Ticked

The fan overhead makes a smooth whirring sound, interrupted every so often by a temporary grinding of bearings as they must somehow realign. 

Now is not the time for repair.

It's nighttime, and the lights are out, but I know from my daytime

experience with the old air-moving device how precarious the propellers seem to the naked and non-handyman eye. 

The fixture doesn't look entirely fixed as it circles overhead. It spins awkwardly and dangles like a time warped grandfather clock. Jutting out in super circles that were they hips, any yoga teacher would gently try to make more rhythmic.

"That thing is not entirely safe," I've said to myself and the deaf ears of my husband for years.

It's on his list ... or so he claims. But not exactly a priority.

Besides, it adds the amount of white noise he requires to sleep, and I have learned to tolerate. 

During the daytime, this one concern is out-of-mind.

The thing hasn't come crashing down while we sleep, potentially killing a cat and dispersing its thick coating of dust into the form of a mushroom cloud, the way my mind has imagined it will one of these days. We take such things for granted.

Until then, I'll continue to avoid sitting directly underneath. So does my husband, a point of self-preservation that hasn't gone unnoticed.

In the hallway, a door opens. A line of light walks it's way up the wall and trespasses into our room. The bathroom door closes. 

The doors in this old house are creaky. They echo at night with preternatural amplification. 

And although the sound was bothersome in the way loud noises are, it didn't jolt me awake.

My annoyance seems like a hot flash moment: As if it were an omen awakening me with a silent alarm. An instant later, the reason I can't sleep through the night washes over me.

It's like my body doesn't want me to miss a single, heart palpating moment.

I can tell by the knob clattering around in the lock mechanism that my daughter is awake. Her brother's door

sounds entirely different. His door doesn't rattle when it slams. Its knob doesn't fall out and rolls around on the floor every fifth or sixth turn.

That's also on the list.

A list that ticks me off rather than itself.

My list is s constant revolution of things. Laundry. Dishes. Lawn. Laundry. Dishes. Lawn.

All of them -- when addressed -- are just as noisy as the rattletrap door and the cantankerous ceiling fan. 

My daughter will grumble about my waking her sleepover friends with my cacophony in the kitchen. 

It would seem that the annoyance amplification is just as robust in the morning time.

Lately, I've been letting them pile up. 

The laundry silently collects on their floors. The dishes precariously telescope in the sink. The lawn is a carpet of shag.

I'm not taking complaints. That department has closed. But I will consider applications for future employment.

They can be ticked off by my list. 

Panic at the disco

"This is what we do now," I say to myself as I look at the freak show before me in the mirror.

Of course, the words echoing off the tile walls sounded more like "nis ith waaa eee loo naaw."

And the reflection looking back at me is the epitome of frightful: forehead askance; lips cartoonishly drawn back and around some clinical-looking plastic thingamajig; a blue light reflects out of my mouth and up my nose with an eerie glow. 

I'm not going to mention the foam.

Suffice it to say it looked like my teeth were special guests at a powder room rave. And even they might be planning to revolt.

I hadn't actually heard the As-Seen -On-TV pitch, but I could imagine it might have sounded something like:

"Now you, too, can experience the joys of professional-strength teeth whitening in the privacy and comfort of your very own home!"

What did I have to lose?

Just a half an hour at this disco and the cover charge - $39.95 the top price of which I am willing to part.

Forty. Bucks?!

Somehow, when I wasn't paying attention, the maximum amount the average sucker/consumer would pay for snake oil (without demanding a full refund) had doubled.

Nevertheless, it seemed like an impulse-item bargain (right at eye level above the whitening pastes and battery-operated toothbrushes in Aisle 27).

I like to think I did due diligence.

I paced around the shelves long enough to Google the product and gathered that its buyers had bestowed on it a four-star rating ... on average. 

No mishaps. No pending lawsuits. A plus on both accounts.

So I buried the box in my cart under shampoo and several rolls of paper towels and hurried off to the cashier.

