Spring's Gate Girl

In Iowa over spring break, I volunteered to be Dad's gate-girl one chilly morning. It's not a glamorous job. I just needed layers of clothes, jersey gloves, and good boots. Knowing the difference between an electric fence and a barbed wire fence was also helpful. Call it innate Iowa wisdom: You grab electric once as a child, and the knowledge stays with you for life.

This was my vehicle for the morning. I got to drive the Ranger, which I thought was pretty cool.

...Until I gave it some gas. Then it was darn cold. Although it was a sunny morning, the temp was 40 degrees and the wind was gusting at 20+ mph, throwing the relative temp to around freezing.

This was Dad's farm implement for the morning. The skid-loader.

Each vehicle was well-suited for each of our jobs. I had easy on-and-off access to open and close gates as we made our way to the field where the cattle were eager to eat. Dad's had a loader on the front to scoop silage from the pile and dump it into the feeders.

After 15 minutes watching Dad drive back and forth with load after load of silage, I realized Dad was driving the Cadillac. I was driving the Ford Pinto. Dad's was encased in windows with a heater and had slick tracks that let it glide over the mud and slop. Mine had wheels that slipped into and shuddered in the slop, reminiscent of the golf cart on the bog. (Remember "How about an 8 Iron?" ?) So, I made tracks a little like this.

Yet even with my under-insulated, spinning jalopy, I loved it. In my Ranger, I circled the cows and baby calves. Most are Angus, but there are a few few white-faced Herefords. Taking pictures is tricky as the Angus are solid black. If they are standing together, they photograph as one furry blob.

But up close...

...huggable little blobs of fur.

Thanks for letting me drive the Pinto, Dad.

(As luck would have it, my boys got to experience Walking Beans in the summer after my Gate Girl spring.)

Shadows in the Bathroom

Swinging through the hallway to go to the basement, I caught a glance of strange shadows in the bathroom. The light was off and the afternoon light coming through the window was mottled. I stopped and said, "Liam?" To which there was no answer. I looked closer. I was sure he was in there. I approached the shadows. Headless Halloween story characters popped into my head. The Headless Horseman. But what I was seeing... just legs standing by the toilet. With the light on, it was clear my son had NOT left his legs in the bathroom. Only his sweatpants and boots... and a trail of other garments.

Obviously, the whole bottom half of his wardrobe was not agreeing with him this day.

Please, forward this to another mom or dad who just might need it. :)

Happy Hump Day!

(P.S.: Have you met my Hillbilly Joe?)

How about an 8 iron?

You can force bulbs, but you can't force spring. Oh, but wait... I live with golfers. And, I live with skiiers. Alas, the mountains have melted: the skiiers are saddened. We redirect with the promise of a lively golf season. Then, some how some way, our Malcolm family of four is on a golf course in early April. Where under the shade of a forest, spring has not sprung nor has the snow melted.

Where Liam is the only one wearing appropriate foot attire: boots called "Bogs."

Where the normally simple operation of a golf cart is not so simple: not too fast...the wheels will spin and sink into the bog, nor too slow... slow wheels will get sucked into that gulping mud.

Where the cold wind howls on the first hole -- a water hole: stirring up the overwhelming aroma of goose poop.

We worked out the kinks on the first hole, zig-zagging golf balls back and forth, and occasionally to another fairway. A half hour later we moved to the second hole. With less wind and fewer geese, our pace quickened.

I chose my three clubs for this season: the driver, 8-iron, and putter. I understand the purpose of open-face vs closed-face heads, that there is meant to be a correlation between club and distance. My body does not, particularly this early in the season. I choose to focus on getting the ball in the air and going straight with the driver and my 8-iron. I patiently listen to the chatter about what irons the three Malcolm boys are using, but I stand firm. About 50% of the time I accomplish my goal: shots that are airborne and straight ahead. Then, some whiz off beyond seasonal hazards. Since I picked up clubs 24 years ago, I have played with bright pink balls. Never were they so useful as this spring 9-hole-3-hour day.

To the question, "What did you get on that hole, Mom?" my consistent answer was, "I'll take ten."

I take great liberties with my game of golf.

Scoring is one thing I choose not to do.

My 8-iron is the iron I choose to use.

That's as serious as the game gets for me.

Plus, every season, I have the one great hope that I don't behead a goose.

Choose Kind or Right?

I ran across a quote while reading the book Wonder that really made me think: "When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind." We have a lot of "I'm right & you're wrong!" going on in our house. Over such things as Mom-poured-the-milk-but-then-put-the-glass-out-of-reach. In time for dinner one night last week, I wrote the quote in big letters on a piece of paper and left it on the island where we eat dinner. Bill was in China, so he didn't get to participate. (He misses so many indescribable Malcolm moments.)

I started off saying that I thought it was a great quote but could see a potential problem with it. "Yeah!" Will agreed. "If there's a robber, you don't have to be kind to him!" Yup, when choosing between right and kind, you still have to abide by your conscience.

We had a bit more conversation, Liam mostly listening to this hyperbole. I wrapped up the lesson. "So at the end of the day, like with school friends, it's better to be kind than to be right."

"Well, Mom," Liam responded with a shrug, "at the end of the day we get to go home. So it doesn't really matter."

"Help," croaked I, just before a belly chortle.

Happy Literal Hump Day!

Playing Life with Liam

Liam discovered the game of Life at school with his friends. We dusted off our box and what had been planned as a family game evening became Liam and Mom, playing with Liam’s rules. I must say this made the game much easier to learn. If Liam wasn’t sure of a rule, we read that one little section of the 25-page instructions for the game of Life; then Liam interpreted it and we played accordingly. This style of play would not have bode well for the Malcolm family of four. Did I gain insight or fear during the two rounds of Life with Liam?

