This Was Supposed To Be About The GOP In My Uterus

Sometimes in the mornings, brought on by some odd combination of hormones and medicine and coffee, I become overwhelmed with the most bittersweet feeling of love for my friends. I don't question it, I don't write it off to chemicals and say "It's not really me" because I know that it actually IS me, it's one of the purest versions of me, and while I sit there with a goofy smile on my face and tears in my eyes, I am privy to the answer of the one question to which I can never find the words: Why do you love me?

Let me explain, if I can. You've been there, in that deer in the headlights moment, when a person in your life asks you that question, right? And you stammer, you stumble, you try to give the answer your full effort, you try to make it seem heartfelt and real and meaningful and, no matter what you say, no matter how they take it, you always feel as though you didn't get the words just right, that you didn't explain your heart. Right? Well, think about it; how do you condense a billion moments, a TRILLION moments, into words? You can't! I bet you can't even satisfactorily explain what LOVE is, so how is it that you think you can explain WHY you love someone?

So words can't explain a trillion moments, we know this, and yet I say I have the answer in that moment of chemically induced, bittersweet, emotional clarity. Do I? Well, no, not really, not in words that will mean anything to you. What I have in that moment is the signature left by each of those moments, stored in my brain in the part that I never feel I use and, in the way I need words to communicate with others, those chemicals communicate with me. It's not a very straightforward conversation and I admit that I'm not very skilled at the language, but it is the answer, as clear as that answer has ever been. And in the way that a tired mother, weary from a day of her three year old's apparently endless capacity to utter the word "why", the worded answer that my brain and I finally agree upon is "Because".

Stripping 101 . . . The Final Reveal!

As promised, this is an update post of the process of stripping Max. After the last photo it took me a few days to reduce his coat to what I like to call "The Royal Ruff" - pun fully intended:

As you can see he is as happy as ever at having his photo taken.

Finally, I got around to finishing the entire grooming process. Now, I should say that while I have all the confidence in the world that given the inclination and time I can beautifully strip the body of a Border Terrier, I have no such confidence when it comes to the head. Each time before attempting Max's head again I carefully go over all the head shots of Border Terriers in the various books I have as well as looking at photos on the internet. I have spent no small amount of time in pursuit of this knowledge needed to groom the perfect Border Terrier head, but I am sorry to say I still wind up making him look more like a Schnauzer than a Border. It's embarassing really. I've come to believe, however, that the problem is that I only groom him twice a year, and the head needs to be maintained more frequently. I'd like to say I will try to address this issue this time around, but I expect that in 6 months time I will be lamenting the same sad fact. Anyway, here's the picture for which you have all been waiting:

No, I did not cut off the tail to avoid showing you the overstripping that occurred there - I'm just a really bad photographer. But there you go. He's done, if not perfect. Over the next few weeks I will continue to pull off the various missed hairs that are far longer than the others and in about 1.5 month's time he will have filled out his top coat and look quite handsome. Until then, this is about as good as he is going to look:

Stripping 101 . . . for Border Terriers!

I love my dog, as you have surely figured out if you've noticed my presence anywhere on the internet. There is little I have touched in the electronic world that does not have a picture of Max somewhere within it's files, often up front and center as my avatar. I can't help it, he's just so darn cute! But in all the love I have for my boy, there is one aspect of having him in my life that I don't love - stripping.

For those of you uninitiated into the joys of owning a Border Terrier, or a dog with similar coat needs, stripping is the term that refers to pulling out the longer, harsher 'guard' hairs of a dog's coat while leaving the shorter, softer, 'undercoat' behind. This process allows the dog to maintain the coarseness that provides waterproofing and also loft for warmth. Were the dog still used for it's original purpose, running along with a fox hunt to 'go to ground' and bolt the fox from it's den, the longer hairs would naturally be pulled out by shrubbery, thorns, and the like leaving a dog with a coat with very little maintenance needs. Unfortunately, the Border Terrier kept as a household pet, even when allowed plenty of outdoor activity, is very unlikely to ever be able to maintain his coat as of old. This is where the owner comes in. The dog must be stripped, variable based upon each dog's needs, about twice a year.

Some people choose to clipper the dog's coat short, but this ruins the texture of the coat, eliminates the waterproofed aspect, and can allow the hairs which need to be shed to cause infections in the dog's skin. There are times when it is kinder to the dog to clipper, but it is mostly advisable to maintain the coat as decades of breeding have dictated.

So when faced with a lack of gorse bushes through which to send your dog running, a desire to do right by the traditions of the breed, and the need to maintain your dog's health, you are faced with two options: Learn to strip the dog yourself, or hunt down a groomer who actually knows what stripping is and subject your dog and your wallet to the professional grooming experience. As my dog started of his early years as a casual show dog, I chose to learn how to groom him myself so that he could always be in good coat for the next show. I can't say we were always 100% successful on that front, but I won't go into that here.

The basic rundown of stripping is as follows: Using your bare hands, vinyl gloves, rubber secretary's fingers, a specialized tool known as a stripping knife, or some combination of the above, you choose a place to begin on the dog and gradually work your way over the whole body, pulling out the longer hairs of the coat, in the direction of growth, in small clusters, sometimes just a couple of hairs at a time. If the dog's coat is fully 'blown,' meaning ready to be stripped, this process can be quite simple, quick, and entirely painless for the dog, barring a few of the more tender areas which it is generally considered kinder to clipper. If the dog's coat is not ready to be stripped, the process is much lengthier and certainly more uncomfortable for the dog. So, I generally wait until Max looks like a a cross between a hyena and a fluffy porcupine before I strip him.

Now, as I said above, you can choose a place to begin this process. In the past, I have usually chosen to start between his shoulder blades as this seems to be the area which has the fastest growing hair and so is ready to go sooner. Unfortunately, since this is a painstaking task, it is often necessary to make one full grooming last over the course of a few days. This delay has left me with a dog who looks like this:
But recently I decide that if Max and I had to go through this painstaking task I was going to have more fun with it. So this time I started out with his legs and then moved on to a small portion around his butt. Amusing, but nothing stellar:
Finally, at least as finally as I have so far progressed, I moved the work further forward and down around most of his belly as well. I'm quite pleased with the result and regret that I will have to finish up, but after the Eismann gave me a very confused look and I attempted to explain in Germlish exactly what was going on, I figure it will just have to be done if I don't wish for my German neighbors to call the loony bin on me. Still, I think he looks kind of royal with his cape, excepting the much suffering look he always gives me when I make him pose for a photo:
I'll be sure to post the final photo when he's done.

