Life is a beach

I am a beach girl. I always have been. I can sit on a beach for hours and days and be perfectly content. I find the crashing waves soothing, I find the calm ocean soothing, I find the gulls screeching about soothing. I have a lot of beach stories.

Today, after sitting and watching Maddie play softball under the blistering sun, we went to the beach. A friend had told us about this place called Higgins Beach, and said we had to check it out. Peter heard that everyone else was going to go to Old Orchard Beach. I've been there/done that. More than once. It is like Hampton Beach, really, you just drive through. No, I wanted to go to the beach where there were no people and there was no parking.

We hauled the cooler like a quarter of a mile, with our beach chairs, from the small parking lot where we paid $5 for the privilege of leaving our car. It was after 5:00 and really, what I consider prime beach time. Now, we had been sweating all day long, and traipsing down to the beach we were still not cool. As we walked upon the small strip (high tide) Peter kept saying, what's wrong with this spot? What's wrong with this spot? He will sit next to anyone! I had my eye on a prime piece of beach quite a bit further down where no one was nearby. Obviously the lazy people sit on the beach by the stairs. I want the primo beach site. He didn't get it. At last we found the perfect spot and he kept teasing me, are you sure this grain of sand is to your liking? Perhaps THOSE grains of sand over yonder are better?

Listen. When you are sitting on the beach, all set up and enjoying life, when some schmuck from wherever comes along and plunks themselves right on top of you, when there is plenty of room elsewhere, it's aggravating and not nice. I don't do it to other people so they won't do it to me.

So we sat down and within about 30 seconds we were all freezing. That is Maine for you. Of course, I had a backpack with a sweatshirt in it, but did anyone else come prepared? Of course not. I gave the sweatshirt to Maddie and wrapped myself in a towel, and proceeded to make the most delicious beach snacks. We found the most FABULOUS health food store this afternoon -- oh my. I was in heaven. Complete and total. I skipped around in glee and chose all sorts of wonderful beach snacks. I took a piece of flat bread, spread goat cheese brie, sliced thin pieces of organic pear and put that on top of the cheese, then sprinkled some sunflower sprouts on top. OHMYOHMYOHMY. Yummy. I had some wine and all was good in the world.

The other two were freezing. COME ON! We are at the beach. There has to be a little give and take, you know? I spent ALL DAY sitting in a field in the blazing sun watching softball games. I adapted, I figured it out.

Peter went back to the car for coats (that is his solution to everything, just go DO something besides what we are doing) and that placated everyone for a little bit. But not long. About 20 minutes later Peter said he was bored. COME ON! We had packed a cooler full of fun and scrumptious food, we had wine, beer, water, etc. Sure, it was a bit chilly, but now we had coats!

I don't know why I can sit on a beach forever and ever. I was telling Maddie that cold is just a part of it. I told her about one time a friend and I had been at Ogunquit beach in Maine, all day long. There had been not one single wave the entire day. We had sat through sunset, enjoying a bottle of wine and bread and cheese, and I had walked back to get the car. My friend was waiting in the parking lot at the edge of the beach, and I pulled up and she said to me I had to look. The tide was coming in and there, before us, were the most amazing waves. We looked at each other, and without a further thought we locked up the car and ran down, plunging into the freezing cold water with a mission.

We body surfed until we were exhausted. There were people on the beach watching us and shaking their heads. It was not only cold water, it was cold out! But they didn't understand that we had started that day with the intent to body surf. The fact that the waves hadn't shown up until much, much, MUCH later ... well, we went with it!

But oh we were cold. Freezing really. I remember I was shivering and shaking so badly I couldn't get the key into the ignition. We wrapped ourselves in towels and sat in the car for a long time with the heat blaring on high, trying to stave off hypothermia. We peeled off the wet suits once we stopped shaking, and put on warm, dry clothes. I don't think you really appreciate what it is like to be warm and cozy until you freeze first! I really don't.

So when you are sitting on the beach, dry, with a coat on, and someone is complaining they are cold, you can certainly understand that I don't get it. I really don't. We are AT THE BEACH! There is nothing unhappy about it. Not ever. I have sat on the beach in the fog, unable to even see the water in front of me. I have sat on the beach with a million people surrounding me. I have sat on the beach alone. I love the beach. Any kind of beach day is a good beach day to me.

