Bleep

I could feel my blood pressure rising.

There I was, on Christmas Eve, standing in line at the local pharmacy, haphazardly balancing two armloads worth of last-minute sock stuffers I hadn't intended on buying when I sidestepped through the sliding glass doors twenty minutes earlier on a quest for aspirin. Still, nary a soul was behind the checkout counter.

The lone clerk in the entire store -- whose set tasks include cashing out, printing photos, restocking the beer cooler, and ensuring that the register is filled with enough tape to supply every customer with an impossibly long receipt for even the simplest of purchases -- was elsewhere possibly paving the driveway. The handy little plunge bell that ordinarily summoned him has also disappeared.

Instead, a slim robot kiosk with a touch screen and a revolving light winking from its top beckoned us toward it as welcomingly as a machine can manage.

The line stood silently still. As if we were lambs heading to slaughter.

The lady in front of me - grayer in the hair than I - hesitated and then demurred: "You go ahead, dear," she said good-naturedly. "I think I forgot something."

I knew she was stalling.

The fact that she moved closer to me as I approached the checker bot was all the evidence I needed to understand I was the guinea pig.

I could barely hear her breathing as I bleeped each item past its digital crosshairs. I kept up my poker face until the end when the machine slurped up my wrinkled tender and barfed back my change. 

We both audibly exhaled.

"That was easier than I thought," I said, giving away my ultimate bluff: I am a novice at the Do-It-Yourself checkouts.

I prefer dealing with humans, even if they never smile or sound like robots when they order me to have a nice day.

This is probably why I didn't dash off the moment my mile-long sales receipt finally finished printing.

The lady who'd let me jump the line looked like she was now standing at the edge of a cliff.

The least I could do was talk her through it.

The first two items cleared the scanner with satisfying beeps. A package of candy took two tries, but the remainder of her purchases went through the process with no trouble. It wasn't until the payment section of the transaction that the whole thing came to a screeching halt.

The machine wouldn't read her credit card. No matter how she inserted it … chip or swipe … it just blurted out an ear-piercing buzz.

"That doesn't sound right," said the store clerk, who had appeared out of thin air, presumably summoned by the less-than-magical sound.

For the next few minutes, he waved his hands and pressed some buttons. He tried every trick in the book, starting with wiping the card's magnetic strip between two sides of thin plastic bags that won't be at his disposal in a few months' time. He did everything but kick the kiosk until luck and technology finally gave in and took the lady's money.

We all sighed in relief.

And for the first time, I saw the human connection to be made through automation: All of the humans in the room we're sharing a moment trying to solve its puzzlement.

"I'm so glad that worked," laughed the clerk. "I was afraid I'd have to go back and visit the blood pressure machine."

Sweet and salty sixteen

This year her birthday will be on a Wednesday. Just like any old day. Except that on this particular Wednesday, at the exact time of 7:14 p.m., she will be celebrating her 16th year with her high school chorus and probably about two hours of homework, just like any other Wednesday in December, with the exception of Christmas.

She doesn't want to turn 16. Not like that.

She wants it to turn her. Like magic.

Hollywood probably has some role to play in this understanding of the significance of a sweet sixteen. 

Why was hers so sour?

I understood. How could I not?

Sixteen is supposed to be magical.

It's supposed to bring about big changes.

But she doesn't feel any different.

And to add insult to injury, she'll have to share her big moment with her high school winter concert and her little brother's second-ever Modified wrestling match about an hour away.

Not even her clothes will be special, as the scheduled arrival of hearts' desired attire has been incrementally pushed from on time to some time into the New Year. She can thank her Christmas birthday for the shipping delays, but I can see from her expression that she is really trying hard not to blame me.

For her, the dash to maturity is taking forever. Everything about it requires perseverance akin to waiting patiently for slow-drying paint.

It is a perspective that will eventually turn around in a whirlwind.

Like my estimation of time, which determines that her growing up has happened in the blink of an eye.

I don't want her to turn 16 either, though it's more a belief than desire.

It's hard to believe that much time has already passed.

In the greatest cliche of parental understandings, I can't imagine ever feeling that she wasn't just born yesterday.

