Women to Match My Mountains, Pt. 1

Within a few hours of arriving at our mountain cabin this past summer for a weekend alone with my thoughts and to do a little writing, I realized something: Without my kids around, I didn’t have much to write about. Or did I? Not more than a couple of hours had gone by when it became clear that I had something to share. So I decided to do a timeline—a moment by moment chronology of what it’s like to be me in a cabin in the woods.

7:30 p.m., Friday: I arrive just in time to unpack the truck and make my way around in the fading twilight without turning on the propane lights. Did I mention there is no electricity, cell service or Internet access at the cabin?

7:35: My first task is the same as any grown-up’s would be upon arrival at a cabin for a solitary sojourn: check the upstairs for boogeymen.

7:40: Satisfied that the cabin is clear of any squatters, I unpack the truck: duffel bag of clothes, laptop, food (barely enough) and wine (more than enough). The fading trickles of natural light remind me that I’d better find the matches I’ll need to fire up the propane lights, which will be difficult to do in the dark. That’s me: always thinking ahead. But first, I pour a glass of wine and decide to enjoy the shift change of day to night, on the deck. That’s me, too: always prioritizing responsibly.

8:45: Stumbling around in the pitch black, I locate matches and make my way to the bathroom, kitchen, living room and bedroom.

8:50: With the pretend dog (no dogs allowed in the cabin) happily lazing by the door, I settle into the couch to read.

8:51: Realizing I have forgotten to bring my Kindle to the couch with me, I get up, hunt around, find it, and return.

8:52: Realizing I have forgotten to bring my glass of wine to the couch with me, I get up, hunt around, fill it, find it, and return.

8:53: Realizing I have forgotten to bring my glasses with me to the couch, I get up, hunt around, find them, and return.

8:54: Realizing it would actually be just perfect if I had my slippers on, I get up, hunt around, find them, and return.

8:55: I settle into the couch with my book, glasses, wine and slippers. Life is good.

8:56: Realizing that I have forgotten to bring my old-school ghetto blaster and CD case with me, I get up, hunt around, find them, and return.

8:57: Realizing that I might, in fact, be crazy, I wonder if anyone would believe my first few hours. I decide to find out. Hence, I open a Word doc and begin typing this blog.

9:15: Having caught up to myself in real time, I shut down the computer and notice a large fossil (hardback book) on the coffee table. It’s a narrative history of the settling of the American West. It’s called Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides. I’ve heard of him. Recalling my fondness for the movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” and my on-again, off-again fantasy of being Butch’s squeeze (or was it Sundance’s?) I open the book.

11:00: Thoroughly convinced that I should have lived in the Old West, I say goodnight to my new boyfriend from a past life, Kit Carson. Just then, my hound signals me that he indeed must go out and have a look around in the pitch black, Indian-infested wilderness. With just enough whiskey (wine) under my belt to be brave, my four-legged companion and I complete a successful expedition, trekking almost ten feet from the porch, before returning to the safety of our camp.

11:15: Lanterns out.

Day Two

7:15 a.m.: My A-hole dog, having slept soundly in the exact center of the bed for the entire night, thereby keeping me alert enough to ward off bear attacks or rattlesnake invasions, alerts me that it is time to face the day. We depart for our morning walk and poop in the meadow. The dog goes virtually unnoticed; I, on the other hand, draw curious looks from passers-by. Could it be the coonskin cap?

Next week: Day Two: Varmints and Vittles.

The Last Word

Despite regular threats to throw myself off the porch, which actually means grabbing a beer out of the garage fridge and heading to the front yard for a time out, I’m in no hurry to die, or overly curious about what happens “on the other side.” I’m just reminded of the topic now and then, like when my uncle died unexpectedly last year. His family found some letters outlining his last wishes in the event of his death. Keep in mind, he was 74, and while he wasn’t in poor health, at that age, one never knows. Unfortunately, he left the letters in the “drafts” folder of his email program and they weren’t found until after he was laid to rest. Nevertheless, my uncle would have been ecstatic about the send off his wife and four children gave him. Or more likely, he would have shrugged his shoulders and said, “Whatever’s right,” even if it wasn’t exactly what he’d written down.

