A Shoe Full of Slush

This year, the Spring Equinox is on March 20, a mere 9 days away. I wish I was excited about that, but I'm just not. In fact, I don't really care much for Spring. It is kind of an indistinguishable season here in Florida. The weather is warming up, but after a a mere six weeks of on-and-off chilly weather with a few cold days sprinkled in, its not really something that I look forward to. Plus, Spring means it is almost summer, and although school break is glorious, it comes along 100 degree temperatures, and 100% humidity. I don't do a massive spring cleaning, or really anything special when spring gets here. School is not ending or starting. Nothing really significant is going on in my life. Spring comes and goes without me really giving it much thought at all.

But I remember Spring. Somewhere, in the foggy, recesses of my mind I remember when Spring was all that we thought about. I remember people talking about whether or not The Groundhog saw his shadow, and hoping for an early Spring so that we could bring on the snow melting, and the trees budding. Budding trees, so adorable, coming alive with their little promises of an end to the near black and white colorlessness of winter. I remember actual Spring Cleaning. It was the time when Dad got the screens out from the cellar, and we took the Storm door down from the front entrance. We would hose off the screens and put them in the windows- a sign that warm weather and open windows were near. I also remember slush!

Slush is snow's alter-ego. It is brownish, or almost gray looking, because it is filled with dirt. Dirt that came from sand and salt from the city trucks covering the streets to make the roads safer, stuff snow plows scraped up while clearing the streets, from the cars driving by, and from people walking through it. Slush is gross. It sneaks into shoes, and splashes on pant legs. People romanticize snow. Heck, I romanticize snow. Lovely, puffy flakes, falling from the sky. Coating the world in a pure, clean layer of luminous, icy beauty. But, with Spring comes warmer weather. The icicles, three inches in diameter, start to melt and fall like daggers to the earth and the snowy dream world goes away. No one would romanticize slush, but even slush and threat of impalement from ice daggers cannot destroy Spring.

Spring means promise. It means the end of the freezing cold, and the high heat bills. It means no more shoveling, scraping the windshield, snow blowing, or bundling up. The days begin to get longer, and it stays light past 5pm for the first time in months. That feeling of the burden of winter begins to lift because "Spring is in the air". Life just feels more manageable, and doable, and hopeful. I miss that. That feeling that, though the world looks dirty and slushy, there is beauty blooming beneath the surface. It can be felt. What does it feel like? Well, like "whistling, even when your shoe is full of slush"!

Happy Spring everyone! Maybe we don't feel a giant shift in the weather, or the daylight hours where we live. But let's embrace Spring anyway. Make it a time of new beginning. Be reminded to be refreshed, and to hope in the the unseen beauty in our own lives. Even if we can't see it, and even if our lives seem a little slushy at the moment. Take heart. Let's open up the windows of our souls, and feel the breeze. Spring is the air!

"Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush".
~ Greg Larson

The Goodness of a Dog

I think it is time for me to write about the goodness of a dog. Not just the general worth of a dog, or the possibility of goodness that dogs can bring. This is the goodness of my former best friend, and the first living thing that ever really needed me, my dog Max.

Max's life story is interesting from the start. When she was 8 weeks old she was living in the house of a bunch of sorority girls who were feeding her soup and calling her Snickers, as sorority girls would. Jayme and I were at a college soccer game, sitting on a blanket on the sidelines, when she came walking past on the end of a little red leash. I overheard the girl that was walking her say that she didn't think they could keep her, but wasn't she cute? I didn't know anything about this girl except for that her name was Anna, and that I had seen Jayme talk to her before. I told him we should take the dog!

Jayme, in his usual take-care-of business manner, let Anna know that he would take the dog if she couldn't. He set up a time to go to the house to see her, which resulted in our awareness of her name and less than ideal soup diet. The next thing we knew, Max, the puppy formerly known as Snickers, was ours. I use the word "ours" loosely. Technically, she was Jayme's. He had the apartment, and I lived in the dorm, so she lived with him. In addition, he had the money, and I lived on peanut butter an jelly and pop tarts, so he paid for her shots, dog bed, food, and basically everything that her survival required. She may have lived with him and needed his financial backing, but in my heart,she was mine.