The memories of her "newness" don't seem to spring from any distance at all.

I can still feel the contractions. I can picture the rush of snow against the car's windshield on the drive to the hospital. I can still hear the jangle of alarm sounds on the heart rate monitor that brought a flurry of nurses to my bedside to jostle us back into a normal rhythm.

Even then, she didn't want to make a simple "entrance."

Who would if given a choice?

Not her. 

She's the child who practically stood up upon arrival in this world.

She was the child who made herself known whenever she made an entrance… especially on her birthday.

When else will a person be able to wear a princess gown if not on their birthday?

That truth should be self-evident even when styles change.

But it's not about the clothes. It's not even about reality as much as it about recalibrating expectations. It's really not just any old day.

I can't imagine those feelings will ever recede, no matter how old we get.

I can only assume all these things I remember can only be made more unforgettable by time.

Well, this is awkward

Walking dogs is awkward. 

There's no way around it. When a human walks dogs in the multiples, things get awkward.

Leashes get tangled. Unmentionable bodily functions get bagged and juggled. And the weather is anybody's guess.

On this day I didn't bother with my umbrella. The rain -- which my friendly, neighborhood weather predictor hadn't predicted -- had disappeared anyway.

Dogs don't mind the rain.

As a regular walker of dogs, I've noticed a tiny miracle of weather. Big fat drops may splash down on my car as I drive from dog house to dog house, and, just as suddenly as they had materialized, they dry up the moment I park.

Of course it could be just my unusually sunny outlook. I am always ready for inclemency. I have a hat, and a coat, and footwear for every season.

Truth be told, this particular dog owner had entrusted me with perhaps the most valuable thing in the world besides her four-legged friend: her garage door opener.

(That sound you may have heard upon reading those last four words was the sound of angels taking flight amid a celestial chorus.)

I did NOT hear that sound, however, because in my hundreds of years on this planet I have neither owned nor operated a garage door opener.

Honestly, when she first suggested I park in her garage during these super sloppy, slushy days of winter, I had no idea how convenient such a luxury would be.

I took the opener and the instructions of how to use it - a simple, one-button toggle - and clipped it to the visor. I wasn't sure I'd ever use it.

Silly.

Of course, I wouldn't just USE it. I would study it; examine its range and speed. I'd press the button at various houses in the neighborhood as I approached to determine which house would prove the furthest away I could start the process of opening the door so that it reached its apex as I crested the driveway.

It turns out the third house from the corner is the charm.

And I would become just a little bit envious as well. Not that I'm not content with my carport, but I'm also not beyond wishing we had a garage door to open with such a miraculous device automatically. It's just that electronics seems to make everything better.

Until you rely on them.

Like how I breezily pull my car into the garage, release my hounds into the backyard through the back door and proceed to spend the next few minutes waiting with my furry friends as they release some pent up energy before our more sedate walk.

Which we do just as soon as I go back into the house and get the leashes ...

Which I left ...

Along with the keys ...

In. The. Car.

Hmm... why is this door locked?

I try the other doors — all locked.

My mind races through my super-sleuth deductions: The handle locks must have some quirky mechanism wherein they turn easily on the inside but remained locked to the outside. A feature that becomes null and void when opened from the outside with a key.

My new reality lit up my thoughts like the lightbulb activated by the garage door opener:

I had locked myself out of the house and my car inside it.

Well, this is awkward.

Snow day

I love the first snow day of the season. Besides the momentary halting of set plans, it cleans the slate for new possibilities.

Our kids delight at an unscheduled day of freedom. They no longer bundle up or trundle outside. They don't make snowmen or snow forts or hound me to go sledding. They've happily outgrown last season's snow pants.

But even though they may squander the time holed up in their winter darkened bedrooms, the mood around us will be filled with light.

Celebration is in order on this rare day when snow accumulates, but their homework does not. They've already plowed through it.

I'm amazed by how fast their childhood has chugged along.


I've stopped worrying about this march of time in the same way I've stopped worrying about to-do lists being left undone.

