Gratitude | wasting time

I was in the car the other day, driving home into the five o'clock sun (the most yolky, rich of suns), and "The Dock of the Bay," came on the radio. The kids were in the car with me, both quietly staring out their respective windows, a sure sign that sleep was over-taking them--a little early for that this afternoon, but they'd just spent an hour bouncing around, literally, at the trampoline park. I turned the radio up. I sang along. I told them, though I knew they weren't listening, "This is one of my favorite songs." I'd never thought about it before, but, yes: this is one of my favorite songs. This song that almost wasn't released, and then was only released because Otis Redding died young, and his label needed something to offer people who were sad. I did not know about this while I sang along in the car the other day, but I have since learned that Otis Redding had had a throat surgery that left him worried for his voice and future, and "Dock of the Bay" was quiet, poetic, soft--and easy for someone like me to sing along to, someone whose voice is only what it is because she sings to children, tucking them into bed at night, and because she sings to herself, in her car, though not a natural singer at all.

When I heard the song in the car, I thought about my life. How happy I am singing along to songs on the radio in cars--two minutes of bliss. How I told my co-workers the other day that drinking beer by a pool is one of the greatest pleasures to be had on this planet, in this life. How a day spent fixing good, simple meals with my menfolk, pruning plants, walking in the yard barefoot--this is perfection, this is my personal joy. I beat myself up sometimes. I am hard on myself for not being more or doing more, but the truth is that while, yes, at some point I think I'd like to travel, I'm more happy in my own backyard than anywhere else. And when I worry I'm not doing enough, not being enough, isn't most of that worry based on comparing myself to others and what I believe the expectations of others to be? That has nothing to do with me and my path and my heart. 

I live a modest life, and I like it. This is the life I've carved for myself; I have created this from nothing. I have lived with chaos and despair, yet here I am: in love with a good man, my life's companion, as we raise our son together, this beautiful, healthy, smart, charismatic kid. We don't have much, but we have each other, and we know how to be quiet, and we know how to laugh, and we work hard, and we know how to laze around like it's an art.

I Am Greatful:

• I am grateful for the way Ella does not fight bed time, but leans into it, like every part of our night time ritual is a luxury.
• I am grateful for my husband, who makes me sushi for lunch and draws little sriracha smiley faces on them.
• I am grateful for the photo on the front page of the Sunday News & Observer, of a lovely and lovey lady pit bull comforting a grieving mother.
• I am grateful when Mads says, "Look, Mom," and I respond, "Uh huh," and he tells me firmly but without anger, "You're not even looking, Mom," and I am snapped out of my head and into the present moment; I am grateful for these reminders of mindfulness from my guru son.
• I am grateful for the soft way my husband kisses my cheek and thanks me, everything else pausing, his hands on my arms.
• I am grateful for weather reports broadcast on the radio on stormy nights.
• I am grateful for the adult courage to peek under beds and into closets after dark.
• I am grateful for Grandma telling me, with admiration and approval, that I am so patient with my son.
• I am grateful for the last gritty sip of French Press coffee.
• I am grateful for a few minutes to zone out, looking at the Instagram accounts of yogis on tropical islands while eating chips and guac, without feeling bad about myself--just letting my mind rest, looking at something beautiful while eating something tasty.

Thankful Thursday | a matchbox of our own, a fence of real chain link

I love describing my husband to people who don't know him. Or, rather, I love attempting to describe my husband to people. He is enigmatic and my stories of him, the things he says, the way he is, sound, surely, full of contradictions. Is he kind or is he surly? Is he serious or is he absurd? Is he crazy-eyed intense or is he even-keeled and steadfast? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and always. He is all of the things (and none of them, or at least, none of the things succeed at summing him). He is the man I love yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and always. I love him when times are good, and we are laughing--I can say aloud any crazy non sequitur that pops into my head, and he will respond in kind, and our talk becomes a layered babble of nonsense, like we're orating R-rated Seussian poetry. I love him when times are hard, like this past year, and I need to tell someone my pain because telling takes some of the burden away, and he is there for me, listening, warm and strong, his body made to hold mine, and his mere presence in a room is enough to lift me up and keep me moving. I love this man. I heard on inspirational talk radio once that the most important thing you can say to your partner isn't 'I love you,' but, 'thank you,' and I felt so proud of myself for getting something right for once. Not a day goes by that I don't thank this man in my life, for making coffee, for teaching our son, for loving me so good. I am so grateful to him and for him yes, yes, yes, yes, and always.