I was the one that named her Max. It is ranked like #1 in dog names, but she was a girl, so that made it unique. Plus, it fit her. I could have named her Sasha, or Sadie, but if Max was a person, she would have been the starting pitcher on a boy's little league team, or the only girl on the soccer team. She would have laughed in the faces of the Sashas and Sadies of the world. When they were running from bugs and being too full for dessert, she would have been killing spiders with her shoe and eating a full course meal. Her eyes gave her away- so full of mischief and spirit! And we could see her spunk even at ten pounds. She would give these mean, sideways glances at her rope toy and squeaky pink sneaker-glances that told me she needed a tough girl name. It had to be Max.

She was precious as can be too! Little tiny pink tongue that would like my face all over if I would let her. Mostly she just settled for my hands when she could sneak a lick in, and licking the tears from my cheeks when I was too sad to stop her. I know, I was 19 and way too young to be sad. But I was a also girl living 17 hours from home, missing my family, and juggling a Biology major with playing basketball, friend issues, self-esteem issues, love issues...there were plenty of opportunities for her to "dry" my tears.

I have so many favorite memories with Max. My favorite college memory was when Jayme, Max, and I went camping on this little mountain in Chattanooga. Jayme, having access to some money at the time, went and bought a tent, lantern, and some basic camping supplies; the most notable of which was this sleeping bag that was rated as being warm enough for -32 degrees! We were in Tennessee, and it was not that cold. It seemed like a ridiculous purchase to me, plus, I had no money. Jayme did offer to buy me one, but when I saw the price tag I declined, opting instead to bring some quilts and blankets from my dorm room. We went camping with some other people, and of course stayed up late by the campfire talking and roasting marshmallows, but in the early morning hours went to our brand spanking new tent to go to sleep. I remember that when we unzipped the zipper to go into the tent, his shiny brand new sleeping bag shined in the night. It was really nice. I could almost hear the angels singing. He climbed in, zipped up his bag, and I snuggled up in my blankets. As I tried to sleep on top of that mountain, the temperature took a dive! I don't know how cold it got, but I know that I was freezing! As I lay there on the cold ground shivering in my little cotton quilts I looked over at Jayme, in his sleeping bag rated safe for use in the North Pole, and I honest to God saw a little bead of sweat on his forehead. In that moment, I think I hated him just a little. I asked him if we could switch for a little while. I even asked if I could get in with him, forget dignity at this point, or the appearance of evil, I just wanted to live! That's when he said it, the line that he will never live down for as long as we live, "Sorry, it's a one man bag". I was a twenty year old, sweet, innocent girl-child so at that point I guessed that I had to respect that. I had seen the label myself, it really was a one man bag. Thank God we brought Max. I pulled her over under my ice cold cotton quilts, and snuggled with her all night long. I am surprised she lived. I think she warmed my body by at least 20 degrees which means I was probably sucking the life right out of her, but she didn't mind. She didn't say "no sharing", or even remind me that her fur was really just meant for her. She snugged with me, and kissed me, and let me use her like a big brown pillow. My best friend.

Max had an adventurous life. She lived in a one bedroom studio apartment and got walks in the mulch by the plants when we first saved her from a life as sorority- mascot, Snickers. Then, Jayme moved to a farm where she had acres to run and play, and another dog on the property to frolic with. When we moved to Maine after we got married, Max was in her hay day. She had always had a thick brown coat but had never put it to good use before, other than saving my life on a cold Tennessee mountain once. Seeing her in the cold though, I realized that she had that glorious fur for a reason. In Maine, she came alive! She loved going out in the snow. She would run and jump and stick her muzzle way down deep in the snow until she sneezed, and snow would fly up all around her. She would run with her mouth wide open, and it looked like she wore the biggest smile on her face! She loved walks on the beach. She would dance on the sand with her feet in the water, and would run and jump into the cold, salty ocean at Ferry Beach and paddle out to retrieve whatever we threw...a tennis ball, or stick. She seemed to go so slow, and she would hold her head up really high to not get water on her face. I wasn't sure that she was having any fun at all, until she would get back to shore with her treasure and go crazy running and rolling around in the sand. Just seeing how little things made her happy, made me happy. She made me appreciate the small things, which is quite a mighty thing for a small dog to do.

