Power-lifting may tend to corrupt

My head was pounding. Adrenaline was rushing through me, raising my blood pressure and heart rate. Sweat beading on my brow. I couldn't breathe. My muscles twitched as every fiber of my being seemed to seize and contract.

This anger feels like a workout.

See, I have been on the phone now three times trying to cancel my gym membership. And each time I heard the same response.

“You must come in and sign a form in person.”

It wasn’t inertia keeping me away. It was a sign that the owners had plastered to the front door of the club. A sign that seemed a harbinger of all that could go possibly wrong in a world filled with fear and firearms.

“Guns are welcome on premises. Please keep all weapons holstered unless need arises. In such a case, judicious marksmanship is appreciated.”

It wasn’t a joke.

As I waited for a return phone call, I seethed. I should have ended this relationship last summer when news surfaced about a shooting accident at this very gym. The owner himself fumbled a gun, and, in an attempt to catch it, sustained a minor wound. Lesson learned. Or so I thought.

That’s what the police report said, anyway.

I had averted my eyes that time because I thought caution would prevail. But this sign reminded me some people prefer to throw caution to the wind.

My phone rang, Finally. The owner. His answer was more of the same: You must show up in person coupled with the assertion that he’s trying to work with me. These are just the rules I refuse to follow. Stop resisting.

But I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want to set foot in a place where grunting people in sweaty clothes were now welcomed to bring their guns as sidekicks. 

And I certainly didn’t want to face the man with the gun. Especially now that he was reading me the riot act over the phone, saying I was the one who was threatening him. … All because I’d promised to let Better Business know there are probably better businesses.

All I wanted to do was cancel my membership. I didn’t want to cut off someone’s life support.

But I also wanted to stop being a doormat and a bystander. That skinny kid who gets sand kicked in her face.

I didn’t want to accept the threat of a cancellation fee that should have already expired on my mature membership. I didn’t want to accept the idea that a paper trail was necessary to end a service that no longer suited me. I certainly didn’t like being threatened with collections if I directed my credit card company to stop making payments.

As I listen to all the barriers being erected in the way of my departure, I fell disbelievingly silent. Why would a business owner prolong the inevitable? For his pound of flesh? Why am I trying to reason with irrational?

I just didn’t want to belong to a club that would have guns as members, why did this feel like breaking up with the worst boyfriend I never had?

All I could come up with were these three words …

“You. Are. Insane.”

Which I said aloud, and which I instantly regretted.

Not that I have any medical objectivity to level such a diagnosis, the power struggle playing out over the phone just struck me as being an exercise in futility. 

I just didn’t want to belong to a club that would have guns as members.

I should have been nicer. “You get more flies with honey … didn't your mother tell you that?”

Nope. My mother was a realist. “Flies will flock to the smell of death, too. Who wants more flies?”

So I took the path of least resistance, held my breath , walked through the gun-welcoming door and signed the paper. Lesson learned.

It was time to lower my impact. Power-lifting – like power itself – might tend to corrupt.  

Boiling over

The pot had boiled over.

That's what my husband calls it, anyway, as whatever has been simmering all day in my thoughts comes out in a blast of hot words and scalding tones when we sit down to dinner.

It's not about him. It's not about anyone, really. I'm just a geyser of stress that erupts in moments of silence.

A filling of voids with angst and upheavals.

Anything can set me off. The internet. The elections. Orthodonture. Doctors appointments. Television news. Did I mention the internet? There wasn't a single thing I could pin down and do that would be constructive. There wasn't one outcome I could change from wanting change.

“I think you need to go to the gym, or out for a run,” he'll advise cautiously, aware that patronage at any point in this delicate endeavor could work against us. The pushing of any pseudoscience in my direction has to be incremental.

It has to be my idea …

Which, unspoken to anyone else, it had been. But I had gone out the night before. And the night before that. Three days in a row seemed selfish.

It was before six and he was already in pajamas, wine poured generously into a glass. I didn't need to ask about his day. “It's fine. Just go.”

And so I go.

Out the door and up the street. One foot follows the other.

I feel stiff and slow. As if my legs have been replaced by chopsticks. They don't feel as if they bend at the knees.

The wind is wicked. It claws at me with little bits of sand it kicks up in its gusts.

I put my head down and continue. I focus on taking small steps. More power, less effort.

Breathe.

They say it helps to exercise. But I don't know.

I'm not sure I feel better, exactly. I just feel different.

Reassuringly different. Explainably different: I can think of THIS pain as from running. THAT pain is from sit-ups. The heat you feel in your face is from raising your heart rate, not peri-menopause.

Just take deep, calming breaths.

