Old Man of the Mountain

Dad at Shining Rock in October

You guys who have been hanging around here a while know my dad as Camp Papa, his blog-commenting name. He just yesterday emerged from spending a week on the Appalachian Trail. (My mom was visiting me because she didn't want to be up at their mountain house alone for the week, though I told her she wouldn't be alone. There would be bears and moonshiney ghosts.)

I am proud of that guy. Just eighteen months ago, before he lost 100+ pounds and took up hiking, he would not have been able to dream of doing that trek. Not even one day of it. It's like he's been given a new life. Or more that he's gone out and gotten it for himself.

He was to do the hike with seven other guys, and he had given lots of thought and preparation to his gear and everything, and he has been walking long distances, so I wasn't worried about him. But then Mom showed up at my house and told me about dropping him at the trail head. "How did he seem?" I asked. "Well," she said, "it was like the Roy Rogers galoshes."

The Roy Rogers galoshes: For long, long years, those galoshes have been part of family lore. When my dad was a kid, he was very poor. His mother worked hard to raise her three children alone, and they struggled to make ends meet. Sometimes the ends did not meet. The story goes that when Dad was in maybe the third grade, his shoes wore out and all he had to wear to school were a pair of Roy Rogers galoshes, in rain or shine. One moral of the story as it has been told is that he didn't mind this very much. Another part of the story is that, when I first heard of the galoshes--I was probably younger than Laura--I announced that I couldn't hear about them any more ever because they made me want to cry. They stood as a symbol for all the things about his childhood that were difficult, awkward, and make-do. Those galoshes pained me.

Another legend of this kind was his bicycle--the only bike he ever had. It didn't have pedals and it didn't have a seat--just a pole sticking up--but he loved it and couldn't wait to come home and ride it. Do you see now why, as a younger person, I couldn't stand to hear this stuff? Also he never had a birthday party, I'm serious.

It's okay now though.




Anyway, at my house on Sunday, Mom painted a vivid picture of his meeting up with his hiking buddies in the rainy woods. They arrived all wearing these slick, breathable, two-piece rain suits. Dad, she said, had cobbled together two different dollar store ponchos to cover him and his pack. "And the ponchos were different colors!" she said, shaking her head. "And he has a rain suit at the house!" she protested. "I tried to get him to take it, but he insisted he'd be fine with the ponchos."

"It's the Roy Rogers galoshes!" we exclaimed together.

That night he turned on his phone long enough to text her. "Miserable day. Pray for a dry night for me." We stewed and worried. He also said it was much harder going than he expected, with the steep climbing and the heavy pack combined.

The whole week, as we were going about our normal business, I thought of him out on the trail, trudging forward. Cold frosty mornings and misty foggy afternoons. I thought of how tedious I would find it taking off my boots at night, knowing I had to put them on again in the morning.

Mom was expecting to go pick them up in the Nantahala Gorge this morning, but with the weather about to turn stormy again, they pushed quicker and came out last night. Someone had left a car, and they all trundled to the mountain house to spend the night. He said it was like arriving at the Ritz Carlton.

We talked to him today. He said it was the hardest thing he's ever done--harder than basic training in the Air Force, harder than training for high school football--just really hard. He kept saying, "Did I mention it was hard?" And that if there had been an exit door, he might have taken it. But he stuck with it. They slept in hammocks every night, and boiled water to make food. They met through-hikers who were going all the way, and got to dip a toe into the quirky culture of the AT. They went about fifty miles, which isn't huge daily distance, maybe, but there was a lot of climbing. He learned a lot about the practical aspects of the whole enterprise--gear and food and all that. And he goes, "I've always heard that you can do more than you think you can, but I never actually had to do it."

Old guys! They're tough! I am happy for him.

He said he wouldn't want to do it again next week, but he might want to do it again next year, and he was talking about us doing some kind of family trek, not a week but a few days. I reminded him that the last time I went camping, I took along frappuccino in glass bottles. Whereas he had sawed off his toothbrush handle to cut weight. So we'll see what comes of that.

May International Blog Awareness Day: MIBAD

You Guys! Look mama, I'm blogging!

An actual fortune I received.

I am able to speak to you because my mother is visiting, and she has just embarked on the evening swimming-karate circuit with the kids. Holy be her name! So I have some blessed free moments before I go play a tennis match.

