Thursday, May 29, 2014

Sanctuary

A guy I knew from high school passed away a few days ago.  He was a friend to many. 

It is an exaggeration for me to say he was “my friend” because I never really hung out with him nor did I walk the halls with him at school…I never went over to his house for his birthday nor did I offer him a shoulder at any time.  We might have sat beside each other in a math class.  Unfortunately, that would be the extent of our closeness. 

It is usually true that when someone dies, folks attempt to highlight the connection between themselves and the one who has passed.  Many will abruptly elevate an acquaintance to a really good friend.

It seems we want others to understand we knew this person, and we feel like we need to exaggerate to facilitate this. 

Maybe we are trying to embellish how affected we are by this passing, in hopes that we will chisel through our own complicated layers and realize how fortunate we are to still be among the living,

And we will “snap out of it” – whatever “it” might be. 

Maybe we innocently perceive it as a chance to let loose some of the emotions we keep cooped up inside. 

Whatever it is – we experience death when we hear about it. 

Even if you ignore it, you are still responding to it – you are just employing denial.


But, I went to school with the recently-departed for 6 years – grades 7 through 12,  a time in my life when I was reading every face for clues – clues telling me who was harmless; who was triumphant; who was cruel; who was on my side…which person was the most like me.  I am sure I read his face a thousand times, so there is a familiarity. 

In fact, I can picture his face perfectly right now. I haven’t seen him in 25 years, so I try to age him in my mind, but he comes right back as being probably around 12 years old.  

He had a head of curly blonde hair, a kind smile; gentle eyes, and a bashful red flush that would come over his face; this bashful flush was disarming – observable shyness; I knew he would never do anything to hurt me, and that is probably why I spent less time getting to know him.

What a twisted approach to happiness I had.

Back then, I was in the habit of expending half my energy on outrunning unprovoked foes and the other half befriending a challenge. 

A shy, kind soul would have likely gone unnoticed by me in my constant tragedy mode, but I am certain he did not go unappreciated by all those more reasonable.

But, yet,

I am sure I was happy when his seat was next to mine, instead of a foe sitting next to me.

I am sure I was happy when his body stood next to mine in a line, instead of a challenge standing next to me.




He was sanctuary.





And so, for me, without ever realizing it until this minute, this shy, kind guy from high school is well-regarded in my memory.

We don’t often realize how vast, how deep, and how detailed our sphere of knowing is, and I am certain we don’t grasp how many people are inside of it and the roles they played then and play now in our daily interactions…how we use the most ordinary connections from the past to feed what we are doing right now.

For instance, if – today - I saw a man with a head of curly hair and a pink flush on his face, I would be disarmed, and I wouldn't even know why.

The people from our past are present in our today, even though we would never comprehend that as we go along.  Everyone we repeatedly interacted with…even on the smallest scale…has a place in our now.  Some of those impressions are positive…some are quite negative.  Most are somewhere in between.  But, they are here. 

Even when they are gone from sight…
Even when they are gone from the Earth…

Even as we are all getting closer to our own death.

And when I am gone,
I can conclude that only my children will mourn, along with a few relatives, and probably a small number of dear friends. 

But, maybe there will be faraway acquaintances that will remember me, too – people with whom I may not have spent much time or to whom I spoke few words,

but when I was near, their head didn't have to spin with doubt; I allowed them to feel safe, accepted, and relaxed:


Sanctuary.



I am thankful for every sanctuary I never knew I knew.













Sunday, May 25, 2014

Empathy

Shirtless is very brave, but when faced with an insect, he screams a lot like a rabbit in distress. 

Have you ever heard a rabbit in distress?  It sounds just like a kid screaming. 



We used to keep pet rabbits in our backyard.  There was the first time a predator came near the rabbits in the night, and we (well, not we – I…I woke – Husband doesn't wake in the night because of sounds…Husband wakes in the night if you take his blankets, but he doesn't respond to sounds…sounds like a bullhorn, for instance)….

In any case,

I woke to a horrific squeal and went running out back to see what was happening to Shirtless…or maybe Pixie at 3 AM in the backyard…because – of course – children hanging out in the backyard at three in the morning IS an option, after all. 

It wasn't Shirtless…or Pixie…they were in their beds, which I learned after I went back IN the house to check their beds, and then ran into MY bedroom to WHIP the blankets off Husband….

What WAS that?

Well, I later learned it was a…yep…rabbit in distress, and a couple rabbit in distress calls later, and I was able to stay asleep while distinguishing between rabbit in distress and kid in distress. 

However, it has been years since the rabbits, and if I were to hear a sound like a rabbit in distress today, I would know – without a doubt –because I no longer have pet rabbits - that it is Shirtless paralyzed by the presence of a bug in his operating area.





Yes.  Shirtless.  Big, Bad Shirtless…

Shirtless don’t do bugs. 

For instance, we have a moth situation gaining momentum in our minivan.  I am expecting the seats to be devoid of any upholstery any day now.  The moths don’t do much divebombing of passengers during the day – I dunno…is this the way of the moth…night bombers?  Don’t care.  I just know that AT NIGHT moths mingle with my children in the minivan, and most of my kids find this a good way to break up the monotony in the backseat after a long day, smashing the moths on the ceiling and trying to make as long a streak as possible with the moth dust.  Good times to be had back there.

But – SHIRTLESS don’t play moth smashing games.  In fact, Shirtless thinks I am some sort of sadist because I seatbelt him into his chair in the torture chamber we like to call, “the minivan.”  He claims he heard me say, “I am going to strap you down and moths are going to attack you.” 

However,  I am laying a bet that I said, “LET me strap you down or I am going to attack you.” 

It hurts to be so continually misunderstood.

So, driving down the road at night with Shirtless strapped into his torture device is way up there on my list of things to avoid at all costs.  He sounds like a condemned man back there.  If I am somewhere away from home, with Shirtless, and it starts to get dark, I get very agitated and panicky, and I make a quick departure.  I am like a reverse vampire.  


But, up until recently, I have NOT had much compassion for Shirtless.  I am being honest.  I drive all tense, hysterically yelling to the older kids, “Keep the moths away from him!”  And then I instantaneously switch my tone and softly call back thoughtful remarks to Shirtless like, “They are just BUGS!” and “They don’t bite!”  and “Why do you care if they eat your clothes?”  and “Your clothes didn't cost that much – let em eat em!”