I lined the conveyor in the order in which I imaged judgment would multiply: *holds head high* produce, meat, dairy and laundry detergent; *murmurs* personal care products, potato chips, and bakery bag; finally *shrieks in horror* three kinds of ice cream!

The clerk will undoubtedly hold up the box of low-self-confidence booster and ask if I've used the product before?

It never fails.

The reddening of my face that is, as I chat with a stranger who is asking about my coffee-colored teeth. ... not the product. 

I assume the product with its gadgets and gizmos and intricate instruction manual will amount to forty dollars I might as well have ripped into tiny pieces to toss in the air during the little pity party my teeth will invite me to attend in 30 days.

I will not RSVP. 

By then, I will have given up on pearly whites and accept the invitation of another dubious suitor … the one who likes to obsess about the calluses and rough patches that just seem to be hanging out in the neighborhood of my feet.

I saw an electric pedicure tool at the end of Aisle 26.

And it was only $19.95: a bargain at twice the price.

As I held the battery-powered sandpaper roller in my hand, the mumbly voice in my head was already talking me into it: This is just what we do now.

Not our first rodeo

The man with the microphone had a charming lilt in his voice. He wore a cowboy hat tipped ever-so-slightly to the side. His red cowboy boots gleamed strikingly against his pale blue jeans. The ensemble curiously matched the slant in his elongated vowels.

It was Rodeo Day at the county fair and the vibe around us seemed unusually sedate. Even the dust that tended to float in the air of the grandstand had been tamped down by a sudden and thorough rain. 

The loudspeakers pushed out a mix of country music that in another place, at another time, might have passed for bumble gum pop.

The announcer claimed he didn't care about our politics or religion, but sent his own views as messages out into the air. Praying first for the athletes that would, against all of Willie Nelson's advice be defying their mothers in what profession they grew up to pursuit.

My daughter called "bull-shirt" and smiled as my gaze followed her pointer finger toward the arena, where a very fine bovine specimen was depositing a specimen of his own in the freshly raked footing.

We sat and waited as the rodeo clowns took their positions. 

Now, I could say that I knew what to expect as I'd seen plenty of bull riding film footage to understand the basics, but this would, indeed, be my first time at the rodeo. But I wasn't exactly prepared for the realities of watching a human rag doll flailing around on top of a pointy-horned-animal that weighed more than our family sedan. 

And for the first four seconds (which, as it turns out, is the equivalent of the combined rides of two or three cowpokes) I was able to harbor the misguided belief that rodeo riders, like cats, are prone to land on their feet.

But just as my shoulders started to

receded from my ears, a third bull and

and rider burst forth from the gate. The tension renewed as my daughter started counting Mississippis.

Rounding up to eight Mississippis, we realized the excitement had somehow shifted to panic as the crowd realized the rider had dismounted but couldn't get his leg free of a rope that connected him to the bull. Together they continued to spin awkwardly on the dirt footing.

It seemed like it could go on like this forever when the rider fell facedown in a direction that from our vantage point seemed to be squarely under the bull.

I couldn't watch. 

My daughter couldn't turn away.

There was a gasp from the crowd.

I opened my eyes in time to see the man hop up unharmed as the rodeo clowns guided the animal back into the chute.

The crowd let out a collective sigh and began to cheer.

But I couldn't hear the applause from the heartbeat pounding in my chest. My daughter stood up and announced she was done, thankyouverymuch. ... she sounded just like she had when she was five, and the animated leopard seal tried to devour the primary penguin in what felt like the first eight seconds of the movie "Happy Feet." 

Neither spectacle wasn't for her.

But I had to admit the potential for real-world suffering seemed to be at least part of the appeal.

This time, I didn't try to talk her into toughing it out. I just stood up and walked out behind her. 

Maybe this wasn't our first rodeo after all.

Sunday drive

She's waiting for me in the car — my sidekick on an errand in which I will buy milk and eggs. On our way, we'll rehearse our own lost episode of Gilmore Girls.

"Will you teach me how to drive?"

"I don't know, will I?"

"Be serious."

