty years ago this week my dad died.  It was a Thursday, the last day of summer.  He’d been in the hospital for eleven days.  Earlier that summer he’d made it clear that he did not want to die in the hospital.  He known since May that he was going to die, sooner rather than later.  The doctors predicted he’d last four months to two years.

Four months after that diagnosis with a brain tumor and eleven days after he was hospitalized, we brought him home by ambulance.  They wheeled him down the hallway in a stretcher but he had to stand up and walk the last few feet, a fact that made him suddenly alert and pissed off.  He did not appreciate being coddled and prompted, “Just a few feet, Mr. Martin.  Just a few feet.”

I cradled a pillow in my arms, anxious and worried about those last few feet he needed to cross to reach the hospital bed waiting for him in my old bedroom.

Three of my aunts from Wisconsin had come to stay with me that week.  Aunt Lu spent all night sitting in a recliner next to my dad but he never regained consciousness.  When I woke up the next morning to get ready for work–because the mundane duties of life never seem to stop–my aunt told me that he’d been restless all night but he was resting comfortably.  She assured me that he’d be fine, that she’d call and let me know if anything changed.

While I was at work, a hospice nurse came to establish care.  I called at noon and received the report that he was the same.

At four, I drove into my driveway.  My aunt met me on the sidewalk to tell me that I needed to retrieve my sister from her job.  My dad was very close to death.

I drove a couple of miles to the fast-food restaurant where my sister worked.  I stood by the dessert case and asked for her.  When she appeared, I couldn’t speak.  My silence told her more than she wanted to know, so we hugged and cried.

Minutes later, we returned to the house.  My aunt warned us not to go to the bedroom because my dad was having seizures.  I went to his bedside anyway and found him stiff and shaking.  I retreated to the living room.

He died.

When I went back to see him, only his body remained.  It was so clear to me that he wasn’t there any longer.  He was gone.  I touched his beard.  Poor daddy.

Poor me.  Poor us.  He died when I was only 24.  He was 47.  Malignant melanoma–skin cancer–robbed us.  He had a whole life still ahead of him–and grandchildren he had yet to meet.

That was twenty years ago.

How quickly the years slide by, how the seasons speed by, circling around and around, summer fast on the heels of Christmas, pumpkins turning orange moments after Easter egg hunts end.

I miss him.

He would have loved being a grandpa.  How I wish I could wander into his garage and find him fiddling with computers and radios in various states of disrepair.  He would be listening to the golden oldies on the radios, while Morse code transmissions beep in the background.  I would bake him chocolate chip cookies and tell him funny anecdotes to make him laugh.  If he were here.

If only he were here.

James Taylor is an old man.

That’s my exact thought when I saw him take the stage at the Puyallup Fair on Saturday night.  He wore a knit cap and a pale blue shirt and blue jeans.  He walked like an old man, though,  and he looked old.  And I suppose he is old.

But, oh, that man can sing.  I’ve known some of those familiar songs since I was a child myself.  “You’ve Got a Friend” has been absorbed right into my bloodstream and is a part of me.

So, the night was lovely, neither hot nor cold.  The metal bench was hard, pain-inducing, but the view was great.  And the company, my husband of twenty-two years, was excellent.  He’s a great guy.

We could have had a nasty fight on the way to the concert because we were in the car.  That’s enough.  Just being in the car.  As a passenger I have certain expectations.  As in, I’m a passenger, not a navigator, not a co-pilot, not a traffic advisor.  And so when he says suddenly, “Is that our exit” and I glance up and say, “No,” that’s only because I wasn’t looking, I was preoccupied (with my iPhone, if you must know) and how am I supposed to know?  He’s been there many times before and how in the world does he not know which exit?

But you see, that last part I just kept to myself  because why start something?  We’ve been married for twenty-two years and for all of those twenty-two years we have been utterly incompatible in the car.  Just today we had that age-old conversation about depth perception–I say he ought to start braking when the cars in front of us brake, but he feels comfortable waiting until the last minute, after his wife has had heart failure from fright.  He says I should trust him considering the scientific fact that men and women have different depth perceptions (he heard this somewhere once) and I say he ought to be sensitive to my impaired depth perception and understand that I think we are about to DIE in a car crash, but mostly, we just keep our lips zipped.

So, we did not fight on the way to the concert.

* * *

Yesterday was Grace’s second soccer game.  She scored a goal, her first.  Her team played really well and trounced the other team.  Though it seems wrong to gloat since we are talking about six and seven year old girls.

My son had a football game later in the day, so it was about 3 p.m. before we were done with sporting events.  Then I spent my afternoon baking cookies, brownies and muffins to contribute to the funeral preparations.

Tomorrow, I’m taking the kids to the fair, just the two youngest.  The older kids don’t like to go.  (!!!)  Tuesday is the soldier’s funeral.  Every week is full of its own particular brand of crazy-busy.  Just when you think things have got to slow down and get normal, something else happens.  There is no normal.  Normal is a myth.

That’s why I’m writing this at 1:37 a.m.  Tomorrow I’ll regret staying up this late but at least I wrote a post.

You’re welcome.

Around here when the mountain snow melts suddenly the icy water causes the rivers to run too fast and too full.  The flood waters spill over their banks and seep into basements and living rooms, leaving thick gritty mud in their wake.

Our house does not sit in a flood zone, but I feel like I’ve been living in my own personal flood zone.  The past weeks have been a frantic rushing of churning events.  The events themselves have not all been bad, but their combined force has knocked me from my feet and left me grabbing for a solid hold.