But – no dice.  Shirtless doesn't do bugs…not moths…not any bugs...and not spiders, absolutely NOT spiders.





CUE the fleas.

My animals recently experienced a – let us call it – infestation of fleas.  I put cheap flea medicine on them – because….well, because I am cheap.  Hardly a flea died.  I actually heard fleas chuckling.  I heard a flea say, “Watch this,” and then I saw him stick his little flea finger into the poison on my dog’s back, then stuck it in his flea mouth, and then grabbed his little flea throat and started to pretend to choke and stagger backwards…


So, I went and bought expensive flea medication because I dislike smart a$$ insects.

But, now – we have the aftermath…flea eggs hatching…flea circuses open for business…in my living room.


Let us complicate this flea condition with another little detail: 

my hair is falling out. 


Irrelevant, you say? 

I beg to differ.  Of course, I am not saying that the fleas are to blame for my hair falling out.  I am not even blaming my children. 

My hair is falling out because I am far enough out from the birth of Baby Child that…well…it is time for my luxurious pregnant-lady extra-hair…to bite the dust.

And bite the dust it shall.

Hair is FLYING out.

It is FLYING out and landing on my arms and on my legs and in Baby Child’s mouth, and I know this to be true because Baby Child keeps pooping my hair.

It is not the poop that is the problem.  For once.


It is the hairs landing on my arms and my legs.

Every time a hair tickles my arm…or my leg…I think I am being attacked by a flea.  I jump up, do karate moves, get the willies (that looks like a full body shimmy – you know, and you contort your arms in all sorts of bizarre ways, sort like you are doing the wave, with your body, but it looks funky), and I cry out, things like, “Do I have a flea on me…Do I have a flea on me…Do I have a flea on me…(x100).” 

And, my children come in to watch the show.  Shirtless even comes.  He is the only one who has compassion.  He comes over and says, “Let me see,”

And he grabs a chunk of my hair – forcefully – lifts his nose and says, “Maybe.”


I don’t.  I mean, do I?  No.  Of course, I don’t, and I know that I don’t.  Because.  I am a clean person, and I Googled fleas, and they don’t like to live on people;

I was typing on the computer…reading more about slaying fleas and having fleas…I was drinking a LOT of coffee, and a hair hit my arm,

DISTRESSED RABBIT CALL!





It was then,

I thought about my 4-year old, strapped into his car seat…

I felt really awful that I haven’t done more to save Shirtless from the moths.







Friday, May 23, 2014

How Are Your Pipes?

In my last post, I attempted to demonstrate that you don’t get to select how you will be separated from your faults, your weakness…your sin.

I mean, sure – you can take a crack at certain painless daily actions to try to stay on top of it all, and you might even brag and tell people about those actions, and you will paint them as sacrificial and “hard.”

and that is good…I mean, the bragging about your sacrifices is kinda odd…BUT…hey…

you surely shouldn't just sit on your couch and expect a daily shower of perfection dust to just sprinkle down on you and take away your iniquity…while you chug a beer.

So, go ahead…boast about your humility…(try Facebook…it is GREAT for that)…

And while you are doing THAT:

Our Father will be lining up the heavy artillery fire.  Oh…I am sorry – that sounds so brutal.  OK…how is this: 

you study, and The Lord gets your midterm ready.






And…then we’ll get to see how much you learned via your little daily exercises…now, won’t we?  Hm.  He will give you something to crow about…

Or blog about…




You are not allowed to PICK your purification.  

You aren't permitted the choice of “Well, I am very prideful, so I will just hide in my house, nice and safe, and the world will just forget about me, and I will forget about me, and it won’t hurt at all.  It will just go away.  OK.  Good.  Phew.  God will never see me in here…in my house.”

You cannot hide.



This is like your son telling you, “Ground me in my room.”

Have you SEEN his room?

Exactly. 

Not only can you not hide…but…

The Lord can read your MIND.



-BLAMMO!-




Embarrassing, right…cause YOU KNOW what you were thinking about…Ew.  



We try to read our kid’s mind, and we claim that we can, but – come on…you are just hoping you are right…you have NO idea what that kid is up to…

But, OUR Father IS right about YOU.

But, worse than that…worse than THAT –

He knows what you don’t even know you know.  The Lord knows what you are thinking about that you are not even thinking about,






Take a few moments and process that...put your brains back together... I’ll wait.


(Sometimes coffee helps….)



And THAT my friend, the fact that we are completely oblivious to our deepest disgustingness is why we need the heavy artillery fire….the BIG GUNS –


To BLAST that out of there.

And it WILL FEEL like a blast.  Jesus will not tickle you under the arm and say, “No more…kay?  No more of that kinda stuff?  Right?”

Nope.

Just be glad that Jesus is a mindreader.

Because what if ALL that GROSSNESS just collected in there…deep in YOU…all that naughtiness…



Picture the drain in your tub…all that hair, bunched up in the drain and wrapped around the top of that army man with one leg that is wedged down in there, kinda sideways, and you cannot get that out there, but there is enough of an opening that water can still get down…but it just takes the tub like…I dunno…maybe 12…13 hours to drain after a bath…but – HEY – it is draining, so it is cool, and your husband doesn't use that bathroom, and the kids think that is normal….




And, you think it is the hairy army man causing the problem, and you are really okay with the situation…you just keep unwrapping a few of the hairs from around his head, and you make the opening a LITTLE bit bigger…until it starts to collect again, and then you do it again…small steps…getting you by…I mean, it is annoying, always having to bend over and pull on scummy human hair, but it can be done on the fly.  I mean, you can actually reach the drain – from the toilet – so…

but – one day – the tub won’t drain at all…

You are so dead.  So, you rearrange the food budget for the month a bit (pancakes every other day), and you free up some plumber cash…

and the plumber comes, and he uses apparently highly expensive tools made of gold to release the army man, and he gets it out, and the comedian/plumber is so impressed by what he finds hanging on the OTHER side of the army man, the side that was down IN the drain, the part you couldn't see…that he has to BRING it to you so you can share in that moment with him, that moment when he is holding up a root system of hair, candy wrappers, one of those little plastic covers to the top of a razor, and a broken water balloon, and he displays it in front of  you like it is a 12-inch long Big Mouth Bass, and he asks you, while snorting, “Did you have a party in the tub?” 



And– inside your head - but with your head actually moving back and forth a bit, you mimic him in a fast high voice, “Did you have a party in the tub?” 