The hardening of soft muscles is a bonus I don't wish to talk about. As if to admit pleasure in this area would diminish its value or add to my vanity.

Not to mention the conflict my thoughts tend to wage with each other over exercise.

“Don't step on the scale …. it's not about that.”

Step on the scale … be disappointed.

Look in the mirror … it's still the same me.

The pot is still there.

“It wasn't about losing weight. It was about all the other benefits. … the longer life. The mental health. The better sleep.”

I have choice words for that angel in my head, but I'll refrain from saying them. “Think positive,” would be her response, anyway.

My husband will tell you I sleep better. That I'm less liable to boil over at the slightest increase in temperature, but I still wake up at night, worrying about the things I can't control.

But I'll just go for a run.

Filling the space between us

Three miles. Thirty minutes. How hard could it be?

She watches me as I tie up my trainers. She's been saying she'd like to go with me. Stretch her legs. Get some exercise. But I know it's an intention she will likely postpone indefinitely.

The temperature was still climbing even as the sun was started to set. Perfect weather for a three-mile jog around the neighborhood. “Really. It will be fun. We can walk some, run some.”

She politely declines.

My daughter had other things on her mind. School things. Clothes things. Room I asked her to clean things. Boy things …

She says nothing above a whisper. I can tell she is balancing on the edge of sadness and could fall either way.

I get her to agree to walk with me to the meeting place. Other evening runners will gather, spring training in full effect. Ten minutes and two changes of clothes later, we are ready to head out the two or so blocks to the center of town. We have a pleasant talk around subjects. I hold my breath, resisting the urge to utter a stream of unhelpful advice. I just listen and nod.

Once we reach the square, we will go in opposite directions. She will head toward the library, where she will return materials that have been accruing fines. I will tackle the local cul-de-sacs at a hopeful 10 minutes per mile.

I worry about her in all the ways a parent worries. And now, adding to it with this new and expanded boundary of actual space. We so rarely go separate ways.

“Go right home after the library, Ok, before it's dark.”

She just grins at me.

“Where else would I go?” her smile tells me.

We've been through this dozens of times.

She disappears in the opposite direction I start to run. Slowly at first. Familiar. The pack starts out together, past the coffee shop and some houses, then thins out. Working harder, we don't chat as much as we pass the cemetery where our eighth president is buried. We pass more houses. People in their yards stop what they're doing to bid us a good evening. Turn left at the cornfield and head toward the orchard.

That's when I heard the siren and felt a lump in my throat that I try to explain away with statistics I made up for comfort's sake.

“I'm sure everything's fine.”

But the sirens continue, and I can hear cars racing to a spot that might be my home. It's hard to tell the direction of noise.

“Or it might be a neighbor's,” that everything-will-be-alright voice offers in hope.

I dig out my phone, just to be sure.

My stomach sinks. My phone has been ringing on “silent.” It's my husband.

The emergency is at our house. Everything is OK, though. She's fine. He's on his way there now. Ignore the messages.

Which I do. I ignore the messages and call the house. My daughter answers immediately and, with great excitement tells me she saw fire in the backyard as she was walking home.

“So I called the fire department.”

And just like that, my daughter saved the day in under three miles.

How do you say 'crazy' in Chinese?

To be honest, I'm not sure how to talk to my kids about this election cycle.

Last time it was easy.

My son, to whom we ofter refer as Alex P. Keaton because of his penchant for wearing suit coats and ties on minor occasions, came home from school one afternoon in 2012 and announced: “It's settled! I'm voting for Mitt Romney.”

To which I replied: “That's too bad. I'll miss you when you move in with the neighbors, but I'll still be able to wave at you from your old room every now and again.”

What, you say? Horrible mother!? Taking away a preschooler's right to vote in a general election. Sheesh!

Truth be told, I wished my mother had set me straight about politics when I traipsed in from school one afternoon in the 1980s with an announcement of my own: Jelly beans are cool, peanuts drool.

Of course, I felt a tiny bit guilty taking away his right to think for himself, but we're not running a democracy here. There's not a lot they can control. They don't get to vote for who becomes chief cook and bottle washer.

They eat, we cook.

They wear clothes we wash them.

They need braces we pay.

They go to college we panic.

I'm sure that sense of panic has something to do with the place we find ourselves politically.

At night, after they are tucked-in and sleeping, I whisper “state school,” hoping to implant a notion that will grow into a plan, which will save us from refinancing the house or having them take out loans they might be able to pay off when they have children of their own … after they reach 40.

This election cycle, however, I don't have to threaten my kids with rehoming if they choose the honeycombed comb-over with a giant scowl.