She looked at me with almost the exact same expression of the little girl who had informed me in earnest not ten years prior that she would never, ever, ever, no way, no how, not ever, not even in a million years, EVER, want to be the person behind the wheel of a car. 

And yet here she was, six months before reaching the grand old age of vehicular viability -- feet finally reaching the pedals -- begging me to let her take a spin in the family sedan, slow, on the driveway.

I had laughed way back then as her sing-song voice insisted that she would never leave home, or get married, or learn which petal makes the car move and which makes the car stop. Of course, I told her that her tune would change one day, she would just have to wait.

The waiting was but the work of a moment.

I'm going to admit that I demurred for a bit, knowing full and well that this was a moment her father would savor. He would draw out the process so that it would be a rite of passage.

Just as my father once explained to me.

With him, she would learn about tire pressure and brake fluid and checking the oil. He would teach her to use jumper cables and know how to extract the jack from its hiding place behind the spare tire. He would explain the lights and signals and make her practice using the windshield wipers for hours -- or possibly days -- before he'd ever let her turn on the ignition.

Each task a test of her worthiness to navigate my old clunker slow around the circular drive.

There's a part of me that thinks he will be the better instructor. Not that his Y chromosome gives him an advantage over my double X for explaining Y-Turns or how to approach various X-ings (from pedestrian to railroad to four-way stops) ... it's just that he drives trucks for a living ... and understands (to a more substantial degree) the mechanics of mechanical tinkering. 

I don't want to take that away from him. But I also know he doesn't have to be the first person to orbit this particular moon. 

Because right now she's asking me: The person whose driven her to and from the babysitter's house, and school events, and doctors' appointments and dance class. To gymnastics and to summer camp, and to play practice and back-to-school shopping. To friends' houses, and to summer jobs, and functions where it's expected I will wait in the car (perhaps slouched down below the window level, so as not to embarrass her) not that I do.

This is where I learn about her day. She shares her thoughts and ideas. Sometimes she just talks to herself, and I just listen. 

So I turn the car off and get out. Wordlessly crossing in front and opening the passenger side door as she watches me, mouth slightly agape.

"Go on. Get behind the wheel."

She doesn't quite believe my intentions are real as she retraces my steps back to the driver's side. She automatically buckles up.

I make her adjust the seat and check her mirrors.

I notice how she moves for the brake with her left foot and explain how that's a bad habit she should jettison now. "Right foot only for automatic transmissions.

I give her one instruction only. We're going to move slowly. Apply little to no pressure on the gas pedal at first, let's see how we roll."

Practice makes perfect.

"Start the car."

Which she does, easily and without the metal upon metal grinding a newbie often sparks until they realize the engine has already caught on.

She'd already learned that mistake this past winter as her anxiety to get to school early outpaced my dawdling to plunk myself down into an icy cold car seat, and I let her be the remote starter.

I do have a slight tinge of guilt. It passes.

Her dad will revel in this work.

He would have her check off a list as long as the driveway before he'd ever let her sit behind the wheel. He'd have her changing tires and washing windows and draining and replacing all the fluids. 

I was going to let her drive the car forward fifty feet, up one small hill, around one slight curve, coming to a stop a car's length or more from the intersection of a sparsely traveled roadway at the end of the driveway.

Surrounded by trees and loose gravel.

I was beginning to have second thoughts ... There are so many trees I just never noticed before in this forest.

In fewer than two minutes, the ride was over. 

We were unscathed. Yet in those 120 seconds, I had instructed my daughter to ease forward, press on the gas slightly more and tap the brakes gently. I also held the wheel so the car would edge leftward at least twice. I'm only the least bit ashamed to admit that I braced myself for the possibility of being launched (at least metaphorically) through the windshield. 

And yes ... I pressed hard on the imaginary passenger-side brake, which comes standard on most vehicles but only appears when the primary driver is seated on the passenger side.

Success.

No quarter panels (or trees) were harmed in the making of this memory, partly because I helped steer us around that first corner. Only a minor rut in the recently grated and pressed gravel resulted. (Totally fixable with a rake).