Hm.

We don’t take the time to clean up our pipes…because you don’t even know half of what is in there.  You think it is just a matter of what we see each day…stuff you can fix while also doing something else. 

What is more – you have likely adjusted yourself to operating with the clog caused by ALL of what is in there.  You have just resigned yourself to cleaning at the very top of the drain - the visible part - every time you use the toilet.

We are complicating our lives.  Going to the bathroom is not supposed to be so much work.

I am a secret mess.  You are, too.

But…we are good actors.  Your neighbor doesn't know about your mess, so don’t worry.  Your best friend “might” be on to it, but you can trust her not to say anything to you because her job is to build you up, and you will stop calling her if she starts telling you the truth,

BUT, your HUSBAND –

oh…

he has been sent by Jesus Himself to get you into heaven, sister…

so YOUR HUSBAND has God-given super powers when it comes to you. 



He can see some of what Jesus sees.

Not ALL of it (deep sigh of relief)…

But…Husband can see a lot of creepy stuff about you that you are not willing to deal with…

And he has been telling you about this stuff for YEARS,

And you “heard” him.  You DID hear it.  Yes.  You did.  Yes you did.

– just buy more shoes. 

“That strange feeling in my soul must be related to a shoe-shortage.”





Jesus knows what is in the drain…
Jesus knows what is in the pipes...
Jesus knows your husband is right about you…
Jesus knows you will ignore your husband because husband is not perfect either, so you are going to just make yourself right by making husband wrong…
And then you will make yourself feel better…at some shoe store…and you are so desperate to get to the shoe store that you are going to take your kids with you to the shoe store….

And…Jesus is – once again - way ahead of you.

He is waiting at the shoe store.  Jesus is.

Ha. 

Ha.

Go ahead.  It’s your midterm.









  

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Pride Stinks


For years now, as a part of my spiritual development, I've been trying to shrink ME.

I don’t mean a diet.  Obviously, with my donut issues, I am not dieting.  That would be one heck of a diet, now wouldn't it?

I mean shrink my pride.

So, I figure, if I am forgetting about me, I should try to call A LOT less attention to me.  This will certainly take care of any nasty pride issues I might have.

I am not saying I am AFRAID to call attention to myself. 

That’s the problem – I am NOT afraid to do that at all, and – for that reason – I have to keep myself in check. 

I don’t like when I take an ordinary day and create a stage out of it.  I don’t think Jesus would have done that.  I don’t picture Jesus pushing open doors, clearing his throat, whipping his hair around, and saying, “Oh…THIS silly robe?  I just threw this on.”

NO.


But…I dunno if Jesus is down with my methodology.

I think He is trying to beat something out…oops…I mean smooth something out of me.  I don’t know if he is going to let me do it MY way.

Cuz…He sent me enough children that not only can I not sneak into a room without calling attention to myself, but we cannot enter a room without totally SILENCING it,

without causing senior citizen men to turn and look at us in complete disorientation and exasperation, and saying loudly to their wife, sitting right beside them, “Who the *$%# kids are THOSE?”

We get to the threshold of any indoor space, and despite my shuffling behind my kids reminding them,

Lower your voices.
Quiet your feet.
Keep your hands to your side.
Watch where you are going...

despite ANY of that,

my kids get INSIDE a room and they don’t right away understand that there are other people there. 

It takes them a while. 

They are still swatting at each other,
and whining about hunger,
and getting dressed,

and the room is completely silenced,

and just when the last person in the room is brought to speechlessness,

and a pin drops...

one of my kids, still with their back to the room, will invariably yell out something as erudite as  

“Who FARTED?”

replete with waving of the hand in front of the nose, shaking of the head to prevent the stench from entering the brain, and – don’t forget – the smelling of a few of the closest butts.

Then, that child turns around to see the room of people,

and that child shushes ME.  



Thank you.



And THAT takes care of whatever last speck of pride I had hiding in a secret compartment deep in my soul – you know, like my “reserve pride.”


Jesus knew I had that there. 


And, I am worried that I have other stashes.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Wake Up

I've been very emotional about motherhood lately, and I don’t mean emotional as in stomping up and down like a mad woman, screaming, “SOMEONE LISTEN TO ME!”

No.  I am a different kind of emotional.

It is almost like heartache.  It is grieving for time passed,

but it is like I just found out it passed.

I grieve not for the time I spent as a child or as a young adult. 

I am talking about the time that has passed as a mother of young children, and I am not referring to big chunks of time.  I am talking about seconds. 

I mourn seconds passed; seconds missed; seconds wasted; seconds ruined; seconds hoarded selfishly (that’s a big one…those would add up to days). 

It’s that whole “Turn around and you’re two…Turn around and you’re four…” song, but it is played while a mother walks past a hurting child without stopping, indifferently calling back something like, “You’re fine.”  The song plays while a mother sits and reads in one room, while a child sits alone and reads in another…just a few moments after the child has asked the mom to read to him.

It is looking in the mirror, seeing your face, knowing your age, and recognizing you have NO idea how you got to this age so quickly.

Gosh.  That sounds SO cliché.  I am not so special after all.  I live clichés.  Please go tell 25 year-old me that – turns out - I am not so special after all.

I can remember being younger and older people bleeding that very line, “I look in the mirror and have no idea how I got so old.”  Seriously, they’d say it like they were cut; hurt; in pain; and confused...really really confused.  They bled that line.

What’s more - I remember being young enough when I heard it that I wasn't able to experience even a drop of empathy.  I was all like, “Well.  Yep.  You’re old.”  

I might have even had a deeper, more distant thought (we keep unreasonable thoughts at a distance), and that thought was “That won’t happen to me.”  Could I have had an illogical thought like that?  I think I DID.

Empathy waits for you.  It stands back and does a Father of the Prodigal Son on you.  With your head down, you come walking home to empathy one day. 

I feel those people now.   

Aging is not for a select few.  We all have to learn to age. 

Up until now, I aged mindlessly.

Today, I am telling you – 

I want to learn how to age. 

Because – when you are in that mirror - what’s next is the realization that - in much less time than it took you to age into that reflection - your children will not have the same look in their eye.

What look?

The look…

it says a thousand things at once:  I am scared; I am confused; I don’t know how to help myself; I don’t know how to ask you to help me; I don’t know what I feel; I feel so much; I don’t know what I don’t know; I don’t know how to stop; I don’t know where to start; I don’t know how to cry; I don’t know how not to cry; I don’t want to need you; I hate needing you; I love you so much that I cannot breathe….