They're already afraid he might win. They wouldn't want to cancel out each other in voting for the guy who looks like their papa – Einstein hair, dark glasses and all.

The idea had crossed my mind to tell them someone had spliced some strange reality game show into the national debates, and now broadcast technicians were at a loss for how to fix it.

“Not to worry, it's just a glitch,” I imagine myself saying. “Soon we will be back to the regularly scheduled programing.”

But they're not as gullible as all that. They can see something has changed since we last elected a president.

Maybe it's that politics has become an extension of regular programming.

Every four years we have to pack up our belongings and relocate them to the part of our imagination that tells us where we could live in harmony with our ideals.

“We'll have to move to Canada,” says my daughter, an echo of her friends, which I can only image rings back to their parents.

As if.

“You know … It will be hard to move to Canada,” counsels my son, who has already figured out the logistics. “But not impossible … I figure mom can be a substitute language teacher. She can teach every language except Chinese.

“Do you know why she can't teach Chinese?”

“Ahhhhh … because she doesn't know any Chinese?”

“Nope. Because my friend, Johnny's mom is going to teach Chinese. That's how we'll all stick together.”

But it seems we probably won't stick together. Even in this discussion, the goal is to divide and conquer.

“Are you hearing this, mom? Can you tell him he's crazy?”

“Sorry. I can't argue with that logic. It makes about as much sense as anything these days.”

NaCl meet wound

I could tell before she's said a word that things weren't going as she had planned.

She looked exasperated, and the house was more of a wreck than usual, which is what I had planned. After all, I've seen her cook. I've witnessed how she opens packages after reading the printed directions. I've seen her skip steps and improvise … So when she said she was doing a project for the science fair, I just imagined cereal everywhere and a resealable bag that has no way to reseal.

I couldn't help myself.

But let's not rub NaCl into the proverbial wound. Science requires some restraint and the opportunity to be wrong.

As it happened, the project she decided to undertake was already in process. She hovered over four gummy bears, soaking in individual tartlet Petrie dishes on our kitchen counter.

She was quite a site as she stood there in a pool of overspilled fluid, a flexible purple measuring stick in one hand and a fork in the other.

“What's the project again?” asked her brother.

“I'm trying to find out what makes gelatin grow.”

“What's with the fork? You're going to eat them,” he asked and answered. “I'd like to see you eat the one soaked in vin-a-gar.”

“No, doofus. I'm not eating them. That would be gross.”

“Couldn't you just make a volcano? That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a volcano as big as our couch!”

“You can't even make volcanos in science fair anymore. It's been done to death,” she replied, not too kindly either.

He just shrugged and looked around. “Looks like you should be doing your project on earthquakes.”

I had to agree. But I didn't want to set off a chain reaction. The conversation between siblings was explosive enough.

The kitchen was littered with discarded dishware, half-filled measuring cups and opened containers of spice. Posters, markers and stencils littered the floor as if there'd been a ticker-tape parade with office supplies through the den. The cat was chewing on the corner of her display board. A make-shift photo studio set up on the living room coffee table kept crashing down each time the dog passed by and wagged her tail.

“You spelled vinegar wrong,” I tried to say nonchalantly, as I reached for the coffee pot and refilled my cup. “It should have an “E” – “Vin-E-Gar.”

But nothing I say is nonchalant. She started to growl, and I backed off. It was going to be a long night.

I flipped through the guidebook – a packet of questions stapled together with a lot of blank space. “Aren't you supposed to fill this out?”

Her eyes narrowed. She started to answer. A run-on protest of grievances: “Every experiment is different” … “I'm figuring it all out” … and “I know what I'm doing” … tumbled out along with “When I need your help, I'll ask for it.”

“Thank you. Now please go.”

And can you please take the dog?

And the cat?

And the annoying commentary of the little brother?

And the little brother?

And the coffee?

And get all of them away from me?

I don't care what you do with them so long as they stop bugging me.

I can't work like this.

I can do that.

“See?” I muttered, catching a glimpse of my puffy-eyed self in the surface sheen of my coffee, now coming perilously close to breaching the rim of my cup as I corral the errant “control-freak group” upstairs where we will watch Netflix. “She still needs an assistant.”

“You realize that makes you Igor, right?”

NaCl? Meet wound.

Tendril morsels

She twirls her hair around her finger, brings it to her mouth and starts to chew nervously. Another tendril morsel, I call it.

She rolls her eyes.

I hate that.

But it's nothing compared to the voice she's been cultivating in the pressure-cooker that is middle school. It makes me think her friends lead her around by the nose.

I ask her to stop.