Of course, as adults, we know that the probability of happenstance will focus on withdrawing our cars from their snowbanks and clearing off steps and sidewalks.

On the upside, our yard's imperfections are temporarily covered by a thick and glittery layer of frosting. From the warmth of my house, the coating looks light airy, though I know from its depth (and the occasional thud from a rooftop slide) that it is weighty and dense.

Whatever it covers may stay that way until spring.

I'd been waiting for the leaves of the dogwood to give up their ghosts. A yearly ritual that usually lasts beyond the window of time, our town allots for its convenient vacuum extraction.

The maples in the neighborhood have already shed their leaves in a timely, if not orderly fashion. My dogwood likes to be unfashionably late, clinging as it does to its dry and curling foliage for as long as vegetatively possible.

I don't mind. Its leaves are small, and when they finally make their descent, they will land in a tidy circle around the tree. No small part of me wants to kill the grass. In fact, the more significant portions: my arms, my legs, and my patience are in full agreement.

As they seem now, brownish-red flakes intermittently dotting the snow cover, the leaves punctuate my admiration for their unwillingness to quicken their demise.

But the leaves are the least of my worries today.


This, oddly, gives me a rare and fleeting chance to be neighborly; wherein I haphazardly try to identify neighbors by their proximity to a particular house, despite not being able to glimpse more than a few square inches of skin between scarf and beanie.

Asking if they need help breaking ice is a better ice breaker than one could imagine.

I'm surprised by how much I look forward to the work of removing the snow. How gratifying it is to shovel far enough to relieve the neighbor of some after-the-workday drudgery. How little it matters that the kids – forced into the light and a winter coat (maybe even long pants) – just lean on their shovels as they take turns lobbing snowballs at each other.

How it takes less time than I imagined but probably more muscles than I've developed in the off-season. The next-day ache will be my trophy.

Another weird day in the neighborhood

Dear NeighborTM,

I don't know you. In fact, we've never met.

I'm not the overtly nosy sort, though I do have one of those fisheye cameras that records my front door and all the way out to the sidewalk ... for security purposes - and the possibility of viral stardom.

A person can't be too careful these days or too exposed.

But we'll get to that later.

I probably wouldn't recognize you if I bumped into you at the Post Office.

Not that I have any reason to go to a post office, what with the internet being so darn convenient that I can download and print all necessary postage on my home computer.

I love the clean lines of its modern architecture, but I despise waiting in any line that meanders or stands still for too long. It's not as if I were just any old member of the great unwashed society at large.

I'm very busy.

But I am relatively new to the community, which is why I joined NeighborhoodTM when an ad popped up on my Instagram, which - fun fact - is also where I acquired my almost circular security camera.

Anyhoo...

I was happily posting photos from my garden, which you might have noticed looks a thousand percent better than one tended by the poor soul who had previously inhabited our not-so-humble abode, when I noticed the package on MY front porch -- the one the Big-Name-Shipping-Dude delivered to me by mistake, and that I had planned to call about, giving whoever answered the phone an earful about their terrible sense of direction -- was missing.

My heart palpitated.

This violation was worse than the fact that no one in the vicinity had made any effort to congratulate me on my award-winning blooms.

But I digress.

I was so shocked by the disappearance that I spent the next three hours reviewing video footage from my security camera, looking for grainy evidence of the culprit.

To my horror, I discovered the trespasser inviting herself up onto my own private patio and having the audacity to peruse the parcel's shipping label before whisking it away into the back of her soccer-mom van and driving off.

The nerve. In broad daylight, too.

Of course, dear NeighborsTM, I plan on notifying the proper authorities in due time, though I feel it only fitting I should pop in here post-haste and alert the culprit directly by inviting all the other VillagersTM to sharpen their pitchforks. There's no telling where such a porch pirate will pounce next.

'Tis open season, so to speak.

Oh sure, the address on the label suggested the recipient lived somewhere on my street, but who in their right mind would just walk such a package to its intended destination?

Of course, I am being rhetorical. Someone paid good money to have the item delivered correctly and professionally. I would not presume to deny anyone a refund for incomplete or negligent service.

