Dog days

The dog's ears casually rise to attention as I move through the house.

She furtively glances my way without shifting from her place in the sunny patch of the rug.

She follows me with her eyes through the kitchen, to the living room, into the bedroom, and back. She listens as I close a cabinet and open the refrigerator. She yawns and stretches as I pace the floor.

Just as she has me trained to be quiet while I gather up the things that might send her into a tizzy, I have trained her -- by poor follow-through -- to have low expectations despite all indications point to a sure thing.

The leash.

Some running shoes.

An overripe bag of kitchen trash.

All of these things, in the past, have meant an opportunity for great fun: A low-key tour of the block maybe, or perhaps a three-mile jog; even an informal bounce or two around the garbage cans in the backyard. Of course, these things I am gathering could mean nothing: a tidying, a false alarm, an abandonment of sorts.

But now the whole world has changed, and she's not the only one who is unsure if it's for the better.

The car keys haven't left their hook in a while. The leash sits all in a tangle in a basket by the door. It seems as useful as any necktie right about now.

She scoots out with me for a run. We just go to the back yard, where I can clock a mile in five laps of the property. No matter how many times I circle, she's given up within the first four. She'll sit in the middle of the grass and watch me circle.

I go off course long enough to let her back into the house, where she can keep pace with the ones logging on to their virtual classrooms.

With her humans always around, she has fewer places just to lay by herself, a pursuit she apparently had mastered during the day when we had gone to work.

Now she's always on the job.

The sunny spots are all occupied by others. And, more alarmingly, there are so many dis-embodied voices traveling through a seemingly endless number of different-sized screens, it's hard to know if there's a need to bark at an intruder or bark because they're just not petting her.

One dog barks in the background on Zoom, and the whole dilemma starts again. Did her people get another dog? Does it live in that metal clamshell thing they keep tap, tap, tapping on?

These are the questions I've imagined pulsing through her canine thoughts before she abandons them to bark at a squirrel that's brazen enough to scurry past the window.

The last remaining annoyance that hasn't turned itself inside out.

Her humans are all over the place when they haven't sequestered in their separate corners.

Doors slam. Voices get angry. They get sad. They go silent. But there is laughter, too. And it can be cleansing and healing as it rolls over all of the rough patches.

Like a hand, rubbing her belly or scratching behind her ears or whenever she wants.

Slow on the curves

"Let go," the teenager instructed as we rounded the corner.

For a moment, I didn't register that she was talking to me. Her eyes hadn't left the road as she steered the car along the winding country road.

Everything was going as smoothly as possible in our beat-up, old family station wagon. Her hands were firmly planted at "9 and 3"... a clock that had shifted an hour in the years since my parents had taught me.

And yet, one of my hands was gripping the seat while the other was curled painfully around that hinged handle on the roof of the car that seemingly has no other use than to appease a mother's inner panic.

"You are bracing. Again!"

I had to admit, seeing my hand gripping the odd suitcase handle above the door frame was a surprise.

Pandemic times notwithstanding, I had the sense I was finally getting a better handle on being chauffeured around the county by my newly permitted daughter than I used to.

She'd gone past the tricky intersection where local

tradition dictates that all drivers must stop except the ones turning left from the East.

"Why is that" she wondered.

And as per usual, I had many words but no solid answer. 

"Some places are just that way ... Take the traffic circle at the end of the road here for example. It's the only one I know of where the cars inside of the roundabout don't have the right of way. I think it has to do with the circle's proximity to the railroad crossing, and how no one wants there to be a backup that leaves a car waiting on train tracks. But who really knows?"

Of course, here in the car – the radio off for safety and concentration's sake – she has to heed my words, even when they don't seem to go anywhere.

More to the point, she has to admit when she doesn't understand something.

"I need you to talk me through this traffic circle coming up. Is that stop sign for me? Which is harder again, a left turn or a right?"

And who would have thought the tough part would be getting up to speed? Literally. Certainly not me.

She's even surprised herself. Gaining exponentially in skill and confidence in the few months she's been practicing. Navigating to school, and making her way smoothly through circles and spelling out Y turns in parking lots as if she'd been driving in cursive.

She's even agreed to practice operating the standard transmission sedan I insisted on buying as our new family vehicle, back when driving from one place to another seemed more necessary than just novel.

Even that learning curve is flattening out. 

As we drive around today, she even praises my almost impressive lack of parental flinch.

After all, it had been more than a few minutes since I'd given her any instruction, necessary or otherwise. We'd already covered which car had the right-of-way at any given intersection and why other parents giving their kids cars outright has absolutely no effect on me.

Yes, we've come to this cliff, and needless to say, we're not planning on jumping off of it.

Good eggs and ham

I hate my face. It looks like an egg. I hate the up-angled foreshortening and the extra skin apparent when I look down. 

When did that happen?