Edward Gebhardt 1962 - 2010

For years I never questioned it, my connection with my middle brother Edward. Of my three brothers, all of whom were much older than I, Eddie and I had the closest relationship. 11 years old when I was born, I found out only recently that his school was having financial trouble and he was on a half day program for a portion of that first year of my life. Unlike other boys of that age, however, he didn't take all that extra time to play and get himself into trouble. Instead he was there to assist my mother with my day to day care. Apparently he could change my diaper and feed me and was always willing to do so, even telling my mother not to worry about me, that he would take care of me. I, of course, remember none of this and have only learned it through conversations with my mother. What I do remember, though, is a brother who always told me I was his favorite sister. It never mattered that I was his only sister, though I reminded him of this often, because it was the way he said it that told me how very much he loved me. I, in turn, loved him dearly too and felt closest to him of my three siblings.

As I grew older, Edward became less a part of my life. The difference in our ages ensured that as did the difficulties inherent to a boy becoming a man in the seventies. I was exposed to recreational drug use very early due to two of my brothers' willingness to allow their kid sister to hang around. Though he always treated me kindly, I got to see Edward become angry and belligerent with his friends, with my other brothers, and with my father. I once had a birthday party with fewer guests than expected because Eddie and another brother chose the start time to get into a fist fight by the front door. More than one parent drove right by upon seeing that. Such instances and the far too adult knowledge I gained of their cause definitely played their part in who I became when I was a teenager. Watching the misery brought upon Edward by his choices gave me enough reason to avoid the same choices and the same path in life. Such as it was, Edward was still doing his part to raise me even when I was no longer an infant.

From those teen years to adulthood, nothing much changed in Edward's life. He did become a very skilled carpenter from absolutely no formal training, but he was always finding himself without the tools he needed to do his work because he would sell them for money for drugs and alcohol. Many a Christmas my parents purchased the same gift as the previous year for him. Eventually he was no longer able to keep a job for any length of time because his constant inebriation and resulting belligerence made him unemployable. The last time I saw him was when I stopped by his home unexpected. He was not immediately there, but arrived home from work already in a state of inebriation and confusion and it was only 5 PM. You never know when the last time you will see someone is, but if I could have known I would have never visited that day.

For years afterward I would occasionally get a phone call from Edward at odd hours. My mother and father have often said they could never tell if he was drunk when calling, but I could always tell. There was no trick to it - he was always drunk. I loved him and would tolerate the phone calls, but was always happy when I moved locations since I knew it would be a while before he acquired my new phone number from a careless parent. When he moved to Arizona and eventually became homeless the calls became fewer. I was not particularly conflicted with guilt at my relief. The real guilt came later when I too, through no correlation, moved to Arizona as well, mere miles from where he was sleeping, and I impressed upon my family that Edward was never to know I was in Arizona. He never did.

For the entire time I lived in Arizona I would keep up to date on Edward's condition from my parents but always afraid that I might somehow run into him somewhere. He was getting by, occasionally finding a home with someone until his behavior landed him back on the street. Sometimes he would acquire a job but it always ended badly as he could not accept being told what to do by someone, nor could he accept that he wasn't being given jobs commensurate with his talents. No intelligent employer would do so and eventually no employers at all would even give him the most menial of tasks. Days before my marriage in Las Vegas my father stopped in Arizona to meet my husband and also to connect with Edward. The broken, toothless, and slightly crazy individual my father met with and reported back upon was the last image any of us would have of Edward.

A short while later my husband and I moved from Arizona to Texas and a short time after that from Texas to Germany. I had no personal contact with Edward until about a year ago when I told a parent that they could share my number with him. He called a couple of times, the first of which we talked for nearly two hours. I believe he got some solace from conversations with me because, while I was not always willing as an adult to open myself up to the pain of actively loving him, I never judged him for his choices nor criticized his way of life. I'd seen my parents do it for years and I'd seen the lack of results. Edward was simply Edward and would, as best I could tell, always be so. In my last conversation with him we talked about the pacemaker he had installed and how he was having problems with it. I was amazed that it would be his heart which would cause him problems first, but not surprised that something besides his teeth had finally given out. I didn't expect him to live much longer.

I received the phone call at the end of last week from my youngest brother. He and Edward never got along so I was not surprised to hear very little emotion in his voice as he told me the news; Edward was in the hospital in Arizona, he had complete liver failure and near complete kidney failure, was being kept unconscious for the pain, and wasn't expected to live another 24 hours. I wasn't shocked. There wasn't a member of the family who hadn't expected this call sooner rather than later. I think the lack of overt emotion shown by any of us was an indicator of how mourning Edward had been something we had all been doing for years.

For me, the single saddest part was that this was it, the final chapter of his life. As long as he was alive I could always entertain a small foolish hope that one day he would learn how to find peace without a bottle, but now what I had known all along was confirmed - Edward's life would never be anything but what it had always been, one of misery, depression, and rage. It didn't help that I could identify with the so much of what made Edward the way he was. I have for years seen that we were both bothered by the same things in this world, and I have suspected for just as long that he suffered from the same chemical imbalances that I do. I don't know why I was able to make my way past them and he was not. It hurts me to think that his examples of how not to take on the world might have been exactly what allowed me to come to terms with all the demons that tormented him.

Two days after the initial phone call, I received confirmation that Edward's life had ended. I had encouraged my father to make it clear to the doctor that he would be doing no good for my brother by prolonging his life but would be kindest to him if he simply made those last few hours as painless and peaceful as possible. The irony that, in dying, Edward would finally get some of the peace and oblivion that he had been for so many years searching was painful to me, but it was all I could hope for him. My father passed this on to the doctor and the doctor obliged. Edward never woke up. I think I was the only one who wanted to be there with him but I knew I wouldn't make it in time, Edward would never have known I was there, and I wasn't entirely sure I could have handled seeing him. I now realize that I will have to live with the remorse that I didn't try when I was the only one in the family who would even be expected to care enough to do so.

My father made arrangements for Edward's cremation and he offered Edward's remains to my mother. She declined and I quickly informed my father that I would take them. I believe in nothing after death, no spirit of my brother looking down upon me nor any eternal soul writhing in hell. Edward simply exists no longer except as he lives in others' memories. In a show of sentimentality that belies my normal stoicism, I feel that my brother's remains should be with the person who loved him most. I may not have loved him as much as one might hope, but I loved him as much as I could.

When I was a teen Edward promised me that we would go skydiving together when I turned 18. I believed it then but by the time I moved to Arizona at 29 years of age I had long known that it was never going to happen with Edward. I went for a tandem jump on the spur of the moment at the suggestion of a co-worker, and only realized afterward that it was on my brothers 40th birthday that I took that leap. When I receive my brother's ashes I will jump again, with him for our first and only time together. For me, life has only the meaning with which I ascribe it. Foolish or not, that jump may be the most meaningful moment in my relationship with Eddie.