There is seldom a moment that your child does not have that look.

Or, if you have ignored “the look” enough, maybe your child just looks down.

Lift his head, and – yep – it’s still there.



And – yet – I often dodge that look.  I DODGE IT!  I duck and hide from it some days or FOR days. 

Sometimes, I read that look as “work.”

What am I saying…I OFTEN read that look as work.

What work?

The work of feeling THEM, instead of feeling ME.  I could paint a million scenarios, because these are wee little infinitesimal examples of my staying locked inside my body, instead of going back out there and doing something else...and then something else...and then something else...and then something else....

It is like the “sin of omission,” the failure to do something one can and ought to do. 

Do you walk past your children, and you have a thought, but you are too exhausted – not physically, but more like psychologically – to say what you think.

And, I am not just talking about saying something corrective or instructive.  That is an entirely different discussion…I think we have all ignored some bad behavior in a moment when we were just too worn-out to deal with it. 

NO, I am talking more about seeing your daughter’s hair, and thinking, “It is shining,” but you don’t tell her so. I am talking about your son having grabbed a snack, but he is being so careful not to get a crumb on the floor, and you are amazed, but you don’t say so.  I am talking about feeling SO MUCH LOVE when your daughter crawls out of bed and comes down the hallway that you want to hold her on your lap and wrap your arms around her, but you don’t do it…because you are – “in the middle of something.”

Sometimes, you are just in the…

Middle of Yourself.

Stuck there.

I do the same thing over and over instead of saying, “You are shining.”  Or “You are amazing.”  Or “You are loved.”

And it is nothing to write home about.

Because – I do NOTHING.

Instead of changing a life with words or small deeds, I am sitting there or standing there,

TIRED.

I am kinda numbed out.
I am kinda not firing on all cylinders.
I am kinda thinking, “I should,” but I am too exhausted to act.
I am kinda shut down.

I am “kinda.”

How absolutely unextraordinary of me.

I have my whole life to be tired.

Today…right now…every day should be like a marathon, where I throw my body across the line at the end – because it was that important.  What would someone say to you in a marathon – they would say, “This is no time to be tired.”


I think, for the most part, we moms make allowances for ourselves…we say we will do better tomorrow.  But, after a bunch of tomorrows, you don’t see the progress in yourself for which you had been hoping, and a year is gone. 

NOT GETTING IT BACK.

A few days ago, I came across a picture of Pixie when she was three years old.  Pixie is now 6.  I looked at her in the photo, her chubby cheeks; her gorgeous red-hair cut in a precious bob; her kind eyes, and her plump arms poking out her baby blue sundress,

and I missed that little girl so so so so very much that I suddenly began to cry…tears came, completely out of nowhere.  I hurt. 

She was sitting in the next room.

I got up from my desk, where I was viewing these pictures, and I found Pixie on the couch in the living room. 

I looked at her intentionally, perhaps for the first time in a long time.  Pixie’s cheeks are no longer chubby, her hair now long and flowing –just like she always wanted it to be; her eyes still kind but more knowing, and her little arms now long, slender and graceful. 

I rubbed away my tears, and I slowly, fully present, all senses alive, sat down beside her, and I leaned my head on her shoulder. I took a psychological breath from the depths of my soul, a breath that wanted to suck us out of the room and into a bubble.  She was playing on her tablet, and she didn't look up or look at me.  She simply leaned her head into mine in the way that only Pixie would.  The feeling I had when she acknowledged me was so overwhelming.  How could I ever brush her aside?  How could I ever be too tired?  How could I ever need more of ME and less of Pixie. 

I know I will always remember that moment.

And there are so many moments like that to be had.  I am surrounded by moments to be had.

Lately, I cannot successfully brush it aside when I miss out on those moments – it comes back quickly. When I push “the moment” away, and I ignore “the look,” and I walk along, silent or busy, almost resenting my busyness…always saying "I am doing the best I CAN!"

The face in the mirror reminds me, “Are you sure?” 



I think I am learning how to age.

I don’t think aging would be half as surprising, half as shocking,

if I stayed conscious while it was happening.









Monday, May 19, 2014

Top Sheet

OK.  If you have spent any time with me in the last couple months, then you knew this day was coming.   You knew I was going to have to speak to this topic.  You were waiting, and the moment is here.  Let us clear the air – once and for all.  Let us whisper no longer…we must finally come forward and discuss the forbidden:

Top Sheets.



I know.  Mothers everywhere just shuddered.  Take a moment.  Collect yourself.  And just know - I am on your side.  Don’t stop reading. 

Top Sheets Are Bad.

Is that better?  Feel safer now?  Better understood?  Yeah.  Me, too.   I’m glad you’re here.  Let’s just yell it together,  

TOP SHEETS BOP SCHMEETZ!

Feels good, right?  Totally.  Have another bite of donut.

Marriages are suffering because of this, people.  Don’t let it get you.



Husband comes home from his 14-day hitch, and right after he walks in and gets pummeled by hugs, he puts down his bag and walks around.  Of course, he does not SAY he is walking around to survey his kingdom. He pretends he is looking for something.  But, whatever dude - he is walking around the house, assessing its condition.  It’s an inspection.  This used to make me want to maim him, but I have gotten past my violent impulses, and now I just “joke” about maiming him, and it is joking…even though I don’t laugh when I am saying it…or even smile…and I’m rolling my eyes…but I am starting to think my eye rolling is involuntary, and maybe I should just go get that checked out.

Anyways, usually, we know exactly when Husband is coming in, so we have ample time to construct the lie.  I mean, if my hardworking husband needs to think we are neat and tidy people in his absence, then who am I to rob him of this fantasy?  In truth, the kids do NOT makes massive messes when Husband is home, so he does not truly know with whom he is dealing.  I don’t want, at this advanced stage in the child-rearing experience, to be the one to tell him that we (the kids and I) have merely resigned ourselves to being disgusting.  It’s not unlike kids believing in the tooth fairy.  You just do all you can to keep that going for them as long as you can, but one day you are busted putting money under their pillow, and the fantasy comes crashing down.  You feel awful.  They feel confused.  Let’s just put that off as long as possible. 