• I am grateful for the joy on Attie's face--her grinning gob, the sparkle in her eyes, the lift of her chin--as she chews on a bully ring.
• I am grateful for the way Ella mimics Martigan's affections with me--somewhat awkwardly, but so precious because of that awkwardness.
• I am grateful for sticky monkey bread, shared at a bakery with my husband, at a table too little for our gangly legs, on a date morning.
• I am grateful when Wolfman plays guitar and grins and thanks me for the wau pedal I bought him for his birthday; I am grateful to have given him something he loves and can use; I am grateful for his joy.
• I am grateful for the pride with which Wolfman shares an audio recording of weird improvisational music he and Mads created during the day (Wolfman playing an out-of-tune acoustic kiddie guitar and jingle bells, Mads playing harmonica and drum); I am grateful so much of Martigan's (un)schooling has fallen to my husband, who is so naturally inventive, smart, irreverent; I am grateful the musical instruments I've been collecting since Martigan's birth are getting use.
• I am grateful when Wolfman whispers to me, "I've always loved that song," as "Somewhere That's Green," ends in the Raleigh Little Theatre's production of Little Shop of Horrors.
• I am grateful for the wave of relief that comes after clearing off surfaces whose clutter seemed immovable and permanent, going willfully unnoticed and untouched for years--like the top of the fridge and the shelf in our laundry cabinet; I am grateful for my resolve; I am grateful for Marie Kondo, who taught me something that makes sense and is helpful and speaks to my woo woo, animistic inclination.
• I am grateful to put my healthy, funny, smart, good-looking boy to rest at night; I'm grateful we've been granted another day together in this chaotic, sometimes brutal, often beautiful, very strange world.
• I am grateful when Mads tells me he wants to grow his hair long again.

"Somewhere That's Green", Ellen Greene

Thankful Thursday | when you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart

I Am Grateful:

• I am grateful for the Duplo blocks that quiet Mads and capture his interest.
• I am grateful for every part of my body that jiggles because I'm made of flesh not paper.
• I am grateful when I hear sirens, for the people who make livings of helping others.
• I am grateful for my grandpa, steady and good and full of love.
• I am grateful to come home to a house full of good cooking smells after a long day at work.
• I am grateful for little gifts left in my cubby at work from co-workers.
• I am grateful to Grandma for picking us up and taking us to dinner at Martigan's favorite, Firehouse Subs, and I am grateful to her for her good humor when Mads eats only chips and does not touch his sandwich.
• I am grateful for citrus-scented dish soap.
• I am grateful for the jingling tinkle of my many charm bracelets (Christmas gifts from Grandma this year) against china coffee mugs as I put them away in the cabinet.
• I am grateful for the way salt patterns swirl on roads and look like some ancient magic runes, and like snow, impervious to sun and heat.
• I am grateful for the competing morning sounds of Uriah Heep on the turn table on one side of me (in the living room) and Wolfman tuning up his guitar on the other (in the bedroom).
• I am grateful for the tradition of wearing my husband's boots and coat (so much more practical than my own) to tromp around in the snow.

"La Vie En Rose," Louis Armstrong

Yule 2017 | the sky is a hazy shade of winter

There was a time when I passed harsh judgment on my neighbors whose Christmas trees lay used and discarded on the curb on the 26th of December. Now, I am one of those people. I had to be at work at noon the day after Christmas and so started early dismantling our tree that morning. By second breakfast, I was dragging our tree into the thicket beyond our back fence for the wild things to use as they see fit. 