Maybe I should have applied something bronzing to counteract the pallor. Or at least fill in the tiny lines between my eyes that look so much deeper these days than just skin level. 

Or maybe dip myself in some colorful dye like we used to do with eggs before we'd scatter them around the house for the kids to find ... or not find as our noses would lead the detective work some weeks later. 

Even more so, perhaps, I hate the crackling, tinny sound of my voice as it completes its circuit through the air and into a microphone and back out of the speakers of the technical clamshell that's open on my bed.

I can think of another space that's as comfortable, or private, or lacking a buildup of clutter. 

But I miss the social part of keeping a physical distance. And apparently, I miss it enough to brave all vanity and meet friends and family in the only room that can hold us all - a video chat room.

But here we are ... some of us sitting at our dining room tables; others sitting at our home office desks; and me, leaning up against an armchair pillow, trying to stay within a shadow.

We are talking about, of all things, how to celebrate Easter with our close family. 

And while I marvel at the age we live in where those among us with means and privilege can stay virtually connected while remaining -- for the most part -- isolated, I must also wonder how we will square ourselves with the reality that seems now, and for the foreseeable future, we are to remain distant relatives. 

We are long past the phase when we'd gather in the village square to meet a six-foot-tall Easter rabbit, who would lead a hundred teacup-sized neighbors in the annual hunt for candy-filled eggs. 

These past years the bunny tosses a few bags of jelly beans and rice-crisp eggs into a tote bag and hangs it from the knobs of their bedroom doors.

This year the bunny had to scramble at the last minute but had an anxiety attack at the grocery store and a moment of clarity. Hanging from the doorknob will be boxes of cereal and hand soaps that look like rocks. 

Must remind them the faux stones are not candy; and hot dogs, this year, we'll call ham.

Perhaps it will come up at dinner when we serve up this new tradition - of mystery meat via video chat. 

I can picture it now: we'll toast each other while reminding my dad to keep to some semblance of social distancing in front of the camera, so the rest of us can see more than his nose and forehead.

It will be horrible and wonderful, and everything we'd never imagined all wrapped up in one.

And maybe, if we're lucky, the bunny will find TP for our Easter Baskets.

Blessings and curses

It's noon on a weekday, and my husband and I glare at each other from our anchored locations on opposite couches.

He has the remote control and is binge-watching the kind of junk television that doesn't even whet my appetite.

It's one of the eleventy-billion made-for-streaming sci-fI crime romance comedies that is trying to stop the end of the world by reversing some ionic polarization in the molecular cortex.

Apparently, it's very popular.

I'm trying to read. But I can't get my mind to focus on any of the words' meanings as my eyes scan the typeface. I just hold the book and turn pages. They feel pulpy and rough to my hands, which are just as pulpy and rough from all the washing. I can't process any more things that seem new.

At least until I feel like I am winning the war against touching my face. Sure, I've advanced ground on that front, but I don't want to be smug. One sense of an itch in a moment of absent abandon could destroy all the urges I've repressed.

The kids are upstairs, in their separate rooms, doing schoolwork.

They aren't fighting as much, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Battling over the little things - like how long Tweedle Dee is taking in the bathroom or why did I let Tweedle Dum eat the last slice of toast - is what makes a family feel normal.

Having a kid wait patiently in the hallway as his older sibling hogs all the hot water is something no parent is entirely ready to accept as anything but an altered reality.

The saddest part is that it only took a pandemic and the fear of shared surfaces and soggy towels that have them agreeing to use the kids' bathroom instead of the master.

I don't care what we've all said in the past. We may want our New Normal to be brimming with kindness and human decency, but we have to be ready for the desperation, too.

We are distancing ourselves, too.

Six feet is an ominous length for the space between us.

It's hard to admit how lucky we are in this suspended unknown. We have a house and a sanitized digital tether to the outside.

Though I worry a certain Big-cat collectors' crime documentary making the rounds is just another insidious pathogen, we didn't do enough to protect ourselves against.

My husband puts a drink on the table in front of me. It's sweet and weak, just the way I like them.

He searches the channels for a comedy. The kids appear from their rooms and settle in to watch comic actresses disassembling a male-centered spy-motif.

There is much laughter.

And then we'll watch guinea pigs save the world.

Why not?

Soon it will be midnight of that same weekday. The kids will be in bed; maybe they will be asleep when I crack open their doors to peek in.

But I won't chastise if I find their faces lit by the blueish glow of a computer screen. Nor will I call attention to any better use of time. I will let them wake when they want and work through it at their own pace.

This may be the new normal. But it assumes none of this is normal yet.

More than arm's length

My sister and I haven't been the best of friends.

Maybe it's because we have everything in common, including an all-to-familiar impatience for one another.