The morning of the day-dad-is-coming-home is an arduous one:  up early; wet rags under the feet, scooting around; kids scooting around with rags under their butts – human Swiffers…Swiffering all over the place.  The floors need to be shiny and foreign-object-free.  Floors are an important component of creating the illusion. 

When a dirty, smelly man steps foot in a house, after living in a man camp for two weeks, he looks out from the entryway and sees shiny sparkling hardwood floors, and with immense satisfaction and pride, he thinks, “I married the right woman.”  Seriously.  It is THAT easy.  Shiny floors = Good Woman.  Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

Clean floors are paramount.



And, of course, the sink should be dish-free because, in the fantasy, kids apparently don’t eat.

But, did you know…DID YOU KNOW…that top sheets belong on beds?  Read that again.  Top.  Sheets.  Belong.  On Beds. 

I know.  It’s almost funny, if it weren't so perplexing.  


Let me explain this.  Okay.  I will break it all the way down.  So, your kid has a mattress, you know, that big foamy thing they pee into.  Yes.  That.  Ours are baby blue with “watermarks.”  Ours are so “watermarked” that when we move into a new house, and we have people come help us move, my husband hides in the house when it is time to move the mattresses because HE thinks that OUR KIDS are the ONLY ones who have ever peed into a mattress, and he cannot be there for that horrifying moment when the people who have come to help us DISCOVER that OUR KIDS PEE. 

.


Yes.  So, your kid has a mattress, and you cover that with a mattress pad.  Some people cover it with a waterproof mattress pad, but that just makes kids sweat when they sleep, or at least that is what my kids claim, and so we just cover our mattresses with a basic white mattress pad, and this, too, will always and forever reek of urine.  Sorry.   

Okay.  So, mattress…mattress pad…and then, you put a bottom sheet over that mattress pad.  They are the ones with the elastic.  Yes.  You take that bottom sheet and you stretch it out over the mattress, and you usually have to turn it a couple times, because the elastic is all stretched out and disintegrating (from all that machine washing after the pee), and you cannot get that sucker on there on the first try.  You have to get up on that bed and turn it, around and around, and then, it finally goes on – miraculously, and then one edge pops up, and you are all like, “AHAkekdhfaldihahehehehhekkkiiiiiis!”  And, you have to go get a kid out of a tree, and so you come back later to finish this work.

Okay.  SO.  In MY world, once all four corners of elastic are somehow inexplicably wrapped around the corners of the mattress…you are now DONE.  Back away slowly.  The bed is made.  Get out of there.  Come nighttime, throw a blanket on them…throw a sleeping bag at em.  Walk away.


However, in my husband’s world, you are far from done after you get that bottom sheet on.  You have to go to the linen closet, and you unfold a - what they call in the old country – a “top sheet.”

THIS is another sheet that you put ON TOP OF the already-covered mattress.  It is supposed to MATCH the bottom sheet.  It is supposed to stay on the bed, and then you put a blanket or TWO on top of all that.  It is like a delightful tower of blankets. And you fold down different parts of it, and it stays that way. 

RAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!










Way back when, a couple kids ago, I was willing to try this.  I was all like, “Sure…top sheet.”  Husband showed me how.  He stood there, and piled on all these sheets and blankets and pillows, and he smoothed it all out with the inside of his arm.  It was all flat and even and level and smooth.  He got the corners all nice and tucked down, and then he wanted to gamble on top of it or do some magic trick with a quarter, and I was all like, “This is no time for games, bud.”

It wasn't long after that (well, it was a couple kids later…so, like I said, not long after that), when I began to notice that – a short time after making beds – the top sheet and the blankets would be UNDER each bed, and sometimes… sometimes… they’d be missing altogether.  I was all like, “THAT THAT THAT just took me ten minutes to DO!”  I’d pull the top sheet from under the bed, and I’d put it back on – same way – ten minutes of tucking and smoothing. 

On those days when the top sheet went missing altogether, I’d go hunt it down, and I would find it somewhere in the neighborhood.  It would be part of an intricately detailed tea party canopy event or at the base of a mammoth fort under heavy artillery fire.  The bed’s blankets would be in those locations, too. 

I’d shake my finger.  Take back the bedding.  Ten more minutes – smoothing and tucking…smoothing and tucking - bed restored to its unspoiled old country grandeur. 

Well.  I am a quick learner.  I came to realize that with “some kids,” you just cannot keep a top sheet on a bed.  And, I have some kids. 

In fact, after extensive qualitative research, I can tell you that there are certain things a young human aims to do each day.  And - taking apart an already made bed is high on their daily to-do list.  They – the young humans - see a made bed as an offering you have kindly presented to them, to make their task uncomplicated, when they go looking for the materials necessary to fashion a variety of habitats. 

Furthermore, children take apart a bed in the night.  This proves that even when sleeping, children are messing with you.  Kids sleep like they are on fire.  They kick and flick blankets off of them like they are being tasered.  The entire bed is dismantled.  Sometimes, they wake up in the closet.  I mean.  Why bother.

But, Husband likes the top sheet.  He thinks a top sheet indicates class.  And since – we members of my Husband’s fantasy are - in said fantasy - so marvelously refined - we have top sheets…in the fantasy.    The morning-of-dad-coming-home, we bust out the top sheets.  It makes my kids laugh uproariously.  Really.  We really cut up over the top sheet going on the bed.

My husband spends THE ENTIRE week he is home putting the top sheets back on the bed because I will top sheet hunt No Mo.  There is endless “Top Sheet” banter.  There are questions of faith, and they are tied to the Top Sheet.  It – the top sheet - makes him begin to question his very nature…his purpose.  What is it all about.    

The horror my husband experiences when he walks in from a hitch to find a bed topsheetless cannot be expressed effectively, so we do all in our power to never let that happen…again…cause last week was ugly. 

OK, so – in short – because this was anything but short: 

Don’t rob your husband of his fantasy. 


Let the Tooth Fairy live:  put a top sheet on your kid’s bed before your husband comes home from work.  It’s not like it is going to STAY there or anything.  You’ll thank me later.  Marriage is forever.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

All the Good Stuff Will Be Gone

Folks have their garage sales on Fridays AND Saturdays around here, which means you gotta go on Friday because by Saturday “all the good stuff will be gone.” 

I cannot tell you how much those words make me think of my grandparents.