She breathes deeply and, for a few moments speaks in the voice I know and love. But soon the nasal twang returns as I try to wheedle out tidbits from her day.

With a string of one-word responses to my barrage of questions, she tells me what a drag I'm being.

“... Sure ...

“... Fine ...

“... Whatever ...

“... I dunno …”

No matter how I try, I can't extract a drop of information. It is clear I'm just an annoyance. I am the person who can no longer cook eggs properly. Or who forgets to buy celery. The person who should just drive her to dance class and disappear.

“Are we done here?”

Now it's my turn to breathe deeply as I release her.

There's no amount of cajoling that will unblock this dam. Information is hers to trickle. She has to work the controls, and I have to await the rise and fall of waterworks. Neither of us has much patience for the other's schedule.

It's hard to hold back. Hard to sit and watch cracks appear and puddles form. Hard to say nothing.

I do a lousy job of playing it cool.

I'm not sure why we can't be friends, but that's what the experts say is verboten. From her perspective, at least, I think I'm probably in no danger of losing that battle.

She doesn't even think we're on the same side.

That smarts a bit.

"You always stand up for people who hurt my feelings. You always take their side," she accuses. "It feels like you don't believe me."

That hurts.

It's not that I don't believe ... It's just that I know what we believe has a habit of tripping us up.

I haven't been able to explain it to her, though not for not trying. Unless one is running for an elected position, beliefs never get easier to convey.

"You have to trust me, I just know," makes about as much sense to her as "someday you'll understand," does to me.

Of course, I'm faking it.

I don't know for sure that she'll one day understand or that she'll understand it my way. I don't know that everything will be ok. I just keep my fingers crossed and stop myself from walking under ladders.

Ideas change. Authority shifts. Facts split apart and reform in all sorts of new shapes.

We struggle for a while, but then we adapt.

Last year I was cooking with olive oil and trying to lower fat intake and this year I'm wondering how I can find ethically produced lard and buying whole milk.

I'd be lying if I said I felt confident in any of my choices. All I have is hope that the good ones will balance out the bad ones.

Eventually, night will come and with it the close of another day. Maybe this night she will ask me to read her a story, for old-time's sake.

Maybe she will tell me her sadness.

I will listen.

And when she's through, I will tuck the sheets up under her chin and remove the tendril from her mouth.

She will sleep, and I will dream.

Layabout

I don't want to get up.

Snow has fallen. It's windy out. There is a sidewalk at the edge of our property – the edge nearest civilization – that needs clearing. (I don't say shoveling because the snowfall wasn't of any significance. It probably wouldn't have produced a snow day if school wasn't out for winter break.)

But I digress.

I hear cars outside now. There is a slushy sound of warming temperatures and rain as they pass. Sidewalk clear thyself.

My head hurts. Or I think my head hurts. Receding barometric pressure has filled the space in my sinuses with doubt.

If I get up, I know that first step will feel like an icicle stabbing me through the soles of my feet. I also know by the time I make the long and arduous trek to the bathroom -- a miserable seven or eight steps – the sensation will stop, and I'll feel a little more human.

I won't even remember my head had felt overfilled.

Oh, but it's warm under these blankets.

It's comfortable, too. Not too lush. Not too austere.

I'm glad I held my own in the great mattress debate of '07. My choice was impeccable. Just the right balance between soft and supportive, yet not enough of either to make a person dread the advent of morning. The pillow-topped one my husband wanted would have been too comfortable, which is why he saw the light of my brilliance at the sales desk. He doesn't usually sleep in.

The dog and one of the cats have called a truce in their ongoing skirmish and curl up with me. I know they are looking for warmth, not companionship.

The wind sails across the roof and beats at the windows for a bit before it retreats. The first time was startling, but then every so often it comes back, like an angry child. Insistent and loud, but unable to sustain that intensity for too long. I relax a little and try to welcome the sound as it mingles with the cartoon blaring from the television downstairs.

He doesn't need me yet. His sister is visiting friends, which means he has total and complete control over the television and remote. In addition to the anime army fighting forces of evil, I also hear the tinney screech of the step stool as he drags it from one part of the kitchen to the other. A cabinet opens. He's got a glass. A tap opens. He's filling the glass with water. A drawer rolls out. He's got a bowl. Another cabinet opens and soon the clink of tiny rocks. He's filling his bowl will cold cereal.

I won't hear the seal of the refrigerator being penetrated. Milk will only make his cereal soggy, and everything else in there is relatively healthy or needs a modicum of preparation.