And really, there is one other caveat to a perfect beach day. You must (and you know who you are!) be with those of the same mindset as you! Because there is nothing better, once you are AT the beach, than to be with someone who gets it. Who wants to be there just as much as you do and is willing to overlook a few pesky thing like baby sharks that bite and pounding waves that nearly rip your bathing suits off.

Maddie said she hates the way her hands feel when they get sand on them. Peter said he hates the way his whole body feels as though it is covered with salt -- even though he didn't go swimming.

I love anything about the beach.

I really do.

Much ado about nothing

Not sure what we're going to be writing about today. We, meaning me! I have no thoughts whipping about my head, I thought I might have an opinion about that 16-year-old girl who attempted to sail around the world and then needed to be rescued -- but then decided I really didn't. She and her family claim that she has grown up on boats and it was her dream to break the record (whatever the record was, youngest?) and so she tried. The various comments I have come across are that the parents are irresponsible and that taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for rescuing such people.

I took horseback riding lessons with this woman who had a very young child, probably two. That little kid would literally swing from the rafters and land on a horse's back. I was somewhat appalled, believing the child would get trampled to death or bucked or ... something awful. But the mother's parenting style was, umm, somewhat laid back, and this child (it took me several lessons to figure out that the little waif-like creature in the dirty clothes and messed up blonde hair was actually a girl) had managed to make it to the ripe old age of two in this situation, so who was I to judge?

While her mother taught the lesson, she wandered about, sometimes in the field with the horses and she would pull their tails and throw things at them, but they paid her no mind. I, at the tender age of like 10 was sure the kid was going to die all the time. But when I attempted to hold her she would squirm away and go off and do her own thing. She was more or less raised by horses, I guess. When she was a little older, like five, she could ride a horse like nobody's business. She was positively fearless (which I admired because I was always fearful that my horse was going to throw me or I would be hurled to my death when we went galloping through the woods at full bore) and everything she did was completely intuitive. We would be riding on trail and she would turn her entire body around and address whomever she wanted, then whip back and urge her horse on, then lean forward and lay her entire body upon the horse's neck and snuggle then sit back up and throw her head back and laugh with complete abandon.

It was really something to watch.

So I believe that a 16-year-old would have the confidence and the ability to do something that came to them second nature. I don't necessarily get WHY you'd want to do it alone! I mean, I don't even like to take a two-hour walk in the woods alone. Not because I am afraid, but because I just prefer to have company! If she had made it, she would have been heralded as a hero. Because she didn't -- she is a pain in the neck kid who should have stayed home.

Geesh.

And that's all I have to say! I have an empty mind.

I kind of like it!

That damn HFCS

I am so tired of high fructose corn syrup. I really am. I have several family members who just don't get how bad for you it is -- and they seem intent on bringing it into this house at every chance they get.

Should I just let them all ingest the crap year after year and when they eventually die from some strange illness that no one understands WHERE it came from, just shrug and say, well I told them so? Because that's what I'd like to do at times, believe me.

Obviously eating 10 cookies with HFCS in them will not kill you. Smoking one cigarette won't either. In fact smoking pack after pack after pack of cigarettes a day will not kill you. Right away. The problem with something that doesn't actually kill you immediately is that you believe it is fine. Just fine!

I believe that eating clean is the only way to live a long, healthy life. When I say eating clean, I mean eating fresh fruits and vegetables, and primarily organic. I have been dancing with the quality of food for years and years now -- sometimes just digging into a big platter of fried food with abandon, because really, sometimes, who cares. And I think that is fine -- what is NOT fine is eating it all the time. So I get it, when you eat something bad and nothing really happens, that it seems that why not, eat what you want and life goes on.

I love to cook, and for a long time as I went off on crazy food tangents (raw food for example) I would genuinely feel sad at the thought of never cooking again. It just didn't feel right. What did feel good was me! When you eat just raw foods you feel truly amazing -- and even when I don't eat just raw foods, at this point I feel pretty good. But there is a difference, and yet I can't follow it. So I've determined that it's not right for me. And I have found it interesting that a lot of the various blogs I follow of raw foodists -- who have let themselves become emaciated through eating raw food and their colonics and all the stuff they get involved in -- until one day their bodies actually do revolt. And they discover that they need to add certain foods to their diet -- like fat. Animal fat!

The way my personality works is that I jump on a bandwagon and I am the biggest cheerleader and I am dragging others onto it with me, and we are dancing and partying and having a grand old time.