As children, we shared and argued over our parents; we clashed over the values of attentions paid and spent; we even argued over an invisible white line drawn down the center of a small, pink bedroom we at one tIme shared in their ranch-style home. 

My sister, who diligently and dutifully works at a grocery store, still lives in that same house with our 80-year-old Dad.

They care for each other, as well as a nutty little Corgi, who, as they both will tell you, "isn't wrapped too tight."

I know I don't have to tell you how terrifying it is when the phone rings these days.

Not the least bit because of the mouthy little dog barking in the background.

We all have someone out in the world we have to put at an even further distance.

For all the years, I have put words in this space under a byline; my sister has proudly directed the people she meets in her checkout line to read them.

I'm not at all proud to admit that it embarrassed me.

Me, the introvert writer, realizing that she was the intrepid reporter of the family all along.

We have both connected with so many people over the years, one item at a time. But she has done it with genuine curiosity and candor.

She knows you all. She asks what you do and what you think about your car. She asks if you have any pets.

She loves hearing your stories and sharing how the lady ahead of you got forty pounds of shrimp! Can you imagine? That's going to be some party.

She knows more than most how much we're willing to tell strangers. 

I wonder if you know how much she cares about your families? How she worries about your coping mechanism in whatever ails you; a determination she's made by the grocery-to-alcohol ratio you load into your cart. She's heard your sorrows and worries, and she gives you the advise people like me are always telling folks to keep to themselves.

I have tiptoed around myself, often trying to be someone else, while she just puts herself forward, which is different than putting herself first.

She is who she is: a tiny mensch with opinions she's entitled to share.

And while some of us have been unkind to her, some of you have been amazing.

You have shared with her more than just simple answers about paper or plastic in monotone. You have sent her flowers and cards when she's been injured or ill. You have passed along praise to her bosses when she's just been herself, doing the work the way she thinks it should be done … not just because someone is paying her to do it.

You know what she's doing, and you are grateful.

And lately, even those of you who may not have noticed her as you shop in a panic, share a few squirts of hand sanitizer from your stash when her store's supply chain hasn't been able to provide.

She is so grateful, she calls me up and tells me all about it. For that, I am grateful, too, because I am looking forward to being closer than arms' length.

Gym class of the apocalypse

"When do we start," she asked as I raise my wrist to the heavens.

She doesn't look happy. Not that I expect glee.

Running is not exactly her "thing." And coaching isn't really mine.

"Just waiting for a satellite," I tell her, holding my breath as I wait for the hollow bar graph in my watch face to fill its tallest column.

We walk slowly and quietly until the GPS' alarm bleats into readiness.

It is her first official day of social distance learning, and my daughter has agreed to go for a run with me to fulfill the novel do-it-herself gym class.

She had set the parameters to which I have agreed: No more than two miles of flat, lonesome landscape. She doesn't want to run into anyone she knows.

Social distancing, she's often complained during her blossoming teen years, has already become the adolescent superpower she resents most of all.

Of course, she's dressed as if invisibility were her hidden strength. All in black, with a neat ponytail that swings like a clock's pendulum in time with the pumping of her arms.

She is happy the State Authorities have advised folks to keep a respectable, I'm-not-with-this-person-distance between themselves and, say, their mother, who happens to be dressed head-to-toe in an alarming array of neon-bright colors.

The watch makes its connection, and we start to run. She lopes ahead like a dancer. Her stride is graceful and even, each foot landing softly on its toes.

I struggle to keep up with her.

"You have to pace yourself," I say with the same level of tension that creeps into my voice as when I'm sitting in the passenger seat of my own car, pressing the imaginary brake, telling the student driver to slow down.

Her reddening cheeks and steely expression in these moments are the reasons why I appreciate and long for the return of professional education.

Eventually, we find a rhythm that works for us: it includes intervals of walking and gratuitous swearing.

I always start that ball rolling when temperatures threaten to boil over:

"Whose %#>£* idea was this anyway?"

"It was your %#>£* idea, genius. ... and look over there ... that up ahead looks like a %{*~!~*~!^{!€ HILL.

I thought I had made myself clear: NO. %{*~!~*~!^{!€ #<%^ $&:€¥ HILLS!"

The truth is, I didn't plan to end the run on a hill, but here we were, looking at a steady climb.

"Relax, I know the trick: we're going to shorten our stride and take tiny steps. Pretend you are climbing upstairs. Don't exert extra effort, just breathe."

There may have been a string of choice words following us up that hill, but we finished strong.

Even she had to admit that she loved how the run felt after it was over.

"Like you accomplished something?"

"Yeah, but more like how it lit up my Snapchat."

"That's how running hooks you."

"Same time tomorrow?"

"Same time tomorrow. Now, hit the showers!"

One hand, wash other

I don't want to seem too obvious. I linger a little too long in the cosmetics aisle. I snatch a box of mascara from its display hook, pretending to read the ingredients. I scan the nearby shelves for my true desire. 