My grandfather would say “all the good stuff will be gone” in reference to getting to Dunkin Donuts at the crack of dawn.  Growing up, each summer, my family went to Lake Edinboro, a small little vacation resort – and using the word resort is really stretching it; we would stay in a lakeside cottage all together, all 20 or so of us:  grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins….  We smooshed into about 800 square feet to relish a week of playing board games for money; swimming in seaweed, and eating a multitude of donuts.  The water was so gooey and thick with bacteria that my mom would actually give us antibiotics going INTO the week of vacation, antibiotics she stockpiled by never finishing anyone’s prescription during the year.  You can thank us for antibiotics not working anymore.

Anyway, donuts…the go-getters up first each morning went to Dunkin Donuts.  We needed two dozen per day.  If you slept in, you were going to get stuck eating the dry cake variety.  Sorry – the glazed went first.  It paid to get your butt out of bed.  It paid donuts.  My grandfather, each morning before the sun came up from behind the lake, cheered on the go-getters, hurrying them out the door…over to the donut store, “all the good stuff will be gone.”  I can remember him saying, “Don’t worry about your hair.”  This meant you needed to put your vanity aside and get some éclairs.

This explains my present love for donuts a bit.  I can buy a dozen now –and I get to pick first.  I get up first.  I pick white icing with coconut.  Hallelujah.

Back to my childhood…there was the thrift store in the next town over.  Every Tuesday, it was “half-price for seniors.”  Good goggily moggily – grab you a grandma and head on out.  My grandmother was our token senior…that poor woman.  We didn’t care if she had bronchitis or a bunion the size of a peach.  She had no choice but to go.  We showed up at her house and abducted her so she could “buy” our thrift store finds.  On half-price senior citizen day, the doors of “The Thrift” opened at 9 am, and there would be polyester pointy collars lined up down the sidewalk.  Each of them talking daintily and appropriately to the collar in front of them. The air was rife with old-school Estee Lauder perfumes.

The issue on Tuesdays at the Thrift was shopping carts.  There were only so many – there were only about 20 carts total.  If you did not get over to the store at the crack of dawn and get to the front of that line, you weren't going to have a cart to push around the store, and if you know anything about thrifting during a half-off sale, you know you need a cart because you are just grabbing and stuffing…figuring it out later.  You cannot grab and stuff cartless.  Not only were there only a certain number of carts, but there were carts with bum wheels, rusty sides, and carts capable of making terrible screeching noises.  There were only a few GOOD carts.  My grandparents were aware of this situation.  My grandmother, on Monday night, would sigh, “Well, you better pick me up early or – all the good stuff will be gone.”  And we would get her early, and we would get the most aerodynamic, most stealth cart imaginable – it was almost like it wasn't really there, that cart. We were thrift store ninjas. 

We also attacked garage sales. 

This explains my present love for garage sales and thrifts stores a bit.

Well, with all that love, with all those memories of good times…good times…, I created, with and for my children, a weekly escapade that we have dubbed, “Donuts, Garage Sales, Playground.”  You have to sing that actually – like one would sing something in a conga line.  Now, picture my kids…in a conga line, singing, “Donuts, Garage Sale, Play-GROUND….Donuts, Garage Sales, PlayGROUND.”  Yes.  Okay.  You've got the image down.  So, we do this – every Friday morning.  I wake them with these words, “All the good stuff will be gone,” and they have like 5 minutes to conga out the front door (seriously), armed with quarters earned during the week (the children…not me – I do nothing during the week that earns me quarters).  We pile into the car, and 25 minutes later, we pull out of the driveway.

We are off.  I am reliving my childhood.  So that we can maintain historical accuracy, no one has combed their hair.  We head to the donut shop.  I send Peeved in.  She has instructions that I no longer have to speak.  They are memorized.  They involve types of donuts needed.  She has never failed me since that…ONE fateful morning, which is too painful to recount, but – let’s just say – there were cake donuts involved.

She comes out of the store, she gives me the change because my palm is immediately extended, and she distributes the donuts appropriately.  There are no noises in the car; no need to screech out your donut requests because this exercise has been completed enough times that we have finally dispelled the fear that there will not be enough donuts for everyone.  Silently, they extend their hands, and two donuts per child are planted in palms.  It is magic.

We continue on to our garage sales.  We start, strategically, at the ones closest to the donut shop.  We pull up to the garage, I look over.  I see if it is a “grown up garage sale” or a “kid garage sale.”  A grown up garage sale has GLASS.  We do NOT let kids out of minivan if there is GLASS, especially glass displayed on plywood held up by milk crates.  There is nothing at a grown up garage sale that you need so badly that it is worth sawing 3 years off your life – because that is exactly how much stress damage your heart will endure if you open that minivan door…3-years worth. 

We drive on to kid garage sales, where there are lots of stuffed animals.  You can see the stuffed animals as you drive up – they are piled high and dusty and cheap.  This is your signal.  Unload.  The doors open to the minivan, and I don’t watch the blast of bodies.  It is too overwhelming.  I watched a few times, and I can only equate it to having a bunch of pigeons cooped up in the back of my van – hundreds of them, and I open the door, and the pigeons are flying out in every direction, disoriented, frightened, smashing into each other – feathers are flying. 

I simply grab my wallet, very dignified, and I walk around to get the stroller from the back.  I make sure my facial muscles are relaxed, to convince the onlookers that “all is well…all is well.” 

Each kid spends his or her quarters independent of me.  I reserve the right to find and covertly destroy any purchases once home; but I do not make a scene at the garage sale.  My kids wheel and deal on their own.  Remember, I am dignified, pushing a stroller, “Yes…yes…she is only two months old…yes…yes…almost sleeping through the night…yes…yes...”  My kids get their stuff and head back to the van.  When the last kid is in the van, my time is up – I've got all I’m getting.

After about five sales, when all the quarters are gone, we head to a playground to run out the sugar and to lose a few of the stuffed animals.

Now…this sounds all well-thought out…maybe even exquisite.  Yes.  It has been tweaked to perfection.  It is as good as it can get.  All personalities have been considered in putting together this weekly event…

But.

Except.

One personality continues to elude us.

This past Friday, we were at a garage sale.  Tables were stacked high with primary colored Fisher Price junk.  It was like a beacon of bliss waving us in.  We drove up…flew out…attacked. 