And then I am done. Bye bye bandwagon. But I think ultimately what I am learning is that each of the bandwagon movements has something to offer -- and when put together support a healthy diet in which to sustain the healthy and wonderful life I prefer to lead.

I am still navigating; but I will be doing so for the rest of my life. And that is fine, because there will always be different movements and theories and scientific facts that will need to be taken into consideration. (For example, wine is good for your heart. Hell, who isn't going to love that one?) But in truth, I don't listen to ANY of that, because a glass of wine is not good for your heart if you drink it with a Big Mac.

We are into summer mode and that means snacks. We are sitting at ballgames, or we are going to the lake or out on the boat or lunches needed to be packed. My mind seems to shift and I find myself in middle aisles, reading labels. And it just hits me like a ton of bricks that this HFCS crap is in EVERYTHING. I was trying to assemble a quick lunch for a group of people on the cheap (this translates into people who don't give a shit what they eat so why should I pay top dollar to feed them what **I** eat if they don't care?) and the pickles were full of the crap, the salad dressing and the bread. Are you kidding me? I mean, I know this, but it's been so long since I've bought such stuff that it just kind of reiterated the fact that this nasty stuff is getting more prevalent -- not less -- in the standard american diet. (They call that SAD in the raw food world, by the way, and they are right in that!)

HFCS causes diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome. The corn used in the concoction from hell is also genetically modified -- and there ain't no one out there admitting that that does anything to your body. But it will come out eventually. If there is anyone alive to hear the results, that is.

Yes, this seems a ridiculous statement. But is it? You do the research -- it has been stated that your children will not live as long as you will. Because of the food.

I fight this battle daily. My husband insists that he can't drink water so he is constantly on the search for some drink out there that tastes good but won't essentially mess around with your body chemistry. He drinks stuff that has those chemicals in it -- but he will hold the bottle up proudly and say there are NO CALORIES! Aren't we over calories yet? Aren't we over carbs and trans fats? If a food has to tout that it doesn't contain something bad, that's just a red flag. HUGE RED FLAG!

I had dinner at my in-laws last night. I try not to do this too often because our food philosophies don't mesh. But they just arrived and my brother-in-law was there so I said yes. I am also trying to be less psycho about food in general -- and not let it have as much importance in my life. I feel that if I do my best to eat properly on a regular basis, if I find myself in a situation where the food isn't pristine, it will be fine to eat a little poison now and then.

First off, my brother-in-law drinks soda like it's his job. It is so disturbing to me that I actually get a stomach ache. He has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I believe he has heart issues, and he is absolutely obese. I presume he also has the metabolic syndrome thing as well, since all three go hand in hand. As he drinks one can after another, filling his body with the very substance that is killing him, I know he is a very intelligent man and that he must know he shouldn't be drinking it. But he is clearly addicted and can't stop. He will live for many, many years I am sure, after many heart procedures and medications to control his various ailments.

It is very hard for me to watch.

Then at the dinner table, it was a bit of a limited meal because they had just arrived. It was spaghetti and meatballs, bread and a salad comprised of iceberg lettuce, white onion and green grapes. There was the shaker cheese in the container and two choices for salad dressing. I read both labels and HFCS was the second ingredient. I panicked a little, because I was actually hungry and I usually eat a lot of salad. But iceberg lettuce is devoid of taste and nutrients, the grapes weren't organic and I don't eat non-organic grapes (they are on the dirty dozen) and I couldn't put salad dressing on it. Oh my.

There was a loaf of bread and the butter that I had left in the fridge. It was my sweet, organic butter, and I grabbed a piece of bread and the butter and lathered it on. Oh so yummy. The sauce was from the jar, and while I do that myself in a pinch, I pay a small fortune for tasteful and organic sauce. I could only taste salt and I also had to pick through the meat, since I don't eat red meat. I thought I was being very adult in not adamantly refusing to eat something that I don't eat -- instead, I just put all the meat on Peter's plate and ate my spaghetti and lettuce. It was, for me, very hard.

My mother-in-law is a fine cook -- she has been cooking her entire life and once upon a time her dinners were delicious. But I am too far beyond eating what is put in front of me -- and way too aware of what I am eating. She cooks on a budget and purchases all supermarket brand foods and the cheapest meats. I cook with no budget because I don't believe you can put a price on your health, and I buy mostly fresh foods, the most expensive meats with none of the hormones, etc. and if I do happen to buy something packaged I read the labels. If there are more than five, I won't buy it.