Hand. Sanitizer.

I mill around a bit longer and meander through the inventory. I take a leisurely stroll through Seasonal and consider buying so Easter' s-Coming Confections. 

I drop a box of sugary-pink marshmallow bunnies into the basket I've slung over the crook of my elbow ... the very one I TRY to sneeze into when the urge strikes.

Its outer cellophane crackles against my shopping-list camouflage - a greeting card, a bottle of hand soap, and a box of toothpaste. 

I rethink.

Better not tempt fate, I decide as I return the candy to the shelf, and tip the container neatly back into position.

I wonder if anyone noticed?

I take another lap of the store. I grab some sanitizing cloths from the detergent aisle and land in front of the hand soaps, which have a different home than either bar soaps or body washes. I read the labels fruitlessly. 

Where would they be?

No one has asked me if I'm finding everything I need. But then again, the store seems empty of people as well as its usual stock of anti-microbial potions. 

I hike through the baby aisle, past the digestives, and into incontinence. I traipse through the vitamins, the cold remedies, and foot care. At long last, I find First Aid. 

Among the cotton balls and the bandages, I see a single box of antibacterial scrub – the kind you'd use to prep for surgery or clean an open wound.

It's not what I want.

But it's close, and for a moment, I consider it until something catches my eye in the shadows as if it had been hidden. I reach back and find a little spray bottle. "24-hour Hand Sanitizer" its label claims in a no-nonsense font.

Two ounces … Ten dollars. "Sold," I say to myself, furtively slipping the bottle under the other items in the basket.

I think about the lady at the checkout in the last store and her persistent dry cough. 

Did I look worried or relieved as I pressed my card into the machine at her prompting? She didn't have to take my cash or give me change. 

Something tells me I'm not fooling anyone.

At least if the emoji eye roll texts I've gotten from my children are any indication. 

I panic a little watching a woman on YouTube who is using paint instead of soap to demonstrate how most people miss vast areas of their hands when they wash them.

Up until that moment, I had been satisfied just to hear the water run from a faucet AFTER hearing the flush of a toilet.

I have failed as a mother, I think, as I forward the video link to both kids.

Immediately, my phone lights up: "I KNOW how to wash my HANDS, MOM - JEEEEEZE!"

AND I might suggest you NOT try to wipe away smudges on my face by LICKING YOUR FINGER. That's just gross!

Green-faced emoji heads start to blink on my screen before I shut it down and slip it back into my pocket.

"Ingrates," I murmur to myself as I make a final lap of the store, thinking a moisturizer to combat the dry and scaly skin all this increased handwashing has wrought will round out my panic-caused purchases quite nicely.

Until I read the label and realize that the hand cream has probiotics to counteract all the antibiotic destruction, all this hand washing may cause. …

And I feel the back of my throat start to itch. 

Stocking feet

At the neighbors, standing in their kitchen wearing my best woolen socks, I couldn't take my gaze from the baseboards.

The sparkling white of the elegant, curved moldings looked freshly painted. It reflected off the dark hardwood floor as if it were a stately birch gazing into a deep pool of still water.

There was not a spec of dirt or a smudge of grime anywhere.

"A person could eat off these floors," I may have said a little too loudly as I carried a plate to the dining table.

Cloth napkins and jute placemats, of course.

On the spur of the moment, our neighbors had invited us to dinner.

Nothing fancy, they said. Just a one-pot meal with friends. "Just bring yourselves."

Despite the spontaneous invitation, their house was at its company-is-coming best. And their meal – unlike most of ours – didn't come from combining three separate packets using the directions printed on the one box.

This is usually the time when a person, overhearing me describe the less-than-magazine-layout-ready condition of our place, would try to insert the soothing balm of messy homes somehow equating to fuller lives being lived.

Or how busy schedules don't make for fancy and opportune meals.

And anyway … who has the time?

"People who put feeding their families above playing just one more game of Words with Friends?"

I'm not envious. Though I can't say, I'm entirely comfortable mentally comparing this home from the one we've haphazardly made next door.

My kids - having been roused from their rooms, where they might have taken whatever foodstuffs they'd scrounged on their own - sat awkwardly at an unfamiliar table. Their elbows in limbo, realizing the corners of arms, don't belong on tabletops but not knowing how to suspend them for comfort. Can they sustain them sans support for the duration of dinner through dessert? I could tell from the way they held themselves akimbo that was the biggest question on their limb quivering minds.

They had already taken only small portions as protection against having to feign genuine affection rather than modest appreciation.

I feel a surge of love as I look over at my kids, who are trying earnestly to fit in, as if they haven't just come from alien territory next door, where their pet dust bunnies have pet dust bunnies.