Shirtless went missing.  I went around the front of the house to find him.  He was playing with a little boy, and I convinced them to come around to the garage to pick out a toy or two.  I had them.  They disappeared again.  I went back around the front of the house, and Shirtless had a yard stake…you know the kind that says something like, “Welcome.”  Yes.  Shirtless was using Welcome to push his prisoner (his friend of three minutes) into a dungeon (behind a bush).  I asked Shirtless to put down the pole (I called it a pole) and to come pick out a toy.  Shirtless dropped the yard stake.  I said, “Now, where does that go?”  Shirtless didn't make eye contact with me, which means he is temporarily deaf - and barring a gigantic scene - he will remain deaf for the next 5 minutes.  It is a very transitory condition.  He goes to the toys.  I go to the clothes.  I look up.  Gone.  All the other kids are in the minivan, quarterless.  Baby Child starts to scream her sweet little baby head off.  I find Shirtless, “Let’s go.”  He has befriended the grandmother of the prisoner, who is asking Shirtless to emancipate her grandson.  Shirtless isn't speaking to her.  He is grinning at her…a toothless grin, with a slight head tilt.  She is asking in a sweet voice, and Shirtless finds this alluring.  He is going to let her go on for a bit.  I come up from behind Shirtless and jack him up in a wrestling hold – one arm through his legs; the other arm around his shoulder.  I kiss his cheek.  I am going to chuck him in the van like a sack of potatoes, drive away, and get around the corner, out of the eyeshot or earshot of our audience, and then I will buckle him in after he is done thrashing about.

Grandma doesn't understand what is happening.  She doesn't know the drill.  She follows behind us calling, “He didn't get a toy.  He didn't get a toy.”  Shirtless is reaching his hand back toward the grandma, all “Save me….save me little woman of sweet voice and gray hair.”  I chuck him in.  Grandma is standing next to my van, bewildered.  I am thinking, in my most Christian inner voice, “Beat it, Granny.”

The doors to my minivan have motion sensors, and they will open if you stick a limb in the way.  Shirtless knows this.  I get the door almost closed.  Shirtless sticks his leg out.  I get the door almost closed again…Shirtless sticks his leg out.  I get the door almost closed again…Shirtless sticks his leg out.  This goes on for a while.

Let us not forget – the baby is screaming her head off.

Grandma is watching. 

Three years…just sawed off my life.

I get out of the van.  You reach a point in every interaction when you forget others are watching.

Shirtless is put in his seat belt.

It wasn't pretty.  It wasn't textbook.  Grandma is scarred for life.

We drove away.  I started breathing again about a mile down the road.

And, we went to a playground.

At the playground, sitting on a bench, nursing my baby, I reminded myself, these days of creating “interesting” memories with my children are fleeting.  One day, I won’t have to hog tie Shirtless.  One day, they won’t want to conga out the door to Donuts, Garage Sales, Playground.  One day, it will be a memory for them, just like Dunkin Donuts and Senior Citizen Tuesday are now a memory for me.

Someday, all the good stuff will be gone.

And I looked up to see Shirtless picking a flower for Pixie and hugging her.





Saturday, May 17, 2014

Going Batty

When my husband leaves for a fourteen-day hitch, which is what the oilfield workers call their days at work on location, which means at the oil site, which means in the middle of nowheresville…the kids kiss him goodbye like he is off to the wild jungles of Africa.  There are intense tears and theatrical displays, “When will you come BACK, daddy?” 

I am looking at them through a clenched smile, like, “Whatever…you just wanna know how long you have before the Law rides back into town…you little heathen.” 

I always stand very straight and kiss my husband with rigid lips, acting all mother-putting-her-kindergartner-on-the-bus-for-the-first-time, “Now, you get going – you’re going to be late.” 

Actually, I try to conjure up my inner Mrs. Oleson…you know, the storekeeper from Little House on the Prairie.  No, not the sweet mom…that would be Mrs. Ingalls, and no man wants to leave a Mrs. Ingalls.  You gotta be Mrs. Oleson if they are going to drive away sturdy and strong and free from worry.  If you are Mrs. Ingalls, they just wanna hop back in bed; they want you to make another pot of stew…while that one little wisp of sun-kissed hair hangs down, and it gets in your mouth every once in a while, and Pa comes over and says, “Wait a minute,” and he gingerly pushes it back, and you have that little “Aw…I love marriage…” moment. 

I mean – who is leaving THAT?

When my husband is heading out the door for a hitch, I am the prude with the tight brown bun…got it?  Okay.  So, yes, that is me, at the door, with a broom, acting aloof and unaffected…supportive, but noticeably annoyed by the amount of cat hair on my welcome mat.  What man doesn't wanna hop in a truck and leave that lizard standing on the stoop?

OK, good.  He drives away.

Then, I shut the door, and I kinda lean up against it on the inside, and I stare straight through the house.  Pink Floyd plays in my head.  My kids scatter; they are thinking, “Awesomeness…no dad.  Mom’s easy.”  My children do not see my inner Mrs. Oleson.  I am not sure what my kids see, but whatever it is, it rolls its eyes a LOT, and it is often in a huff, bellowing stuff like, “Who DOES stuff like this?” and “Can no one HEAR me?”  and “Why is this HERE?”

Oh my gosh – maybe they see nothing? 

As soon as my husband is down the street, I put down my broom (I mean, what am I supposed to do with a broom anyways…I don’t even know why I put that in this reflection.  A broom.  Yeah…good luck with that.  Try leaf blower.).  Whatever it is – I put it down because I am not going to be using it. 

For two days after my husband leaves, I go into a stupor.  No, I am not depressed…not intoxicated…I am transitioning into single parenting.  This is not something you jump into impulsively.  You have to walk slowly into it, like you are walking into a scary scary dark cave, where bats are hanging upside-down, and they will fly down and try to nest in your hair…or your Mrs. Oleson bun…and you will spin around in circles batting at the…bats (a little alliteration there…oh, and “a little alliteration” is a little more alliteration…I will drink MORE coffee). 

Anyway, put down the coffee - you are being attacked by bats, people!

So, you don’t want to go running in there.  That would just be stupid.  Anything could happen to you.

You walk very slowly.  Thinking, “I HAVE to go in there,” because, like…you do.  You are in charge of the bats. 

For two days, I tread little by little into the cave.  I am alone now.  I have to sharpen my senses.  I rearrange the way I think. 

For instance, I do not think, “HE will see what that noise is.”  And I don’t think, “HE will clean that up.”  And I don’t think, “HE will give Shirtless the evil eye and stop Shirtless dead in his nasty little bat tracks.”