She didn't need to ask, "How was my driving?" as we switched places and moved on with our tasks.

The most important lesson she learned first hand: that it was in equal parts easier than she expected and more complicated than she imagined. Totally something practice with her father would make perfect.

Instead, she asked how her driving would affect me.

"I will certainly miss these talks."

No small change

The old-time-y filling station hadn't changed one iota in comparison to the neighborhood in which it was rooted.

The clapboard structure donned the same light grey coat of paint it had worn for decades — a working relic of a bygone standard.

A kid jogged out from the office at the sound of a tire-tripped bell. I noticed his t-shirt, visible through his unzipped coveralls, took a cheeky dig at a former president.

I became annoyed that I'd have to tip this guy. And in my mind he was equally peeved he had to provide service with a smile. Of course, he'd notice the one-word feminist slogan on my Fruit-Of-The-Loom. 

He smiled uneasily at me as I came to a stop near the pump.

I'm the kind of motorist who frequents the more impersonal stations: swiping my card before pumping my own. I rarely need help, but have, on occasion, been grateful for the slightly-annoyed sounding disembodied voice calling out from a crackly speaker to reset the machine.

The fewer words exchanged, the better. You never have to make the awkward assessment of weighing service against an appropriate amount of gratuity.

But this place was legend in the eyes of the locals. There was a personal touch here that went beyond being neighborly.

A single mechanic in a two-bay garage worked on cars while politi-kid pumped fuel and washed windows at the four-pump island in front — small jobs at smaller costs, mostly, for local patrons.

I didn't need gas, but the light on my dashboard reported a tire pressure problem, and this was the nearest place.

"Filler-up" I said awkwardly, realizing somewhere around the hyphen that it was an expression that didn't suit me. I must have pulled it out of a sitcom, as I've never used it before or known anyone who has.

My cloddishness continued as I stammered through an overly-worded question aimed at getting my genuine desire: to have him check and fill

the tires. Which he did at a glacial, albeit, methodical pace.

When it was almost over, the kid dipped his head into the open passenger-side window and leveled the tally:

"That'll be 11 dollars."

I handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change. He thanked me and tapped the car, the official symbol for the transactions' end.

As I turned the key in the ignition and adjusted in my seat, the thought occurred to me: there wasn't a thing I'd rather do with my money at that moment than spend it on another human being. 

It's just a small kindness, not something that's owed.

As much as I would like to think I've matured into understanding the value of small change, I've learned it from watching my kids.

And even though nine bucks wasn't going to put a dent into my kids' education funds, they wouldn't have minded.

My son is always ready with the five-star reviews and new and better ways to gush on comment cards. He also keeps a keen eye out for tip jars. Doesn't matter how small a gesture is made in his direction, he's always willing to round up for the sake of humanity.

Maybe that little bit extra will be able to lift something higher, even if only as little as a mood.

Playa-ble

She wasn't playing.

"You always make me look like a little girl," she said in exasperation. Cheeks too full. Expression too invested in whatever it was that occupied her. Caught in my eye, she saw only the baby she'd been in the old picture albums.

The mysterious teenager she has been cultivating in the mirror was nowhere to be found.

Though she agreed, for old-times' sake, to let me take pictures of her in the waning light of latest summer, the procedure was entirely new.

The edges of her hair took on the gold of the sun. It crept past her ears and spilled onto her cheeks just enough to add glow.

She tilted her head to the side and made a face. The expression was a practiced one: nose scrunched and lips pursed. Eyes small and sharp. The loo seems to be all-knowing, all-seeing.

One click, and then another. Looking toward the lens and then quickly away.

It was clear who was in charge. I merely followed her lead. 

"Ok, show me."

I handed over the camera while looking off in the distance as if it were some item of contraband. 

We weren't the only tourists trying to mark the occasion taking pictures as we walked in the sand, though my daughter tends to appear more selfie conscious than your average teen.

But other kids were traveling around with their friends, holding pocket cameras. She was being trailed by her mother, with what anyone under two-decades-old could plainly see was The Hubble Telescope.