Nor do I want anyone traipsing up to my door looking for misdelivered packages without leaving a note, or a kind word about my hostas. How am I supposed to verify their authenticity and their good taste?

The brown-shorted delivery dude went to the wrong house, and he will come back and do his job if it takes four calls and two days of emotional labor here in my virtual NeighborhoodTM.

Also, I'd like to bask in the glow of your righteous indignation on my behalf. I also enjoy how you swarm to my defense when I politely and jokingly tell that one critic who suggests I have been unneighborly, to stay in their lane or go back to Canada.

They assure me that no one is afraid of Canadians so I can't be xenophobic.

It's so nice to have Good NeighborsTM. I can't wait to invite them to my Block Party.

Tastes like chicken

"Oh, by the way ... I'm vegan now," the boy said with an air of nonchalance as he glided into the house after school, and made his daily afternoon pilgrimage to the fridge. "Well ... for this week, anyway."

Now, as one of his parents, and the person most likely to procure the majority of his provisions, I had to suss just what he meant by "vegan." 

I wasn't sure if he knew that meant he'd have to eat vegetables. 

"You mean, vegetarian, right? You're still going to eat cheese and pancakes and yogurt."

He shook his head. 

"I'm not eating animal products whatsoever. No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no honey. My honey oat granola? It's dead to me."

This new eating plan seemed ... well ... unwise. Especially since the kid standing before the wide-open icebox couldn't find a single thing to satisfy his mid-afternoon cravings.

"Did you know Oreos are vegan?"

It even took me longer than my usual Don't-Just-Stand-There-With-The Door-Open-Refrigerating-The-Kitchen time window to grasp that there was almost nothing in inventory to satisfy such a dare.

Bread? This one has milk!

Pasta? These have eggs!

These crackers? Have cheese! 

And, by the way, the edible is not inevitable: you can't live on Oreos alone.

Yet, despite my deeply held urge to snark at this dietary whim -- not to mention an ill-advised game of "Is it vegan?" round-robin wherein I actually asked a 12-year-old boy to gauge whether coffee made from beans that traversed the entire digestive tract of the endangered palm civet would get the coveted vegan distinction -- the truth was I wanted to support any effort on his part to eat something found in nature.

Maybe something green would finally pass through his digestive tract, and he would like it.

A part of me was overjoyed that this boy had finally accepted vegetables into his heart, if only for a seven-day challenge issued by The New Church of Experiences Based On a Dare ... more commonly referred to as YouTube.

It was contagious.

The overflow of my exuberance collected into a four-way pact that ensnared the whole family into agreeing to eat nothing but leaves, sticks, and highly processed twigs for the next seven days. 

I won't lie. It was exciting for the first three hours.

Together we planned meals and grocery shopping and meal prep. We read labels and searched the internet and shared in our collective shock and disappointment that some bananas are preserved with a spray made from shrimp and crab shells.

We started with bold choices, even using a freshly harvested stalk of "baby cabbage" as the base veg of our inaugural meal.

The reception roasted Brussels sprouts (without bacon or Parmesan) received ranged from lackluster to gag-inducing depending on who you asked.

You can probably guess who was standing over the trash spitting out the green paste.

Indeed, most of the boy's trial phase of this challenge wound up in the compost.

Carrots were still "gross."

Lettuce? Let's not.

Beans? Scmeans!

Four days the kid lived on plain bagels with peanut butter. 

During those same four days, the rest of us ate our bleak kale salads as we lusted after cheese and eggs and meat. Each day asking the boy at meal-timed intervals if we were still vegan?

And on the fifth day, we rested:

"I'm no longer vegan! He announced as he slid into my car on that delightfully snowy afternoon. It was the cafeteria chicken that turned me." 

Rabbit holes

I'm going to start.

Any minute now.

The words will come to me. They always do. The first few might be tricky. But they won't seem like an illusion for long.

To be honest, the blank page never worries me.

Something insistent will poke its head out of the tinnier of my thoughts. Soon other ideas will follow and fall in line. 

But first, let me check my email.

And then, Twitter.

Back to email.

I'm just looking for ideas to refresh.