I was not blessed with the so-called "nesting gene," according to pretty much anyone who has ever come to my house unannounced. Any deadline has a direct correlation to the amount of time we allot to the work required to meet said deadline. Why is it that we say such things are nesting impulses? I have never experienced a hormonal shift that made me predisposed to clean up after my husband … or the kids … each of whom will usually trail mud through the kitchen the moment I've mopped.

I'm just the only one who will get sick of looking at the piles of dishes and laundry on a semi-regular basis.

Sure … I might have to be a different person altogether to manage a house as if it were a well-oiled machine. But I can't say it's not inspiring to know the picture-perfect can exist in the same space that includes kids, and dogs, and neighbors who may need reminding to remove their shoes.

Singled out

No one in our house will feel the pinch like I will. That delicate friction between film and fingers to break the static.

The dreaded plastic shopping bag, rendered this day verboten by state law, holds a complicated place in my heart ... and my home.

They spill out from under the sink. Jammed into open-ended crocheted sleeves that look like dolls or balled up and stuffed into the emptied husks of tissue boxes, the loopy ends of handles jut through a transparent gasket for ease and access. Always at the ready for a second and final use.

I use them as liners for bathroom trash, Receptacles for clumped cat litter, and Sequestration for soggy swimsuits and sweaty gym clothes.

I'd be lying if I told you I was entirely on board with the planned obsolescence of these inglorious gossamer garbage bags, as I have tended to think of them ever since a store clerk first asked me to make the decision: paper or plastic?

I head for this stash of bags whenever I have to scoop up a cat's regurgitated hairball or a freshly disemboweled rodent.

The thin film of protection comforts me as I clean up even the most grizzly of messes.

It's selfish to worry about what will

happen when my stockpile of store bags becomes depleted in a year or two ... or five.

Of course, we consumers will adapt.

If we can't retrain ourselves to use produce or bread bags, we'll just buy them new by the roll.

You can even purchase a bag of bags in regular or scented varieties. Top shelf, aisle seven, right above kitchen-sized trash bags.

I don't want to be the acid rain on the save the environment parade. But here I stand anyway.

Unable to think of my new, reusable plastic totes, and the trendy market bags that I will buy on impulse at the checkout, as anything else but a clever and stylish way to hide the fact that the myriad problems we have with waste hinge on something else.

I think back to my 70s-era childhood and the emotional message of The Keep America Beautiful ads starring Espera Oscar de Corti, better known by his stage name, Iron Eye Cody. Dressed as a Native American, the actor shed a single tear, and roadside litter became a problem we tackled as a nation.

Though it never occurred to us then that the unsightly trash we have cleaning up for at least two generations was only a symptom of the more significant disease that kept growing: overconsumption.

As I look at all the things I'm putting in my bag, I see all the pretty products in their double-wrapped plastics or encased in foam and peeking out of glassine windows. Plain is the likelihood that each component (if not the product itself) will inevitably make their way from our single-stream recycling containers to the belly of a whale in the open sea.

Yet somehow, the green-lidded can at the edge of my curb helps me feel better about my flippant purchases through the magic of wishful recycling.

But all is not lost. We are finally recognizing the problems with excess and the speed at which their effects are barreling toward us. We appreciate them in a new and terrifying meaning of "at a glacial pace."

A change in thinking is something we can all do.

Not to single anyone out, but ...

Husband! I'm looking at you right now. You can save the day and my ungloved hand by scooping up whatever the cat dragged in with a fully compostable banana peel your son left on the kitchen counter.

Water logged

I collect all my thoughts in the shower. I make lists, wherein I solve all the world's problems one step at a time.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Sometimes I wish my thoughts were always as orderly as the directions on shampoo. But I don't mind a little less clarity here.

Here, in the shower, is the one place I can bunch up all cares and shove them aside as my kids have done with their soggy washcloths.

Under a sunflower sized spigot, I stand almost immobile for what seems like an eternity as steam and spray dance around me.

But it's not an eternity at all. It's just a ten-minute ritual entirely circumscribed by the small hand of time, which has realigned temporarily with how slowly the faucet can move leftward in the chase for just a little more hot water.

Of course, I find other problems there, too.

The amount of hair I find in the drain makes me take an inventory of my stress levels before I take a moment to wonder if all of it's mine.

Like how the washcloth mountain stands majestically in the corner. Its sedimentary layers mark the number of tourists who haven't received the gospel of Leave No Trace.

A musty washcloth mountain, though, is not a hill on which anyone should choose to die.

There are so many other things that could kill us.

Is that a new mole? Should I be suspicious? How can I not be when it's shaped like Iowa?

I wash my hair with something called "Snow Fairy" gel to take my mind off this new and alarming discovery. The bottle lifts too easily and dispenses too sparsely. Ordinarily, the sweet smell of bubblegum mixed with wintergreen would offer just enough comforting confusion to distract me. Still, I can't stop thinking about the Iowa-shaped threat on my forearm.

