All Moments Are Key Moments

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

- Frederick Buechner


My not-so-Wordless Wednesday

Once Upon A Time. With Margaritas.

So, e wants a story, does she? Which story to tell, which story to tell...

I could tell the one that goes Once Upon A Time there was a little girl who threw such a fit in the doctor's office over the three shots she needed to have for kindergarten that she ended up kicking the nurse and hitting her mother, but...that one doesn't really have a very happy ending, for anyone.

I could tell the one about the family who is having their street repaired this summer. In it, the family is often unable to leave their driveway due to the construction. Sometimes, once out of their driveway, they are unable to then get back to their house. On occasion, they have become stuck on their street. But, there, I just told it. Ho-hum.

I could tell the one about the woman who decided it was a good idea to host two separate social events, with approximately 18-20 people in attendance at each, at her home within a few days of each other. That story also includes chapters about "side" social events, in the days between the big social events at her home, at which this woman agreed to act as co-hostess. The story does not yet have a conclusion, though it is tempting to predict an ending that has the woman accepting a prescription for Valium from her family doctor.

But, maybe I'll just tell this one:

Once Upon A Time there was a baseball team. The team consisted of seven and eight year old boys who loved to play baseball and a group of their dads who loved to coach.

This baseball team had two games each week, during week day evenings, and then practice times, as well.

While their boys played baseball, and the fathers coached, the mothers dutifully watched each game from the sidelines, on blankets and chairs and bleachers, with the baseball boys' younger siblings playing in the dirt next to the field.

This went on all summer long, until one week it was suddenly Tournament Time.

Tournament Time was special because it meant: more baseball!

Two games a week plus practice looked like small potatoes compared to Tournament Time.

Tournament Time meant five days in a row of nothing but baseball, baseball, baseball. Sometimes two games in one day! Whee!

Now, the mothers were good sports. They wanted to support their sons during Tournament Time. So they packed up snacks and drinks and extra snacks and more drinks and band-aids and sunscreen and all of the things everyone might need and headed out to the Special Tournament Field each day with their husbands and their sons and their younger children in tow.

These mothers watched and cheered and grumbled only occasionally to each other about How Long Can Five Days Feel? and Wasn't Tournament Time Shorter Last Year?

Until Day Four.

When the grumbling turned louder.

Suddenly, the Grumbling turned into Growling.

The mothers had had enough.

But! One brilliant mother had a plan! In her travel coffee mug on Day Four of Tournament Time she brought not coffee, but...could it be? A...margarita?! Why, yes, yes, it was a pomegranate margarita!

The other mothers sat in awe.

This woman was the most brilliant they'd ever come across in their lives.

And on Day Five of Tournament Time, each mother had her own special margarita in her own mug. Suddenly, baseball was fun again. Just in time for the end of the season.

And they all drank happily ever after.

The end.

The World's Largest Cow Has The World's Largest You-Know-Whats. Who Knew?!

Another image from The Road Trip is today's Wordless Wednesday!

Sweet Summertime

Wordless Wednesday

Tambourine Girl

I want to be Tambourine Girl, I whispered to my husband.

WHAT??!! He yelled back. The bar was noisy. Whispering wasn't an option.

I WANT TO BE TAMBOURINE GIRL! I yelled into his ear.

He looked over at the stage area where a she's-probably-not-yet-21 girl in an impossibly short dress (maybe it was just a long, tight, shirt?) was playing tambourine with the band. She was not only dancing, she was grooving.

GO FOR IT! Bill yelled back at me.

I laughed and shook my head. My Tambourine Girl days are over, was my unspoken thought.

We sat at the bar, our old married selves, out with old, dear, friends; two other married couples. We felt a bit out of place at the bar, filled with college kids and other merry party people, all tanned and windblown and radiating freedom. The seven children we old marrieds had between us were sleeping at home, under the watchful eyes of grand and great-grandparents, and it was a very rare night out without them. We were mindful of the drive home we each had and of our obligations to behave. We sat easily but politely, tapping our fingers, sipping our beer and yelling random comments the others could barely make out over the music.

Two drinks later, the band started to play a Grateful Dead song. One of those old, dear, friends grabbed the tambourine, handed it to me and pushed me toward the stage. I hesitated for a second, but then...

I was Tambourine Girl.

Who, Me?

I don't want you to do it for me, Aidan, Tess whined. I only want mom to do it!

Well, Mom isn't here, so you get what you get, I thought to myself -- annoyed, at the whining.

Only to realize, a split second later that by "Mom", Tess meant me. I am the mom. When I heard, "I only want mom to do it", I'd been thinking of my own mom...

Eight years later and there are times I'm still startled by the fact that I'm the mom?