I can't tell you how much time I've saved myself by deleting Facebook from my phone.

Whole minutes at my disposal.

This phenomenon is what some folks call falling down a rabbit hole.

That meme from four days ago has multiplied. I'll click on one, and a Jacob's ladder of related but rubbishy replicas will fall out.

I will read a few, but then I will manage to resist getting down to the lowest rung.

For now.

Right now, I have work to do. And I'll get there eventually. Until then, I'll just take one more quick tour of the old inbox.

A few emails from known retailers circle its edge. Brushing past them, I click open one from a human I know. That's it — just one.

I scroll through the folder until "yesterday" replaces the date in my timeline.

Did I look in junk mail? Most of my human, non-spammy stuff gets filtered there. Not sure how to fix it without continually swimming against an overwhelming tide.

Better hit the circle arrow to update. Watching new, bold letters flow into the column is exciting.

The excitement rarely lasts longer than a moment. Nothing warrants another automatic refresh ... but I press again just in case. 

Like pushing an already lit elevator button. The physical manifestation of a psychological impatience.

Back on the blank page, I circle my index finger over some keys. I put a few words down and backspace until they disappear.

I won't fret this stutter step, I'm not afraid of commitment. Not yet, anyway. 

Copy and Paste are my friends. 

Oh, look ... a cat video.

Maybe I'll just watch a little of it before I swim back over to the impeachment hearings. 

I want to check and see if anyone has replied to my 140-character astonishment. But that would stop the audio.

I wish it could listen to one thing and scroll to another. But my phone is not as amazing at walking and chewing gum as I'd been lead to imagine.

Another news item provides color from the Nation's Capitol … its bar scene, where DC sports fans are hunkering down with C-SPAN and a libation: a Subpoena Colatta perhaps? 

"Focus!" I shout as I stand up and roll my head ... first to the right, then to the left. I am ignoring the tiny clicks that accompany my joints through the rotation. I jump up and down, extending my arms and legs, hoping to wake up and snap out of this daze.

"Rabbit named Hocus. Rhymes with Pocus. Makes entire days disappear."

"I didn't catch that," replies my proprietary pocket assistant. Would you like me to search the internet?"

Worth the wait

I'm at the end of a line of cars when my cellphone dings.

I don't even have to look at the screen to know what it says:

"Are you here yet?"

I try to quiet my seething irritability that she's not already outside at the ready, though I know from experience that she wouldn't be.

I wait until my rattletrap station wagon comes to a complete stop before I answer in the affirmative. Then I take deep, cleansing breaths as the minutes tick past without sight of her. When she strolls into view, I fear I will start to hyperventilate.

She seems to be moving toward the car by a magnetic force as she looks in every direction but mine.

I wonder if I roll forward will she end up at the car behind me?

Inhale.

Exhale.

Let go of vengeful thoughts.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The car door opens and then slams shut. The girl buckles up. She slumps in the passenger seat as she pushes her backpack to the floor. 

She turns her head away from the line of cars jockeying to be next in line and keeps her gaze trained on my shoulder blade.

I think about asking her if not being seen is the same as not seeing?

"Just go."

The meter is running. Switched to its ON position with the teen's simultaneous commandeering of the FM airwaves.

She has a schedule, a part-time job, and a life that, as her mother, I couldn't possibly understand. Though, currently, she also needs me to connect these particular dots, beginning at 2:19 every other weekday afternoon. She, in turn, must pony up something in the way of compensation.

"Thanks."

A kind word can be quite costly.

"Can we go now?"

Of course, she'd expect change.

Self-sacrifice is personal like that. We can't expect adoration for acts volunteered like weed flowers. 

It's not as if I expect undying praise for selecting only the Laffy Taffy out of the leftover Halloween candy basket and leaving the Baby Ruths and Snickers bars isn't the kind of selflessness that registers.

Nor does a parental shuttle service.

It would be nice to feel like I know where we're headed.

Not that I'm not glad to do it.

Although "glad" isn't the right word.

My happiness doesn't figure into this equation. It can't even be counted among the commodities on this index. This phase in my existence is measured in hopes, anxiety ... 