Frühling Melancholy

I don't really know which season is my favorite.  I like having distinct and definable seasons, of that much I'm sure, but which one puts in the most time filling up my soul is debatable.  Each season has something to recommend it.

Summer is lovely and warm and, no matter how many years I have been out of school, always feels a bit like a holiday.  Evenings last forever and I never feel too awful about getting out of bed earlier than usual because the sun is always there to greet me and promise me that it will be a good, long, and productive day.

Autumn is simply stunning.  No other death scene can compare to that which Autumn plays for us time and time again.  Each year I am witness to an Autumn I fall in love with the endlessly varying colors and  am overwhelmed by the simultaneously dry and moist smell of the leaves after they've fallen and become party-colored crisps on the ground, waiting to be turned into the fertilizer that is their destiny.  I well up when I witness the way the sunlight slants low through the trees and sets the world on fire.  I welcome the nip in the air that takes me by surprise and sends me running back inside for a jacket.  If Autumn were human he would be a Vermont woodsman and I surely would have married him years ago.

Spring is like a really good stretch.  It starts out slowly, a slight twisting of the arms and back perhaps, but leads into a great, big, full body, all consuming affair that takes control and kick starts the life back into you.  Like Autumn, it smells of leaves and wet, but under those smells is something a bit more, something that tickles the nose like the threat of a sneeze and in that last moment, just when you think you will be fine, explodes outward into a cacophony.  Spring is a riot of nature, unstoppable and awesome in its power while concurrently mellow and sweet.  It is a season contradictory unto itself.

Winter, a proper Winter, is cold.  This deceptively avuncular season, when viewed from inside one's home, says "Come outside and enjoy me in all of my frosty glory.  Witness my icy blue skies and my pale yellow sunlight."  But when you succumb to the beauty without and decide to brave what must surely be a reasonable temperature, Winter turns on you like a Santa Claus with what appears to be a bag of goodies but is only a multitude of coal.  And yet the nature lover still cannot help but wish to embrace this grumpy old man.  The sharp smell of ice in the air, the snapping of crystalline greenery underfoot, the sibilance of the wind rubbing the bare branches together like the legs of a cricket, the orchestra of silence found within a gentle snowfall - these are the gifts that Winter wishes to bestow upon those who believe the tale they see through their window.  While some may view Winter as the bait and switch of the seasons, others merely see it as the friend who drags you, protesting, to a party because she knows you will have a great time once you are there.

While I began this saying that I do not have a favorite season, one might still come to believe that I do, perhaps, and that favorite season is Winter.  And it may be that today they would be right.  You see, as I stood by my window earlier this week, looking out at the winter birds enjoying the plenty that is the feeding ground of my balcony and my landlords' garden, it occurred to me that Winter was on its way to finishing up this year.  The temperatures have risen a bit from the teens we were experiencing just a few weeks ago, February is moments from making its appearance, and while the threat of snow may still be ever present it is seldom realized.  On this evidence the advent of Spring was brought up yesterday in my German class and today I am certain that it was a topic of conversation on the German radio.  Upon my acceptance today, whilst driving home, that it might be true, that this beautiful winter might be coming to an end, I was struck by a great feeling of sadness.  As I travelled through the forest and then down the other side of the mountain that separates my village from those that more closely circle the military bases, I made sure to fully appreciate that the frost that was present when I left home earlier was still in place, wrapping my village and the fields that precede it in a cottony embrace.  And as I pondered my melancholy, reminding myself that it was a tougher Winter than usual this year and there was plenty to make me glad of the approaching Spring, I realized that it was not truly the loss of this Winter that was saddening me but my probable loss of the German Winters to come.

This Winter has the potential to be my last Winter here in Germany; certainly it will be my last that I am able to enjoy without the specter of another move in my future.  This may be the last year I get to wake up in a cloud or a world wrapped in cotton and the last year I get to look out the window and identify all of these birds I have come to know and love.  And for this, right now, I love Winter all that much more.  Spring must wait her chance - I'm sure my parting with her will be no less bittersweet.

WDYDAD? HAUSHKT Regret at Awakening

I could continue my tale with additional poetic waxing on the topic of sleep, but I think you all probably now understand how much I love the sleep and are almighty tired of hearing about it.  So, to make those of you who cannot indulge as I am able feel a little bit better, I will explain the downside of my love affair:  REGRET!

That's right, like any illicit relationship, mine with sleep has caused me great mental anguish.  Every night when I fall asleep I think of the things I will accomplish the next day and I feel like my list is reasonable, doable, and easy.  Unfortunately, when I finally awake for the first time the following morning, my list looks mountainous.  So, I do the intelligent thing and revise my list to include fewer of some activities and more of another.  Yes, you guessed it, I go back to sleep.  So, by the time I finally drag my pathetic (and surprisingly not very well rested) butt out of bed, my ability to accomplish all of those things which I had hoped to do and which seemed so simple the night before has now been diminished by a great reduction of time.  Plus, who really starts big projects at one in the afternoon?  Right!  No one!

And that is why regret plays a part in nearly every one of my mornings.  But don't be alarmed for my mental well being - my next ritual upon awakening almost always wipes away the regret and makes me feel energized to tackle the rest of the day.  Stay tuned for Part 3:  How did three hours just pass while I read the days news?

As promised . . .

I've been trying to come up with a blog topic for this, my very special, final, and promise fulfilling post of the year.  I know I had good ideas run through my head in the last few days but I wasn't able to post at the time or remember the ideas when I did have the time.  Now I am in the final hours, threatened with the failure of living up to the high expectations I know you all have of me, but I think I might just have a glimmer of hope as I have procrastinated with this opening long enough to actually come upon an idea.  So, with no further ado, I will regal you with a little tale called:

What Do You Do All Day?

How An Unemployed Second-rate Housewife Kills Time

Sleep

It must be said that I love sleeping.  I am well aware that I am not alone in this devotion and in fact might, in the orchestra of biggest fans, play second fiddle to a great number of sleep deprived parents of infants.  However, if allowed to compete only with other folks who can also sleep nearly as much as they might want, I feel I would surely distinguish myself enough to earn an imaginary trophy to place on my imaginary mantel.

As justification for my confidence in my award worthiness, I offer up the following:  Most people have fond memories of family moments on which they like to reflect or moments in their lives of which they are proud for having shone in some unrivaled way - a truly heartwarming patchwork which they like to revisit from time to time.  Certainly I have this too, but amongst my memories there are some that stand above the rest and one that stands highest of all; the only time I have ever been put under anesthetic.