This afternoon I picked up my "bounty" from the CSA I belong to, and had to drop off a share at a friend's house. She prepared the most amazing lunch just by looking into her fridge and throwing things together. She put some turkey on a plate and then some mozzarella cheese balls with sundried tomatoes, a cut up tomato, some fresh greens from her garden and then she sprinkled the lot with crazy yummy balsamic vinegar. After the white meal I'd choked down the night before, it was a crazy array of beautiful colors. And the flavor! Oh, to eat good food that tastes delicious is such an amazing experience.

And it made me realize, it's just not worth it. Eating food for the sake of sitting at someone else's dinner table, and then feeling bad that you did, is wrong. And these are all my family members sitting there, inhaling massive amounts of HFCS. It breaks my heart, it really does. It makes me feel so helpless, and it shouldn't! If they were sitting there eating poison berries, I would absolutely not let them. But these are slow-acting poison berries, so I eat in silence.

I don't like it.

Just spill it

When you try to block something out, it seems that it bothers you even more. Well, I actually even know this, as it is the "what you resist persists" philosophy. But sometimes you see things you don't really want to and then it just stays with you ... it's like having a stalker.

It was this one that hit me particularly hard. Especially since the other morning I sat on my toilet and watched two large crows at the tippity top of a tree try to dry their wings in the rain. I was struck by the way they kept lifting a wing, waiting, then squawking a few times, then lifting the other wing, and putting the first one down. How could they balance on that tiny branch with all that movement?

But this bird. How can it possibly live? Is it even humane to clean it off and attempt it? Every part of that small bird's body has been infected by the crap it is covered with. Do we want to keep these birds alive only for them to breed and end up with who know's what. Will evolution provide these animals with the means to clean oil off themselves with what appears to be an inevitable oil spill?

I am really not doing this for shock purposes. If you feel completely useless and unable to fathom why they can't stop it -- then you feel like I have felt most of my life. Unable to comprehend why people don't DO something about something. Why people prefer to complain and bitch and moan but never oh never ever take steps to stop something. I've long since made peace with the fact that one person can not change a bad institution, but they can change their own circumstances.

With that said, there is nothing I can do with this problem. I haven't invented something that can suck up oil and I do not have massive amounts of cash that I can give to the people who have lost their jobs. I have no desire to wash oil off of marine life -- and to be honest, I don't want to get cancer ten years from now because I did so. Yes, that sounds crazy selfish but it is also brutally honest. I, in truth, want to stay as far away as I possibly can from this mess and pretend it's not happening.

And you probably want to do the same thing -- because talking about it doesn't change anything. The pictures of the oil gushing out into the ocean, millions of gallons worth, is like aliens landing in the middle of Times Square. You shoot them and their supertough bulletproof skin deflects them. They look at you and you melt. What the hell are you going to do? RUN!

There ARE people who have the capability of stopping this. I have no doubt about it. What is getting in the way is the usual red tape and government agency nonsense and I can only hope that there are people with pure hearts and the technology who are sneaking out and doing something behind the backs of the enforcers of rules. I don't want to read about anything bad, and I don't want to see pictures of dead animals, because it makes me sick. But we are a society that puts no value on human life when it comes to the bottom line, so a couple cazillion dead fish and birds is not worth discussing, I am sure.

This is now a part of our history. The lives directly affected by this toxic poison will be lost from this day forward, and maybe, or maybe not, rightly tied to it. It may or may not be mentioned ten years from now how the number of women with breast cancer spiked in 2020 in the gulf region. The animals lost will never be counted. The jobs will be lumped into the pile of unemployment figures and will eventually bottom out as new jobs are created -- whatever they will be.

And the group of people who comprised policy and made the decisions that created this disaster will be long gone -- living in the cleanest, most pristine sections of the world, sipping mai tai's and lamenting the millions they lost those years their BP stock went down.

I am not really sure where I was going with this when I started and I am not sure I was successful in meeting the goal I intended! I remember feeling such great empathy for the oil battered bird, and I know I tried really hard not to go off against big business and "those people" who do these things to us! I think I was trying to find something good within something so bad, but is there any?