And, increasingly, anger.

Which exists in much the same way that a pothole exists at mile two of this now routine afternoon commute. It's easier on everyone if I can manage to avoid this particular crater, but a mid-ride jolt isn't likely to end in calamity.

Unless politics are involved.

Or parental advice.

Or any manner of momentary glances that's intention could be misinterpreted.

I don't know why we're always on edge. Maybe it's familiarity breeding contempt. Or the comfort of safety and the lack of concern for appearances. 

I don't take it personally.

Especially since I know the day will come – not long from now – when the idea of needing her mother to give her a ride will be as horrifying as noticing a streamer of toilet paper on one's shoe.

I also don't take it personally because such affronts as fleeting as childhood.

"Let's go. I'm gonna be late."

"Ok … then. Where to?"

"Map says "Old Town Road."

"Where 'I'm going to ride 'till I can't no more'."

The laughter at that moment as we traded song lyrics line for line turned out to be worth the wait.

Lightening the load

It wasn't a made for Instagram kind of moment.

A child of mine had asked me to "clean up a little" because some friends were coming over.

Evidently, she didn't want them to see how we lived.

I knew a time would come when my teacup humans no longer fit into their dainty saucers. I knew their spiral from cheeky child to tenterhooks teen could be jarring. I imagined that while they might still extend a finger as they converse with me over tea, it would not always be the pinky.

I was ready.

Or so I thought.

At least I knew when that time arrived; I could blame hormones.

I also thought, mistakenly, as it turns out, that by the time we put away those mountains of childish things with their tiny, primary-colored parts, a different sort of order would settle over the house.

A neutral-colored peace and quiet.

But now that my kids are starting to mature into their super-sized selves, I am beginning to understand that they will be leaving those earth-toned oversized mugs - along with their food wrappers and the adult-sized clothes they wore from 3:30 to 5:30 as they hung out in the living room waiting for a friend to Snapchat or whatnot - everywhere.

Mountains and mountains of adult-sized stuff.

And none of it where it should be.

"Why is there a plate on the toilet?"

"Is there a reason we are carpeting the floor with blankets?"

"Oh my god, what is that smell?"

"I didn't think it was possible to use every pot in the kitchen to make two servings of macaroni and cheese."

At the risk of my sanity, I have stopped cleaning up after people directly, but to protect my voice, I have begun to harangue them using only clipped sentences.

Points to candy wrappers all over the couch:

"Garbage can."

Sees kid dragging a week's worth of laundry down to the washing machine at 9:30 on a Sunday night then retreats to a darkened lair.

*walks detergent up to aforementioned lair*

"Missed a step."

*Picks up barely worn sweatshirt from the floor using thumb and forefinger*

"Put. This. Away. ..."

"And not in the laundry hamper. ..."

"The stink of detergent hasn't even worn off."

Silence.

I might as well be standing there holding the white, fluffy hooded flag of surrender.

The shirt will go away. It will drape on a chair for a while until it appears again, in the same unsoiled state but hidden in a full load of rumpled, half-clean clothes.

My only recourse seemed to be to lighten my own load: offsetting the planet-killing water-wasting ways of my can't-be-seen wearing-the-same-clothes-twice teens by refolding their try-em-ons myself and secretly putting them away unwashed.

That and buying two merino wool shirts to wear unashamedly like daily, natural antibacterial skin (or so the marketing has convinced me) in protest.

Laundering, as the directions instruct, only when soiled.

Of course, teens think this is the height of grossness.

"You'll thank me when the sheep of Instagram save the planet."

Until then, the place is going to be a mess. Advise your friends accordingly.

Diabolical commerce

We have a zillion costumes. I keep them around for sentimental reasons.

Cat burglar, cheerleader, fairy princess, scary fairy princess, peacock, shark, man-eating shark, gorilla, mermaid, mermaid-gorilla, bat, pirate, gumball machine, fireman, deer, deer in the headlights, spaceman, zombie, Ron, Herobrine, "Steve."

Not to mention lion, dragon, Egyptian cat, the Headless Horseman, a spider, and a hotdog complete with a squiggle of shiny mustard that the pets have sheepishly worn for my entertainment, poor things.