Oh, what a blissfully wonderful sleep!  So cosy, so dreamless, a bit of time in my seemingly unending mental dialogue which is lost to me forever and the loss of which I do not regret.  The consciousness prior and post are there without so much as a gentle haze within.  If the drug they gave me came in a bottle I have no doubt people worldwide would be addicted.  Fortunately, it apparently comes only at the hands of a very masterful anesthesiologist - if he hadn't cost me so much money I'd call him my hero!

Be sure to stay tuned in the new year for Part Two:  Regret at Awakening

Burger King Ad and Our Loss to World Culture

Time is becoming short to fulfill my prophecy of another 6 posts, so when I saw a news bit today about the insensitivity of Burger King's new ad campaign and Max wasn't a particularly receptive audience to my feelings about it, I decided to pop over here and vent.

Burger King recently began a new ad campaign, found at Whoppervirgins.com, that shows people trying a Whopper for the very first time.  The use of the word 'virgin' might be what first piques interest in the site, but after a few moments of watching, you realize how interesting the video actually has the potential to be.  You see, the advertising company went around the world, located people and cultures who are relatively isolated from the commercially saturated world culture - some folks in Romania, Greenland, and Thailand - transported them to a location where access to both a Burger King and a McDonald's was only moments away, and then set up a taste test between a Whopper and a Big Mac.

You'd expect, of course, that Burger King would come out the winner in the taste test, and it does with three to four times more people choosing the Whopper over the Big Mac or stating no preference, but aside from the moment of surprise you have when they show the Big Mac being the first burger chosen, and the cynical feeling you get when the Whopper eventually dominates, the overwhelming feeling you get from watching the video is one of wonder.

Aside from attempting to convince us that folks who haven't been saturated with media from the day they were born are able to choose a better tasting burger than the rest of us, the video really seems to best point out how wonderful the world we all take for granted really is.  And I don't mean 'wonderful' in the sense of great but rather in its true literal sense of filled with wonder.  While you watch the second half of the video in which they manage to bring an authentic BK grill to the towns of the test subjects, allowing anyone who wishes to have a Whopper, you see the townspeople intrigued by this taste of the world at large and you get to smile seeing them try to tackle the handling of an alien and messy food.  But more interestingly, you see the advertising and filming crew intrigued and humbled themselves by the townspeople they came there to impress.

Having lived in Germany for very nearly two years now, I have come to realize that the American culture, while admittedly having glaring differences, has already become part of the German culture.  As time passes here, I see more and more of this in the proliferation of chain stores, consumerism, and garbage made in China.  I expect that some day it will feel very much the same to live in either place.  So, seeing Burger King's Whopper Virgins ad campaign, I must admit to a great amount of sadness mixed in with my enjoyment.  For, while I don't delude myself into believing that the townspeople shown in this video had never come in contact with the world that I live in, I know that they are now even more indoctrinated into something that I have come to see as not worth the price we pay for it.  I am aware that everyone must make their own path in life and learn things in their own time, but I still wish I could tell them to treat what they have just experienced carefully and to be cautious to not put it on a pedestal of experience which might cause them to seek it out and, in the process, lose what is special about their culture.  Sooner or later, it seems to happen to everyone and one day there will be no virgins left.

P.S. If Burger King's intent was to make me want to go to Burger King after watching this, sorry - I'm a Wendy's fan.

P.P.S. To the folks who are bothered by BK spending so much money to make this video when there are starving children in (pick your favorite place), I say "Get a grip."  Certainly it's ironic, but you never would have raised the BS flag if they hadn't made the association for you.  Companies waste ridiculous sums of money every single day promoting their products but no one ever says "The licensing fees you paid to use that song could have fed a small village in Uganda for a year!"

P.P.P.S  Burger King wants you to know that the townspeople shown in their video were all well fed before they arrived, were doing fine on their own, and were not exploited because they were impoverished or malnourished.  Children with protruding bellies only makes for good footage if you are advertising the Christian Children's Fund.

Perhaps I was being over optimistic . . .

I was suggesting to a friend that he check out the joys of blogging when I decided perhaps I ought to go look at my blog.  It was then that my hypocritical self realized that I could hardly sell said friend on blogging when I had not yet even come close to living up to my lowballed forecast for blogs for the 2008 year.  So, to attempt to make amends I am now putting up a post.  I don't want you to worry, though.  I am sure I will get this out of my system and forget I have a blog for at least another 6 months, allowing all those who might be measuring themselves against my bar to feel confident in their reign of posting frequency.  Of course, not coming to my blog with a thought in mind about which I want to expound, I am going to have to force myself to write about something.  Hmmmmm.  My Mom, quilling, my Dad, my brother, religion, Spirographs, responsibilities . . . sooooo many options, how can I choose.  I guess I'll hit on all of them - you guys deserve it after all.  Well, here goes!

My Mom.  She is old.  70, to be exact, which isn't really old, but apparently her body seems to think it qualifies.  She just had hip surgery, then broke her hip during recovery.  We are waiting to see if it will heal on it's own or if she will have to go back for surgery.  To make matters worse, she also appears to be suffering symptoms of pre-Alzheimer's, which has reared it's ugly head once before on her side of the family.  Because of these two factors, it is unlikely she will ever work again.  Well, my Mom grew up in an age when women had husbands to take care of them and if they ever got jobs they sure weren't making a lot of cash.  Guess what the social security checks for those women look like?  Yeah, they are so small you can barely see them.  So, with the help of a family friend, my brother and I got in touch with each other for the first time in ? years - 10 maybe?  We are working together to try to stabilize my mom financially.  It's a tough road, but it is so much more doable with my brother helping out, especially since I'm still thousands of miles and a 12 hour plane flight away.

My brother.  In all fairness, I have 3 (*ahem* 4) brothers, but the youngest of the three (*4*) is the only one capable of taking care of himself and therefore the only one I could turn to for help with my mom.  I won't say much about him, but I am so very grateful that he is helping out.  I've always known that he and his wife were good people, but it is so nice to be able to rely on them a bit and know that they are doing what they can and dealing with the same frustrations I am.

Religion.  Yeah, no.  I'm not touching that one.

Spirographs.  Seriously!  I love this toy!  I found one at the thrift shop for $1 and grabbed it.  They are way fun and are actually giving me some ideas for some quilling designs of my own.

Quilling.  Also known as Paper Filigree.  I took this up a few months ago and have been enjoying it.  If You get really lucky you may someday receive a card I made with some quilling on it.  Perhaps not, though, as I am very busy with it and might not be making cards as planned.  I sold 10 quilled snowflakes in an auction ($70!) and have to complete those and I may also be teaching a quilling class on base too.  In addition, I may be selling some in an A&C show right before Christmas.  We'll see and I'll try to keep you posted and maybe throw up a picture.