Is it only when you work in retail that you're asked, constantly, "Ready for Christmas yet?" in the month of December? Or is this a thing we say to each other regardless of occupation as the holidays lurch nearer, a seasonal replacement for all that chatter about weather? My standard, if unwholesome, answer quickly became, "Ready for it to be over." My poor tree was also pooped out on the yuletide, just a couple weeks into the month. Promptly and without notice, it died. The thing was dry as good kindling, and I feared that's what it might become what with all that incense burning I do in the house (keeping all the Ghosts of Christmas Whenever away). I didn't spend nearly as much time this year happily arranging and rearranging my ornaments on the tree as I did last year, so I didn't immediately realize exactly how dead it was. 

Unlike my tree, however, my holiday spirit was only Mostly Dead, not All Dead. There were moments to be had, both holiday-specific and not. For instance:

• As I travel back and forth between the front porch and back yard, carrying rotting jack o'lanterns to the compost bin, I am watched by a little brown lizard, poking his head out of the trailer-shaped bird house hanging near our walk, his little claw curled around the doorway of the house.
• In the kitchen in the morning, still in our pajamas, I join in on a hug between Mads and Wolfman, wrapping my arms around them from behind, kissing the back of Wolfman's neck and Martigan's plump baby cheek, his face resting in the crook of his dad's neck. Mads repeats, "I love you. I love you guys. I love you..."
• It is the night before Thanksgiving and Mads is cranky and done as we walk out the door at Grandma's house. Grandpa gestures him forward, puts an arm around him, and they turn their backs on Grandma and me, like they're sharing a secret. Grandpa says, "What did I tell you we're going to do tomorrow? Watch the parade. Watch the dog show. Watch football. And eat until our stomach's hurt."
• I've just come home from work. Mads is asleep. The radio is on, playing George Michael's "Last Christmas." Wolfman rolls his eyes and says this is the kind of song to be drunk to at an office Christmas party. We begin dancing as a joke and then, my arms around his neck, we dance in earnest.
• On the road, driving to Grandma's house, Mads and I sing "Holly Jolly Christmas," along with the radio. I have no idea where he learned this song, but he knows nearly all the lyrics. 
• Wolfman and I meet each other's eyes with a spark of joy and humor. We've just won the Worst Parents of the Day award for letting our 4-year-old son eat ice cream and sip boba tea at swanky new Milk Lab Cafe at 9:00 at night. 4-year-old has responded, predictably, by having a complete meltdown on the sidewalk just outside the cafe. (When I ask, laughing only a little bit, "Baby what's wrong?," he wails into the night, "I DON'T KNOW!")
• My boss has just appeared, at the front door of the store, like a customer (which I mistake him for at first) instead of slipping in unnoticed through the back. He hands Nicky a stack of envelopes, says something nice probably. I don't know what because inside my head is a voice that sounds very like Prince Gristle squealing, "Christmas Bonus!" It's like I've just eaten a troll. I am that happy.

"A Hazy Shade of Winter," Simon & Garfunkel

Thankful Thursday | you with the sad eyes, don't be discouraged

I have lived within the pages of my journal, lately. I have dived deep into these cheap composition notebooks and paper-mached myself in layers of National Geographic photos and Martigan's artwork and other paper ephemera I come across, like the O. avoseta bee who makes a Thumbelina cocoon of flower petals. I have explored and experimented more than, perhaps, ever before, and it has been therapy. I am grateful to the journaling inspiration gathered from various social media platforms. I am grateful for old books and magazines full of beautiful images and the glee of ripping into those pages to construct something new and personal. I am grateful for the patience of my husband as I sit down one more night, not to snuggle with him, but with the open journal on my lap. I am grateful for smooth-writing pens with heavy, dark ink. I am grateful for the particulars and peculiarities of my handwriting. I am grateful, again, to my husband for bringing home a stack of composition notebooks (my preferred medium), snagged for 30 cents each at the pharmacy up the street.

I Am Grateful.