So why all the pictures? Because BP doesn't want these pictures "out there." The more people immerse themselves in the awfulness of this tragedy, the louder the cries of "GET 'EM" will ring across the land. BP keeps press off the beaches. Did you know this? They don't want their shareholders to get scared, so there is definitely an air of downplay to this whole thing. That whole Facebook thing about where are the concerts, the telethons, the celebrities flooding to the region to help? Yeah, so, why is it that no one wants to do those things? Seems to be that when it happens in foreign lands there is some push from somewhere to get the American name on the marquee of "being helpful." But here, none of that seems to happen. It's all so. Wrong.

Except it is the way it is. "They," my ever favorite friend and foe, is doing everything they can to suppress the reality of what is going on -- and they sure as hell don't want any big old concert with dead animals being discussed and the fact that an entire coast could potentially be ruined for decades to come.

So in the end, as much as you don't want to, talk about it, look at the pictures and ask yourself WHAT THE HELL IS BEING DONE, and then ask someone else that question and hopefully someone out there will give us an answer.

Because if we are quiet, we are not only ignoring a huge disaster, we are also losing an opportunity to make sure this never happens again.

I am afraid we need to talk

I had an interesting response to my post on fear; people I didn't think ever read my blog admitted that they did -- and then commented on their interpretation of what I wrote.

So I have a new fear -- and that is that those who read my words take them at face value. Which is probably an excellent lesson for me to learn. I have always been loose with words -- I have always bandied them about, used up great sentences of them without putting any thought or reason behind them.

But when you do this vocally, people don't remember, for the most part, what the hell you said! When you log it and set it in ether stone, they become not just words strung together into sentences that come from my mind and are just as quickly forgotten by me as my fingers fly over the keyboard and create more, more, more words. No, they become an entity. A thing that can be misunderstood or way more is read into them than was ever intended.

Have I told the mute story? I know I have, and if I'd actually paid attention back in high school instead of being quite sure that I was smarter than anyone there, I would have heeded the lesson that I molded into something else altogether.

I wrote a story about a mute that I literally whipped out in ten minutes -- a mute that walked about the beach and portrayed a story through touch, sound and smell. The assignment had something or other to do with that and naturally I'd waited until the last minute to complete it. Several days later the papers were handed out with the names removed, and they were critiqued. Mine was heralded as the most amazing and wondrous piece of writing since Steinbeck, Hemingway and God. For crying out loud. I'd never even gone over to check for spelling errors.

But I didn't learn it then and I obviously haven't learned it up until now -- that my words have a force of their own and it might behoove me from time to time to go back through them and see what they are saying and how they might be perceived by others.

But then again, doesn't that kind of suck? Isn't the purpose of something like a blog sort of release you from such etiquette -- as in, don't read it if you don't like it and don't take it personally either!

After the whole middle school brouhaha where I was basically threatened, I backed off for a bit, but again, no lesson learned there! That just pissed me off royally and in truth, I did bite my tongue for months, which I thought was a great example of maturity and pent up disrespect! And it still would thrill me to no end to call out a few of the worst teachers on the planet and really get down and dirty. But alas. I won't. Just because. Just because I don't need that kind of karma in the universe. And really, peace, love, smile, breathe. Let it go. Aaaaaaaaagh, what I wouldn't do for a stand-up, knock down, hell even a little blood letting ....

But you see, I say those things in the moment. I get a bit riled up at the thoughts of those times and I write it as it is happening, but seriously, just because you get why people go postal, columbine and all that, doesn't mean it's an idea you'd emulate. (And if I was speaking this, my tongue would be heavy with dripping sarcasm, which is certainly possible to write, but not as perfectly as the vocal equivalent. Not by a long shot.) I know all of this. I know that when I start writing (or thinking) about the Middle School from Hell I get nuts. I know that when I say things like my life is not perfect, someone reads that as their fault. (Well, at least I know now!) But thoughts are not what is happening in the moment.

Which is why the whole living in the moment thing doesn't really work if you are going to write about moments that have passed! Because then the written word gives that moment far more meaning than it should, because once it is over, it is over. I don't know, I am confusing myself and not even coming close to saying what I mean because I don't know what I mean. But I don't like having to defend my words -- especially ones I said from a place of truth. Where I looked inside and asked myself, what am I afraid of?