That's where I've been. There is just so much tennis, it has kind of gotten out of hand. Like, even I must acknowledge this. I am on the two teams, as I've said, Sunday and Thursday ALTA leagues. Then I've signed up as part of two different flex league partnerships, one with Matt and one with a tennis girlfriend. My ALTA teams are both going to playoffs (yay! bag tag!) with an accelerated match schedule, and the flex leagues are picking up, so it's like I'm on four teams. Just scheduling all the matches is kind of a lot of work, what with the emailing and the checking of the calendar.

I told Matt that I could really use a personal assistant to handle some of the load, and he got the funniest look on his face. I wish you guys could have seen it!

So my sainted mother is at my house this week and in my non-tennis moments, we are enjoying rambling around together. Do you know what she does? She fills in the check register in the back of her checkbook with every debit and withdrawal. Isn't that something? Maybe others are still doing this too, but when I saw her pull out her checkbook and make a careful entry, I felt like I did the time I went to Monticello and saw the automated pen machine that Jefferson devised so he could write two letters at the same time.

Another generational thing that I enjoyed: We parked at the grocery store, right next to the cart return where I always park. My mom took a cart out of the cart corral and pushed it toward the store. I said, "You know, they have those inside for us to use." And she said, "I always get a buggy from the parking lot and bring it in." I was like, is that you doing them a little favor? And she said that it was, and that she thought people her age all did that. And she pointed across the lot and sure enough, another mom-aged lady was making her way to the store entrance, pushing her own empty car.

Is this a thing people do?

That's your crash course in Anthropology of My Mom for the day.

I'm going to blog much more in May. I declare it to be so.
xoxo

Muddy Buddies

Last Friday night we spent the night in Athens, GA. We got up Saturday morning, drove to the middle of nowhere, turned left, and at length, arrived at the Tough Mudder racecourse. This was an eleven or twelve-mile run with 21 obstacles, most of them involving feats of strength or the willingness to get completely filthy. There were, like, at least a thousand people with this willingness.

Matt and his gang had trained, prepared, and purchased performance fabrics. They gathered as a group, listened to pep talks, and had to climb over a wall to even begin the race. As they ran away from the start, I was giddy with pleasure at not having to do it myself. But then it started to look like they were really having fun.

Splash.

Just dudes in mud.

Then, after Matt and his friends were all wet and slicked in mud, it was kind of, um, hot, and I realized the full eye-candy potential of this whole scene.

Ceremonial finish-line sweatbanding.

Then they got handed beer.

Then shower time.

Matt and his friends made it through in good style. He felt like his training had been good, he had something left in the tank, and nothing hurt too bad. Nobody liked the electric shocks though.

If I'd been thinking that the race looked really fun, the electrical component was a deal breaker for me.

Hank loved the whole scene.

Muddy family.

And somehow I was really tired after all of this, even though I didn't do anything. I did step in an ant bed though. My struggles! And then we set out for a night at the beach and Hank threw up all over the inside of the car as we passed through Statesboro but it all turned out okay.

If you are into it, there are more mud pics here. 

And then yesterday, my brother-in-law Jason did this down in Sydney. Only it is autumn there. Crazy! These boys and their games.

Pretty Much All Downhill from Here

Brrr! Pool's open, y'all.

Laura is still with her friend at the beach, and this morning I packed Hank off to Stone Mountain with his buddy for the day. Then I went to play tennis under a blue sky. While I was there, it dawned on me that Fabienne was on her way over to clean. I said to my friends, "Girls, listen. Other women are caring for my children. Yet another woman is cleaning my house. This is really pretty much the peak for me and I don't expect that it can get any better." They all affirmed me, with sisterly satisfaction.

Oh, and even the dog is away. She stayed at the mountain house for doggy spring break with Mom and Dad.

Thank God we don't have to deserve the good things that happen to us.

You know?

Then I stopped by the pool, just because it was open, and snapped this pic. Then I had lunch with Matt. Now I'm going to go get my car headlight replaced. I called the auto place to inquire as to whether they could fit me in, and the guy goes, "Well if we have the right bulb, it will take about fifteen minutes. If we have to order it, it will take about thirty minutes." I was like, whoa, where are you ordering it from, magic man? Next door?