I suppose he figured he’d have time to whisper the words, “drafts folder” from his deathbed, but alas, there were no last words that anyone was witness to. There was a tree, and a single car accident in the middle of an otherwise perfect, sunny Colorado afternoon.

I admire his courage to write down his last wishes. He also left letters to his wife and children, who were devastated by his untimely death. But having those letters, knowing they were written with the understanding that they would someday be navigating this world without him, must have brought them what I can only assume was a shred of comfort in a sea of pain. It’s a brave thing to do, to face one’s own mortality and write stuff down.

As soon as we returned home from the funeral, my husband and I had that conversation usually reserved for late in one’s life. But that’s the thing: How do we know how late (or early) it is in our life? One of my kids could be sneaking up behind me with a heavy frying pan as I write this.

My point is this: Why leave it to your grieving relatives, who will be furiously looking for your will, to make important decisions about your send-off? Regardless of how comfortable you are thinking about your own demise, isn’t it your responsibility? And besides, wouldn’t it be nice to have the last word, once and for all?

Here is how my letter to my children might look:

Dear Children:

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope your Grand Theft Auto score or your rating on Kim K. is not terribly impacted; I’m sure you’ll be a C-lister in no time, even without my guidance. Regarding my last wishes and life in general, here you go:

You must do your chores this week, but take next week off. By then, the fridge and cupboards will be empty and you will be weak with malnourishment. Behind the microwave you’ll find a few twenties; call in a pizza.

Since you already know everything, all you must do is remember it, along with the location of your shoes, phone, homework and head, if it weren’t attached. Nevertheless, follow this last bit of advice if you want to get ahead in life, or at least to the corner: Accept your responsibilities and the consequences of your actions; treat others the way you would like to be treated; look both ways before you snatch the last slice of pizza.

Please cremate me. (In the event this letter is found while I’m still alive, I take that last sentence back). Please, no weepy gatherings in a dark mortuary with hard benches or I will haunt you for eternity. Have an outdoor get-together somewhere with wine, music and flushing toilets. Sprinkle my ashes to the winds at any location above 7000 feet. Whatever you do, please don’t leave my ashes in the closet for eternity, or until someone needs the shoebox to wrap a Christmas present in and I am poured into the recycle bin, which, come to think of it, would create a new circle of Dante’s hell and serve as fitting punishment for having sent so many wine bottles to the same demise.

Love, Mom.

Freshmen on my Mind

Freshman orientation is today. Since I have two of that variety in my household, the freshman experience is really on my mind lately.

I had just moved to a new town at the end of eighth grade, so I began my freshman year with one friend—my next door neighbor who was kind enough to follow her parents instructions to be nice to me. I quickly branched out and began accruing friends in a more organic way, which helped calm my nervous stomach as I walked on campus those first few weeks. By mid-year I was settled in. But that was in a school of nearly 2500 students. When you don’t know anyone, in a sea of bodies that vast, you can both blend in and feel even more alone than ever at the same time.

I’ve got four kids in high school this year, and for the next two years, when the eldest graduates and likely heads either north, to my alma mater (Chico), or south, to San Diego. At least, that’s what he’s thinking about this week. The two freshmen, my daughter and youngest step-daughter, escorted their dad down the driveway this morning, each taking an arm for the long walk to the truck. Was he going willingly? I think so. He’s been waiting a long, long time to have all his kids on campus with him. I upgraded his classroom mini-fridge to a slightly larger, dorm-style version last year, when our second-eldest, my other step-daughter, started high school. Now, he’s got five lunches to store, including his own, not to mention water, yogurt and whatever else they can cram in there.

Where did the time go? I don’t just mean this summer; I mean the last 16 summers. Seems like just yesterday I was packing bikes and kids into the truck and heading to the elementary school to teach them how to ride a bike, which was impossible on the hill we lived on. Or I was killing time at the park, pushing them “higher” on the swings and catching them at the bottom of the “loopy slide.”