After we moved to Florida, Max was with me during the hardest three months of my life. I was really sick, to the point of needing home health care, and Max never left my side. When Jayme or his mom would come get her to take her out back to play, or go for a walk, she would look up at me with these eyes that seemed to be asking if it was OK with me. I sang a lot of songs during those months, and Max seemed to enjoy them. She would lick my hand in encouragement as it dangled over the side of the bed, and sometimes would even jump up on the bed and lay alongside me like my missing puzzles pieces. She fit just right, and provided the weight and rhythmic breathing that I needed to rest, and sometimes even sleep. I never knew a more loyal friend.

Max was 14 years old when we finally had to put her to sleep. I never would have been able to do it, were it not so obvious that she needed to go. She had had a couple of mini strokes earlier that year, but seemed to recover fully from them. She never stopped enjoying her walks, and other than being deaf and an occasional bathroom accident, had an unaffected life. Then one morning, she had a full blown stroke. She fell down and could not get up, and her head was tilted to the side in a strange way that she could not control. She kept trying to stand, but just couldn't. I cried. I picked her up in my arms, all 52 pounds of her, and carried her out back. I layed down next to her in the grass and tried to calm her- she seemed afraid. "It's OK Maxi. You're my best girl. Mommy is here with you. I love you, and you are alright". She was trying to lick me. Maybe she knew I was afraid too.

I kept waiting to see if it would pass, and if she would be alright, but her eyes were different. They had lost their spark, and their shine. The mischief that I loved so much was gone, and I knew things were about to get really tough. It was a Saturday morning, but our vet was open. We called and asked to bring Max in. When the lady on the phone asked why, I remember telling her, "I think my dog is dying". I got the car ready for her while Jayme gave her a bath. She hated baths, but she was a proud girl, and she would not have wanted to be seen in her current state. She was covered in pee, and dirt, and grass, and that is no way for the "best girl" to go out. We cleaned her up, and put her in the back of the jeep on a nice soft quilt. We put the seats down and I rode with her in the back - holding her head, and singing to my girl. It was my turn to be a friend now. In all of ours years together, I was never the one by her side. I was always walking away...to go back to the dorm, to work, on a date with Jayme, or to visit a friend, always knowing that she would be there for me when I got home. Now, she was walking away from me, but I was going to see her to the door.

Dr. Jones confirmed that this had been a bad stroke, and if we did not put her down, she would die soon enough on her own. That putting her to sleep would be kinder, as what she felt now was probably very unsettling to her, and confusing. He had been her vet for almost ten years, and knew her well, so he performed a bit of a service for her as she lay on the cold silver vet's table that she had always hated so much. His words were sweet, beautiful and awful, and the hardest things I ever had to hear. He gave her a shot that helped her fall asleep before he actually euthanized her, and I stayed with her through that. I talked to her and patted her face until she fell to sleep. She looked so peaceful. In her old age, she loved to sleep more than anything, and she was even snoring like she had always done on her green, plaid dog bed in the kitchen. I kissed her sweet little head, and left the room. Jayme stayed by her side until the end, but I needed to leave with the picture of her sleeping in peace.

Now, three years later, Max lives on with me. I have pictures of her, of course, and I tell stories of her to Taryn at bedtime. Her name is in almost all of my computer passwords in some form or another, and, of course, the answer to that security question on various websites, "what was the name of your first pet?". Max taught me so much- about love, happiness, enjoying the moment, being thankful for small things, and always waiting faithfully for the ones you love. I had pets before Max, and pets after Max. But Max was my soul-mate pet. She was the one who I loved to the core, and who I always trusted. I felt like she could defend me from harm, and be trusted with my deepest secrets. She never failed me, hurt me, gave me a dirty look, or ignored my calls. She was really, almost perfect; a super hero, minus the cape. It seems silly to people who aren't dog people, or pet people, or worse...are cat people. I know that, and I even think I understand. That's the thing about love though. Until you experience it, you can never really understand when you hear others talk about it. And that's OK. I really, truly, miss my friend, Max. I don't know if all dogs go to heaven, but if there can only be one up there, then it should be Max. I'm certainly going to whistle her tune when I get there, and I hope she comes running!

I've been thinking...

There are things that I think about that blow my mind. Things that I stay up until 2 in the morning wondering. I toss, and turn, and try to turn off my brain, to no avail. Do other people wonder these things too? Ah, one more thing to wonder about! Here are a few of my recent ponderings...