Why does it look reddish?

I'll try and calm myself further by noting the color is uniform before I run my finger overtop and find it feels different from skin. I use my nail edge like a chisel, and the whole thing flakes off like paint.

Was it paint? It's possible, but I know I didn't use that color. Maybe it was a scab from a burn I only this moment vaguely remember? How many times have I accidentally touched the edge of a hot cookie sheet with my arm after I'd take it out of the oven? Too many to remember precisely.

Should I be worried about my memory now?

Conditioning. That's all that's left. I squeeze a quarter-sized dollop in the palm of my hand and massage it into the thickest part of my hair: the tangle at the nape of my neck.

Leave it on for at least three minutes for shiner, and silkier hair instructs the label.

The water is cool now, which is perfect, according to another person that visits my shower in the soapy bubbles of memory. "Never wash your hair in hot water," this gruff and bearded apparition says in my brain. They were the words of wisdom he learned from his mother, a hairdresser.

I clawed through the tangle with my fingers as the water grew cold. Reality interrupts with the sharp discomfort of icy pinpricks. 

I turn off the tap and reach for a towel.

Note to self: we're out of shampoo. I should make a list.

TLDR

A royal blue-lettered envelope embossed with the school's insignia arrived in the mail, indicating a more important communique than what usually appears on the pastel-colored pages that make their way to the bottom of a school bag, never to be seen again.

It is the scholastic equivalent of a tree falling, unwitnessed, in the forest: If a homeroom teacher sends a note home to parents, asking them to send in a snack before Thanksgiving recess and they don't read about it until Valentine's Day, did it really matter?

I don't think so. 

In fact, this year's inattention saved me $75, NOT ordering Yankee Candles.

But a letter, on official stationery with metered postage? This must be serious.

Important looking letters are the kind of things that strike fear in the hearts of parents like me: We who do not rifle through our children's things looking for unfinished homework, evidence of poor grades, or notes from teachers that require an authentic signature.

We who get our need-to-know information through the filter of our kids' badgering. If they want to participate in a particular thing, they have two options: they can either let ME know in a timely fashion … or they can skirt the issue entirely using forgery.

Not that I expect the latter.

"What could this be?" I wondered as I stood in front of the post office box, keys still dangling from the lock. I turned it over to inspect the back, deciding whether to open it immediately or wait until I was properly fed and caffeinated. Which -- truth be told – could happen next Tuesday in Never.

The last official letter that arrived via post had standardized test scores tucked inside. I would shred them in secret, and nest the strands at the bottom of the kitchen garbage, lest anyone  accidentally piece them back together on purpose and have to live with the fallacy such numbers actually "count."

Of course, it might have been an optometry referral for nearsightedness ... or it may have sounded an alarm that the health office didn't have the proper documentation on one kid or both.

Schools understand that a single page doubled spaced letter sent through the USPS, will have more of an effect than seventeen thousand words printed on a half-dozen sheets of multi-colored paper jammed into the knapsacks of teenagers. Knapsacks, I might add, which also likely contain smashed bits of snack crackers, as well as a wad of fermented gym clothes. 

But I digress.

Whatever it was that concerned the school enough to pay the price of postage rather than entrust the Backpack Express, the note would be brief and to the point, and it would possess enough formalized authority to spur me to action.

I would shred... or make the necessary appointments ... or have the doctors' office fax the school nurse post haste.

Or, in this case, in a few days it would make me open my phone and add a date-not-to-be-missed into the calendar so I might witness an accolade earned by my eldest. 

"Might" being the operative word.

My daughter took the letter from my congratulatory hands for inspection.

My sudden revelry turned to guilt.

"You didn't RSVP, did you?"

"Well, no one reads those bits at the end."

Hope, more squeeze than a hug

I felt a hand grasp my thigh, and everything in my body -- including my breath -- tightened.

In that instant, my son had the ball, and, without hesitation, he had launched it toward the basket in a one-armed hook that had no business making it to the hoop, let alone through the net. The ball, closer than it had a natural right to be, glanced off the rim and bounced back into the boxed defense of the visiting team.

Another kid dribbled it away.

My neighbor in the bleachers - another team mother whose son has long ago proven his ability to dunk - let go of my leg as if it were hope itself.

"So close," she said without fanfare. It's a tone I instantly recognized as one that was ready, willing, and able to celebrate if there had been a swish.

I nod and start to breathe again. There are worse things in life than never scoring a basket during a game though I would never use those exact words with him.

In the years I've been watching him play, I've seen the other boys gain speed and the precise amount of aggression necessary to get ahead of the play and change the direction. They charge in and foul out.

My son lopes along to his position and adjusts his hair.

I elbow his father, sitting on the other side of me, as he shouts the things everyone shouts: "Hands up ... Get ahead of them ... Turn around."

