The Mother Load

Published June 22, 2008
St. George Spectrum & Daily News

I realized today that I live my life from within the pages of an old fashioned science fiction novel. In this novel, all of my childhood friends and acquaintances have been off on an intergalactic mission, traveling at the speed of light while I have stayed back on earth in order to hold the place together. As in any good, old-fashioned science fiction novel (due to a misunderstanding of Einstein’s theory of relativity), my astronaut friends have not aged a bit though more than a decade has passed.

This realization came to the forefront as I approached the vessel (house) of my childhood friend, Elizabeth. As I climbed the platform (steps) to her receiving bay (front door), I smiled to myself, eager to greet my small, tomboyish friend in her cute, blond pageboy haircut and cheery sweater, circa 1987. When I was greeted instead by a beautiful 30 year old woman with long hair, a smiling husband, and three giggly children, I drew the obvious conclusion any earthbound character would have drawn. Aliens got her.

I would have run away in terror had I not smelled the inviting scent of barbecued ribs from the kitchen. Aliens may have stolen my friend and replaced her with some strange, grown-up version of Elizabeth, but they certainly knew their way around a grill.

The age/time paradox is like a well rehearsed rule in my mind. I am allowed to age. My children (to a lesser extent) are allowed to age. Everyone else, especially those who live far from me, are not allowed to age and therefore must escape the aging process by rocketing off to unknown destinations until such time that we can arrange a meeting. When reality hits, and I find that no one I know has been living by the rules, it’s perturbing to say the least.

Case in point: Ryan. He was 2 when I met him, a precocious boy who walked on his toes and knew his stars from his circles and his reds from his blues. Upon reconnecting with his family, I found him to be 6 feet 3 inches tall, sporting massive shoulders and a beard. I turned to his mother and said, “I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but Ryan has facial hair. I don’t know how YOU feel about it, but I am NOT okay with it.”

Ryan responded to my scolding not by pointing at my shirt and shouting a high-pitched, “BLUE!” as I would have expected but with a resonant and amused, “But my facial hair makes me look cool.” I craned my neck as far back as I could, looked deeply into his eyes and said, “That’s why I’m not okay with it.”

I think part of my problem with all of this is my lifelong desire to never be that annoying person saying, “The last time I saw you, you were only this tall!” or “You were in diapers!” or “You were voting Republican!” Rather than think of something more creative to say (there isn’t anything…believe me), I’ve been living my life in complete denial. When the moment comes and I’m faced with a much older version of someone in a past life, I’m lost.

The good news, I think, is that this phenomenon is not confined to mild mannered newspaper columnists who have a taste for science fiction. Elizabeth seemed just as oblivious to the passage of time as we reminisced about my younger brother, whom she thought she sent on a mission to the Vega system the moment we moved away from Oklahoma. I broke the news that he is now 28 years old with a wife and two children. I quickly reassured her that I suspect his being replaced by aliens, and she relaxed.

I mean, it’s sad to lose someone to extraterrestrial kidnapping, but the barbecue’s good eating.

Published June 15, 2008
St. George Spectrum & Daily News

As I sit and write this column, I find myself startled from time to time by the silence of my house. Twisting in my computer chair, I look suspiciously toward the stairs and think, What are they up to? It’s way too quiet up there. Reality sets in with a jolt as I remember they’re not up there at all. All five kids are in a minivan with their grandparents, heading for a three week vacation in New Mexico.

I don’t know what to do with myself. The longest I’ve ever been away from all of them was 6 days, and I survived that by the skin of my teeth, the seat of my pants, and the edge of my seat.
Fortunately for me, I’m organized. I already have a list of projects lined up to keep me busy. So far I’ve been able to check off crying, sniffling, bawling, blubbering, and wailing. I’ve been tear free for about five minutes now, so I’m almost ready to move on to shaking uncontrollably, followed by hours and hours of abject misery. It’s going to be a busy day.

I’m probably being overly dramatic, but they’ve only been gone an hour at this writing. I really do have a plan. There will be a whole lot of unpacking, organizing, wallpapering, and painting going on in my house over the next few weeks. It’s hard to know if I’m taking advantage of an opportunity or just doing this to keep my mind off the kids’ absence. Chicken…egg…omelet…who knows?