1)Don't those people on American Idol have someone in their life that loves them enough to tell them not to audition? Just one person? Mother, sibling, teacher...anyone???? And why don't the auditioners solicit public opinion on their way to the audition? If it were me I would be asking every stranger on the subway if I sounded decent--- just to make sure I didn't end up as the next bad audition superstar!

2) Low rise jeans and short shirts. Why do so many girls and women wear them, and not seem to notice that their bellies are exposed? Did they look in a mirror? If so, did they think they, "Yeah, that's just the amount of belly fat exposure I was looking for."? Do they not have a mirror that shows them more than just their faces, or are they so self confident that they just don't care? I will always wonder about these self-depricating wardrobe choices, and as with the American Idol failures, where is their "someone"? The one who loves them enough?

3) You know those pictures of the solar system in text books? It occurs to me that we live on one of those spheres, suspended in space, surrounded by nothing but black vastness. How is it that we are just living life on a blue marble? That when I look through a telescope and see planets- I am seeing another version of where I live. If there were people living on, Uranus for example, well, I am living on the thing that the Uranians look at in their telescopes. This place where I live is in some other planet's sky, just as Mars is in my sky!! Mind blowing! Oh, and not for nothing, but "Yay gravity! I love you. You're one of my favorite forces."

4)Speaking of space...the shuttles are cool, and the whole mission to Mars...missions to the moon...International Space Station. All have major cool points in my book, but what exactly are we going up there for? I have never understood it, but it must be something important because brave people are willing to die for it.

5)I would feel better if there were a real Dr. Gregory House; a mad genius doctor who can differentiate almost any diagnosis. According to Web MD I have a few possibly terminal illnesses, but none of them fit me just right. My fear of irony tells me that if I am to get ill, it will be with one of those terrible, whacky diseases or infections that would make doctors bring in med students to use me as a teaching opportunity. It's never good when doctors gather other doctors just to check you out- like some sort of sick theme park attraction. So, if Dr. House were real, he could figure me out. Possibly.

6) Why does denim get a bad rap? It is outlawed at many workplaces, and deemed too casual to be appropriate attire. But why? Is it not a fabric like any other...? I have seen lovely denim trousers, and jean skirts that are so adorable. We need to find a way to reclaim denim. If not for me, then for all of those poor home school moms in their denim, floor length jumpers. It has been discriminated against for too long.

From loving them enough to tell them the ugly truth, to contemplating the galaxies, to how much unfair treatment denim clothes receive, my brain keeps me busy. Occasionally I think of things that are actually important. But often, its just me thinking about things like this, or how I can purchase a small island nation in order to make Pig Latin a national dialect. I think a Pig Roman Empire sounds delightful, and Pig Rome, the obvious name for my island nation, would be paradise. And it would be quiet, so I would be able to do a lot of thinking there.

My brother

I can't imagine our family without my brother. He is kind of what makes us interesting. He still lives in Maine, and I miss him. I wish we were closer... in a lot of ways. Charlie is a mystery to me. I think he always has been. I love him endlessly, and I look up to him in a way that I can't really explain, except to say that he is my big brother. I am funny, but he is funnier. I am smart, but he is smarter. I wish I had the courage to bend some rules and have some adventure in my life, like I think that he did, but I never had it in me.

As a kid, everything that he did was cool in my eyes. In high school he had this awesome collection of music. So cool. I used to sneak into his room to look at his stacks of cassettes in his desk drawer: The Beastie Boys, Billy Joel, Bob Marley, James Taylor. He has the quickest wit, and is very sensitive and insightful, and I think he is probably the smartest person I know. This fact was impressed upon me when playing Trivial Pursuit with him about fifteen years ago. I think he got every single answer right. Literally. The one answer that stuck in my head was that he knew that Rudyard Kipling is the poet who, though Educated in England, was born in Bombay. Who knows that just out of the blue? He is very philosophical, and I love the way his brain works. It was a potential source of torment, at times, for my mother whose brain works almost completely in retrograde of his...but even that was terrifyingly cool to me. While I dreaded the dinners where Charlie would push my mom's buttons, like asking how to get his status changed to "deceased" to avoid repaying student loans, I also watched in awe and amazement at how it all just sort of amused him.