Okay, maybe not a zillion costumes. But a wardrobe of weirdness nonetheless. Clustered together, testing the strength of the zippered bedding bags I've repurposed to contain them, they pop out to surprise me throughout the year.

Someday, I tell myself, I will sell them. Or give the costumes to charity. Or hand them down to my eventual grandchildren.


I have always loved this season. I even love that the retail calendar lights its fuse in August just as back to school sales are wrapping up. 

More time to comparison shop for Styrofoam tombstones and plastic skeletons to add to our front (grave) yard, I say. 

Of course, there was a time when time was not as plentiful. The kids would change their minds about being Draculas or damsels and decide, instead, that they needed to be a Humpback whale or a character named Angela from a book I'd never read. This would all happen roughly three days before Oct. 31st.

If I were lucky, they'd be satisfied with cardboard, slapdash, and Goodwill. Nothing I make would ever be ready for Pinterest.

The kids are not kids anymore. They don't harbor dreams of the fanciful things they can be on a single night of the year. They are more interested in their careers as teenagers and the capital that endows. They will decide to go out if they can convince a friend to go with them.

If they dress up for this new door-to-door ritual, they'll figure out something ... without too much of my help.

It's weird being on the other side of that creaky old door. 

The side where people discuss in emphatic tones how old is too old to participate in the annual parade of candy. 


As if those diminutive Milky Ways were worth their weight in gold. Or if every teenager that approaches comes with a grocery list of mal-intent: Eggs, toilet paper, shaving cream …

There will always be people who hurt, whether they do so actively or passively. 

I suppose it's fitting that the awkward stages of adolescence and advancing age should meet for a battle of wills on a night that is custom made for such diabolical commerce.

In its own way, that's a perfectly acceptable disguise.

My daughter wears it like a frown sometimes.

I know that will turn around.

Everyone has a gap in their willingness to put themselves out there. Eventually, the teens will slip back in quietly as their social circles rotate.

I will be in my own disguise. Maybe I'll be a Gorilla Magician, sitting on the front porch with a banana daiquiri, handing out candy.

All are welcome to stop by.

Tethered

I was stuck. My family had zipped away through the treetops, and I was stuck. 

No matter how I tried, the contraption wouldn't unlock. Not long before being trussed up into a harness and set loose in the woods, we'd hunkered down in front of an instructional video on a ski-lodge bench with about a half-dozen other off-season adventurers.

You "twizzle" one carabiner to its locked position, and the other carabiner attached by a spliced cable magically unlocks. Climbers are then free to attach both carabiners to the same lifeline and continue through the next obstacle. The disembodied voice assured us that this safety mechanism was foolproof.

Another woman looked a little stricken as the video ended, and our guide asked us if we had any questions.

I knew what she was thinking: "I won't remember any of that." I also knew that I would be the fool they hadn't counted upon.

"Don't worry. There will be plenty of staff members to help you."

But I was worried. Trudging up a hill (that was probably one of the green trails I could barely traverse on skis in the winter), I felt my lungs working harder and my breath growing short.

This is more work than I'd envisioned when I promised the kids we'd go ziplining.

I had pictured a more relaxed tour with guides attaching us to the wires and pushing us off, waving into the afterglow as we cast away through the uppermost canopy, through the forest, and over farmland until we floated down to the base of the mountain, landing with grace and a light touch.

Instead, I was alone on a rickety platform built for three. Safely and seemingly permanently attached to the trunk of a tree while the rest of my family zipped onward.

The red flush of embarrassment was already washing over me when the panic began to set in.

A lady behind me chuckled a little, offering help. She fitted the clip into the magnetic slot and tested the one that should spring open.

Still. Locked.

A wave of relief cooled some of the shame. See? It wasn't just me, I thought. Although a few more tries on her part would eventually prove successful. 

Perhaps the good news was the journey wasn't as daunting.

I'd side-stepped the wires with ease. I'd balance on teetering logs. I'd climb up and down rope ladders that swayed to and fro.

But the double-locked safety devices stopped me in my tracks.