I can sense my husband's jealousy from the shop, which is a thousand or so paces into the backyard. I don't feel too badly about this. My jobs allow me to work from bed on occasion. There is a book-sized computer warming my lap that is running a number of programs simultaneously. I can get things done in my pajamas. He could, too if he wore a few extra layers of them and didn't mind what civilized people say.

Of course, I can't stay here forever.

I can see smoke has stopped coming out of the chimney. The stove could use another log or two.

But more importantly, no one brought me coffee.

I suppose it's time to get up.

Faking and making

I wish we could all share in the sentiments of primary school Valentines.

When we are in primary school the beauty of its simplicity is wasted on us. Once we age past primary we might get caught up in the emotion of romantic love … mostly the complexity of it … and from there on in, the confusion or disappointment of the whole thing tends to leave a bad taste in our mouths.

Somewhere between this angst-y state of desire and whatever version of mature fulfillment we've settled into, we decide Valentine's Day is just some ridiculous notion cooked up by marketers to relieve us of our hard-earned cash.

So we dust our hands of it, darkly happy to be rid of its fakery.

That is … until our kids reach the age when paper hearts and printed confections are as exciting as the sunrise on a brand new day. Then, like it or not, our hands become soiled again in glitter and glue.

I know a lot of folks would like to see the tiny hearts of this holiday shrivel up and blow away. I'm sure at one time or another I was one of them. No thing is the same for any one of us, after all. Some of us can't be bothered, others are bothered beyond belief.

But it wasn't until I helped my kids make class-loads of valentines that I understood what I'd been missing all those years.

We'd selected a project that seemed easy enough: She'd draw pictures of each of her classmates using the class picture as a reference. Taking some advice from the internet, I drew the chins, necks and ears to make the sizes similar. She drew the hair, faces and wrote in the names.

It took us two days and a slew of do-overs until she was satisfied with the results.

In those two days we talked about each of her friends. What made them unique. What made them special.

She didn't like Isaac's nose on paper. So she erased it … made it better. More like the nose she was used to seeing on him.

Corrine's hair was all wrong. She wore it loose, not in pig tails. Erase, erase, erase. Sweep, sweep, sweep. Scratch, scratch, scratch. That's better.

She asked me how to spell "sweet" and "treat," and wondered if we could include some with the cards.

I nodded.

I could never have imagined this scene only a few years ago. I would have railed against the idea that children should be conduits-of trumped up emotion in all its lace-doily artifice. I would have wondered if maybe all this forced friendship wasn't the beginning of some soul-crushing lie.

We spend hours laboring over some sweet nothing that is destined to be tossed in the trash.

"What's the point?" We ask our selves. "It means nothing." Or maybe the opposite, it means too much.

We try to reason that we can't like everyone, so why should we pretend we can? Don't our problems as adults come from stuffing these feelings of discord so far down in our psyches that the pressure of it eventually threatens to blow a hole the size of a heart in our souls?

For whatever reason, we think this false holiday fosters the potential for dashed hopes and unrealistic dreams.

Wouldn't it be better to celebrate any one of the OTHER manufactured holidays that fall on February 14?

There would be no hard feelings over Clean Out Your Computer Day, League of Women Voters Day or Library Lovers Day. Who wouldn't go all in for National Ferris Wheel Day or Race Relations Day? Because, certainly, if there was no Valentine's Day no one would have to create a Quirky Alone Day, or National Call In Single Day.

Yet, instead of throwing Valentine's Day away, I find myself wishing we could boil it down to its purest form and bottle it.

Even if we have to pretend, liking each other seems so much better than the alternative.

Comfort, food

It was lunchtime, and the joint was hopping. We'd never been here before: A little eatery in a little town we were passing through as the dial on the clock struck belly-grumble. The warm, bacon-scented air was welcoming, and the rattle of plates playing against the tinkle of glasses provided soothing background music as we placed our orders.

But comfort food couldn't quell my anxiety as I stood there looking up at a set of colorful chalkboards trying to decide what would make our entourage happy.

I have to feed one husband who is on a diet and ignoring two of the basic four food groups; one child who wants her midday meal to consist of a cross-section of the entire menu; and finally, a child who has concocted an imaginary food group and refuses to eat anything that falls outside of it.

So, of course, I proceed to stammer a messy combination of breakfast fare and lunch-y requests as if I'd pulled a thousand threads from the menu's fabric. The woman at the register smiled at each of my “I'm-sorrys and Is-it-possible-to-gets ...” but made note of our out-of-town status as I handed over a credit card. “Keep this up and you won't be welcomed back,” she said with a laugh as she handed me a chicken-shaped table flag.

I hoped she was kidding. This place, with its brightly decorated walls and packed tables, looked like somewhere I'd like to frequent.

