Cutting Coupons

Both of my children love being helpers - in the kitchen, doing home projects, at volunteer events, cleaning, and their favorite, grocery shopping.  They like to add things to the list before we go, and check items off as they put them in the cart.  We always use the self-checkout lane so they can scan our haul themselves and input codes for the produce.  They know what has to be weighed and what items are measured by quantity.  They discovered a new step recently, though.  I actually remembered some coupons on our last trip, and the boys got really excited watching the total price drop every time we scanned one.

So when I picked them up from school Thursday, Dane announced that he had a very exciting surprise for me.  When we got home, he was smiling ear-to-ear while dragging his backpack into the kitchen to pull out his prize.  He explained that the teacher had a newspaper at school, and she let him have the coupon section.
"I spent all of my free time today cutting out coupons for you!"

This precious child had painstakingly cut just so around pictures of items and their advertised sale price, but there was not a single actual coupon in the pile.  There were tiny pictures of soda, chips, marshmallows, donuts, ice cream bars, movies, candy, orange juice and many more.  It was not lost on me that most of these "coupons" were for junk food and toys.
"Mom, I think I cut enough coupons that we can get everything for free.  Can we go to the store right now to see how much money I saved you?"

Oh boy!  I explained to Dane that I would still have to pay something, just less than usual.
"When we check out, if it is free, will you tell everyone that your son found all these deals by himself?"

Obviously now I must go shopping for a cart full of goodies and pay whatever the cost, because there is no way I can crush this boy's spirit.  A little junk food will be worth it.  We will have to use a cashier this time, as the self-checkout lane will likely reject our coupons.  And I will have to hope that that person shows him the same enthusiasm he will have handing over his pile of savings.  

And the next time I am cutting coupons, my helper boys will learn how it's really done.

Just Call it a Tuesday

I virtually never tie my Sorels.  I tuck my laces into the boots, put my feet in, then tuck my pants.  And so, almost every day during the winter, a hanging loop from one boot catches a hook from the other, and I fall down.  You'd think I'd just start tying my laces, but unless I also have cause to wear snow pants, that'll just never happen.

Tonight I rushed from work, picked up my kids, and headed to the gym in my boots.  My boys and I hurried across the lot, because class was starting in five minutes!  And then, at top speed, the thing that always happens happened.  The lace caught, my stride halted, my purse and backpack swung around my neck in choking fashion, and I went airborne.  I landed squarely on my chest, slid across the frozen sidewalk, and stopped abruptly against the building entrance.  Dane gave me a "hooooollly crap, mom" and several strangers paused to make sure I got up alright (which I totally did because this happens all the time).  I spent most of class making noises like a cat trying to cough up a hairball in an attempt to put my larynx back into it's natural position.  But seriously, this was just like a regular Tuesday.

And honestly, that kind of thing happens to me All. The. Time.
About a year ago, I was wearing red heels at work.  That day, I had some personal documents to deliver to a business located in my building, but serviced by a separate elevator bank.  I was sure I remembered what floor I was headed to, until I tried a couple without success.  I resigned myself to going back to the lobby to check the proper floor.  Reading my papers while entering the elevator, my heel caught in the space between elevator and floor.  I fell into the opening, throwing papers everywhere and only recovered in time to see the doors closing with one of my heels still on the outside.  I wasn't even sure which floor I had been on.

As the various professionals boarded at the lobby, I gave them each a nonchalant nod hello and then proceeded to press buttons for floors 19-25.  I think if my shoes had been a more subtle color that day, the fact that I was missing one may have gone unnoticed.  I calmly gave the group transfixed on me the explanation they were waiting for, "I fell into the elevator at an unknown floor and left a shoe behind."  As if that hadn't been obvious.  This happened on a Monday.  Or maybe it was a Tuesday.

During college, I waited tables.  I wore black tennis shoes at that job.  One afternoon a large family came in to celebrate an occasion.  The restaurant had a promotional drink that came in a bone-shaped plastic cup about a foot tall, and several family members had ordered one.  When it came time to start delivering food, I carried out a large tray loaded with plates in my left hand, balanced on my shoulder.  I stopped at the bar to pick up a small round tray of drinks which I carried waist-high in my right hand.  When I entered the section, people looked up at me as they normally do when they are expecting their order, but then they witnessed a miracle.  While I waited, arms loaded, for another server to bring me a stand for the large tray, a child tipped over his father's bone drink.  I quickly reached up my right foot and caught the drink at the top of the bone against my shoe laces.  Then, with perfect balance, I return it to it's original upright position without spilling a drop.  I will honestly never be able to explain how I did that, because I don't know.  I do know that Section C at Red Lobster in Greeley, Colorado gave me a standing ovation that day, and it was AWESOME!  I remember it was a Sunday.  But it could have been a Tuesday.

