The pool opened today.  So naturally, my daughter woke up at 6:22 a.m., asking to take a shower.  I told her to go back to bed, that it was too early and she returned at 6:45 a.m. with a follow-up request.

So, she showered for . . . a long time.  I slept while she showered and sang.  My husband got up at some point and went to the office.  My son came through my room on his way to the shower and took a very long shower himself.

Meanwhile, I rebuffed every attempt my daughter made to engage me in conversation.  Mainly, she wanted to know if it was time to go to the pool yet.  She asked this in twenty minute intervals.

The the phone rang and it was the guy from India (Dell) and he wanted to guide me through installing my hard drive and I said no thank you, can you please email me the instructions?  And he said, “Well, you just remove two screws, slide out the old hard drive and slide in the new.”  I can do that, having done that same open-heart surgery repeatedly last Thursday.

My husband telephoned.

At which point (9:30 a.m.), I gave up the attempt to sleep and muddled from bed and headed immediately downstairs to switch the laundry from dryer to basket, washer to dryer and dirty clothes head to washer.

My husband returned home to mock my appearance and I can’t blame him.  You’d mock, too.

We had a change in plans and he took our son to baseball practice.  My daughter and I went to Goodwill to browse the stuffed animal bins and emerged $9.73 poorer with two bags full of stuff that I will threaten to throw away by Monday.  It’s the browsing and shopping that makes her so happy.  Plus it distracted her from the vast hours until it was time for the pool.

After baseball practice, I took a van full of kids to the pool, leaving my husband home to study.  My daughter (in her aqua blue swimsuit dotted with cherries) hesitated for a bit and then literally plunged into the pool, dunking her head and kicking her legs.  She requested permission to jump from the diving board with her life jacket on (she hasn’t passed the swim test yet, but I think she probably could).  Permission was granted, so she spent the rest of her time standing in line, leaping, swimming to the side and repeating the process.

I started reading Atonement.

Then my husband arrived and we switched off.  I didn’t have enough time to really do much, so I went to the fruit market and stopped by the grocery store for milk.  I am unimaginative.

Oh, and I know it’s dull, but the weather was glorious.  The meteorologists told us it would be 66 degrees and partly sunny, but it was 75 degrees with clouds only on the far reaches of the horizons, clinging to the mountains like well-lathered sheep.  Truly, a perfect opening day for the pool.

And now, for the next ninety days, I will have to answer this question:  “Can we go to the pool?” which is always followed up with this question as we leave the pool, “Can we get some ice cream at McDonald’s?”   Ah, summertime.

My computer still lives.

Which is very strange.

However, I am grateful for each moment it still breathes.

Oh, here’s a funny thing.  I taught my daughter how to turn on the shower (two cranks of the hot water knob, one crank of the cold water knob for the perfect temperature) and now she’s Miss Independent.  She took four showers today, two of them without bothering to ask me.

(Shhhh, don’t tell the water conservation people.  If you do tattle, be sure to mention that sometimes we drive recreationally, too!)

I am living under my own personal storm cloud which rains on me and only me for no particular reason.  And I have no umbrella.

Yesterday morning, my laptop refused to load.  After some time, it chose to do what it was supposed to do.  And I began to work.  I work online, you know, right?  And about, oh, ninety minutes into my shift, my computer began to spontaneously type a string of the letter Q, something like this:  qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq.  And then it beeped.  A lot.
I frantically began shutting down windows, trying to stop the madness.  I snatched the ethernet cord from the router.  I may have whimpered.

I resorted to pressing the power button until the computer grew silent.  Comatose.  Perhaps dead.

Then I turned it back on and it froze on the DELL screen.

So I switched chairs and used my kids’ computer for the rest of my shift.  Periodically, I’d glance over at my laptop to make sure it was still sitting with that stupid screen frozen on its face.

After my shift, I ran a diagnostic scan, got an error message and decided to call Dell . . . and reached India.  I wondered what time it could possibly be in India if it was 6 p.m. here.  Before the man would help me, he informed me that I’d have to pay $39 since my warranty had expired.  Of course it had because my computer is almost eighteen months old after all.  Ancient, right?