I grabbed some silverware and sat down at the table. My kids were already starting the Are-We-There-Yets of restaurant waiting.

“Is that ours?” one kid stage whispers as a server hoists a tray laden with plates and sidles past us. “Nope! Not us.” confirms the other. “Maybe ours will be next … Oh, I hope it IS next. I-hope-I-hope-I-hope,” both children will chant with closed eyes and crossed fingers as we continue our esurient vigil.

“I. Might. Die. Before. We. Eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.”

Had I been employing the proper parenting techniques all along, I though to myself, one sharp look from me would have been enough to quiet them.

Instead, I was rummaging through my bag looking for snacks or candies or crumbs to give their complaining mouths something to chew on. If I don't find anything, I'll have to resort to the nuclear option: The hiss of parental desperation in the form of a string of empty threats.

“If you don't stop thisssssssss whining right now …. we will never eat anything … anywhere …. ever again ...”

But then a minor miracle! Mid-threat, there came food from above (and presumably the kitchen). Plates loaded with the promise of overfull bellies were silently lowered to the table in age-ascending order. First the boy and his mystery meal, then the girl and her laborious samples, and finally for the parents (well let's just say the husband is the eldest in this food service scenario, shall we?) and our oh-so-similar orders. Of course, we waited to switch plates until after the server sauntered away.

The complaints of grumbling bellies are replaced by silence as they taste each item. I hold my breath waiting for an explosion of disagreeable sounds. More silence signals yet another minor miracle that is satisfaction.

I eat quickly, wondering how long it will last.

I know they're old enough to know how to behave in a public place, but that doesn't mean I trust they will. There's only so many quarters you can put in that meter before you reach the limit.

Bathroom visits seem to be the barometer. And so we started to get on our coats as the boy headed for his second turn in “Gents.”

I watch as the door closes and opens. And I follow him as he heads back to the table … but he stops at the wait station and talks to the server instead.

“I accidentally locked the bathroom door as I was leaving. Sorry, it was a mistake.”

An odd wave of pride washed over me. Had it been me at his age, I would have said nothing, grabbed my coat and told my parents we have to get out of here now! Not him.

He just wanted them to know the door needed to be unlocked.

For a moment, I thought I saw the same you're-not-welcome-back smile stretch over our server's face as she looked at me before rummaging in the silverware tray and extracting a butterknife. But a twinkle in her eye as she turned and headed to free the washroom for other patrons made me relax a little.

“Thanks for the heads up, little man. Come back and see us again, OK?”

Building blocks

Sometimes I imagine our house is almost fully supported by haphazard piles of second-hand books.



What we don't read -- and there are many -- we prop under wobbly tables or set in the place of draft dodgers.

 We've got everything from Aesops fables to Zadie Smith stashed in just about every nook and cranny.



As their pages await turning, their stacks grow to overtake the window frames, the side tables, and the benches by the door that also store our winter accessories -- all the hats, and the scarves, and the mittens -- which haven't seen much of our attention this year either.



I mean to read each and every one of these books, I really do, I just can't seem to get through all the words I haven't been compelled to read aloud.

The stories for adults -- which are stuffed to the spine with blight and wars and despair -- will have to yield to magic and mythical journeys and toys that slowly awaken to the pain that is love.



Sitting crooked legged at the edge of my son's bed, I could read forever. In my warm comfy sheets, I'll be fast asleep three pages in. Rereading the same passages night after night feels more like a fruitless endeavor than a guilty pleasure.



I've always read to my children. Way back before they could focus their eyes or support their own heads I would plop them down in my lap and tell them all about Velveteen Rabbits and Paper Bag Princesses. I could recite "Homemade Love" from memory, it was all good, good.



I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that my children didn't disappear into the pages of stories once they had learned to read. But it did.



Hadn't the parenting golden rule -- the rule of thumb -- been to read to your kids? Talk to them like big people? Involve them in the world of words?



Of course this rule must have been written in stone because technology hadn't been invented yet. I can just see the rule-makers scratching their heads wondering how they could erase their giant slabs of outdated advice as they witness my zombified kid staring into the rarified eyes of his favorite "YouTuber."



How in the hobble-de-heck did watching other people play Minecraft on the Internet become an all-consuming amusement? (You might want to hold off on that answer, at least until I'm finished watching a series of cats being frightened by cucumbers.)



Perhaps that's what's been troubling me.



One distraction appears acceptable while the other seems intolerable ... And yet each has exactly the same likelihood of changing the world in the unpredictable way worlds undergo transformation.