I just talked to Laura on the phone. She is having a fabulous time. They rode their bikes to Seaside and saw the house from The Truman Show. Then she saw Reese Witherspoon in a bar. Another mother might have asked, "What were you doing in a bar?" But I was all, "OMG REEEESE!"

I am pretty sure we would be best friends if she would just call me.

Tonight, Hank, Matt, and I will get on the road to head down to his Tough Mudder race. That will be in the morning. I had to sign a waiver to watch this thing. I will keep you informed.

You please do the same. xoxo

Weekendly

EB hid all the eggs in the backyard. I don't know why that chair is there.

My sister has a LOT OF NERVE. On my SubMat facebook page (you click that little fb logo up there on the left and "like" my page and then you don't miss a minute of her 'tude), she's all, "Um, blogging 'every day in March.'" This from someone who hasn't blogged in a coon's age. And I was like, March is a long month, gah, and then my Dad helpfully pointed out that there's a difference between metric March and Imperial March. Or something to do with the switch to the Gregorian calendar?

Anyway, I think I liked having my previous post at the top of the page for a couple of days. And we had kind of a whirlwind weekend here so far.

We celebrated Easter with the kids on Saturday morning, because Laura has since headed to the beach with her friend's family for Spring Break and wouldn't be home on Sunday morning. Matt the Easter Bunny hid two dozen eggs out in our backyard, which is a lot of ground to cover and a lot of different terrain. Before long, the kids needed hints. He requested a garbage bag, I brought it to him, and he told the kids that for every few pieces of litter or broken plastic crap they gathered, they would get a hint to an egg location. So they were out there picking up trash and finding eggs at the same time. Truly, he is the Master of Revels. Also, his hints rhymed:

"If not at first an egg you see, get thyself to the crook of a tree."

"If eggs you seek, follow this command: look deeper down into the sand."

There were a bunch of these, each more poetical than the last. I sat on the porch drinking coffee and cracking up, proud to have helped him pass his genetic material into the next generation of humans.

I spent the rest of the day helping Laura get ready to go, with a few bumps in the road. She had recovered from her virus and went to school on Friday, and was feeling fine, but then Saturday afternoon, she went for a run with Matt, and came home complaining that her ear hurt. I was all, damnation. I didn't want to send her off with another family for a week if there was a chance her viral head cold had turned into an ear something. So we headed to the clinic at the CVS. That place looked like an extras casting call for "Walking Dead." There were about six people ahead of us and the nurse was at lunch.

I thought, "To heck with this, I'm calling my neighbor." One of Hank's little buddy's mothers is a pediatrician. They live around the corner from us, I see her almost every day, and I have never never sought her medical opinion or asked for a bus stop consulation. I don't know, I just feel like it's an imposition? Though she has never said anything that would give that impression. But I texted her and asked her if she would look in Laura's ear, and she came right away.

She couldn't get her little ear flashlight to work, but she said the easiest thing, given that Laura was going out of town, was to prescribe an antibiotic and call it a day, so she phoned the pharmacy from my kitchen and we were all good. Normally I would have just kept a watch on her and not gone for the ab's, but Laura was nearly in tears because she thought her trip was imperiled. And I didn't think it was an ear infection, I thought it was exercise-induced ear pressure. But I am not that kind of doctor. Anyway, my neighbor told me several times that she was really glad I'd asked her, and I thought, well maybe she became a pediatrician because she wants to help children, even if they just live around the corner. And her husband is a plastic surgeon, so between them, we're covered.

Later, to Matt, I was like, "That was so convenient!" And he was like, "Having the doctor come to your house? Yes."

As Laura gathered her things together to get out the door, her ear pain lessened and lessened until it seemed she'd made a full recovery. I think my ear-pressure diagnosis was correct. Humanities PhD power! So I delivered her into the care of the other family. Matt and I feel comfortable with her instincts and judgment, as well as with that family, so I'm thinking she'll have a wonderful week. My biggest fear is drowning, and I told her not to go past her knees in the Gulf, which she won't because she thinks there are a lot more sharks than there really are.

Then Matt and I, the carefree parents of one child, threw all our stuff together and headed up to the mountain house, late. Hank fell asleep immediately, and we rode along companionably. One fun topic for musing was, if our family life were a sitcom, who and what would be the best potential spinoffs? Like Archie Bunker spun off the Jeffersons, who were the Bunkers' neighbors. Following that template, we thought the telegenic black family around the corner (my friendly kitchen pediatrician!) would make good viewing. And we conceived of a hipster office comedy involving Matt's twenty-something employees.