Charlie turned out different from my sister and I. She and I are alike in that we really didn't question things our parents told us, things about life, faith, citizenship...but my brother challenged them all. At our cores, we share the same values, but express them so differently. My brother is a bit of a hippie. He was "green" before being green was trendy. He balks at consumerism, in fact, my mom bought him a Red Sox shirt once for his birthday, and had to return it because it was made by Nike and had their small, signature, swoosh symbol on it. He didn't care for being a walking advertisement for a large conglomerate like Nike.

We're all grown up now, and I suppose even middle aged, but Charlie is still inexplicably cool in my eyes. He is a talented artist, and story teller, and a good family man. He likes jazz, and taught himself to play guitar. I can picture him now, picking at is guitar on my parents porch while the summer sun is setting; his dirty bare feet keeping the rhythm on the pine wood boards, and an occasionally off tune melody on his lips.

Yep, that's my brother. I have always sort of just watched him from a distance, admiring things in him that I never saw in myself. At the same time, I completely identify with him and feel we are kindred spirits. So, we are back to my big brother being a mystery to me. A mystery that I love, and have always wanted to be so much more like.

A thankful heart

I have decided that there is little in life as beautiful as a thankful heart. It doesn't matter if it is your four year old thanking you for making play dough cookies with her, or your two year old's squeaky high pitched, "Thanks" after you wash his two stickiest fingers for the thousandth time at dinner. True thanks is a beautiful thing.

Most of the people that I know are surrounded by things to be thankful for, and I think that if we would just set our minds on looking for them rather than looking past them, that we would be amazed at what we would see.

If we looked for things to be thankful for, most of us would find family. True, it won't be a perfect one, but that's just because there is no such thing. Perhaps it is a family full of people who mean well, but get too pushy. Who don't ask the right questions about our job, or our lives, or who simply act like they don't care about either one. Maybe its a family that is too loud around the dinner table, or tells too many embarrassing stories. Or perhaps, it is a broken family, and times around the dinner table are not noisy enough because there are too few people, and not enough to talk about that won't bring up painful memories. But, nonetheless, there is family. For this we should be thankful. For the fact that we are not alone in the world. Most of us, despite the lack of perfection, have people that would call us there own and would be there for us in a pinch. No matter how strange, or estranged, nothing compares to having a family.

Most of us also have jobs to be thankful for. True, we may have to tilt our heads a little bit to the right, and squint just so, in order to see the great things we have at work, but a job is a blessing. In this current economy, maybe more of us are thankful for that than at this time five years ago, but still it is something we may complain about more than express thanks for. I know, it might be a job, and not a career. It might be a way to pay our bills, rather than follow our bliss. We might be overworked and underpaid, and vastly under-appreciated. Maybe it a part time job when we were promised full time, or a full time job with part time pay, and less benefits than we would want. But, there is work for our hands to do. Work that gives our lives some sense of purpose, and belonging, and value. Work that provides us the money we need to feed and clothe our families, and leave ever such a small amount left over for a teeny bit of fun.

A man's home is his castle, and most of us have homes for which to be thankful. Maybe not our dream homes, but homes just the same. Perhaps it is an apartment with noisy neighbors on all sides, or a home that has had a for sale sign in the yard for two years now, and just won't catch a bite on the market. Maybe its not beach front, lake front, or on a cul de sac. Maybe it even has the carpet ripped up in the back bedroom, and only three walls painted because we ran out of money to finish fixing it up. Even so, we have a safe space in which to place our belongings and lay our heads at night. When the winter wind whips cold outside, and the rain throws itself at us from all sides; we have shelter. When the stress of work, school, carpool, doctor appointments, and long lines at the grocery store are all more than we can bear; we have that safe, quiet place of refuge called home. The place where we are most comfortable, most ourselves, and most happy to be. The place where we can wear sweats, bathrobes, slippers, or nothing at all.

I think there should be a forum for "regular people" to give thanks. I know we have Thanksgiving, but who are we kidding? That has pretty much gotten to be all about the turkey and football these days. I am not a famous and talented actress, so I will never win an Academy Award and get the chance to say thanks in front of the world. But, even so, I would like to thanks to the not so "little people" in my life.