Like the spot in the back of the waiting room that gets no cell service. It's the place where parents who are waiting for their kids to finish dancing, or jumping, or shooting at circles and arrows can watch. Or think. Or read from things made of dead trees. Or just tune out for an hour. It's always available, this spot. Everyone else is jockeying around the only other spot in the place that gets reception.

I'm not sure how it started, but I've found myself sitting in this dead spot more often. This week I brought a book. A kids' book, it's true, but a book nonetheless.



As I turned the pages something wonderful happened.



A story spilled out. And all around me, people noticed. They asked me what I was reading and I told them.



Oh, how they loved that one. Had I read any of the others by the same author?

Soon my own son, sweaty and exhausted from organized play, was standing next to me cooing over the volume in my hand.



"Oh I loved that one! We read it in school!



"Can I show you something" he asked excitedly.



I handed the book to him, and he flew through pages, landing on one in particular and cleared his throat.



He began to read ...

 And as the words came clear and fast, I could imagine all the books propping up my life finally falling down around me.



It felt like a breakthrough.

Sneezy, Dopey and Doc

I plunge a quarter-sized dollop of hand sanitizer into my palm.

The crowd goes wild.

He looked pale and thin with eyes of water-slicked glass. In our family these symptoms generally mean healthy with a touch of rhinovirus (the common variety) and an aversion to vegetables (of all varieties).

No fever. No Fatigue. No trouble breathing. Just a lingering cough and sniffles.

Of course, he'd been coughing all morning; one dry roar after another followed by lengthy rubbing of his nose onto a shirtsleeve. I remind him to use the crook of his arm to catch the sneezes as we mingled with the masses.

Of course, we have things to do. Places to be. Volunteerism forced upon us by the recreational league.

Buck up.

Yet every sternutation sent my gaze to the floor and my shoulders to the ceiling. What kind of mother brings her little bundle of typhoid into the world at large on the weekend? Doesn't she know she'll just spread his disease?

I sense the condemnation even though it's unspoken.

“Well … that's why I put him at the cash box instead of making hot dogs,” I said wryly to the person in my head who censors what words are allowed to escape my mouth. “Everyone knows money's filthy anyway ...” Lately, she's been tsk-ing a lot but letting none of my thoughts pass.

“Shhh. No need to be like that,” she hisses in my ear. “Let's just get through the day, shall we? You are doing the best you can. Repeat that.”

I may have no trouble listening to my inner voice, but I have a difficult time believing her sometimes.

It doesn't matter that the crowd is pulsating with a rhythm and harmony of phlegm. I only hear the nasal hum of the boy trailing after me as I work the concessions table at the school game. I feel a shocking desire to pretend he's not with me. And guilt.

I feel guilt.

Which turns out to be something my son will always help grind in like dirt at the knees:

“I've been coughing for a week,” he announced as if he had pulled a microphone and speaker from his pockets and switched it on. I cringed at the sound of it as it hits my ears.

“No, you haven't,” I respond with a loudspeaker voice of my own. “You came HOME from SCHOOL with this two days ago,” as if making the point we are at the place of likely origin will absolve me of any parental blame.

No time to lather and rinse, I plunge another coin-sized dollop of hand sanitizer into my palm and repeat.

I know … I know … He should be home in bed, warm in bed with hot soup and G-rated cinema. I should be feeding him citrus and feeling his forehead, asking him if he has enough blankets.

Eventually, that's where we'll be. Home, with our pets and TV.

Home, where tissue after tissue I hand him winds up scattered on the floor like discarded gardenias not yet past their prime. Each one wrinkled from rubbing against the nose as if to scratch an itch. One per sniffle. A new flower drops to the floor at regular intervals.

I will pick them up with the tips of two fingers and deposit them in plain brown paper bag – an inch-wide cuff folded at the top the way my mother use to do. I will wash my hands until they start to crack.

“You need to blow,” I will scold.

He will comply, half-heartedly, and start rubbing his nose again.

Of course, in the morning, when he looks at me with the puppy dog eyes and barks at me with a productive howl I will have second thoughts about sending him back into the mill …

These thoughts only last a minute. Just long enough for the beep of the thermometer.

“Sorry, kiddo: 98.6. You're going to school.”

Gearing up for 'Swinter'

It's snowing. Finally. A thin mist of flakes floating to earth, covering everything in a light gauze that looks like fresh cotton.

I love this weather! I love this …. and yet ...

I am torn between rejoicing and retrenching.

Oh, now we can ski! Oh, now we can ski. Perhaps it was just the idea of bundling against the cold that I had missed … not the packing of bags, the lugging of gear, or dealing with tempers. Somehow, I always manage to blot out those bits.