Like A Band Of Gypsies We Roll Down The Highway

Before driving 2,000 miles together in one mini-van over six days:




And after:




And while some photos taken over the course of our trip were most definitely staged, the two above were not. After a warming-up-to-each-other period of about five minutes, the kids were all over each other like little puppies. The mamas alternated between cooing at the cuteness and laughing until we cried. Each child shed real tears at one time or another but real tears for the mamas came only once. When near-tornadic-winds nearly blew over the covered wagons in which we were sleeping. That's right. We slept in covered wagons.




There are other stories to tell, too. Some involving buffalo crap. I mean real, actual crap from a real, actual buffalo. Or, rather, bison. Bison, not buffalo. We learned that, on the road.

We learned a lot, in these miles.

Not only how to get bison crap out of shoes, while in the middle of nowhere, but how to entertain children for 2,000 miles without a DVD player:



(They are, uh...singing...)


How to make sure everyone gets to stand in the center of the nation at the same time:




How to squeeze in one more state, just for fun:



How to make breakfast out of quick stop at a tiny gas station/quick mart/casino. How to duck out of a tour when the tour guide makes up things like, "Yes, this Native Americans did have dogs...the breed was....The Native American Indian Dog." How to put our own culturally-sensitive spin on "The Mt. Rushmore Story", to make sure our kids got the full and true picture. How to make a corn-cob doll.

How to manage without internet, phone or rest area for far too long:



How to let each other's children fall down mountain sides:



(Okay, it was just me who did that. To her children. She's a better mother than I, that much was made clear over 2,000 miles.)

How to laugh a lot, how to enjoy the ride, how to make friendships even stronger and how to make memories that will last a lifetime.










The rest of the stories to emerge when I've had a good night's sleep. Or two. And a shower. Or two.

Oh, but the buffalo, er, bison, sh!t? That happened about 30 seconds after this:



That little girl in the blue? My daughter? Stepped, fell and then sat right in it. Oh, yes, she did. That's my girl. The one who, along with her brother and her mama, is now missing her friends and all of the adventures we had.

We're Off!

I have a crazy idea, she said.

I like your crazy ideas, I said.

And so it began.

The kids and I are tagging along on one of her work-turned-fun-how-does-she-do-it adventures. We'll put miles and miles and miles in a rented minivan. We'll cross state lines and see geographical wonders. We'll explore and hike and swim. We'll eat crappy food. We'll sleep poorly -- sometimes outside. We'll spend the kids' college funds at the gas pump. We'll see if four children who have not actually spent time together in a few years will actually get along. We'll see if those four children get along so well that they stage a coup against the two mothers running the show. We might need to drink at night. Heavily.

Summer vacation, baby!

See you in a week!

How To Waste A Day

What I Did Today
by Me

6:30 am. Wake up.

6:45 am. Try to meditate. Fail.

7:00 am. Work out.

8:00 am. Discover kids had started playing Guitar Hero while I was working out.

8:01 am. Play Guitar Hero with kids.

8:45 am. Take shower.

9:15 am. Tell the kids we are leaving to run errands.

9:20 am. Play more Guitar Hero instead.

10:00am. Tell kids we are really leaving now.

11:00am. Actually leave. Forced to grab to-go snacks for kids in lieu of lunch.

1:00 pm. Back from running errands.

1:10 pm. More snacks for kids, put my own lunch in oven.

1:15 pm. Agree to just a little bit more Guitar Hero.

1:45 pm. Discover my lunch on fire in the oven.

2:00 pm. Forget lunch, play more Guitar Hero.

2:30 pm. Hands sore from so much Guitar Hero.

2:45 pm. Tell kids they have to go play outside.

3:00 pm. Rest eyes. Enjoy the quiet. Clean.

4:30 pm. Kids inside. Tell kids no more Guitar Hero today.

4:31 pm. Agree to just one more song. Each.

5:00 pm. Take drastic step of putting Guitar Hero away.

5:01 pm. Think about same-sex couples getting marriage licenses in California. Cheer to self.

5:03 pm. Cheer with kids: STAGE 6, baby! We made it to Guitar Hero's Stage 6 today!


8:30 pm. Set up on-line quiz for friends: Guess what he got for his birthday?

Eight

There was a woman in a wheelchair in front of me as I was leaving a restroom a few days ago. The restroom did not have a handicap button to automatically open the door (ironic, as we were at a fund-raising event for MS) and the woman in front of me struggled to maneuver herself through. Her wheelchair was a bit bulky and the doorway was narrow. I awkwardly tried to lean over her chair to grab the door, but I couldn't quite reach around her.

And then a little hand reached in from outside the restroom to hold open the door. The thin little arm attached to that hand was stronger than it appeared -- that little arm held the heavy door, without trouble, for as long as it took the woman to make her way through the door.

"Thanks, buddy!" the woman smiled.

"You're welcome!" said my son.

I looked out at the boy attached to that arm.

My son.

The boy who had seen a need and had jumped to help.

My growing-up son.

The boy who turned eight years old today.



How does a mama get so lucky?


Happy Birthday, kiddo.