My Dad.  I love my dad.  A lot.  I'm not really sure where the feeling comes from as I don't know when we connected or why, but I really, really love him.  Which made some news that I got earlier this year very, very hard for me to handle.  My dad had knee surgery and everything went to hell after that.  He had a severe allergic reaction to a drug they gave him, believing it would save his life, and he almost lost his life because of the drug.  Dialysis for a week, hallucinating, about 100 pounds lost, the list goes on and on.  I talked to him the other day and he is actually back at work.  He says he feels like he's passed the 50% mark and is feeling good.  He actually feels good enough to lament that he missed his favorite seasons this year: spring and summer.  Our conversation just has me grateful that it looks like he will be here for at least another spring and summer and probably quite a few more after that.  If you haven't experienced a moment in which you realize just how much you love someone and just how close you came to losing them without realizing that, I'm not sure I can really explain how fortunate and sad I feel at the same time to have had that moment.  Nor can I say if I would wish it on someone or not.  It is still painful many months after the fact.

Responsibilities.  This is a tough one.  Even with no job I still have many responsibilities.  I have to tell you, though.  Without other folks expecting you to accomplish things, 'responsibility' reads just like 'optional' and it doesn't often get done.  That doesn't really make you feel too good about yourself.  If you've heard the commencement speech "Everybody's free to wear sunscreen," then you will recognize the advice to "Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard: live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft."  Well, something similar can be said of being unemployed;  It has been great and has allowed me to heal from my self imposed stint in the hell of corporate America.  But it has flipped to the other side now, and I am jonesing for work like an Atkins follower for a bagel.  I've got my sights on some potential (and various) job opportunities when I return to the states (and none of them are Chiropractic school, to my husband's chagrin), but I would honestly be happy just to work at Target.  Oh, and if you haven't heard "Everybody's free to wear sunscreen" be sure to check it out.

Well, that's it.  I hope it fulfills you for as long as it will take me to post again.  Perhaps you should read one paragraph a week . . . ?

Chocolate fixes everything . . .

Some women whose opinions I value have suggested that when life hands you suck, rather than whipping up the life equivalent of the culinary masterpiece of succotash, one (especially if that one is a woman) should go out and bury her sorrows in chocolate. I've given this some thought and have come down on the side of chocolate myself. Okay, truth be told, any quasi scientific reason which would allow me to increase my chocolate cosumption is good in my book. Frankly, ANY reason, quasi scientific, urban legend derived, or espoused by a crazy on the corner of some NY street is really good enough for me; chocolate and I are good friends. At least, that's what I say. I'm not sure chocolate would really feel all that good about our relationship since it really is all give on chocolate's part and all take on mine, even though I do let chocolate have it's say once a day when I step on the bathroom scale.  But I digress. Rather than tell you the intimate details of my undying devotion to chocolate, I wanted to share with you the place that chocolate has recently had in my life.

Just this past week my husband left on very short notice for unnamed hostile places - certain hostile places that scare me more than they reasonably should. I received one call from him informing me that he would be home a day later than originally believed. Okay, I was fine with that. Then he didn't come home when he was supposed to. And he didn't call. And he wound up missing Valentine's day. Now, I know that this is not uncommon. And I know that this is what I signed up for. And I know that this is nothing compared to what other women have gone through while their husbands' have been called to save the world in one form or another. But all of these facts aside, I was still a woman who did not know where her husband was, when he would be home, and what she was supposed to do with herself all alone on Valentine's day. And yet, I did not fall apart. Heck, I didn't even shed a tear or feel the least bit sorry for myself. Okay, okay, that last one's a lie, I felt a little bit sorry for myself, but I didn't let it get out of control. And do you know how I maintained the strong exterior of a wife inured to the vagaries of this life? One word: chocolate.

That's right, when this all started to go down, did I consult my government's web site and prepare with canned food, and water, and batteries? No, because all those guidelines are written by men and say nothing of the healing, stabilizing, and emotional benefits of chocolate. But I knew what I needed, the way birds know to migrate and salmon know to swim upstream, because I am a woman and we women have been heeling ourselves this way for a very long time. Had there been women on the battlefield when Florence Nightingale was ministering to the needs of the wounded I am sure she would have had Hershey Kisses in one of the pockets of her apron. For nothing has quite the power to right so many wrongs as chocolate. Strangely enough,though, I have had little chocolate in my pantry until just this last week. Things have been great and I really didn't need it. But, with the arrival of Girl Scout cookie season, Easter candy at the BX, and an accidental trip down the chocolate aisle of Real, my pantry was suddenly chock full, and just in time.

Now I receive news this evening that my husband will probably arrive home tomorrow. It has been an okay week. I've gotten in some watching of Stargate and seen episodes I didn't know I'd never seen. I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor (sadly, I've known for some time how badly that was needed). I spent a day with my landladies and used my German and have been making a point of studying every night. I've earned more gift certificates for toys from Amazon for Darin. And I've given the house a bit of a straightening up. Overall, not a bad week. So, the next time you are faced with a personal or family crisis, I highly recommend you get yourself some chocolate. It really does fix everything.

(Unless you are a guy, in which case, try football or video games. Seriously, you know how different men and women are; why are you consulting me?)

Stand Up and Stand Out

I don't recall when, but at some point in my life I came to the realization that while it could certainly be said that I am infinitely unique, it is also a certainty that I am truly and honestly about as unique and important as any other ant in this anthill of human life. I've had my moments of angst over this, sure, but in the end, most days I am just fine with it.

The knowledge of my, essentially, cookie cutter existence has created one notable tic in my personality, however; I am always on the lookout for things that are said or actions that are done that have the potential to be the first time ever done by a human being. Now, manning the first plane to exit earth's atmosphere, making the first viable vehicle not to run on fossil fuels, or being the first person of color to actually have a chance at the American presidency are all wonderful things and I applaud those people who have it in them to accomplish these very significant and unique achievements, but these are not what I am talking about. When I say I am on the lookout for original accomplishments or the coining of original words or phrases, I am talking about those things that are mundane, silly, unimportant and potentially unnoticed. For example, every once in a while I will hear someone say a combination of words that I am certain have never ben said in sequence before. My husband came up with one a few months back and I was incredibly delighted with it, so much so that I believe he was momentarily concerned that I might be a little off my rocker. Sadly and wonderfully, it was so bizarre a sequence that I could not remember it even an hour later.