A lot of time definitely went to operating car seats. Sometimes, at the end of a long day, or even at the beginning of what surely would become one, just thinking about taking the kids along somewhere would lead me to conjure up and then calculate exactly how much work it would entail, and whether it was worth it. Into the car seat, out of the car seat, into the car seat, out of the car seat. Those days when I had to run three or four errands, to the drug store, the cleaners, or god forbid, the grocery store, it became a shit show of buckling and unbuckling, keeping one on track (alive) while the other was either being removed from or put back into the car. And back then I only had two kids. In fact, I recall moments in the early evening, when this single mom was not up to cooking even mac n’ cheese, and I’d decide to get takeout. Hmmm, I’d think. Do I want to pile two tired, sweaty, not to mention mostly uncooperative kids into the car, drive to whatever fast food joint we could all agree on, spend the money, come home, and pile them out of the car, just to avoid boiling water and mixing in some powdered cheese and butter? Some days the answer was “hell, no” and other days it was “hell, yes.” Funny, how that works.

 Now, I pull up at the softball or soccer field, leave the motor running and wait for them to scramble out, grabbing their gear, water and sweatshirts. In less than ten seconds, I’m on my way. We’ve come a long, long way from car seats. So far, in fact, that the junior is now driving himself around and the sophomore will be soon.

The time went to a million different places: family movie night, when we’d pile onto the couch and shush each other for two hours; dinners at Mel’s, endless trips to the park, or the museum, camping, vacations to Hawaii, Colorado and Washington, trips to the City (San Francisco), baseball games, an endless stream of softball tournaments, Saturday soccer games that seemed to end in a different time zone they went on so long, holiday dinners,  family reunions, and most recently, sitting in or around the pool at all hours of the day or evening.

Monday is the big day. Four kids in high school. R.I.P. Summer of ’14, and all that came before you. You will be missed.

A Room of One's Own

It’s almost that time of year again—the time when my kids go away for a summer visit to their dad’s house in Southern California for a couple of weeks. I miss my kids when they’re away, but not right at first. Right at first I do a lot of skipping, and singing, and then once I leave the airport, I get sad. Typically, on the first or second day they’re gone, I do a deep clean of their bedrooms. In other words, I make it nice-nice so they can crap it up again. I leave the doors open so that I can enjoy the view; the sense of accomplishment I feel at taking their rooms from looking like a category 5 twister ripped through on its way home from getting a double root canal sans Novocain to Pottery Barn-catalogue-worthy, is huge.  

As long as they allow me my twice-yearly cleaning frenzy, I allow them to live in their own filth. Not really. I have my limits. I don’t like clothes on the floor. I like clothes in one of four places: on one’s body, on a hanger, in a drawer, or in a laundry basket. I suppose it had something to do with my own mother’s insistence that I clean my room on the half-hour. Yes, I’m exaggerating, but that’s how it seemed at the time. But now, I get it. Clothes are expensive. We don’t do shopping as recreation, but when we need something. They seem to really appreciate it when we go shopping for clothes, and it hurts my feeling when I see their clothes trampled on. It also hurts my foot when I step on a belt buckle. When they get to college they can experiment with a horizontally organized closet on their floor.

I’m an optimist. I never give up hope that one day, my son and/or daughter will walk into their room upon returning from vacation, take one look at the dusted, cleared off desk with room for a book and a pen, and say, “Mom. I really don’t know how I ever lived like that. I shall forever embrace a clean living space.”

Sometimes, when I glance into their rooms and my vision becomes obscured by the blood seeping out of my eyes, another one of my senses take over: smell. The odor emanating from my son’s room has no category. I really can’t describe it, so I’ll just call it “wrong.” Like emotions, smells can be wrong or right. Like, when my husband feels sad because I’m staying up late to work, or because the Giants lost, I tell him he’s wrong.

“When are you coming to bed?”

“Later.”

“Oh, darn it. That makes me sad.”

“You couldn’t be wronger about that.”

“Huh? But I am sad. I don’t like to go to bed without you.”

“You are fine.”

“Well, I’m sad that the Giants lost.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am!”