"Just call for help," I remembered from the videotape.

A few jovial teens wearing the vests of safety and ski area insignia – appeared with a ladder. They climb up to unlock my carabiner with a laugh and some advice: Make sure the cables don't get too twisted."

I wanted to hate this.

It was taking too long. We had already been here for an hour and could still see the place where we started. Small, non-biting bugs were flitting around my face. And every "twizzle" lead to my feelings of a fizzle as my own family zoomed ahead while other families piled up behind me.

This was worse than every terrible game of miniature golf I'd ever played.

And yet, the actual effort of the journey had been remarkably smooth.

We were out of the house on a beautiful fall day, finding that walking on tightropes between trees and flying squirrel-like through the forest made us seem graceful and athletic, though none of us could honestly claim those titles.

There was only one precarious moment when I felt I would fall off a log and not be able to scramble back. A long moment passed when I imagined myself dangling awkwardly from the harness, waiting bunglesome for an attendant with a ladder to climb up and save me.

But that didn't happen. At that same moment, I regained my composure and balance and continued to the next perch, where my youngest was waiting.

I wasn't prepared for his panic, though I had just gone through at least twelve stations where panic had tapped at my shoulder. 

His carabiner had stopped working, too, and like a deer in the treetops, frozen in fear. And his terror only increased as I flew toward his platform. He couldn't get free and was sure I would slam into him as I glided toward the landing pad.

For the first time all afternoon, I felt calm and capable.

And without looking into his tear-stained eyes, I told him everything would be alright.

I knew exactly how to help in this situation, and so I told him: "I've been failing at this very maneuver all day." 

And while such practice may not make perfect, it gives you enough experience to persist.

Eventually, we would be free.

And maybe we would turn around and start again.

Bed bugaboos

The walls around me seemed to be vibrating. It was loud. And, I knew from experience, the vintage chandelier hanging in the room below ours was flickering. I just hoped plaster wasn't raining down on the floor along with the dust.

The creaking, softening bones of this old house under the weight of a new bed was a possibility I hadn't counted upon when my husband and I spent the better part of an otherwise pallid Sunday, staring at the steel-girded ceiling of a furniture store, trying our best to decide on a platform on which to slumber for the next ten or so years of our lives.

We had been there, testing firmness and comfort, cushion and resilience, for hours. Our resolve to be shrewd shoppers melted away as the minutes ticked past lunchtime.

I'm not sure how it happened exactly, maybe all that was needed was the gentle vibration of some new-age magic fingers against the back of our growling stomaches to cajole us into handing over the checkbook and scribbling out several hundreds more dollars than we'd planned.

We waited a week for a truck to deliver the sleep the store's mattress match promise had made.

Not that I had much faith in a pseudo-scientific sleep delivery computer app that rang some bells and blew some whistles, and finally arrived at "Firm for him and Softer for her" out of a grand total of four possibilities.

Why is picking one of them so hard?

I hadn't imagined the dog bolting from the room like a rocket-propelled tennis ball as the bed started to come to life in the showroom.

But I had thought about the cat and the likelihood of one of two scenarios coming to pass: either her being caught in the works, or reducing the new contraption to matchsticks. The latter being more likely.

I definitely hadn't planned on the muted but diabolical childish laughter currently rolling out from underneath the covers next to me as a joy that might revisit us from some bygone era of toddler parenting.

Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrr heralded the smooth pressure of a metal armature raising the edges of our new, "hybrid" mattress. As it folded us in half like a taco, our youngest rolled around in sheets of laughter. 

My heart was warming to this nostalgic return. It had been ages since our son had climbed into bed with us, seeking the comfort of parents.

"Look at this! It lights up the floor! This. IS. SOOOO. COOL!"

Though, the attraction to the novelty of remote control and under-bed illumination should not have eluded my tingling senses of the potential for practical jokesters.

Not to mention the fact that, in the boy's hands, the automatic lift of our new pillow-topped rollercoaster was reaching fun park speeds. 

As any boy below the age of 49 and three-quarters might be positively giddy at the novelty of this king-sized contraption, his father was teetering on the edge of a new understanding.