It's no more helpful than me letting out the sign of pent up breath the moment the ball ricochets off the rim into the hands of the other team. I keep reminding myself that disappoint FOR them sounds the same as disappointment IN them.

It is best to try and be silent.

His need to make points in a game has a direct correlation with the time he spends in the driveway practicing free throws. My need to point out the cobwebs hanging from the net usually has the opposite effect of what I intended.

Silence is hard.

There will be more games. More chances to be in the right place at the right time and make his shot. He doesn't need me to say the words "It will happen," though I say them anyway. Filling the air of the car with the participation trophy of encouragement.

The truth is, I already marvel at my kids' ability to try new things or stick with them no matter how futile it all seems. His skills move - not by leaps and bounds - but in increments.

When I was his age, I never gave any activity in which I didn't immediately excel time or attention enough to improve. I always quit post haste.

This kid clings to every moment of half-hearted, trying with his game face on.

None of which will change two games later when the basket he finally makes slips through the net silently.

The crowd didn't go wild. The team didn't hoist him onto their shoulders. It was just a little bump in a game they wouldn't win.

But the kid didn't care. He quietly celebrated by sitting smack dab in the middle of the bench, leaning back with a huge grin ... and adjusting his hair. He had made his basket, and it counted.

The sound of progress

Oh, my nerves! The beeping!

What is that beeping sound?

I follow the noise to a dead end.

It could be anything.

Everything is plugged into something, or powered by batteries, or animated by the collective evil of a thousand big brothers floating somewhere just out of sight ... in a cloud.

Of course, it's an alarm, but for what?

A digital monsoon?

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeeeep!

Nine-fifty-five in the evening. Past bedtime. The house is mostly quiet save for the whirring of gadgets that give us the pretense of silence.

It's not a watch, or a phone, or the smoke detectors. It's not a video game or sound effect on the television. It's not the ghost of a toddler's toy.

It's just a soft, lethargic alert that seems to be coming from everywhere … or nowhere in particular.

My best guess is that the sound is coming from somewhere in the bathroom ... some battery-operated thing is possessed.

Since I can't locate the origin of the alert, I cover my ears and resign the search until it stops. Which, thankfully, it does is short order.

Add it to the list of mysteries of the modern age.

The mid-evening series of assertive beeps, which is the harbinger if nothing, go silent as fast as they made a sound. They repeat only once a fortnight, so I have not wasted a moment on an investigation.

Just another modern inconvenience brought to me by so-called progress.

You know … like e-mail and e-bank. All those excellent services that seem so simple until they go haywire. You know … like your e-address gets filled with junk mail or gets a virus, and the e-medicine you subscribe to can't give you e-ntibiotics without an international scene.

Did you back it up?

Errrrrr.

It turns out we never have the right backup plan.

Of course, in some cases, I've learned to adapt.

I can set the clocks on all of the devices that keep track of time. 

I can usually connect my gadgets wirelessly to other gadgets. 

I know exactly where to place the digital bathroom scale, and how to stand on its glass surface to ensure the readout shaves off a few pounds.

I know that Siri won't respond to questions asked of Alexa and vice versa. I don't try to force them into some awkward friendship, though I wish they'd put their petty rivalry aside and do a better job of snooping on my son's conversations. 

I'm reasonably certain all e-mails of importance find their way into the trash folder based on an inverse ratio of my need to see them, so I check there as regularly as my primary inbox.

A strategy helps even if it's not enough for mastery of all these bells and whistles.

When I find it difficult to adapt, I simply employ avoidance.

Avoidance, it turns out, is the easiest way to deal with so many mysteries of modern life. Real problems won't let you dodge them. But for all the rest, especially the infernal noise of modernity, the batteries will give out eventually as we weather this storm. 

Home cooked

"What's THAT smell?"

It was 5:30. After School Sport #1 was over and there was just enough time to finish math homework and wolf down some form of sustenance before rushing off to make it to After School Sport #2.

It was a hopeful sort of question. A smell that reminds you that hunger can creep up on a person. Another reminder that in the not-too-distant past this time combined with this smell might make a kid guess that dinner was almost ready.

"Your father is making supper," I responded as I hung up the car keys and pulled off my coat. As usual, I have a flair for stating the obvious. The air all around us held a mixture of aromas: tomatoes, garlic, onion. … It is the scent of warmth and comfort.

Modern family life sometimes requires such details to be defined. In our house, The Dad is the chef and sink unclogger. The Mom does the baking, and the driving, and the laundry and the cleaning of the pots and pans. She even does the mowing of the lawns.

But we'll leave that for another season.

Since his departure on business a few weeks ago, The Dad's kitchen has produced only one three-part meal: Baked salmon, lemon asparagus, and rice. It was an unusual Saturday night when the calendar square was uncommonly bare, and an extraordinary effort by The Mom.