“I’m sorry, but you are wrong.”

“I am?”

“Yes. You are fine. Now go to bed.”

“Ok.”

When I open my son’s door and breathe through my nose, there’s just nothing right about it. I seriously feel pain. The only time I’m brave enough to enter is 1) when I’m super pissed off about something or 2) there is no two.

It’s a constant mental battle with myself every time I open his bedroom door: Do I leave it alone or tell him to clean it up? What’s the right thing to do? Is my health something I am willing to sacrifice? Where is haz-mat when you need them? Why do I care? Why can’t I just ignore it? Is my own room a shining example of how to care for one’s things? With this last question, my Woody Allen-esque internal struggle comes to an end and I back slowly away from the room, but not before sprinting to the window and throwing it open. Tomorrow, when the stank tank is empty, I shall clean, fully prepared for the fact that in less than 30 seconds after he returns, the carpet will have disappeared.

The Stick Diet

For me, just thinking about a state or county fair brings to mind fond childhood memories of hurling through the air on the Scrambler, clattering through the fun house, and most vividly, the smell of goat manure in the morning. There really is nothing quite like it, except for possibly the smell of a mixture of pig, goat and cow manure, oh, around 4 p.m. on a 100-degree day. Oddly enough, it’s when I leave the animal exhibits that I can’t help but think about food.

More specifically, stick food.

The smell coming from the food stalls is amazing; and by amazing, I mean unidentifiable. Nonetheless, for the better part of four days a year, the stick diet is the only one I have ever made a point of sticking to.

I like to open my four-day county fair diet plan with a deep-fried artichoke heart on a stick. It is a strange concept, as it is kind of a strange thing, the heart of an artichoke. Only in America would someone take an exotic looking plant, impale it on a piece of wood, fry the life out of it and sell it for a profit. Speaking of profit, just what is the mark-up on cotton candy? Last time I glanced at my recipe card there was just one word: Sugar. Is it a recipe if there’s only one ingredient? I mean, is there a recipe for banana? Anyway, if you really want to get technical and count air as an ingredient, then you might actually have a recipe for cotton candy. How much are they making on that stuff? Whatever it is, it’s way too much. It does however, come on a stick, and therefore, I get to eat it.

And who doesn’t like corn dogs? Well, my mom, for starters. She hasn’t eaten a corn dog since she was eight, when she consumed the original stick-food at our very own Amador County Fair. Let’s just say it wasn’t the last she saw of it…If you see her at the fair this year, offer to buy her one.

To be honest, there is one thing on a stick that I never consume at the fair: caramel apples. It does contain the required stick, and therefore qualifies to be in the diet plan, but the presence of that apple, all natural and juicy and obviously grown on a tree just ruins the whole experience. One would have to consume a helluva lot of fry bread on a stick to cancel out a crisp, fresh apple.

Even corn-on-the-cob gets stuck with a stick, and really just barely qualifies due to the natural nature of corn itself. The saving grace is that it’s slathered in butter and doused with salt. It could only be better if it was fried. (Why in tarnation hasn’t anyone figured out how to batter and deep fry an ear of corn? To whoever does figure this out, please keep the butter on the inside of the batter so that it doesn’t drip down my arm.

Even Asian food has gone stick, with the introduction of the eggroll on a stick. I remember seeing that little hut for the first time at the State Fair several years ago and wondered what happens when you bite into a bunch of shredded cabbage on a stick? Doesn’t it just fall apart? My guess is that cabbage isn’t the main ingredient, but most likely some mysterious, sticky meat product is, one that packs nicely around the little wooden spear. I passed on that one.

Each year, I longingly search for my favorite foods, hoping to find them stuck on a stick: pizza, tacos, beer. Wait a second! I just realized something: If I carry around some chopsticks, then technically everything can be on the stick diet! And a straw is basically a stick with a hole in the middle, so technically beer is in! I can see it now: My pre-Destruction Derby meal plan: a few hours visiting the beer booth, drinking beer through a straw, followed by nachos-with-chopsticks. Who’s with me on this?

Keep it classy, Amador!