My shoulders hunch forward under my coat. Hands jammed in my pockets. Muscles tense against the chill, barely remembering the warmth from just a few days ago.

Once the air cuts at my skin, I start to shiver. No matter how many layers I add, I won't  get warm. Maybe not even until spring. I wish I could climb back into bed until the gopher gives the OK.

Where are my gloves? I swear I just saw them around here somewhere. I swear they are worse than socks at disappearing.

A blanket of white clings to the annuals, which have been stubbornly clinging to life waiting for winter.

Instead, we got "Swinter," a sloppy mix of seasons that also makes a mess of our emotions as well. We should hate this global phenomenon … but some parts of it seem helpful right now … at least in the short term. Sure, you might miss ice skating on frozen lakes, but you could use the savings on the heating bills.

I have to remind myself that polar bears are dying, and entire communities will soon be submerged.

The grass, freshly green -- the result of nitrogen gifted by a surprise January thunderstorm -- will not lay down for this more appropriate weather arrival. One more month of warmth and I feared I might have to dig out the mower.

I'm sure the fat robins, who haven't left for winter yet, don't mind. They can still pull up tasty things from the ground, which is far from frozen.

They're no more bothered by this layer of snow than I am. I will scrape ice off my windshield and slog through traffic, slowly creeping past motorists who are victims of first-snowfall skids.

I try not to gloat. I feel at one with the retirement crowd. I don't worry about being late these days, so I never feel compelled to meet the speed limit. Slowing down for snow is just in my nature.

Still, I wish it could have been a Snow Day. I know the kids wish so, too, even though I wonder what difference it makes? So they can watch videos of other kids doing things for the entire day and not just the two hours between dinner and bedtime.

It's probably for the best this snowfall waited until mid-day to make its arrival.

Instead, the kids are waiting to be picked up here, and transported there, as per usual.

I don't feel I have any right to complain. It's been mild enough that our bikes are still on the road and weekend long runs can be completed comfortably in shorts.

It's not as if I hadn't weathered umpteen winters before this one. Swinter will feel like a day at the beach.

Hurry up and wait

"This was supposed to be fun," said the disembodied voice in my head. The one that always needs interpreting, but no one ever seems to understand. Especially now that it sounds like it could use a hot tea with lemon to soothe the grating.

We were all together. Dressed up and clean … ish.

He shifted his weight and approached the desk. My husband smiled uneasily at the maitre di and gave our sir name.

Of course, we could wait in the bar until the rest of our party arrived. It would be a while.

After a childhood of waiting, he was finally in a position to be early. So he was taking an overfull advantage. He ordered a drink and asked the kids if they'd like sodas.

The boy didn't seem to mind, but she was prickly. It was apparent in the intractable way our daughter stood in the lounge -- her mouth tightly set, her eyes fixed at a point just shy of glazed over – a slight nudge could set her off. If he had been paying close attention, he might read the whole story in her body language ... from tragic beginning to decimating end.

A story as old as life itself, or so we are told, and yet it's something we've never experienced before. Not in so many words, anyway.

To tell it would seem like extracting the plot from a Tarantino film and wringing out all the gratuitous violence.

No matter how you tell it, the story won't make sense on the surface, and the narrator always runs the risk of losing her audience.

A story where the author doesn't always have the last word ...

But here goes:

It was her favorite place. This crowded restaurant. A family dinner in which we were also meeting friends. There would be children her age; children she liked. There would be food and theatrics and maybe even a hint of drama.

Just enough to be exciting, not enough to spoil the soup. And of course, there would likely be dessert.

Right now she'd rather be anywhere but here. She couldn't hide it.

Ask her a question? She'll answer in a whisper. Ask her to repeat herself and she'll say it again even quieter.

Cue record needle being dragged across vintage vinyl.

"What's wrong with her," my husband asks me since I am the translator whenever he finds himself in the inhospitable territory of Ticked-Off Tween.

Oh right. Seems illogical doesn't it?

Not really. I know what's wrong, but what I don't know is the right way to explain it. Do I cut the red wire or the blue wire?

It's a dangerous position to have between the volatile generations: translator. One indelicate word, one misinterpretation, and the whole place blows. I'd be sweating if it weren't so cold here by the door.

Instead, I close my eyes and clamp down on the nearest wire.

“You know how you hated it when your father was always late? … Hated it so much you made a vow that you would never be late to anything? A vow so important to you that you leave an hour early to a fifteen-minute commute?”

“Yes,” he answers with solid recognition and a dash of pride.

“Well … She feels the exact same way about being forty-five minutes early.”

And with a look of understanding, he showed me I had chosen wisely.

History might repeat itself, but eventually, we'd all be served.