I spent nearly two hours on the phone with the guy in India.  I had to ask him to repeat pretty much every sentence, which made me feel stupid and half-deaf, but I couldn’t understand his quick cadence.  He had me pulling out the battery, draining the power, unscrewing screws, sliding out the hard drive, removing the CD/DVD drive, reassembling everything–all of this repeated in various configurations.  I felt like I was doing unauthorized open heart surgery with a pocket knife.  Sometimes I’d see the blessed sight of my own icons and thought all was not lost.

Then he’d tell me to shut the computer down, reboot it and I’d get the frozen DELL screen again.

At last, he suggested that perhaps my hard drive was dying and that maybe I could salvage the stuff on it.  I ordered a new hard drive.  He told me to leave the computer gutted overnight, then drain the power, reattach the power cord and reboot the computer and that if I were very very very lucky I’d be able to access the contents of my hard drive again.

I did that this morning and the computer responded normally.  I was able to email myself all the important documents I hadn’t backed up.  I uploaded all my pictures to Costco so I can order them at some point.  I have no blank discs in the house since I live with teenage boys who have run through every blank disc we’ve ever had almost as quickly and pointlessly as they consume all the Cheerios.  So I couldn’t download my iTunes to a disc, but I did hook up the iPod and get all the music on it.

But what a nightmare.

Hey, the computer is still working!  I’m typing on it right now, but I fully expect it to be dead as a doorknob in the morning when I turn it on.

Oh, and so today while I’m working on my boys’ computer (and uploading pictures to Costco from my laptop), all three computers on our network stalled.  Our internet connection never goes out but it did today, right in the middle of my shift.  I had to call Comcast and the impatient woman on the phone instructed me to unplug both modem and router, which reset the internet.  I guess.  I don’t know what it did, but we were back online.

Hopefully, now, the Universe has collected whatever debt I owed and will stop raining upon me.

My son knocked at the front door at 9:30 p.m. Friday night.  I opened the door and turned back to the kitchen without looking at him. “Mom.  Mom,” he said, “It’s bad.”

I peered at him in the dark entryway.  His chin, nose and mouth were bloodied.

“What happened?”

He fell while playing basketball, tripping over a big chunk of nothing, and then another kid landed on his head, smashing his face into the street.

His front teeth were loosened.  This fact made me see dollar signs, seven thousand dollar signs’ worth of fake teeth.  Instead of screaming, I got out an ice tray to fix him a little pack.
His teeth did not fall out and now, only a few days later, he is healing quite nicely.

Meanwhile, my kids are passing cold germs from one to another.  My daughter is mad at her 10-year old brother for giving her his cold.  She’s feverish and has a cough and she is not pleased.
I can only be thankful that she is five and doesn’t require around-the-clock pampering when she’s sick.

I am thankful that my son retains his teeth.

To me, anxiety feels like a fire in my sternum, a round flash of heat that rotates inside me. I experienced that flush this week during a phone call. It reminded me of the time that I raised my hand in my sixth grade homeroom to ask my teacher, “Do we really have to go through every single problem?” She sent me to the principle’s office, or maybe it was the counselor. I can’t remember, but I was in Big Trouble.

I do remember the mortification, though, of being viewed as a rabblerouser, when all I really wanted was to be teacher’s pet and to get a perfect grade. I never once in my whole life wanted to rebel. Ever.

That incident marked the end of my willingness to participate wholeheartedly in a classroom setting. I learned to keep my opinion to myself. I learned to keep my arms and legs tucked inside the ride, no wild flinging of life or limbs.

Except sometimes. Except last week in a vastly different setting, in a situation that I cannot disclose in any detail here. However, as a result of my actions and a misunderstanding, I felt the heavy weight of disapproval. It was just like being sent to the principal’s office and as a result, I melted into a puddle of teenage angst and thought how much better the world would be if I were banished to a deserted island–or, for that matter, to a dessert island where I would drown my sorrows in hot fudge and creamy banana pies, and roll around in beds of marshmallows and creme puffs.