People smiled at me as they passed by; all of them still the wiser. Their kids were likely nearby, equally oblivious to our presence.

"Ughhhhh!" She uttered in a low growl as she scrolled through the pictures I'd just taken. Making, even more, sounds I wished I could mute.

"I look terrible. You are waaaaay too close."

She explains her process: her face must be partially obscured (on both sides) evenly by her hair. The bones of her cheeks can't rise or fall any discernible distance, and she must be looking straight ahead. She prefers portraits taken from the back ... Christina's World" style.

She handed the camera to me and got back into formation. This time we each backed away as if we were challenging one another to a duel.

"Should I try again?"

"You should try again."

The sun was setting on the beach, and we were losing the light.

My timing was off, too. But my daughter's agreeance to stare into my lens took me by surprise.

"Stand there," she instructed. Positioning me as an opposing force to the sunset. "Raise the camera higher .... higher still."

I did as instructed and just snapped away as she leaned in, and then turned out and, finally, tilted sideways. 

No more than a minute went by.

"That's enough. Let me see," she said as I handed over the gear.

"Oh ... there are actually some good ones. Nice going, mom. You've finally let me grow up."

I'm thinking of an animal

First confession: I am never thinking of an animal. 

It's true.

Since it's my turn, and we are trapped in a car, I don't stop to think. Even the slightest hesitation would show my weakness, which I will put on full display anyway once I allow the 20-Questions portion of the game to begin. 

"What's the hint?"

My usual strategy would be a hedge. I will offer the size of my imaginary animal as being bigger (or smaller) than a bread box. 

But I'm tired of using comparisons that have missed their generational relevance by a count of two. 

I choose a more obvious dodge, one that won't paint me into a corner before the yes-or-no questions take effect: "It's super cute!"

Mind you I STILL haven't chosen an animal. I figure I have a least two, possibly three, more questions before I was at risk of having to "discover" an entirely new species and secretly create a Wikipedia page to fein "proof" of its existence before I'd be caught in my own web of deception and ridiculed mercilessly.

I figured wrong.

"It's mom cute, which means it's gotta be ugly somewhere."

We hadn't been playing our oldest and least annoying Long-Car-Trip game, "I'm Thinking Of An Animal," for even a single round when my eldest scorched me with this little burning ember of truth.

"Some people have faces only a mother could love, right? Well, our mother only seems to love those kinda faces."

It doesn't help to disagree. Both kids have the will and ability to prove their points with the help of 4G cellular internet access at their fingertips.

And that, dear reader, is how 27 minutes into a four-and-a-half-hour journey I was forced to realize my family not only has coalesced around this painfully obvious trait of mine, which has managed to elude my fraught self consciousness, but also an illustrative fact that lemurs are, indeed, "creepy looking."

I have to concede the point. Especially in light of a quick Google Image search revealing that the source material for Disney's King Julian didn't leave much room for exaggeration. 

While I quietly acknowledge the graceful herons posing in lush marshland and the sturdy ships in glistening harbors as we cruise past. I am bubbling with excitement the moment I see a giant inflatable lobster tethered to the roof of a seafood restaurant.

Eighty-seven minutes into the ride and the only sound inside the passenger cabin is the crunching of bagged popcorn and the rumble of the road.

The kids have plugged in and tuned out. No amount of oohing and ahhing over a horizon line cut by giant pines and marshy bogs is going to distract them from their personal tubes.

Ugly somewhere. The thought rings in my head. Aren't we all ugly somewhere? And not just in the asymmetry of our outward features, but also in the distressed resilience of our inward features? Our jealousies? Our inhibitions? Our insecurities? Our pain.

No one in this car wants to play this game.

"I'm thinking of an animal. ... It sticks its head in the sand."

Painterly

Things started appearing in the hallway, eventually creating a topsy-turvy tower. Taking a closer look, I could see the construction: a coat rack, some shoes, and boxes and bags and other containers that never made their way into the recycling.