Three weeks ago we celebrated Grace’s birthday.  I had a writing deadline and three school Open Houses (on the same night in different towns).  School began, a friend from Florida came through Seattle.  My regular full-time job continued to be regular and full-time.  Grace had her first soccer game.

Then I flew to New York on business.  The night before I left I worked until midnight, made school lunches, packed and went to bed at 1 a.m., then rose at 3 a.m. so I could leave my house at  4 a.m. so I could arrive at the airport at 5 a.m. so I could depart on a Delta flight where I sat in the middle seat between two arm-rest hogs for over five hours.

I hailed a taxi-cab at the airport and settled into my hotel by 4 p.m.  A few hours later, while walking down West Broadway alone, I ran into a movie set where they were taping a “Sex and the City” movie.  I stood and watched awhile but did not spy Sarah Jessica Parker.  Alas.

The next day was a whirlwind of meetings and events, starting at 8:45 a.m. and ending at 10:45 p.m.  Sometimes I cannot believe that I periodically fly to New York on business.  It’s surreal.  Luckily I have a husband who can take care of the family when I’m away.  Though no one washed a single dish in my absence.  Seriously.

On Wednesday morning, I woke before 8 a.m. and checked my email on my iPhone.  That’s how I learned that the young soldier I know was killed by an IED in Afghanistan, leaving his 5-months pregnant bride a widow.  I cried sudden, unbelieving tears.

Later that morning, I hailed another cab and flew out of Newark to Seattle.  I met a man from London embarking on an around-the-world trip which made the flight pleasant–and we had an empty seat between us so I did not have to share an arm-rest.

I returned home in time to work my 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. shift.

That was Wednesday night.  Thursday was a blur, mostly filled with work.  And a nap.

I am stumbling through today, so tired, so discombobulated.  The laundry taunts me.  My house is in a constant state of disarray.  I cannot stop thinking about the loss of Andrew and his widow, Sarah.

The rushing flood of events sweeps me along and sometimes I lose my footing.  When that happens I scarcely find time to think, let alone write.  I suspect that writing would anchor me, though.

And an anchor is what I need about now.

My daughter’s actual birthday was last Wednesday.  She turned 7.  My mother and I took her, her best friend and my son to an indoor play area called “Charlie’s Safari.”  (Highly recommend it, by the way, should you happen to be in this region.  Expensive but clean and new and it had an enclosed room just for parents.)

After the adventure, we hurried home so I could work for an hour.

Then I rushed out of the house again with my 11-year old and the 7-year old birthday girl.  His middle school Open House was from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.  The new middle school opened last year and while it is fancy and pretty and high-tech, it is located a good fifteen minutes from our house.  The last mile stretch to the school is a four-lane road with very little traffic.

As soon as I saw the police car on the other side of the road, I glanced at my speedometer.  Fifty miles an hour, it said.  The speed limit was either thirty or thirty-five.  Definitely not fifty.  I eased on my brake but the police car had already moved forward.  I looked back and saw it making a U-turn.

It was quite a bit behind me, so I hoped that my law-breaking had been unnoticed, that the car’s motion and U-turn were coincidental.  With a sigh of relief, I turned onto the road leading to school.

Only it didn’t lead to school.  It led to the Civic Center, home of the police station.  And it was a dead-end.  I pulled into the parking lot to turn around and as I did so, the police car turned onto the same road, heading toward me.  I waited for the police car to turn into the parking lot so I could exit and return to the street only the police car stopped short and motioned me to leave the parking lot.

I did and immediately, the police car with its flashing lights appeared in my rear-view mirror.

I pulled over.

The police officer, a young guy–everyone now seems younger than me–cautiously approached the open window of my mini-van.  He asked for my license, registration and proof of insurance.  Of course, my proof of insurance card is an old one–I never can seem to get the new slips of paper into the car in a timely manner–and I said, “But I promise, it’s up to date.”

He scanned my license and registration and then asked, “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

“Because I was going too fast.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Uh, because I am late.  I’m always kind of late.”

“Where are you going?”

“Uh, to a school open house.”

“Then why did you pull in here?”

“Because I’ve been to the school only two times,” I held up two fingers and wondered if I should have taken off my sunglasses, “and I thought this was the right road.  But it wasn’t.  The right road.”

“You weren’t trying to hide so I wouldn’t pull you over?”

“No!”  Oh, that I should be so naturally devious.

“When was the last time you got a ticket?”

Me, calculating what year it was that I lived in Bellingham and got pulled over while leaving the grocery store with provisions for a picnic lunch I was packing–it was before we had kids and our kids are 16 and how long ago would that have been?

“Twelve years?”

“Do you want me to give you a ticket?”

“Please, no!”

“Well, I’m giving you a warning.  I only give one warning.  The next time I catch you speeding, I will give you a ticket.”

“Okay.  Thank you.”

So, we were a few minutes late to the Open House.

After sitting on the bleachers to listen to the principal introduce all the teachers (such an exercise in futility–no one will remember the names of thirty or forty teachers), we went around and found each classroom and met each teacher.

Then rushed back home.  He changed into football gear.  I handed off our daughter to her dad so he could take her to her school Open House.  I dropped off the football son at practice, then rushed off to the mandatory virtual high school Orientation.  (That even took place thirty minutes away.)  I had to scrounge around in my car for two dollars in change to pay for parking.

Two hours later, rushed back home so I could work another three hour shift.

The next glorious day was the first day of school.  And I didn’t shed a single tear.  (More about that tomorrow.)

Moral of the story:  While driving on Center Drive, even though there is no traffic, put your car on cruise control and go 35 mph.  Or a young police officer will yell at you and threaten to give you a ticket that you deserve.