I guess the two of us have already talked about all the important things.

Now I'm just telling you everything that happened to me since we last spoke. Sorry.

I hope you have had a wonderful weekend. xoxo

A Price Above Rubies

Rainy Pensacola

Another thing that happened last month while I was not here blogging was that I made a fast trip down to Pensacola, just me. My dear old friend Houston's mother died, suddenly. I've been his friend, and loved his family, since I was Laura's age. I called Betty to come to my house, then I put a dress, a raincoat, and a bottle of wine in my car and went.

It was a very compressed visit, but I got to see them all and be with them a little bit. Back at the house after the visitation, I told them how Houston's mom, Jeanette, had called me one day the summer after I graduated from high school. Houston was gone on to college by then, but she wanted to pick me up and have a girls' day out. She was a proper Southern lady, the real deal, so I knew this called for dressing up, like nearly white-glove level.

So out we went. She took me to lunch and shopping, and bought me a school bag to take to college in the fall. I remember, even with my seventeen year-old sensibilities, feeling special and grateful that she wanted to spend time with me. When she dropped me off that day, she said, "Do me a favor. Do not write me a thank-you note." So I didn't, I took her at her word. But then, when I would look back on that day later, I would think, "Aw, man! I should have written her a thank-you note! It was a test and I failed!" I thought this from about the ages of 22 to 39.

Then, just the other week, but before she died, I was doing something for somebody and I thought something like, "I hope they don't feel like they have to thank me," and I flashed back to that unwritten thank-you note, and I realized that Jeanette really didn't want me to write her a thank-you note. She didn't do it because she wanted to be thanked, she just wanted to do it.

At her funeral, her husband of nearly fifty years read the part of Proverbs about the virtuous woman, and then her children did rise up and call her blessed, and let me tell you, there was not a dry eye in the house.

Houston and both of his sisters spoke about their mom, and something his sister Betsy said has stayed with me. Betsy said that, as a parent, her mother was "easy to please, and hard to disappoint."

As the church people say, when I heard that, I felt convicted. "Hard to disappoint." I'm grappling with what that means. I don't think it means that you don't have expectations, or that you don't discipline and correct, but it seems like something bigger, something more expansive and gracious, something to strive for. To be hard to disappoint. I am thinking on it.

Chime in if that chimes with you.
Love,
Me  

The Ultimate in Just No

There's Kate on her back porch.

Y'all, as soon as my sister-in-law Kate sent me this story, I asked if I could share it with you guys because oh my Lord, people just be acting all crazy. It's the first post on her blog in like three years, but we need to convince her to revive and renew her blog now that she's living out on the forty acres next to the haunted church, with some kind of redneck Sasquatch probably roaming her property. I know I would enjoy reading a mommy blog from this milieu. I still think about this four year-old essay she wrote on lipstick at least once a week.

Anyway, Kate is a licensed mental health counselor and is growing shiitake mushrooms on a log. You want her on your team. 

Without further ado, her tale:

This week I've had a flurry of mommy dates.  And there is one thing I've learned: just because we are moms, it does not mean that we should be friends. This is a rookie lesson, I'm sure.  But, man, I'm learning it the hard way. It's strange. This new mommy socializing world. It really feels like dating. Sort of. Anyway.

Take today, for instance. I drove thirty minutes to meet a mom and her two kids at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast this morning. Note: breakfast. As in, both G and I had on clothes and our hair was brushed by 8AM. This is sacrificial in my world. I do not do anything quickly in the morning. But, she had initiated this date a few weeks ago and I wanted to get to know her.  

I was running a few minutes late and so I texted her to let her know I'd be there shortly. I got there before her and waited a little while. Well, G is at the age that if I put him down in a Cracker Barrel we would end up having to buy a couple of throw pillows and some glass frog figurine because he would destroy it all. So, since I couldn't stand around holding him for long, I got a table. After we were seated, I texted to let her know where our table was.  After about fifteen minutes, she still hadn't responded to either text, so I decided to go ahead and order. I mean, after twenty minutes into a restaurant excursion with a toddler and there is no food on the way, you start getting strategic. Another fifteen minutes went by and I rechecked my texts to confirm the location/time. You know how you do. I even sent another text to let her know that we were ordering (she's a texter, by the way). And, of course, I called my husband to announce that I'm pretty sure I was being stood up for the first time. 