Toys also lined the walls and dotted the floor, making a trip to the washroom reminiscent of a game of Angry Birds come to life, only with the new goal of avoiding the newly displaced's collapse.

Each thing sat with a look of shock, the glassy-eyed stare of sudden homelessness.

A stuffed bear with a maple leaf t-shirt and a doll with a horrified expression sat together next to a pile of picture books, none of which had had hands placed on them in years.

Framed slogans of flowery intent leaned against bags of old and not-so-old clothes she had either mentally or physically outgrown.

Their shelves now empty and dusted clean.

The teen had started clearing out her room in preparation for the third decorative makeover of her residency.

I felt surprisingly calm as I tiptoed around the stuff that once orbited her childhood, and was now staged for its final jettison into the great unknown.

Maybe it was because I didn't have to lift a finger. That was the deal.

The pink of her primary years was long gone, but the toil it took to slap two coats of tropical turquoise onto her walls was still fresh in my mind. The preteen years go by so fast.

So far, she has done all the heavy lifting, if not the financing.

She had chosen the color and had invited a friend to help paint the walls a particular shade of soft gray. "Alaskan Husky," to be specific.

I wonder if she will think of her room as the frozen Tundra.

In her younger days, the name rather than the hue would have been the reason for the selection. I might have to take that back, seeing as how I picked "Raccoon" for the dark gray of our house's exterior … so that I could think about living inside a trash panda.

But I digress.

It's some sort of magic I think as we wait for the paint clerk to mix the paint colors and smudge a sample on top of the can.

"It dries darker," she said.

The concept is as familiar to my daughter as the prep work she's already completed.

She has moved the furniture to the center of the room and draped it in old sheets. She's taped off the edges of the ceiling and the molding.

She even knows the preferred roller technique: the Y formation.

Getting two coats of paint up in one afternoon will seem like child's play. 

Only less messy.

There's barely a drop of excess paint on anything, let alone the cloth made for catching them.  There are no dabs of paint on the ceiling for me to cover over in flat white.

A clothes rack, some baskets and a new rug ... that really ties the room together.

The result seems sophisticated beyond my years, let alone hers.

Summer job

During the summer of my sixteenth year, I toiled away in the kitchen of a beloved local Italian restaurant.

Most weekend evenings at four p.m., I'd trudge up a cement ramp to the kitchen entrance and step from an August swelter into a maelstrom of preparation for the soon-to-be packed house.

It was the kind of place where three generations of one family happily overfed three generations of their neighbors' families, six days a week, including Sundays, for decades.

One parent ran the front; the other ran the back. The brothers lined up the meals, and the sisters served. It wasn't especially easy to tell the relatives from the non-relations who filled out the remainder of the staff, but we were all there: the waitstaff, and the bussers, and the dishwashers, and me.

I was the person you'd call for take-out orders: Pizza, veal parm, shrimp scampi, pasta in various shapes and sizes, and antipasti, which, I learned that summer, was not pasta at all, but a salad with meats and cheeses.

I'm not entirely sure I was good at my job, but I grew to feel somewhat accomplished. After all, I knew the difference between spaghetti, linguini, cavatelli, rigatoni, penne, ziti, and angel hair pastas.

The phone would ring, and I'd wedge it between my shoulder and chin. I'd scribble as the voice on the other end read off a list. I'd always ask if they wanted garlic bread before I told them when their order would be ready: 45 minutes to an hour. The garlic bread was my favorite.

I'd hang the ticket in front of its first destination. It would wind its way down the line, picking up salads and sides until the ticket and its corresponding boxes of food appeared at my station. I would bag them and clip the ticket to the top. The hostess or the bartender would appear through the swinging doors when the customers arrived, and I'd hand off their meals.

It was a process that would continue at least twenty times a night before the shift ended, and my father would be waiting for me in the parking lot. I would get in holding a small brown envelope filled with my wages and a share of the tips. Each figure painstakingly noted in the matriarch's steady handwriting on its pre-printed front, along with the taxes and fees that had been taken out.

I haven't thought about those days, or how hard everyone worked - seemingly independent of the others but seamlessly integrated like a watch for a sole purpose. I never thought about how lucky I was to be at the end of that line.