I think as people living our little lives, noticeable mostly only to our friends and family and unknown and unimportant to the world at large, it is vitally important that we pay attention and keep our eyes open for these moments in our own lives. It is always good to be reminded that while most of what we do has been done before, we still have the power to be refreshing and silly and to come out of nowhere with statements or actions that are certain to have never been said or tried. We ned to remember to try things that are new for us and things that might be new to everyone. So, I urge my readers to consider this in their own lives and to pay attention to what's going on around you. It might seem like one moment, one day, one week, all bleed into the next, but it's just not true. For those of you with children you can see that it isn't that way for them yet. Well, I say, don't let it be that way for you either. If everything around you is the same old thing then you be the change, you be the surprise, you do the action that has never been done before, even if you feel like a fool. To make it easier for you, I will give you a small glimpse into my evening and what prompted this post: just a half hour ago I stood in my kitchen with a pot of boiling water, my broom, and a fork. Now, I won't go into details, but I've got a fair amount of certainty that I might have been the first person to ever be doing what I was doing. If I'm not, well, I'm sure I'm part of a rather exclusive group. And I have to tell you, it feels good. Sure, I know others would think I'm crazy, but it feels really good.

Another year, another 6 posts?

I could take this moment to lament and apologize that I am not one of those people and we are not one of those families that are especially good at keeping the world updated on the happenings in our lives, but frankly, I'm not one of those people that feel particularly guilty about that and neither are we one of those families. So, if you are anxious to hear more about us and find you aren't getting your fill by checking in here, I recommend you send us an e-mail or give us a call. The fact is, we still love you and would love to hear from any of you. And yes, we are much better about returning e-mails.

Now, to give you an idea of what has been going on in our lives: Not much. Yes, one of the Special Guest Stars in my life did return home relatively recently, but while that was wonderful and long awaited, it did not bring any substantially noteworthy changes. Instead of kicking around Germany by myself, I now have a companion. It's nice. I'm happy. But I don't really think it's something you want to read about.

On another front, I suppose those of you who are in the states and have never lived overseas think that our life here must be very exciting, filled with beer, and pretzels, and quaint German towns, and that's partially true. There is beer and it's good, but the wine in this area is also good. There are pretzels, and crepes, and waffles, but like most things you have constant access to they really aren't that exciting. (Okay, yes, when there is no crowd in front of the counter at Babarossa Backerei I have been known to dart off gleefully to get myself a Kase Brezeln and yes, I did once punch my husband because he distracted me and prevented me from going to the counter when there were no other people there, but really, that was only one instance (maybe two or three) and really isn't indicative of how unexciting the pretzels really are.) And yes, this place is chock full of quaint and German and towns and is really a nice place to live, but in the last (almost) year that we've been here we have become used to it. If you must say jaded to make you feel better about living in places like Texas or Ohio, I'm okay with that, but really, this isn't that exciting. Except, that's precisely what is so wonderful about it. Both my main SGS and I LOVE it here. We are quite certain that someday we will look back on his career and think that Germany was the most wonderful place we got to live. It cannot be described how great we think it is because it is something that matches US so well and wouldn't necessarily mean a thing to anyone else. Suffice it to say that, for me at least, coming to Germany has felt like coming home.

You should know, of course, that it isn't all perfect. I was treated like a leper one day because I chose to pay by credit card (after having been assured that it was okay by a salesman on the floor), there have been days and weeks and months when I believed that the sun was a myth or something I must have imagined, and my absolute lackadaisical attitude about learning the language I wanted to be fluent in within a year (I still have one and a half months) has made me feel like an idiot more times than I can recount, but, all that being said, I still wish there was some way I could remain an American and have all the rights and privileges associated without ever having to leave Germany. But no, leave Germany I someday will and I am fairly certain that on that day I will cry. Until then, I will carry on enjoying my life here. If you are fortunate (or unfortunate, perhaps) I will continue to post my observations and maybe, eventually, a picture or two.

Early Morning Geocache Rant

Okay, so I've been working on this sudoku geocache for three days now, four, I don't know. And it's a b!%@&. I am trying every method to solve this thing I can think of. I've got papers strewn everywhere and I'm going crazy. I've posted both bits on here, but to explain to those blinded by the letters and numbers: It's a 25x25 alphabet sudoku and he has given 19 different squares a unique number ranging from 3 to 25 which corresponds with a letter of the alphabet, the one that goes in that square that you are supposed to figure out. Once you have that letter you are supposed to plug it into a grid below, using it's corresponding # and, voila, you should have something that will direct you to the location of the cache (though he gives no information and you are required to figure this out on your own (not too hard, I grant)). Now, presumably this would be accurate coordinates. I'm no idiot, that was my first thought. So I thought, "Why not bypass as much of the sudoku as possible and try to figure out the lower answer by the most likely coordinates, starting with 49 and 7, North and East, and inserting point and degrees where appropriate." Well, no go. It's obvious that doesn't work out quite right, though the # of individual words still makes me think it might be coordinates. Well, I can't recall when, could have been that first day, I thought, "hey, maybe he did it in German." Nope, things just don't seem to work out with German, either. Now, granted, I could have done some research on the internet to see how they might write out coordinates and gained a little more confidence in that theory, but I didn't and so I moved on. Well, tonight, after still faithfully trying to solve this damn puzzle with only one foray into the world of cheating which I gave up as a bad job while waiting for the algorithm on the cheater to finish, I revisited trying to figure out the chart on the bottom using what would likely be there plus a little information (and I stress little - the letters V and N) I had gleaned from the past two days work, plus the possible letters associated with the numbers. After some trial and error and a few good guesses I finally determined that he did, in fact, put the coordinates in German. The only problem was he spelled two of the words incorrectly and used a gender specific version of a third, also incorrect. So I had previously disregarded the German hypothesis because of carelessness on his part. Now, you may be saying, "Well, maybe he did it on purpose to make it harder for people to get the coordinates without finishing the sudoku." Perhaps, but this is the same guy who made a careless mistake on another cache he placed which could easily have resulted in a wasted afternoon if I hadn't second guessed him while caching, and also the same guy who has buried or partially buried two caches, that I know off. It's a grey area, the way he has them, but definitely not 100% Kosher. I honestly think he doesn't put as much care into some of the important aspects of his cache as he should and puts too much time into making them special in some way or other. I'd give up special for accurate any day. His original rating of a 4 might have been accurate if this sudoku weren't incredibly difficult and he hadn't screwed up. As it stands, his current rating of a 5 is more than accurate - you have to account for the errors, after all. You know, I don't mind a little homework with my geocaching, it certainly makes them more original, but geocaching used to be about getting outside. Now it seems it has become a desk job. Thanks but I can be a couch potato quite successfully without anyone's help.

And for those of you who plan on trying the sudoku to see what my problem was, I don't want to hear about it when you solve it. Let me just take this moment to say "Congratulations. You are special" and leave it at that.