I would like to thank God for His mercy, grace, and providence in my life. I would like to thank my parents for, among other things, having three children instead of two, and my sister and brother for all the fun times and friendship. I would like to thank Jayme for loving me even when I am borderline crazy and want to have long conversations at midnight, and my kids for being the funniest people I have ever known. I would like to thank my aunts and uncles, and cousins that I love and almost never see, for being some of those people that would call me their own and be there for me in a pinch. Oh, and my precious friends. I would like to thank you most of all. For making me laugh, and for laughing with me. For filling the huge gap in my life that I have had for so many years being so far from home. You are more than just people to go to the movies with. You are my immediate source of strength, joy, and perseverance. If ever a person could say their friends are their family, I can. Thank you all. Thank you God, for my abundant life. There is little in life as beautiful as a thankful heart.

Famous people

I have met only one famous person in my life. It was former first lady, Barbara Bush. It was exciting, as exciting as meeting Barbara Bush could be. It was the summer after my senior year of high school, and I was working at some job that I have quite literally forgotten. I do remember that the building we were in also had a recording studio in it, which is why Barbara was there. It was in Portland, ME which, as everyone knows, is THE city in Maine. Barbara, likely spending her summer at Walker's Point in Kennebunkport, had come to our building to record her memoirs.

I walked out of the office to go do something so insignificant that I have completely forgotten it, and came face to face with the once First Lady. She was nice to see. Just, happy, and friendly, and grandmotherly. I was tempted to snuggle up and get a big hug from her, but thought better of it. She smiled at me, though it was kind of a small smile, and asked me where the rest room was. Yes, it's true, she talked to me. Little old me! The woman who once slept in the White House, and likely had conversations with George Herbert Walker Bush that went like this, "No husband, don't use the red phone for this matter, we can settle it without the nukes". Yep, she and I talked, and then we walked. I walked her down one and a half flights of stairs, and past a single, bored looking (yet still super cool)Secret Service Agent, to the bathroom. This is where we departed. I thought she would ask how to contact me again or invite me to Kennebunkport, but instead she just thanked me.

That was it. My one, golden, famous person encounter. It was memorable, so obviously, I basically know her. Although she is the only one that I legitimately know, I do "kind of know" a couple of other famous people too. I "know" Jennifer Aniston, because she touched my husband's arm and said, "It's nice to meet you, Jayme", and also Jason Varitek because I teach someone related to him (with the last name Varitek) and have an autographed baseball from him. Oh, and I almost forgot Tina Fey! She is one of my favorite celebrity "friends". We became close when I saw her at Disney, just feet away from me, getting ready to go on the Peter Pan ride.

I am holding out hope that I will meet more famous people in my life. Not because I am someone who is interested in celebrities and their lives; I am not. I don't subscribe to People magazine, or even peek at the Enquirer when I'm in line at the grocery store. I am just too busy with my life to worry about theirs. Even so, there is something surreal, and interesting, and...memorable... about meeting someone famous. That is what my vast experience in the matter has taught me! ;)

Is This Some Sort of Joke?

I took a strengths test at work that suggested I consider teaching as an occupation, and it made me cry a little. That's not a joke. I never wanted to be a teacher, and although I find it rewarding to be a part of the life stories of all of these kids, I spend a little part of every day dreaming about something more. So, it was a bit of a shock that this (albeit potentially flawed) strength test was telling me that I am already doing something that is a good match for my skill set.

I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I thought that it would come back with large bold print and lots of exclamation points and say that I am wasting away a mass of skill and talent by being in the classroom. I think I thought that it would help me create a new future by seeing something in me, that I couldn't find, that would make me perfectly suited for some other, awe-inspiring, career.

Clearly, that didn't happen. Now what? Well, there is only one way to go. Now I must be the most amazing teacher ever to wear a teacher ID badge and have an ugly picture on the faculty page of the yearbook. I must read more than I have ever read, and I must go to more conferences than I have ever been to. I must write referrals and merits with my nicest pen, and get my teeth whitened so that when I greet the kids with a smile every day, it is the whitest smile they have ever beheld. And, truthfully, I am a bit relieved. I don't think there is another job where I could be a counselor, comedian, performer, judge, professor, singer, and poet all in the same day. Maybe, just maybe, this teaching thing will work out!