• I am grateful for FM radio in the morning--the happy chatter, the recognizable commercial jingles, that one Tom Petty song every station plays.
• I am grateful when I drop a plate and it doesn't break; I am grateful for each of the vibrant, mismatched plates I've collected over the years, unwrapped from thrift store newspaper like treasures.
• I am grateful when Mads cannot wait to get home and asks me to read the books we choose at the library, right there, sitting in the aisles.
• I am grateful when I hear Wolfman's key in the door and the dog's wagging tail thumping against the sofa as she hears it and is grateful as well. I am grateful for the memory of Lunchbox's tail thumping against sofa, mattress, and floor. I am grateful for every dog who ever wagged a tail in my presence and the ones who will wag tails for me and my loves in the future.
• I am grateful turning the store sign over at the end of the night to announce to the dark parking lot "CLOSED."
• I am grateful for that moment driving in the rain, when the car drives under a bridge and all sound is sucked up into a vacuum, so briefly--a half second of eerie silence--before the sound of pounding rain on our roof commences again on the other side of the bridge.
• I am grateful for the fleeting softness of brand new, never-worn, never-washed socks.
• I am grateful for minty toothpaste on my baby's breath as I carry his sleeping body into the house at night.
• I am grateful to finally squeeze out a couple tears at the end of a long day (and longer summer), and I am grateful for Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" for getting me there.
• I am grateful for the sound of stew bubbling on the stove.
• I am grateful for the way Atalanta blushes pink when she's happy.
• I am grateful when Wolfman tells me, "I'm lucky to have you," and I get to respond, "I think I'm the lucky one."
• I am grateful for all the little messes in our home, because they show how we live and play here.
• I am grateful for Grandma's beef stew, the taste of my childhood in her home--warm, hearty, a touch spicy.

"True Colors," Cyndi Lauper

Thankful Thursday | I kinda like to be the president, so I can show you how your money's spent

• I am grateful for the rumble of the dryer which puts my tireless kid to sleep.
• I am grateful when I open the blinds in Martigan's bedroom and catch a rabbit in the yard on the other side of his window.
• I am grateful for thunder so loud and booming it shakes the building and sounds like a giant approaching.
• I am grateful that only moments after I come inside from my walk, a downpour starts, and I am grateful for the percussive sound of rain on the metal roof at work.
• I am grateful for the arrival of autumn in grocery stores--mums out front, trick-or-treat candy bags on end caps, orange and black Halloween greeting cards, plastic trick-or-treat pails with jack-o-lantern faces grinning, pumpkin Krispy Kreme donuts.
• I am grateful to come home to a bouquet of orange flowers and a black & orange circle scarf (with little black tassels!), out of the blue gifts from my honey on a day I feel particularly achey and unapproachable.
• I am grateful for the Scooby Doo movies Wolfman and Mads bring home, the familiarity of those voices, the way they feed my inner child and make me laugh, the joy of my son experiencing and loving these characters and scenarios that were so beloved to me and his dad when we were kids.
• I am grateful for Mads singing War's "Why Can't We Be Friends" in the back seat of the car.
• I am grateful for the imprints of last night's rainfall in the sandpit at the playground.
• I am grateful for my 90s era paisley Victoria's Secret robe--thrifted by Grandma and generiously given to me when I expressed admiration for it--because it could've been worn by Vincent Price or Christopher Lee's Dracula; it is flamboyant and jewel-toned, lush and luxe.
• I am grateful to pick up my son's toys from the floor when he is asleep at night, because it reminds me that he is real and he is here--to be blessed with a son is more than I could've dreamed or hoped for.
• I am grateful for the way my husband makes me feel worshipped under his gaze and hands.
• I am grateful for the patience and tenderness and humor of Wolfman as he explains Lio comics to our son.
• I am grateful for the first customer to ask me, "You have a dog?" on the day I've adopted Atalanta.
• I am grateful for a spider web in the trees, blowing in the breeze like a sheet on the line.