Really, for two days, I thought seriously that staying in bed, under the covers, would be the best possible solution to the conflict I cannot talk about. I stared at my gloomy reflection in the mirror and considered what a great failure I had become at life. But I cannot talk about it.

But it is not my marriage, nor my family, nor anything that happened in my community or my church. It happened in another realm, but an important one–and I hate it, as you do, when bloggers or writers won’t just spit out the details, but I can’t.

I do consider myself to be a decent human being. When others see me as a deficient human being, one prone to errors more than not, a person who needs to be reprimanded for the mistakes she’s made–well, I take that hard. Very hard. Ridiculously hard and I want to run away, far, far away. But I can’t. Because I am a grown-up. The luxury of collapse is not mine to be had.

On that very same day which was crowded with my own self-loathing, my husband visited a widow in our church and brought home an armful of neckties. I contrasted my distress with true heartbreak and loss and still could not snap out of it. I saw news footage of a Chinese mother looking in the rubble of an earthquake for her missing six-year old son and yet the despair of my own little tragedy clung to me like stubborn fog.

I even recognized what I had done–this downward spiraling negative talk, this personal cyclone of disaster that I’d spun out of a mistake and a misjudgment–yet I couldn’t seem to steady myself, to turn my frown upside down.

I’m too old, though, to wallow for long. So I literally told myself, out loud, “Let it go. Just let it go.” I cannot control circumstances beyond me, nor minds independent of my own. I have to just release situations that spin outside of my orbit in the first place. Do my best and trust the rest will sort themselves out.

Save the freaking out for situations which deserve it. Grow up. Get a grip. Move on.

1) I hate playing board games.

2) My ten year old son who excels in all areas of his life still cannot tie his shoes.

3) I roll my eyes at my children. (My mother was right: they did get stuck that way.)

4) I tell my kids baked goods have nuts in them to dissuade the children from partaking. Even if no nuts are involved.

5) My fantasy weekend involves my children being absent from my house, while I am home alone.

6) I hardly ever read books to my five and a half year old. I KNOW! I am doomed, she is doomed. We are all doomed.

7) I do not hug enough, apologize enough or praise enough.

8) Unlike a Mother’s Day commercial I just heard, I do not give 100% of myself at all times to my children.

9) From time to time, I put myself first. Okay, more often than from time to time.

10) I hog all the ice. I can be heard saying, “DO NOT USE ALL THE ICE! I MEAN IT!”

Every time I go into my bathroom, I see the WORLD magazine in the basket by the toilet and I think about people in Haiti eating dirt cookies. Did you know that? People in Haiti eat dirt cookies because they have no food. I find this so distressing that I Googled “Haiti” to find out how many people live there and if I could possibly solve this problem with a few dozen bags of rice from Costco.

But, alas. Haiti is the second poorest country in (the world? the hemisphere?) and has 8 million people. EIGHT MILLION PEOPLE. Eighty percent of them are unbelievably poor. The unemployment rate is . . . did it say 90%? All I know is that Haiti is an impossible problem and the people there are eating dirt cookies.

This hurts my heart.

I can’t stop thinking about it.

Tucked next to that obsession in my head is this thought: I love that Oprah is kind of chubby again. It makes me feel marginally better about my ten pounds weight gain. I intend to write a letter to myself on my other blog one of these days soon. I need to straighten myself up, remind myself that I am more than my waistline.
Oh, get this. A book publisher sent me $300.00 worth of books as a gift. Just for fun. Honestly, could anything be better? (Chocolate? Did someone say “chocolate”?)

Also, please, Neighborhood Boys, I am begging you to stop knocking over my flimsy white wire fence onto my pathetic flower bed. I only have one flowerbed, things are growing and YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE.

My computer went into a coma this morning–absolutely refused to load. That freaked me out. I ran a diagnostic scan (I have no idea how I did that) and the computer roared back to life. I am Annie Sullivan. Yes, a Miracle Worker.