Everyone who's ever danced along side me knows that I'm really less about dancing, and more about doing aerobics, but dressed nicer.  So one night many years ago, while wearing a very cute pair of black sandals, my friend was not surprised that I took that opportunity to act like a ninja on the dance floor.  For the record, my ninja moves were really great for a long time.  Until the accident happened.  

One powerful kick and my sandal flew far, far away into the crowded darkness.  If I had been intoxicated, I might not have minded how sticky and wet the floor was, or that I just lost one half of my favorite pair of sandals.  But I did mind, and so I began the sheepish hop-a-long pursuit of my footwear.  

When I found the very Thor-like man holding my sandal, he presented it like Cinderella's slipper.  He then informed me my sandal had landed in his drink, knocking it out of his hand and into his super wet crotch.  Oops.
I offered to buy him a new drink, but he bought me one instead-which was a fantastic deal!  (I feel like I should say here to my single friends that I don't recommend shoe kicking at men as a general dating strategy because I think most men are more likely to be complete assholes about flying shoes dumping their drinks into their crotches).  In the end, my favorite pair of sandals were reunited, and I danced on into the night as a different sci-fi character.

I'm pretty that last story happened on a Saturday, but we'll just call it a Tuesday, too.

Not My Body

NOTE: I debated whether to post this entry because it both diverges from the positive space I usually operate, and also, it makes me feel vulnerable to criticism.  Ultimately, I decided that my dealing with insecurities, frivolous or otherwise, is a universal dilemma with which others can identify.  I'm not just comedy and mayhem, people!  And so here goes...

When people ask me if I've lost weight, I cringe.  If someone has noticed that I've lost weight, its because they've also noticed how I much I gained.  And likely they've forgotten that not that long ago I was fit.  And that sucks.

It seems like such a superficial worry when I have friends who deal with much worse than a little weight gain, and so I walk line between being sensitive to others and being acutely self-aware.  But I'm human, so sometimes I can't help but begin the unsolicited, eristic rant designed to dispel the notion that I've given up, or am somehow satisfied.  And then I feel compelled to show off beach pictures from a couple years ago and say, "see, this is my real body."

Four years ago, I was diagnosed with a interstitial cystitis.  Since I know you'll go looking it up, I'll just tell you-its chronic bladder inflammation that creates urgency and referred pain.  (Now I must also tell you that this is completely different from incontinence, which I absolutely do not suffer from).  I started a course of medication my doctor advised should provide some relief.  And then, two months in, the pounds started accumulating fast and furious.  It was like someone had turned my furnace off and the ice was piling up.

At first, I was comforted in the knowledge that I'd recovered from this road before.  When I'd gotten my first job out of college, I went from waiting tables to sitting at a desk.  I was also eating lunch out of a vending machine and dinner at a drive-thru so I could fall into bed when I got home each night.  My buttons were clearly stressed out.  But my lifelong love of all things active rebounded, my sleep cycle recovered, I found a grocery store, and I promised myself that would never happen again. Curiously though, this time no amount of marathon training (my third and fourth), triathlons, or biking to work was having the slightest impact on these new pounds.  I begrudgingly tried elimination diets to rule out sudden onset of lactose intolerance, endured talks about aging and metabolism, was given advice about food choices and exercise.  It was all fine and good, but I knew there was exactly one reason for my state-the drugs.  And it was disheartening to know people scoffed at the excuse they believed I was giving myself.  But now I must digress to mention not only weight gain, but other stuff that comes with trying to cure what ails you.  

When I see commercials for medication to treat "x" and then the possible side effects are enumerated for a reallly looong time, I always wonder, "who would risk all that other stuff?"  Well me, I did.  And here's a fun side effect of my first medication: irritable bowel syndrome.  You tell me what's worse-pain all over your lower abdomen due to bladder inflammation, or pain all over your lower abdomen because your bowels are clenching?  I would be remiss if I didn't try to salvage my dignity by noting that I haven't actually had a bowel movement with my pants up in at least 37 1/2 years.