"Why Can't We Be Friends," War

Just Joy | sidewalks, feel me strut so good; gutter, don't forget this face

• We are at the circulation desk checking out this week's book haul when one of the librarians (one I remember from my own childhood visits to Cary Public Library) compliments Mads on his Batman mask and gloves. Mads is exasperated and corrects him, "No, I'm The Flash," and I translate/explain that Mads is actually The Flash disguised as Batman. Mads tells him, "Actually, Batman is my brother and he let me use his mask." The adults have a good chuckle at this. One librarian says, "Nice brother!" As we're walking out the door, Mads turns and shouts, "Remember, I'm The Flash and I run really fast, but Mommy doesn't like me running in the library!" I am doubled over laughing as I usher him out the door.
• Mads has fallen into a limp, heavy sleep on the drive home. I lift him out of his car seat and cradle him, shushing with "my sweet boy"s and "mommy's here"s. 93% asleep, he reflexively lays a smacking smooch on my neck.
• I am a nearly 33-year-old woman, riding a horse on a 96-year-old carousel, calliope music and pastels washing over me.
• Cars slow down and honk, drivers wave, as we light fireworks in our drive way. A shower of sparks rain down, silhouetting my baby's excited face as he looks back at me, making sure I'm sharing this spectacle with him.
• We are having a great, slow morning together--the kind of morning I want to have more of, the kind of present, mindful morning I am proud of. I turn on Queen of the Stone Age's "Misfit Love" and Mads plays along with a pink plastic whistle. Wolfman picks up Mads' tiny play guitar and begins to strum along.
• It is Sunday morning, and I have to wake Mads at 7 so we can take his dad to work. He's happy when he opens his eyes as I pull up the blinds in his room. When I lay next to him to snuggle a bit before we're off, he asks dreamily, "Mommy, can you scratch my back?"
• Grandma is standing in my kitchen, and Thorn meows at her feet. She leans down and groans as she picks him up. "I forgot what it's like to have a big cat like this, a T-shell cat," she says (her favorite cat, T-Shell, was maybe even bigger than Thorn). I ask her how much she thinks he weighs. "I don't know? Thirty pounds?"

"Misfit Love," Queens of the Stone Age

Thankful Thursday | rock has got the right of way

My garden has done a lot of Jesus-take-the-wheel-ing this summer. And, despite my self-sabotaging instincts, I managed to relax into a state of mild and pleasant surprise at the goings-on in my little chicken-wired garden plot. I let go of my expectations completely and accepted that this was a hard summer. I was sad, and some of my houseplants died while I was sad, and outdoors my would-be garden just had to make its way without a gardener. Let me admit here, however, that I've never been a good gardener, necessarily; my gardens have always been a sort of laissez faire event due to my incredible lack of skill and/or knowledge.  But, this year I was more neglectful than ever before. I hardly visited my plot at all. I tended to the compost pile, tossing kitchen scraps in and turning the hot mass with shovel, but of course producing garbage is easier than producing sustenance. Pumpkin vines wound about the entire plot, choking out my peppers and tomatoes. Zucchini rotted on the vine. I did pick several large yellow mystery squashes, the stems of which deposited tiny spines into my skin, but I failed even the charming task of deciding how to cook and eat those squashes. They grew a film of fuzzy mold on my kitchen counter. Then, I tossed them into the compost pile and broke into them with a shovel, which was satisfying. 

I did not garden this summer, but I did sit in the back yard and drink rum out of a hollowed-out pineapple at the solstice. Many an evening, I sat reading stupid novels while Mads played in his $7 plastic pool (often, I'd pour Buddy Wash in while it filled and call it his bath). On Tuesday night, we roasted marshmallows at the fire pit after the sun set and "camped" (Wolfman set up the tent out there). I am so grateful for this fenced in back yard, for the Walmart plastic pool, for the tiny pumpkin that grew while I wasn't watching and protecting it, for Thorn Rex as he perches on the deck with his fat belly hanging over the railing, for stinky herbal bug spray, for a man who can build a fire, for tropical fruits, for the smell of meat cooking on an open flame. I am grateful that summer is almost over.

I Am Grateful.