I recently read my first two Dean Koontz books, two of the “Odd Thomas” books. I adored those books and read them practically non-stop. I also read an Elizabeth Berg novel . . . and a few other things. Tomorrow I will post about a book I reviewed for a blog tour. I’m going to update my Librarything.com account–I like to keep track of what I’ve read using that website. Do you know about it? You should. It is such a great website.

Oh! And last weekend I saw “Iron Man” with Robert Downey Junior. (Robert Downey, Jr.?) He is exactly my age, by the way. So is Brooke Shields and Melissa Gilbert. Just in case you were wondering. Anyway, the movie was really good, very entertaining, funny and worthy of its success. The only thing is that I wouldn’t take a three year old, as some of the people in the theater did. I have to say that if your three year old is NOT sensitive to violence that appears in movies rated PG that perhaps that is a problem. I would hope that small children would be too sensitive to see action movies like Iron Man. (See: Melodee’s Biggest Pet Peeve.) Small children should be protected from inappropriate visual images.

Last night I stayed up until 1:20 a.m. because I had washed a million loads of laundry this week that sat in baskets all week, unfolded. Usually I fold each load as it comes out, but I have been swamped by the tidal wave that is my life. I also did a load of dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. What a delight it was to stumble downstairs this morning, blind without my glasses, to a cleanish kitchen and folded baskets of clothes.

Well. I guess that’s all.

But what are we going to do about Haitians eating dirt cookies?

Oh, don’t forget to put out food for the mail carrier to pick up tomorrow. It’s the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.

I woke up Saturday morning full of vague dread. Why would I dread the ocean? I probed inside my head and quickly found the source of my angst. I loathed the idea of spending the day at an indoor waterpark and that was exactly what I was about to do.

When my husband explained this weekend jaunt to me, I embraced the idea with enthusiasm. He’d go down Friday night, speak at the opening session, then I would bring the children on Saturday morning. As the retreat speaker, he’d be provided with two rooms for his family and meals. Did someone say “free”? I am all about free stuff.

We thought there’s be a pool at the hotel. Four days prior to the adventure, my daughter packed her suitcase and three backpacks. She couldn’t wait to swim at the pool.

And then he called me on Friday afternoon from the hotel. No pool. But, great news, he said, there’s an attached indoor waterpark!

Oh. Good. Right? The kids would love that, I thought. I decided on the spot that I would not wear a swimsuit, though, because floating in a pool is a far cry from walking around at an indoor waterpark. But the kids would have fun. And my husband would be there, thus getting swimsuit duty.

That Saturday morning dread surprised me a little. Then I realized that when I think ocean, I think walking on the shore, searching for shells, gazing up at the ocean on the horizon, listening to the crashing, foaming waves. I don’t think indoor waterpark. Nevertheless, I’d be spending my afternoon at one.

I am a kill-joy. I admit it freely. I try, I really do, but I am becoming an old fuddy-duddy.

When we left our house Saturday morning, we drove through foggy rain. By the time we arrived at Ocean Shores two hours later, the sun was brightening the clouds and in some spots, blue sky promised a pleasant afternoon. We had lunch, then the children switched into their swimsuits. With much joy and anticipation, my daughter hurried me down the hallway toward the waterpark.

She and her brothers walked up the stairs which pulsed with burbling water fountains, dodged the waterfalls, ducked the spraying jets and arrived at the top of the blue slide, which was one of three water slides. From where I sat, her body language communicated her fear to me, though the noise in the waterpark was deafening. My husband and I had to lean close and shout into the other’s ear to chat. I didn’t need to hear what Grace said, though. She rubbed her fist on her eye, tipped her face down and I knew that she’d return to me the long way, back down the treacherous stairs.

The boys had a great time. Slipping, sliding, yelling, laughing, rushing by sopping wet. Grace watched from the plastic chair next to mine. She asked, “Is the orange slide fast?” She traced the slide with a finger in the air, trying to calculate the speed and distance of each slide. She made several attempts, but couldn’t overcome her fear at the mouth of the blue slide. She’d go up, clutching someone’s hand and then return back down the stairs, informing me, “I am too scared.”