Actually, that is incorrect.  I DO think those thoughts; I do wait for HE to do stuff, but then, an alarm goes off in my head, and that alarm yells,

“HE is not HERE, moron!”

Oh.  It is a crushing two days, filled with stepping-up, filled with overcoming sloth, filled with curse words in my head and ducking and swatting and hiding. It is shocking…a shock to the senses.

And then I am well inside the cave.

I get used to it.  I put my hands down from in front of my face, where they have been, palms out…batting…or at first glance waiting to catch a football….

And, I even let my hair down out of that tight bun because now I have that headache you get when your hair has been pulled back for too long.  

And, I plop down on the floor, surrounded by bat droppings, and I realize I am not in a cave at all.  I am in my living room, and those aren't bats or bat droppings.  Those are my children and Cocoa Puffs.

The children, all hopped up on Cocoa Puffs, do make high pitched piercing noises that only bats and I can hear,

but they are children…only children…my children, and I can do this. 

I can do it alone even, not neatly, not perfectly, but I can do it in big fell swoops of bravery.


For starters, I can go find the leaf blower.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Shirtless

A friend of mine reminded me that – if I am going to blog – I need to change the names of my children - inside of my writing - because creepy dudes might lure them away by saying their names and mentioning familiar information that my kids might think only a friend of mom would know.  I have so many things to say about this.  I mean, first of all, I am going to do it; of course, I will change their names.  We are going to do that right here and now.  But, before I give them new handles, I just have to speak to this topic of someone taking away my children.  Most of my kids are hard to spot – they are inside children.  They don’t come out much.  That’s how kids today are. 

But, we DO have ONE.  Boy…do we have one RIPE for the pickin.

Hardly a day goes by that my youngest son doesn't disappear altogether.  (I just typed his name and had to go back and erase it and call him “youngest son.”  Phew.  Abduction adverted.)  No, seriously, youngest son is like prime abduction material.  Unaccompanied, he angrily wanders the sidewalk in front of our house. He’s the bare-chested one, built like a tank.  If he is out there, I have infuriated him, and he is looking for a new home.  I likely have angered him by unearthing and disbanding his arsenal-of-the-day – or should we call it his weapons du jour. 

But, youngest son has me all wrong because I don’t set out looking for the hoard.  The “others” find it.  It is like a daily egg hunt for them.  It is an activity.  They bring me things:  dad’s drill; cans of WD-40; 4-foot planks of floor trim…you know…little things that go missing, and they say, “______ had this.” (I cannot write his name… remember… sickos out there) 

And I, quite likely on the couch “folding clothes” (code for sitting down)…I will say, “Show me where,” and I follow the sibling-of-youngest-son to the bunker, freshly dug out, and I am all impressed, and I say, “YES!  My paring knife,” and then I can go finally make some potato salad. 

I am usually quite unmoved, except for the momentary joy that accompanies the finding of something I had been digging for in the kitchen.  You know…that one thing you cannot find will make you nuts - that one thing gone-missing makes you believe that you have a paranormal being that comes into your house and takes random stuff to mess with you.

But, youngest son gets all ticked when you find his stash.  He comes storming around the bend with his fists pointed straight down and his arms stiff as boards, and he growls through clenched teeth (wow…am I stealing this from “Where the Wild Things Are”), and then he raises his fists in the air and howls, “I can never have anything.” 

When, what he is really saying is, “You are preventing me from becoming an ax murderer.”

We all stare at him.  We are each thinking our own response.  Mine is usually, “Dang it, your shorts don’t fit already…I just bought those last WEEK.”

But, other children are having other thoughts: 

My oldest daughter is likely thinking, “If there is anything of mine in there, I am going to hold you down and beat you with it.  I hate living here.  I hate you.  I hate the weather.  I hate the way mom drives.  This is so embarrassing… I’ll never be a pop star….. AHAHAHAHAHAHAaaaaa,” then she stomps off down the hall.

We’ll call her Peeved.  No seriously…that is her new handle, “Peeved.”

My oldest son is likely staring wide-eyed at youngest son, who is still growling and stiff-fisted, and my oldest son is thinking, “This is awesome.  I wish I was filming this.  I’d get 10,000 hits.”

We’ll call him Tuber, as in “You-tube,” which is helping me raise my kids.

My middle child – my effervescent little pixie smack-dab in the middle of the five kids – is thinking in a very Eeyore voice, “Poor ________.  He is just a little boy.  Let him have the fully-charged power drill.”

We’ll call her Pixie.

And then there is my precious, faultless, blameless, adorable, sleeping little infant, and all I can call her is Baby Child…because…um…well, that is what we call her, for realsies – Baby Child.

So, there you have it:  Peeved, Tuber, Pixie and Baby Child. 

But…what about this youngest son?

My youngest son gets stared down by the lot of us.  He stares back at each of us, lunging forward, pivoting to change the direction of the lasers that shoot out of his eyeballs, deep into our eyes, piercing our souls with his fierceness, and – suddenly (but like totally on cue) - he sprints out the front door.

THIS is where the creepy child abductor comes in.

Creepy child abductor is driving down the street in a white beat up van with no windows (of course that is what he is driving, people…all other vehicles contain churchgoers), and he sees my youngest son, storming down the street, fists tightened, bare-chested, teeth clenched, muttering something about a drill and a can of grease and a small knife that peels potatoes perfectly without wasting too much of the actual potato..., and Creepy Child Abductor (I just capitalized the letters in his handle – this makes him legit…brings him to life), and CCA (shortened it) sees shirtless boy.  Shirtless boy sees the van and remembers everything his mother has told him about windowless white vans with lots of rust on them.  Shirtless boy grabs nearest boulder and raises it above his head with his pectorals flexing and his teeth still clenched, and the shirtless boy charges the van, straight out of a scene in Braveheart…he is roaring a thunderous combination of testosterone and black cherry Kool-Aid, and shirtless boy is thinking, “I can kick your butt and not get in trouble for it,” and CCA has at least a kindergarten IQ, and he thinks to himself,

“There’s got to be easier kids on the next street….”

And shirtless (youngest son’s handle) is safe to storm the neighborhood another day.

And Shirtless, calmer now, having exerted himself by lifting giant rocks and all, walks back to the house, shaking his head,


“Geesh.  Now, I've got to go get another pile of weapons together.  They just have NO appreciation for the work I do out here.”