• I am grateful for books that mean nothing to me, procured for next-to-nothing, that I can guiltlessly rip apart for art projects.
• I am grateful for an ink smudge on my fingernail that makes me feel like Jo March.
• I am grateful to past me, for all the meticulous notes in my past journals.
• I am grateful for AC/DC playing on the radio as the high way opens up and we pick up speed.
• I am grateful that our ailing beast of a truck, Brunhilde, chose not to start on a day when we weren't in a particular hurry, on a day that Wolfman was with me, rather than a day I was out alone or out alone with Mads.
• I am grateful for grimoire flip-through videos on Youtube (like this one).
• I am grateful for the smell of Play-Doh and coffee and sizzling sausage links, all in our kitchen one morning.
• I am grateful for the way Wolfman sometimes unexpectedly falls into a Scottish brogue. 
• I am grateful for the tastiest margarita I have ever had on date night at La Rancherita.
• I am grateful to be married to a man who tips servers so generously.
• I am grateful for very sharp razors with which to slice through boxes.
• I am grateful for the crinkle of packing paper.

"For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)," AC/DC

Lunchbox

Yesterday we said goodbye to our best pal, Lunchbox. He's raiding that big dirty laundry bin in the sky now, in Dog Heaven (the stinkiest of all the heavens). He'd been sick for about two weeks, in and out of the vet office. But, he never stopped wagging his tail, so we'd hoped he was recovering from a nasty kidney infection; what he was actually experiencing was full-on kidney failure. When it became clear he was in pain, we made the decision to let him go. We made that decision without consulting him, because he would've voted to stay by our side forever, whether he hurt or not. When I left the house for work each day, I'd tell him, "Take care of my men." When Wolfman left the house, he'd tell LB, "take care of this woman and my boy." Lunchbox took his job, chief protector and comforter, very seriously. He was 15, white hairs all over his face and paws, moving and grouching like a little old man instead of the young buck he was when I met him, but I'd still hoped (expected, even) we'd have a few more years with him.

We'd been fretting over him and shedding brief, panicked tears over him since his first somber vet visit two weeks ago. By last Friday afternoon, when LB's vet laid out the grim circumstances of his deterioration, I thought I was all cried out. Wolfman told me, "We have to put him down on Monday," and I didn't shed a tear. But, that same night, after Mads was in bed, Wolfman and I sat on the sofa with the dog between us and cried over him together, and laughed at all the stupid things he'd done, and reminisced, and loved him with our stories and memories and hands rubbing behind his ears and cradling him. We repeated that ritual Saturday night and again Sunday night and again Monday morning, sitting on the floor of an examination room as he went under and away from us. We brought his body home, and I stood in the cold to bear witness while Wolfman dug a grave for his companion, his first son, his best friend of 15 years.

In the course of our marriage, Wolfman and I told each other the story of, and thus created, a place we called Dog Spa. I'm not sure how it started, but in the eight years we've been a couple, we have often texted each other, or poked heads around corners to announce to each other things like, "at Dog Spa, there are squirrel pee facials." Or, "hot garbage juice saunas at Dog Spa." Most recently we added, "Used tissue hors d'oeuvres at Dog Spa." The point was to imagine what true pampering of a dog (by dogs) would be, while also grossing each other out as much as possible (usually, I won at being most disgusting; Wolfman is a classy gentleman, while I am a true Garbage Pail Kid.) If we are, indeed, co-creating our reality, then Wolfman and I have created a perfect, smelly, truly foul and nauseating heaven for our favorite beast. In Doghalla, Lunchbox is rolling in critter corpses as I type this. 

Last photos of Lunchbox, taken last week.

Thankful Thursday | repeat to yourself 'it's just a show, I should really just relax'

I used to wonder what it would be like to be in love on Valentine's Day. I started imagining my life with a partner in high school, but it seemed like such an impossibility. I knew I was pretty and smart and all those things we're told (or, at least, it is implied) make finding love easy, but I was also wounded and guarded, immature and awkward. I didn't know if love would ever find me. I never hated Valentine's Day, though; I don't think I was ever bitter about it, even as I approached my mid-twenties having never fallen in love. I just thought: how nice that must be, to know that the holiday doesn't mean much and is cheesy, but to wrap yourself in the security and privilege of it regardless. I am grateful to have tripped into a love that's lasted nearly a decade now. I am grateful to spend Valentine's Day with Jared, my husband, the Wolfman. I am grateful for his love for me and my love for him and that our love created Mads, the true love of our lives.