After 2 1/2 years of experiencing lots of annoyances and no discernible relief, I called it quits on both medications I had tried.  It took another full year for most of the side effects to dissipate, except that one really demoralizing thing I had been working to fix all along.  Knowing my family genetics, staying active and challenging myself physically have always been a priority, and never more so than these last few years.  And its been equally important to me that people know I'm trying really hard.  I can forgive myself many imperfections, but superficial as it may be, I feel I deserve my abs back.

My furnace now seems to slowly be coming back to life (in a cruel twist of fate, two months after my class reunion), and people are noticing.  I'm not ready to embrace these changes, because I am skeptical about their permanence.  If you compliment my effort and I grimace, it is not because I lack appreciation, but because I am reminded of self-doubt.  Another side effect of this whole process: having to relearn to trust my effort, my instinct and my body.  

A Promise From My Husband

My husband just swore to me that if I die an untimely death, the very first thing he will do is dump the trunk-full-of-things-I-wrote into a fire.  Well, no, he didn't promise that at all.  Actually he vowed it will have it's own display table, and people will laugh, and it will be great fun.  And there will be pictures of me and my muses posted where appropriate.  (Note to self: for sure question his love for me!)

I fancied myself a pretty decent writer back in the day.  I still have every copy of my high school newspaper, every paper penned for college credit, every piece of poetry pouring out love and angst.  Right there I should just stop, because honestly, that's embarrassing enough.  But my flame for the written word has recently re-ignited, and my mind is ablaze with clever ideas that MUST be shared with the world.  And so went the epiphany: who better to inspire me than me?

And so I made the trip to the trunk-full-of-things-I-wrote.  (I went upstairs.)

I had myself convinced that being a full-time working mother of two busy boys and having commitments of my own had stifled my opportunity to write (spoiler alert: it does), let alone write the next best novel, article, blog post, letter, card salutation.  As I peeled through the layers of school transcripts and travel brochures, my excitement was palpable.  Here I was about to be reunited with some pretty effing fantastic stuff, and I just knew I'd have to run to my computer because the ideas would start vomiting out of me.

The Purple Binder.
This holds college papers.  I know exactly what compliments I'll find on which pages of which papers. Obviously my professors loved me because I wrote brilliant essays that were lyrical and soulful and inspiring.  But these topics were all wrong: international trade, European healthcare models, labor management.  I paused to savor some remarks, before I worked my way down the archives to the real treasure below.

The Manila Envelope.
This holds all my copies of the Horizon Profile, as well as my grandmother's that I received back after she died.  She had highlighted my name everywhere it appeared.  And then, holy crap, the whole "inspire myself" idea got awkward.  I'm not sure my column on Valentine's Day was whimsical and cute, so much as completely ridiculous.  And then my husband wanted to read it.  My maturity level sank to that of a 12 year-old girl, and I was all "well just so you know my picture is supposed to be horrible because it was play on words from 'Murphy's Law' but it was 'Murray's Law' and its okay to read it, but don't look at me, and not here in front of me, and not out loud, and not in this room.  And actually, give it back."  But he read it anyway.  And he cringed, too.  And then I was thinking about my grandmother reading it, and another one about in-school detention, and at least two more that have no discernible point.  And then I was thinking about the whole school (some people at school) reading it.  I was feeling embarrassed, not encouraged.  It was time to get to the good stuff before the "inspire myself" idea fizzled.

The Green Folder AKA The Pot Of Golden Poetry AKA WTF?!
The careful penmanship of a lovesick teenager was immediately recognizable, but I was not phased.  Until I was.  I couldn't even look directly at the papers without lying down first, so I didn't faint from my own awkwardness.  There's a fun piece a came across penned in March 1993 about the physique of the guy I liked.  I wrote it for a British Literature class, and then I actually turned it in.

Here's how it starts:
Excellence in masculine form resides
And that's all I can give you, because now that I've typed it I must go hide under a pillow and giggle.   Actually, I was compelled to pull out my high school transcripts (because I'm a very organized record-keeper) to be reminded who I had for Brit Lit, so if I run into her unexpectedly, I can hide.
Just for posterity, I planned to give you some other verses, not in the order they appear, because I can't very well go around saying I don't embarrass easily and then give you five words that seem fairly innocuous without context.  But then I almost died of reading poems I wrote, so I had to consider my health and the promise my husband made to display this crap.

This entire post has felt like a super digression.  My husband has promised to mock me in death with my distorted memories of my own glory.  I'm certainly inspired, but less about writing at the moment and more about finding a really good friend who knows the new top secret hiding place of the trunk-full-of-things-I-wrote-to-be-dumped-in-a-fire-when-the-time-comes.