I think one thing I have realized is that the discussion of fear leads to anger. Anger that someone doesn't understand that a fear isn't a large cloak that completely covers me. It is a small mosquito that lands on my arm and hopefully I get it before it gets me. But then again, fear can lead to love and acceptance -- of oneself at least. Every day I go out to the garden and the jungle of grass beyond and swallow my fear whole. I tell myself that it is ridiculous to be afraid of snakes. I walked into the greenhouse three times the other day and forced myself to stop thinking of it as a snake pit -- to stop telling myself that I can't breathe in there. To see it as a haven for plants and all things garden.

That is a fear that sits on a plate as true as a big, meaty steak. I can put a fork in it, I can slice through it with a sharp knife ... it is a fear that is that tangible.

Everything else I had to conjure up -- like popcorn kernels waiting to be popped. I would think and POP! out would come a fear. POP! POP! POP! But popcorn is light and airy and easily swallowed.

I could try to change and go through each thing I write (because now I don't go back at all -- no typo checking, no did I offend anyone checking, no did I write something that might be misunderstood checking -- this is raw footage and I prefer it that way.)

What about things I'm not afraid of?

Dying.

Now, now now. Before that gets picked up as a "weird thing to write first" let me just say that I have the most amazing peace and stillness about my life. I truly believe that I will die of old age, in a most peaceful manner. I don't know anyone personally, but I have read about people who were sure they were going to die young, or die in a car accident, or whatever. I have been in several car accidents and one day avoided a doozie, and this feeling came over me, strong and sure, that I would NOT die in a car accident. So, that's cool. Good to know, and let me tell you, it has come in very handy, this surefire knowledge, especially in London and Scotland driving on the wrong side of the road! Even today, while driving to a softball game, the GPS led us seriously astray and told us to do a legal U-turn, which in fact had us driving in the wrong lane, going against traffic. We didn't see any cars, thank heavens, and we didn't even know we were doing it until we saw a truck coming out of another exit with WRONG WAY all over it. But I had the same feeling today, when Peter said "we were lucky." And I thought, yeah, but no. Just not going to go that way!

Anyway, I think I will have to pop my non-fears tomorrow, because it is getting late and I am afraid if I don't go now, I will miss my window of sleep. Fears, fears everywhere!

Loooong day

I woke up this morning with the intention of walking at 9:00. But it was raining and I'd been out late the night before drinking cosmos, singing karaoke, riding in a boat on a smooth lake, hanging at a friends house who was trying to keep her son and his girlfriend from ... from .... you know, from stuff. Drinking wine and getting to bed late. When we connected about our walk I want it on the record she was the first to bag, but if she hadn't -- I would have!

So. I tried to sleep more, but today was the day Peter's parents were coming in ... and there were a few things left to do at the cottage. I had put a load of laundry into the dryer last night that needed to be folded; I needed to make a few beds, I wanted to pick some flowers to put in a vase on the porch and I needed to vacuum. I had also said I would cook them dinner, so I needed to plan a menu.

I managed to haul myself out of bed, shower and I picked up the cookbook I was going to figure out dinner from and off we went. I made the beds, I put the dishes away, Charlie started a fire because it was chilly and damp as it was raining and after doing a bunch of miscellaneous cleaning ventures, I decided to vacuum. Now, we know the vacuum there is worthless, and when we opened the cottage I carried my own over. But I figured that it would be able to spiff up a little. No, it was just pushing the dirt around. So Peter and I decided we needed to get a new vacuum -- so off we went to Ocean State Job Lots, and in addition to a vacuum we picked up a few little rugs to replace gnarly ones that had been there forever. We got back and started putting the vacuum together when they drove up. Then we helped them unpack their car (they live in New Mexico in the winter) and then around 1:00 I sat down to make my shopping list.

But I was hungry. And figured that they must be as well. Peter's brother drove them, and he said he was definitely hungry. Since I was going to the grocery store I asked them to give me a list ... and off I went and it was crowded and I was like, OHMYGOD, what a day, I've been shopping and cleaning ... and now shopping again!

I returned to the cottage and we ate lunch, then I realized I had to get home and clean that house because all of a sudden our cozy little dinner party had expanded to 12. Peter's sister, boyfriend, two children and one of their girlfriends were enroute. I dispatched Peter and his brother to the supermarket to bolster the larder, so to speak, and Maddie and I headed home to clean and cook. I rushed upstairs and made my bed and cleaned my room because I knew everyone wanted to see the new bathroom. Yikes.