For the remainder of his absence, the things we ate that resembled food made their way from freezer to microwave in roughly three-minute intervals six times a day. 

Tasteless, time-conscious tidbits that barely nourish anything. 

"I'd say it was pasta of some kind, but I could be mistaken." 

Of course, I had no first-hand knowledge or proof of purchase in the form of supermarket receipt or empty reusable totes sitting in the hallway waiting to be refolded. 

But my nose told me the meat would be some fancy sausage. Probably the spicy kind, the boy would exile to the edge of his plate before quietly flicking it piecemeal to the pooch. 

He wouldn't complain. 

It's not his style. 

He'll just quietly eat what he likes and visit the kitchen later ... when everyone has moved on from dinner into watching "their" shows. 

He'll find himself a yogurt from the fridge or frozen shrimp from the freezer. A ravenous appetite can be a powerful motivator in learning how to "cook like mom cooks." 

Though some might say "assemble" or "thaw and mix with ramen."

It's only a matter of time until they realize that when left alone, dinner for most moms means stopping at the gas station and picking up a bag of popcorn ... or Funyuns.

Still, we manage to muster enough motherly concern to ask the kids what they had for lunch, and clutch our pearls-less throats when they answer something along the lines of "a bag of Skittles and a Coke."

Our popcorn dinners, we rationalize, have, at the very least, a coating of cheese. We may not be growing children, even if we are expanding as adults.

Of course, we moms aren't fooling anyone.

And then it occurs to me, as he rolls up his sleeves and starts to wash his hands, he's beginning to take after his father.

"Well ... THAT smell is definitely burned popcorn. What do you say we make some potstickers?"

Snap out of it

My husband went to Europe for two weeks, so I bought a new car.

But while The Cat was away on business, The Mouse's old rattle-trap car - which has been patched together with rebuilt parts, spot welding, and duct tape - started to make a noise so heinous and unsettling that the car radio set at its highest volume couldn't drown it out.

OK, the mouse might have panicked. But the Cat was all "It's your cheese. And I really hate car salespeople. I'd look for something new, so you don't have to worry about it."

But worry is my currency. And it was burning a hole in my pocket.

How will I get to work and back? How will I get the kids to play rehearsals and music lessons? To wresting and basketball? What if there is an emergency? The grocery store is only three miles away, but we might as well live on Pluto if my car up and dies now.

The last thing I wanted to think about was how soon our newly minted 16-year-old would be angling for wheels. Yet that very thought was

keeping me up at night. That and the brakes that seemed like soft, squishy cheese.

So I did what any semi-irrational, middle-aged motorist who's never-owned-a-new-car does in such cases: I cruised a local car dealer's website looking for a bargain.

Suddenly, a window popped up in the corner of my screen.

A prim little emoji with a smart page-boy haircut and operator's headset typed out a greeting each letter appearing separately and stitching themselves together as if by magic.

"H e l l o! We have hundreds of new and pre-owned cars to choose from. Take our personalize survey and let us help you find the ride of your life."

The last car I bought on my own was back in the days when car ads lined birdcages. Just before the internet and cell services gobbled up all of our attention and when cookies were the things you might track so as not to ruin an appetite.

Honestly, it looked like a trap.

But at that moment, I felt like a certain wolf, with courage enough

to chew off its own foot to save it from the trap of the wrong car. ...

I typed in my information:

I am looking for a pre-owned compact hatchback preferred with manual transmission. Must have advanced safety features and be fuel-efficient. 

= : ^ )

My anime operator's response: 

=8 ^ O

"You are looking for a unicorn."

Of course, she didn't use those words, but asking to add years to my timeframe struck terror into my heart.

It's strange how months of thinking about replacing a car can turn into a mad rush the second you click on a virtual showroom.

The mission had me.

The next thing I knew, I was making appointments to test drive possibilities and talking myself down from the ledge. 

"I'm going to take the weekend the think about it," I told myself and tag team member two, who got me in a hand-off from the emoji woman and had every intention of passing the baton to his team's "number cruncher."

You could almost hear the sound of failure as I sprinted out the floor-to-ceiling glass doors.

But I couldn't let it go. Two hundred thousand miles was just inches away.

The rattle and clang of my car just got louder the further I got from the showroom. The brakes seemed to get softer. Hmmm. ...That thumping sound is new. 

I can see another car dealership in the distance. I decided to stop. The sales team has all the same pitches, but they also had a unicorn.

Well, almost. This fairytale creature didn't have a hatchback and had only been around the block about 111 times, but it was a reasonable price, and it had safety features up the wazoo that came standard. 

When my husband called to check in and see about our progress, I told him the news.

"I bought a car. I pick it up Monday."

"That's great! How do you feel?"

"Right now, I feel relieved. But I'm sure I'll snap out of it."