To be honest, I was surprised at the clarity of those memories as they came streaming back to me these many years later. Maybe something about waiting in a parked car for my daughter jogged them back.

Who, being more outgoing and personable than I had ever been, came sauntering out of her first official job interview with an unmistakable smile.

"I'm their newest employee," she said with a little squeal for emphasis as she got into the car. "I start next week."

Your happy place

During dark moments, people always tell you to go to your happy place.

I always thought of this as an imaginary land, where everything is glorious, and nothing hurts. My happy place has a river and kids splashing in it and dogs digging holes to their hearts' content in the soft sand. Of course, they are off-leash, because they always come when they're called.

Recently I found out that my happy place really does exist. As it happens, the site materialized out of my wildest imagination by the banks of the Hudson in a town called Stuyvesant. It's not without its downside: located just over two sets of railroad track, where commuter trains travel at 80 miles per hour.

I didn't find this place by accident.

A friend told me about it. She explained where I should park and how I should walk there: it's a bit tricky, as the first attempt felt like having to be guided by faith.

I didn't quite believe I could safely walk along the train tracks, but she assured me the trains no longer use those outer lanes.

The dogs pulled against the leashes as I leaned backward, barely a human governor on their progress. The river ran alongside us, egging us onward. They scampered over the cobble, daring me to stay upright.

Once we found the opening in the trees, we slid down the bank together. None of them worried for my safety.

As soon as we'd gotten to the beach, my gaggle of growlers slowed to a crawl. Too many things to see and smell, and not near enough slack in the now tangle of leashes.

I had made a point to ensure it would be low tide. I checked the charts, made aware by my friend it wouldn't be much fun at high tide when twice a day the river swallows up the beach.

But with the water drawn back, hundreds of yards of oddities are uncovered. Such as the roots of trees tiptoeing forward, sending out scouts that somehow grow strong without soil. Taking deep drafts of river water and small sips, they don't seem worse for wear.

Without trash cans, one would think the detritus would be ankle-deep, but most visitors, it seems, pack out what they pack in. The only junk to be seen must have washed up from the river: Shards of glass are still transparent and sharp. River glass doesn't get tumbled to softness as it does in the sea.

I pick up some litter and take it with me, dumped in a bag along with the "do" the dogs paused long enough to deposit.

I am determined to leave no trace even when no one is watching.

But since we are alone, I unclip the leashes from their collars. I call them back as a test before I let them romp and roll, and dig in the soft sand.

Just watching them lowers my blood pressure.

Everything they do is joy personified: They jump over tree trunks; They wade in the thin marshy grass; They roll, pounce and splash at the river's edge. They are happy. I am happy. We are lucky to be here. Lucky to be living in this time and lucky to have found this place.

Jackpot

Clickety-clank clunk. Rattley-rattatattley-roll. Clang-y-clang-y-clang. Tink.

Diiiiiiiiiing!

I don't expect a jackpot.

Lately, the mechanical churn of the clothes dryer has been anything but dull in my house. Mid-cycle, the machine begins to resonate with the sharp metallic sounds of chaos.

I tend to follow the head-plunged-in-sand form of household detective work.

Had I been driving in my car, I would have held my breath and turned up the volume of the radio.

Had I been laundering sneakers that manage to kick their way free, I wouldn't have given the struggle a second thought.

The dishwasher made some noise last week that did sound right. I didn't even flinch. After all, what could that thing possibly do to me that is worse than not washing the dishes properly anyway?

But all this dread piling on pokes my consciousness into higher awareness. Has something else gone awry? Has an integral part shimmied free from the clothes dryer's bindings, sounding an alarm that catastrophe looms?

I've already managed to work around the door with a few screws missing. If I push it upwards as I slam it closed it will find its perfect fit.

The untimely death of its motherboard could orphan our bulky loads permanently.

No need to panic just yet ...

More likely it's just some loose change or a treasure stashed and forgotten: a drill bit; or a rock shaped like something extraordinary ... a heart, no doubt.