I sighed a lot, but tried to be encouraging and patient. I knew that if she rode the slide once, she’d love it and her fear would be forgotten. Then again, I knew that it took a whole summer at the pool before she finally got up the nerve to dip her face in the water.

At one point, my husband put on his swimsuit to accompany her down the slide. Even his presence did not give her enough courage to slide.

So he went back to the room to take a nap.

Then she decided to walk up the rope ladder, a gently sloping, impossible-to-fall-through rope walk-way, up to the slide. She took one step and hopped back off. She took two steps, a child came up behind her and she scurried back down. She wanted to take her time and she wanted to be alone on that walk-way, but other children kept appearing behind her, so she’d turn and make her way back down. Over and over this happened, maybe twenty times, until she was within three feet of the top. And she turned and scampered back down.

Her 10-year old brother noticed this and offered to hold her hand, to take her up to the orange slide. (We determined it was the “slowest” slide.) I thought if anyone could, he would be the one to convince her that she wouldn’t die sliding down the slide. I thought this would be the triumphant moment.

I walked around to watch, getting the hems of my jeans soaking wet. I studied them, deafened by the pounding water and echoing sounds of people at play, as she stood, then sat the top of the orange slide. Then I saw her polka-dotted swimsuit reappear. Zachary came down, told me Grace promised she’d follow him, but I could see her still standing at the top.

Three times he came down. Three times she chickened out. After a good twenty minutes of this, I told him to retrieve her.

All told, we were at the waterpark for two hours. Her swimsuit wasn’t even wet. Fear kept her from sliding down like all the other kids. She said, “I really want to, but I am too afraid.” Fear loomed, blocking her from the promise of great joy, thrills and chills.

And I understood because sometimes fear intimidates me, too, and I sit watching, too afraid to join in.

What I adore about my fraidy-cat daughter, though, is that she tries over and over again. She admits her feelings, unashamed. She takes her time and when the time is right, she’ll slide. Not a moment sooner, though, and you can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.

I can respect that.

We drove to the ocean, stayed overnight, and drove back. That about sums up my weekend.

And although I promised the children a prize if they found me an unbroken sand dollar, I found it myself.
[A picture will be inserted here if my computer and photo program decide at some point to make up and be friends.]

If my life were a sit-com, it would be the kind that doesn’t really make you laugh. Instead, you pity the main character and wonder why they didn’t hire a prettier actress. (It would seem a lot funnier with a laugh track. I demand a laugh track!)

At 11 a.m., I decided to take the five-year-olds to the grocery store. I figured we had ninety minutes before school-drop-off time (I am the Queen of the Dash today). It would be kind of fun, taking two five-year-olds to the store, right? We could grab a quick lunch and arrive at school right on time without breaking the speed limit.

We got out to the van and I said, “Do you have your backpack?” to the kindergartener. He did not. I said, “Let me get it,” and headed to the front door. At that moment, I understood for the first time why there was a house-key on the kitchen windowsill. For whatever reason, my husband took it off the key-ring we use for the Big Green Van (remember, the one he locked the keys in last week at the mall). I suppose this was to prevent someone from breaking into the van, intuiting where we lived and rushing over to steal our second-hand furniture and surplus socks.

Anyway, so I couldn’t get back into the house. I called my husband and he announced he was at the grocery store, picking up a few things. “Well,” I said, “That’s where I’m going.” So, we met in the parking lot, switched keys and cars. He’d already purchased bread, milk and other necessities (vinegar salt potato chips, for instance), but I still went in and rounded out our groceries with the addition of Oreo cookies, ricotta cheese, salad greens and other stuff. Good-bye, ninety-six dollars.

Tonight, my daughter was so upset because her melted McDonald’s sundae spilled on her bedroom floor. I know. That just made half of you gasp in horror. I cleaned it up and only scolded her a little because she had already cried about it. Then, not ten minutes later, she spilled a glass of milk in the same exact spot.

And, I did not cry over that.