Well, our food came and we ate and it was a good forty five minutes after she was suppose to meet me, so I started to get a little worried. One more text of "Is everything ok?" and she immediately calls me. And, I kid you not, she starts with "Ohhhhh, hey!" and then proceeds to go into a long explanation of how she had both of her children dressed and ready to go and then she got distracted filing papers. Filing papers. And then she actually DESCRIBED to me the papers that she was filing and why they needed to be filed. And, btw, she doesn't work outside the home, so the paper was, like, her mail. I was all HUH? What? OK.

Then, THEN, she goes "Well, what are you doing later today?" And, I'm all "Oh, Yes! Let's totally get together.  I really want to spend more of my time on you today!!!" No, I was not. Instead, I tried to get off the phone as quickly as possible (I had reached the point of letting G play with the creamers on the table). And then she says "Awww, but I was really looking forward to hanging out with you!" And I'm sure there was an apology in there somewhere. But my eyes had gone crossed and I was done with the conversation.

I mean, for real ya'll. I told my mom there are many more excuses that she could have given me that would have given our friendship a chance. But there is something about the filing of the papers--even though your kids were dressed and ready?!--that let me know that we just won't be friends. You know? And, let me add, she better be glad that G is content to sit and eat.  Because I know some other mommas who would have taken their earrings off. You don't make a momma with a toddler wait on you.

No indeed you do not. Thank you for bringing us this tale, Kate. My eloquent response to this was, "omg rude."  But I think there must be something wrong with that woman. And I totally agree, that non-excuse would let me know that I could never count on her for another thing, ever again. What form of craziness IS that?

I mean, do whut?

Her Drama Faculties Are Undiminished

Laura woke up in the wee hours of this morning with a very high fever and a sore throat. Ruh roh. Also chills, headache, the works. Strep was my first thought. I turned off her alarm clock, dosed her with meds, and as soon as the pediatrician's office opened, I called and got her a morning appointment.

Her fever had slowly come down by the time of the doc visit, but she was feeling very poorly as we drove over there. She is never sick, so we were both sort of in a state of dismay.

I asked, "Did you manage to get back to sleep after you first woke up this morning?"

She sighed and looked at the passing trees. "No," she said. "Every hour was like a decade."

Gracious.

The quick strep test was negative, it's just some virus, so there was nothing for it but some good old-fashioned being waited upon--hand and foot--by mama. So that's what we did. We came home, installed her on the couch, and I set about bringing her different drinks, hulling her strawberries, arranging her throw blankets, and feeling her forehead. And no school tomorrow either.

And I know she felt bad, because darned if she didn't stay on that couch until she went up to her room at bedtime. This is unthinkable for her--she is go-go going during all of her waking hours. I offered to bring her something to read, and she was like, "I don't feel like I can focus on anything." So she watched Ferris Bueller. Then she watched War Games, I guess she was in the mood for a Broderick festival. Then she played some Xbox Lego Lord of the Rings ("Don't tell Hank"), then she watched Dancing with the Stars, then, after Hank came home, she watched a show about dinosaurs.

I made a big pot of delicious chicken noodle soup, and she managed to eat that as well as strawberries, toast with cheese, some chicken pot pie, a banana, and popcorn. I figured that was enough nourishment for basic life support.

At one point I ran out to the store for more provisions, and I got a text from Matt. He said he wasn't sure if he was getting sick, but he felt tired, achy, and enervated. He did allow as how these could all be symptoms of the nine-mile run he did this morning. And I was like, let's hope so, I can't advise you because I wouldn't know anything about what it feels like to have run that far. For me it would feel like being dead. But one sick person at a time!

The soup seems to have restored us all, mostly.

Hank is fine. He has a new watch that lights up, and it caused quite a stir in the classroom, with people asking him the time repeatedly. He mentioned that he instituted a policy to deal with his sudden popularity. The first three times you ask him what time it is, he'll tell you for free, and after that it costs a penny.

I didn't know what to say to that, exactly, as I had my hands full with other things.

I hope you are feeling well.