Then I rushed downstairs and cleaned the downstairs bathroom, picked up the living room and Maddie started vacuuming. Then I had to hit the kitchen, where lo and behold I discovered at 4:30 that the meatloaf I was making needed an hour and a half to cook and I'd told everyone to be there eat 6! Yikes again.

I made an enormous meatloaf the size of Montana, these crazy delicious mashed potatoes that had everything sinful under the sun in them (cream, butter, parmesan cheese) and roasted carrots that said they served 12 but everyone, including the kids, inhaled them. That meatloaf, the size of Montana? Is now the size of Delaware. It was delicious.

I had asked Peter to pick up dessert at the grocery store because the coconut cupcakes I intended to make seemed impossible to deal with at the late hour, and it was a good call, because there wasn't a moment the oven was available.

Everyone arrived around 6:oo-ish, which was kind of early in regards to the fact that we didn't actually sit down for dinner until 8:00 -- but the kids were off doing their thing and the adults were chatting and catching up. It was good. I had a few glasses of wine and was quite relaxed, and everyone was gone by 9:30.

And then I was told I needed to be up and out of here by 7:00 tomorrow morning to see Maddie's softball tournament.

Seriously? I guess sitting around in a chair watching softball will be a cakewalk after today!

And so summer begins.

Meatloaf sandwich anyone?!!!

Fear

So today for day 4 of 21.5.800 lets write 800 words about fear.

What are you afraid of?

What are your fear responses?

How can you engage fear in a more genuine way?

In what ways do you act out toward others or yourself when you are afraid?

Today for the challenge, we are encouraged to write about fear. My first reaction is that I am not afraid of anything, but then I remember the snake thing. Which I believe is more irrational than anything else. I don't "do" fear. It is a part of who I am to believe that I am strong and capable and fearless.

And of course I'm not. I have loads of fears -- about not being a good enough mother for starters. I remember when Hallie was little at the end of each day I would feel as though I hadn't given her enough of my time. I would lay in bed, unable to sleep, trying to figure out how I could be a better mother. I instinctively knew that this particular challenge could be met with more time. As a full time working mother, I felt guilty having her in daycare, and yet, she loved it. So I shortened the hours, and made sure that she was always the last kid to get there; and the first to leave. That gave us time in both the mornings and evenings to connect a little without that feeling of constant rushing.

And yet, I always remained fearful that I wasn't doing and/or being enough. And when Maddie and Charlie came along, I all but threw the towel in! It was such a constant dance of trying to balance everything and failing miserably on all fronts. When you are deeply mired in it -- you can only see so far ahead. As I look back, I realize that sometimes instead of fixing it; I made the problem worse by writing. I can recall many hours lost in another world. A luxury I had no business taking, but I think it probably saved me.

As a professional person I had great fears that I wasn't good enough to be doing what I was doing. If I could do one thing over it would be to NOT work in a family business! It's just such a drag that no matter how hard you work there is always someone who assumes that you are where you are because of nepotism. I carried that with me through it all -- which was dumb because who really cares. But when you are young you care about stupid stuff like that. I was lucky in that I loved my job -- I was of course privvy to a lot of freedoms due to the fact it was a family business. I made my own hours, and even though I would stay until midnight to complete a deadline, I would still feel bad that others would think that I was taking advantage the following morning by not coming in right away. SO STUPID! And every time I went on an interview, I was always a wreck. Would I be asking the right questions? Would I come off as an incompetent wannabe reporter? Was I a reporter? What was I exactly? A fraud! I was a fraud. I didn't know what I was doing and who the hell was I to interview these well-dressed over-educated CEO's on their companies?

Every interview.

I drove to each one, my stomach always an absolute mess. I dreaded every mile of that drive, I dreaded walking into the company, I dreaded it right up until the moment I set the stage and was able to sit back and get the story. And all that fear evaporated right into the ether as I became completely engaged with whom I was speaking with -- I always hit the flow and always had the story written in my head before I even walked out the door.

Every interview.

And yet, right until the last one, I was afraid, completely saddled with all the old fears that THIS would be the interview that I would fail at.

Now that I have opened up the fear box, they are all pouring out.

I am afraid that I am wasting my life not doing what I am supposed to do.

I am afraid that I could walk a thousand miles and never lose a pound.

I am afraid that I won't have the time to visit all the places I need to go to.

I am afraid that all the bad things in the world that are supposed to happen, actually will.

And yet ... I am not afraid. Only when I am made to think about it!