It is the rare resident who empties their pockets before tossing the day's togs in the hamper.

Not that I ever check to see if there is anything of value mingling within. I just stuff the lot of it unceremoniously into to the tub. Whites, Darks, Delicates? Pre- and spot-treat your garments? Psssssssssshaw. You are old enough now … but feel free to lodge any complaints with my wholely imaginary toll-free line: 1-800-DO-IT-YOURSELF!

Not that the toll-free line doesn't accept the other parent's credit no matter how much of his cash I have laundered over the years in these very machines. ...

You know ... like the two-day-old iPhone that inadvertently took a swim with the husband's work clothes … .

And the countless clothes (as well as the inside of the dryer drum) permanently marked by all the miniature sharpies a certain someone left in his pockets.

I'd like to think all the money that wound up in my coffers was figuratively a wash.

The room suddenly goes silent. An error message blinks unexpectedly.

I'm not worried. Sometimes it does that. Every device in the house harbors its own quirks.

I open the door, slide my hand into the whirl of warm fabrics, and check for dampness.

"Just a little bit longer," I tell the machine as if a soothing tone will make all the difference.

I reposition the clothes, reset the controls, and press Start again.

Nothing.

Once more ... with feeling.

This time the dryer comes to life, cascading the fabrics effortlessly and without the sinister clunking. 

This alone makes me feel as if I won the grand prize. Not that I expect a jackpot, just a couple of quarters when this cycle finally ends.

Best medicine

Every time the phone rings, I hold my breath a little. The air catches somewhere between my lungs and my throat. My heart beats faster.

Phone calls after prime time are the most affecting.

I always imagine the worst: An ending for someone, or at least the beginning of the end. 

Maybe it will start with a trip to a hospital. My heel rises and falls against the flooring to the rhythm of my own uncertainty. Will I be the one to decide if it will be-transportation-by-ambulance or if whatever it is that ails them can wait the 20 minutes until I get there?

Will I make the right choice?

The phone is still ringing.

I'm always ahead of myself. Mind racing with worst-case-scenarios until I lift the receiver.

A long pause between my tepid "hello" and some sunny voice -- the current ruse of  I'm-not-trying-to-sell-you-anything sales callers -- that isn't even human means I can hang up with neither pomp nor politeness.

I will inhale deeply and relax.

If there is an immediate voice at the other end of the line, it most likely belongs to my sister or my father. Sometimes both, as they live together and will trade off the handset like a game of hot potato. 

"Talk to him," she'll say with the exasperation of being able to move the stone wall in her midst. 

"Oh hi," he says. "What's up?"

"Sis tells me she's worried about you."

 All of us connected now, old school-like with tangled, tethered cords and modest fees for long distance despite our geographical locations separated by only 11 miles.

"Aw ... I'm fine. But I have this pain in my side. I didn't notice it until you left earlier today. Now it's just excruciating when I stand up and walk around. It doesn't hurt at all when I sit down, though."

He sounds a might anxious. 

"It doesn't sound too serious. Maybe you just pulled something."

I'm trying to sound cool.

For a moment, I wish caller ID could run the data for me. Check my work. Push a chyron of questions to ask so I could be sure my recommendation -- two extra-strength acetaminophen tablets and relaxing in a chair for the evening -- wouldn't amount to filial malpractice. 

But I don't have caller ID, and furthermore, I don't think I'd like a service that could cooly diagnose illnesses with ease of Dr. Google MD. I definitely wouldn't be about to fight my way out of that spiraling rabbit hole.

I trust the internets less than I trust myself. 

 All I can do is hang up and wait for the next phone call.

Which will happen in about 30 minutes ... 

Ring-ring ring-ring?

It's my dad.

"Hey, I gotta tell you something. I found a tick on the dog. It took me about a half hour to get it off of her. It was still alive! So as I was taking it outside, you won't believe what happened ...

"That pain in my side just disappeared."

The dam that had held back my breath finally broke, releasing with it a flood of laughter, the best medicine of all.