If you can catch it, you can keep it.

There are many wonderful things about Germany. If I were to write about them I could go on for hours, so I'll save you the trouble of reading all that and tell you what Max thinks is so wonderful about Germany. His list is a lot shorter than mine and it can be summed up in one word - wildlife. This place is chock full of wildlife, probably because Germans actually care about their environment and haven't polluted the heck out of their land like we have. But I digress. If you add in the neighborhood cats (including one feral tripod of a cat) Max has seen no less than 7 types of wildlife since we've been here, though he has caught sight of other things I did not see. His list of sightings includes deer, hedgehogs, some kind of squirrel, some other kind of squirrel sized ground rodent, birds, moles, voles, and the aforementioned cats. I myself have seen three additional animals that Max did not see: some sort of peccary, a fox, and a scheltopusik, a kind of legless lizard. To both myself and Max, Germany is some kind of animal wonderland. To further substantiate that claim I must add that the local zoo allows dogs, so Max has even seen an alpaca, though I hardly consider that wildlife. Anyway, Max's favorite pastime of late, since the farmers began harvesting their crops, is going for a walk in the grassy fields that border most of the farmland. Hidden within these fields are droves of voles (say that three times fast). To make things exciting for Max, the voles like to dash from one hole to another when they think they are being threatened. Well, Max is a terrier so the voles are being threatened often. He will run around the field like crazy, nose down and head flipping from side to side, until he finds the most likely smelling hole. At that point he stuffs his nose in there to get a really good sniff, then he starts digging like mad. Pause for another sniff and then dig some more. When he gets really excited and thinks he's close to a catch he will bite out chunks of dirt from the far side of the hole. Usually he doesn't catch anything, but a couple of times now he has. Squeamish and pregnant readers may wish to discontinue reading at this point. The first time he caught something Darin and I made him leave it, even though he had already killed it. I felt bad but rationalized that it would be eaten later the evening by a fox. The second time, however, I let Max have it. He caught it, he was willing to eat it, and it probably wouldn't harm him any. It's not like he's not used to raw food by now and it doesn't get any more raw than that. He scarfed the whole thing, not even stopping to pull out the guts like he did on the first. Well, I can tell you, those of you who have watched your child do something big for the first time, use the potty, say their first word, I don't know what, you can understand how proud I felt of my boy. This is what he was bred to do and he's good at it! Really good. Darin and I will point out what looks like a likely hole to us and he'll just race on by to go to a different hole and, sure enough, within moments there are voles running everywhere, fleeing for their lives, afraid of the jaws of doom on MY BOY. Yes, I'm a proud momma.

Oh God, No! Not Madonna . . .

So in the moment of fear inspired by the realization that my blog now has readers (okay, maybe just one reader) and is "in the spotlight" so to speak (Thanks for the link IHJ) I noticed that all of my blog posts (all whopping three) tend towards the melodramatic, depressed, and just generally pathetic.

Now, if you know me you will know that I am generally a thoughtful (pensive, not generous) individual who spends a great deal of time contemplating things that no one else even bothers to notice. It's me, it's who I am. In the last day I have thought about: the line painting in the BX parking lot, the reasons the signs right outside of the base are so different from the rest of the area, the most effective stanchion placement for the bank, the poor organization of the window screen boxes in the BX, the oddity of pick your own flower gardens and how they wouldn't work well in most of the US, that stupid little wood and nail puzzle that Jenn and Chris have, and about 100 individual reveries on the differences and similarities of the English and German languages. (Yes, Jenn, German is indeed the language you already know - sort of.)

So, as you can see by my list above, which, by the way, is in no way complete and is most likely missing many more inane conversations I have had with myself or the dog, there is nothing in there that tends toward the melodramatic or depressed. I leave the judging of 'pathetic' up to my reader(s). Yet, the only times I have posted previously the blogs have that overwhelming flavor to them. Obviously, I had to ponder this and here's what I've come up with:

Either A) I have very little to say about anything substantial going on in my life right now as 1) Max is not going through potty training nor his first few weeks in a big boy bed and 2) Darin and I have not visited anyplace new or special and while Darin has by himself, he's not likely to post about it and having not been there myself I'm certainly not about to tell folks what Norway, Washington, or Romania are like or B) I'm a lot more like the younger Madonna than I really want to be.

"What?" you are thinking. "Madonna? Seriously? Esther, with the big ol' gap in her teeth?" I know, I know, I came at ya' from the back alley, right? Well, I'll explain. When I was younger, almost half my life ago I would like to add so as to separate myself as far as possible, I revered Madonna. Worshipped her, loved her, wanted to be her. I don't know why - feel free to delve all you like. Anyway, during those long ago years I heard an interview with Madonna in which she was complimented on 'Cherish" and then asked why a number of her songs were so sad and if she felt that this was true of a lot of artists. Her response was that writing songs is cathartic and something you almost need to do when those sad moments arise, while the kind of joy you might feel that would inspire you to right a song like 'Cherish' doesn't really lend itself to dropping it all and sitting down and writing.

Okay, I'm probably giving her more credit than she deserves here and may even be saying more than she actually said at the time, but it struck me as true then and it still does now. If you think about it, how many teenage girls start a diary in that stage of early adolescence when everything sucks? Darn near every one of them from what I can tell. And yet it doesn't appear to be out of a great desire to become a writer because most of these girls stop writing in their diaries somewhere along the way and eventually find them when they are getting ready to leave for college, tucked away in a drawer or under their mattress, long since missing the little key that once allowed access to their deepest, darkest, secrets about how much they love (insert generic boy name here).

So, that said, it seems that the basic purpose that diaries serve is not to catalog all of life's moments, but to clear one's head of the crappier ones. All of this takes me back to the content of my blog, which everyone knows is really a diary of sorts. Most of my content has been written at moments when something was bugging me. Not something like the merits of preformed tube coin wrappers as opposed to paper sheets which one must carefully form into a tube around the ever slippery coins, but something more like "How long could I lie dead at the bottom of the stairs before 1) someone would realize I was there and 2) Max would start eating me?" You see, that's the kind of thought that you really want to get off your chest. Your not busy having fun with it, too busy to stop and write it all down. No, you're bothered by it, keep coming back to it. So what to do? Write it down for all of your friends to read and contemplate, of course. I mean, seriously, what's more interesting: Stories of the difficulty of finding just the right amount of vegetable matter to add to Max's diet to prevent constipation or delving into the neurosis in your friend (or acquaintances) head?

Right. Well then, I'll get on that story about Max just as soon as I can.

So many issues I should come with a warning label . . .