I Am Grateful:

• that so much of my wardrobe is green.
• that so much of my wardrobe is pink.
• that so much of my wardrobe is black.
• for the way Wolfman looks at me; I never dreamed of being looked at that way by such a beautiful man.
• for the company of Lunchbox and Thorn, breathing (wheezing) in my bedroom with me on nights I fall asleep without Wolfman, while he works or records music.
• to eat like a queen, more bread and meat than is decent, even though I'd meant to do a whole foods fast for the New Moon.
• when Wolfman, without prompting, hands me a bottle of hard cider, top already popped, at the end of a long day.
• for the smell of brioche buns.
• for the sound of Mads and Ella chewing Bojangles "bo rounds" (hash brown bites) in the backseat of the car in the morning.
• for my gentle husband, who lets me rant, giving me so much space and respect.
• for flickering candlelight.
• for working brake lights.
• for chocolate glaze.
• for the National Park Service.
• for the costume design of Sam Raimi's fantasy shows.
• for talking god stuff.
• to the Uber driver who tells me I look pretty as she drops me off at work one morning.
• for vines that creep up walls and plants that grow in the cracks of walls and sidewalks.
• while singing along to the MST3K theme song with Wolfman.

Just Joy | king of the impossible

• At the playground, I'm pushing Mads in a swing, but fret aloud about the cold. He reassures me, his hair whipping around his face, "I love the cold. I love the wind. The wind makes me wild!"
• Twice in one day, at my grandma's house and then later my own, I coax cats to me--Doc Holliday at Grandma's house, small and black, Thorn Rex at mine, large and black. I call Doc in the ringing "kittykittykitty" I was taught as a girl; Thorn prefers to be meowed at in his own language. Both cats meet my finger tips with cold noses, they both lay at my feet and offer their bellies to be rubbed, both let me pick them up and nuzzle my face into their fur. 
• By intuition or chance, on a Tuesday morning, I dressed in a skirt and blouse with the optimal amount of swish and sway in their materials and then, on my afternoon dinner break from work, I walk to the neighborhood grocery store for a deli sandwich and the wind whips about me, playing in the folds of my clothes. I nod and smile to the residents of the surrounding townhomes and apartments as so many of them take advantage of this 70 degree winter day and walk the greenway path with groceries in their arms. I sit in the grass on a hill, take my shoes off, and know I look like a witch because I feel like one.
• 'It is Preschool Story Time at Eva Perry, and our letter of the day is 'W'. Ms. Mary pulls a wolf puppet out of her tote bag ('W' is for wolf), and we all--Ms. Mary, kids, parents, puppet--throw our heads back and hooowwwl.
• We're home for the evening, and I'm sipping a hard cider. At Mads' request, I put the Flash Gordon soundtrack on the turn table, then I sit and watch him perform an athletic dance, half kung fu/half ballet.
• I've put Mads to bed and have started washing dishes in the kitchen when I hear him up and in the hallway. As I walk him back to his bedroom he tells me, "You didn't give me a big hug." I pick him up and hold him against me, his arms and legs wrapped tight around me, his head tucked into the crook of my neck, and I rock with him until he tells me, "Okay Mommy, put me down now," ready to sleep. I lay him down, tuck the Star Trek blanket his dad sewed around him, and tell him I love him and goodnight.
• It is only five minutes before we need to be out the door; the car is warming, and I have yet to finish packing up my lunch, but I am riveted watching the new snail in the fish bowl in our kitchen. For the first time in the two days since bringing the snails home (two, one for each fish bowl), I'm seeing it move up the side of the bowl, sending out a long feeler and antennae. I watch it slide along the glass, then retract and shut its shell like a door when the blue beta swims close to investigate.
• I get into the car after work, and Mads asks for a knock knock joke. He laughs mightily over my "orange you glad to see me."
• I lift Mads out of the car, hold him on my hip and point to Venus in the sky. I say, "look at that big star," and Mads says, "lets wish on it."

"Flash's Theme," Queen