Every now and then, I look up from my computer and shout, “Work it out!” just to have something to say to the silence. I’ve also started focusing more on the cats, scolding them with admonitions like, “Euclid, you know you’re not supposed to climb on the counters,” and “Isis, that wasn’t very nice, was it? Apologize to your brother,” and “Buster, use your words. I can’t understand you when you whine like that.”

I’m all geared up for the neighbors to think I’m crazy when I start spending hours at their house every day, carousing with their six children. The good news is they’re family, so they’ll probably put up with me. The bad news is they’re family, so the rest of the family will most likely learn how their newest member is a little on the unstable side.

Mealtimes are going to be a bit of a problem. I’ve spent the last few years cooking for a crowd. Unless it’s a romantic, candlelit dinner, I don’t know how to cook for two. Either Richard and I are going to have to eat nothing but steak, salmon, and Cornish game hens, or we’re going to have to eat giant tubs full of spaghetti, tuna casserole, and homemade Chinese food for a week at a time. At least the candlelight will make every bite of week-old chili seem romantic and special.

I’m debating whether or not to start some kind of a daily countdown until the kids are home. I might mark the days off on the calendar or make hash marks on the bulletin board. I could also expand my list of projects so there is one for every day they’re gone. Those are good ideas, but I think I’m leaning toward something a little more creative.

I’m going to draw one of those giant thermometers and just cry over it every day until the water mark reaches the top.

Published June 8, 2008
St. George Spectrum & Daily News

Merry Christmas!

What? Only June, you say? Well, it may be June to you, but it’s Christmas in my house. For someone who hates moving as much as I do, I have to say unpacking a house is like experiencing the joy of Christmas morning over and over and over again.

The boxes may not be brightly wrapped, but they’re securely fastened and filled with exciting and wonderful items. Every day is punctuated with shouts of, “Mom! I’ve found the…” followed by amazing and dazzling things like, uh, soap…and pans…and underwear.

Okay, so it’s not quite Christmas, at least not any Christmas I want to have, but it’s the same concept anyway. After only a few days in a box-filled house, anyone can find themselves elated over objects like toilet paper and Sunday shoes. (After our first trip to church in flip flops and sneakers, the Sunday shoe box was a very welcome discovery.)

Actually, the Christmas morning thing occurs when you’re packing too. It’s that one bright spot in all the packing chaos…those moments when you move the couch, discover untold riches, raise your treasure aloft and shout, “I’ve been looking EVERYWHERE for this!” (Though, can one really say “everywhere” when one just found it in one of the many places she never looked?)

In my move I found my daughter’s long lost glasses, a few important legal documents, a few hundred forks, spoons, knives, and socks that I’ve replaced needlessly on many an occasion and a much needed charger for the digital camera I haven’t used in three years. The only downside of all of this is that in my desire never to move again I realize I’ll never again have the assurance of, “Meh, I’ll find it when I move.”

Of course, unpacking isn’t all unseasonal yuletide frivolity. Once a box is unpacked, you have to find a place for then things in it, and all the places are taken up by all the stuff that still isn’t unpacked. Upon moving into my new abode, my new brother-in-law, Bill, astutely remarked, “20 minutes to get the truck unloaded…four more months of work left in there.”

Unpacking a house is a lot like juggling debt. There’s a lot of robbing Peter to pay Paul going on. Can’t arrange the dining room until I get the dresser downstairs. Can’t move the dresser until I get that chair out of the kitchen. Can’t move the chair until I arrange the front room couches. Can’t arrange the front room couches with my very helpful sister sleeping in one of them. Once you do get a room set up, you realize you’ve made an impossible mess of another in order to do it.

The good news is that only a few weeks have passed since moving day, and I have nearly every room arranged and only 10-15 boxes left to unpack. Bill’s warning notwithstanding, I don’t really think it will take me another three months to finish this job. As long as I can manage to keep Peter from knowing what I’m paying to Paul, I’ll be fine. I may even leave one box unopened until Christmas just for the fun of it. Maybe it will be the camera charger just in time for Christmas pictures.

If it’s a box of my underwear, that might be kind of embarrassing, but I’m willing to take that chance