So, tonight was the last night of my German I class. We had dinner at a local restaurant and used a tiny bit of German to order. It was really just an excuse to go out to eat, not that I have a problem with that - my roulladen and knödel were quite good and my German salat was as good as any other German salat, if not better. However, as it was the last day and a more social event than the actual classes were, I got involved in more conversation than I previously had. Well, I'll be the first to tell folks that I am a blithering social idiot. As a matter of fact, I have told a group of folks that, precisely that, and they laughed; perhaps out of lack of understanding that I was serious or perhaps because they realized just how serious I was and statements like that make people uncomfortable. Probably the latter, hmmm. Either way, it's true. I am an idiot when it comes to social encounters. Either I stay relatively quiet and uncomfortably wait for the obligation to pass, or I open up my mouth and stick my foot in just as far as it will go. Now, I'm not saying that I don't feel the things I say to be true, nor am I saying that I wouldn't stand by my opinions if challenged, heck, in hindsight it is very infrequent for me to regret having said any of those things, but I am saying that I can't stand the feeling I'm left with at the end of a night like tonight. This evening, for example, driving home I went through all of the things I'd said and how much of an idiot I'd seemed. Which is weird, because I don't think anything I think is stupid (if I did I wouldn't think it anymore, duh!) yet I'm left with this uncomfortable feeling. So, if I'm okay with what I've said, why should I be worried about what other folks are thinking of what I've said? I think the inherent problem is that somewhere in the last couple of years I've allowed myself to be more comfortable in social situations but while I've backed off on that front I haven't backed off on my shyness. Weird, huh? A person whose mouth runs like she's drunk but doesn't have to wait until the next morning for the regret to set in. I still consider myself to be quite shy, but I don't think most folks would see it. It's hard to see shy when a person's mouth is going a mile a minute, but it's just the only source I can see for why I get to feeling like this. Perhaps it's because I simultaneously put myself out there as true and honest and who I really am, but I am aware that it is very hard for people to see all of the parts, especially not in one night, and so I must necessarily come across with missing information. I'm like a building that a person can see and touch and say "Oh, so this is an Alysn." but what they don't see is all of the complicated stuff inside the walls that makes it all stand up and work. As honest as I try to be, there is no way for someone to understand everything and see all of me. You would think the obvious solution would be to hold back and not allow people the ability to mistake me for something simple, but I'm not comfortable with that either. I guess I need to develop a comfort level with people not liking me, accept that there is no way people can know the whole me, that even if they did know the whole me they still might not like me and that's okay. God, do people really feel that way?

The brevity of Henry James

Henry James, an author on whose works I once spent an entire semester's focus, is quoted as having written "We work in the dark. We do what we can. We give what we have." I heard these lines for the first time today and looked them up because they had a poignancy to my life which I could not immediately explain. Hardly surprising since they were used as the closing words to a heartfelt television show, but still no less meaningful to me for all of the emotion they were supposed to engender. It seems, however, that the writer chose to stop the quote prematurely as James actually went on to say "Our doubt is our passion. And our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art" and it was with these additional words that the television writer's spell over me was broken. Not because what James said no longer had any meaning to me, but because the addition of all that he had said was so much more meaningful and so much less trite than the abbreviated quote. I was especially taken up with "Our doubt is our passion. And our passion is our task." How true that is for me every day of my life I feel I can barely put into words. I lack confidence, plain and simple. It seems that every moment I am who I am, I am that way due to doubt: Am I good enough? Do I try hard enough? Do I love enough? My life is filled with the pursuit of answers that only continued action can pursue. Like a dog chasing its tail, I can exhaust myself and never accomplish anything, overwhelmed by the passion of chasing down answers that probably don't exist outside of myself and seem incapable of showing themselves inside. And so I work this task in the background of my life, worrying it like I would worry a wound in my mouth; painful to do but so compelling and impossible to resist. I have no answer for it, but I am exhausted, that much is certain. I wish I could find solace in James' words, but I cannot for I know that there is no solace, no peace in who I am. There is only me, my task, and the madness of this art of life and that must be good enough in the end.

The most dangerous room in the house

I read or heard somewhere that the bathroom is the most dangerous room in the house, accounting for something over 50 percent of all in home fatalities. Now, I don't know if this is really true, but I can well believe it when I consider the potential in my own home for wet floors, errant razor blades, and attacking dental floss. Yes, that's right, I said "attacking dental floss." I know it's hard to believe, but just this morning I had a near death experience thanks to my daily flossing habits. I had just released a reasonable length of floss from the little plastic container and stretched it between my fingers when a piece of wax, propelled by my energetic snapping of the floss, flew into my eye. Okay, you're thinking, I can see how a piece of wax might hurt a little, but "near death?" Don't you think you might be overstating things? Well no, no I don't, 'cause the darned wax is imbued with some kind of cinnamon flavor, more specifically, the kind that burns - burns like a Texas sidewalk in mid-July or lava erupting from Mt. St. . . .well, you get the idea. So, here I am, home alone, naked, blinded in one eye, stumbling around the bathroom in excruciating pain, trying not to trip on the dog who wants to join in on whatever excitement is causing the profanity spilling freely from my mouth, and it occurs to me; If i slipped on a wet spot, stumbled over the dog, and landed on a razor, what's my husband going to think when he finds me like this in a few days? He'll never know about the floss. He'll never know that this wasn't all brought about by vast clumsiness. His last impression of me will be of a woman who manages to take herself out in the most mundane way possible - slipping and falling. When I was younger I thought I was going to be something big in life, make some sort of difference in the world, just "be somebody" but as I've aged I have begun to come to terms with the fact that all of that, on a big scale, is unlikely. What's more likely is the life I am living right now - wife of a military man, living in a foreign country, training a dog, dabbling in hobbies, and slowly getting older. It's not a bad life. I'd have to say that it's a rare day that tallies on the downside of the spectrum, but it's not where I thought I'd be. And yet, I'm happy with it, I've come to terms with the fact that, important as I may be to myself and to those whose lives I touch, I'm simply just another ant in the anthill. So good, I think I'm at a good place with that, right? But my flossing incident has made me realize that maybe I'm not. Maybe being okay with being an ant in the anthill doesn't mean I'm completely buying into the relative meaninglessness of life. If I were, I wouldn't have been so struck by the possibility of my death looking so pointless, so stupid. I would have thought, "Well, this is it, I guess." and gracefully bowed myself out. And yet, I didn't. Instead, I began thinking, thought for two days in fact, until I realized what was bugging me. And then I wrote it all down for others to ponder. And you know what all of this comes down to, in the end? That whole thing about the bathroom being the most dangerous room in the house? That's a lot more true, and in more ways than one, than I've ever realized before.