First the babies were cute, but as they kept falling out of the car, he decided he wasn’t having any kids. They were too much of a hassle as he drove his car along the path. So, if we landed on “Twins!” or “New Baby!” we had the option of loading up the car or not.

On the first lawsuit square I landed on, I looked at Liam for guidance. He had about $50k, and I was supposed to sue him for $100k. Puzzled only momentarily, he cried out “I know!” and gave me $100k from the bank. We continued to sue the bank for hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout our game of Life.

Liam was adverse to the purchase of homes. “Well, where are you going to live?” He didn’t hesitate, “In my car on the hill.” I envisioned the loft over our barn being converted to an apartment in 15 years.

At the start of the game, there wasn’t a lot of organizing we had to do. We left all the cards face up in the lid and shook them so we could thoughtfully pick a career. A high salary career.

My favorite part was the careful planning on how he would move through Life. He looked ahead and counted the squares necessary to get to the spot where he wanted to land. Then with great finesse, he spun the spinner just so and 99% of the time landed exactly where he had planned. My spinning was a bit more haphazard. Which probably explains the end of both rounds, “I retired before you! TWICE!”

I'm sure his friends will set him straight on the rules when he plays Life with them again at school. But for today, atta boy, Liam!

Horse Haiku

Last Monday's March Haiku was pretty cool! A couple people came up with great haiku for the frosty tree picture. So, for you haiku seekers or horse lovers, how about one for this picture? I took this last spring while walking the gravel roads at Mom and Dad's. The picture reminds me of sitting with my great-grandma as a little girl, looking at pictures of horses and cows in the Wallace Farmer.

Like last week, share your haiku in the comments under the same picture on Linda Malcolm's Facebook. Remember, haiku are pretty straight forward: 17 syllables, in three lines of 5, 7, & 5 syllables.

Here's mine... April morn leaf buds Iowa Amish horses Strong. Curious. Still.

Fearless with the Flank

Last night a friend and I took a Thai cooking class at Eurostoves in Beverly, MA. Everyone settled on a recipe to work at a station where all the ingredients and a set of Wusthoff knives were at the ready. The smell of lime, lemon grass, cilantro, and garlic unleashed as knives started chopping away. Cooking Thai food is quick. The preparation -- a lot of chopping and staging of ingredients -- can be a little daunting, time consuming. But put a perfectly weighted Wusthoff 8" knife in your hand, and oh my goodness, the chopping angels sing. (They sang so loudly I left the class with a Wusthoff.)

The chef pointed out that Thai dishes are excellent to make for company. All the prep can be done before guests arrive, then the cooking happens in a flash. As part of the evening's entertainment, grab a guest and have her read directions while you toss ingredients into the pan. As you flick ingredients together and a Thai dish materializes... well, pretty impressive.

Chef's first instruction: read the recipe thoroughly before doing anything else. Mine was going to be a quick prep: Thai Beef Salad. Then I shuddered. Flank steak. An oddity in my grilling repertoire. But what better place to learn how to grill that cut than in a cooking class. Chef gave me the "feel the flesh between your thumb and forefinger lesson" to check for medium-rare, but I wanted minutes. That's how I grill. Chicken breast on the grill, close the cover, set timer for 4 minutes, flip chicken, set timer for 4 minutes, take chicken off and let it rest. Chef suggested that I start with 4 minutes each side.

I gave the 10" long steak a little salt and pepper seasoning and then laid it on the massive indoor grill under the ferocious fan. Beep, beep. I flipped the steak and noticed it looked a little strange on the top side. Had I thought to season both sides of the steak before putting it on the grill, I would have realized the steak was 15" long, not 10" long. Yes, I had grilled the steak folded up. I maneuvered the steak for an extra five minutes, eventually got all sides grilled, and removed it from the heat to set for 15 minutes. Lesson learned: In addition to reading the entire recipe, unfold all the ingredients.

Before grilling I had prepped the other salad ingredients and tossed them into a bowl: minced lemon grass, chopped spring onion, sliced red onion, match-sticked cucumber. I kept the dressing -- the juice of two limes and two tablespoons of fish sauce -- in a separate bowl. I laid out the garnishes of mint leaves, cilantro leaves and a tiny chopped beautiful bold red pepper.

Once cooled, I sliced the steak on the diagonal. When I got to the thick bit, it was a little too rare so I tossed it back onto the grill for a couple more minutes each side. Cooled it again, sliced it. Then I tossed all the chopped veg and the beef and the dressing into a bowl to work together until we were ready to eat. The platter of lettuce and the bowl of meat went into the fridge.

Just before serving, I dumped the beef onto the lettuce and spread it out a bit. Sprinkled the cilantro, mint and pepper over the top. Boom. Done. It was delicious!

This is going to be the salad of Summer 2013. All of those goofy grilling errors will happen before company even arrives.

Something for Every One

Sitting for a quiet half hour in the dentist's chair yesterday, I gathered these thoughts for this Hump Day. During February break, the boys and I went to a robotic dinosaur exhibit at the science museum in Manchester, NH. A caution sign hung outside a partially hidden exhibit: "Warning, Carnivore Scene." At the Currier Art Museum across town, the European art gallery with numerous vivid, bloody works depicting Christ on the cross should have had a similar warning. I did not find convincing Easter words to shatter those graphic images etched on a 7-yr-old's mind. The melancholy of Good Friday and the rejoicing of Easter all sat heavily with me this year. I resorted to Cadbury's chocolate eggs.

We went to Portland, Maine for Easter weekend. In the Children's Museum, my sons and I climbed into a life-sized blow-up humpback whale. The guide pointed out body parts from the inside and explained how whales and humans are both mammals: "Where did you grow? Inside your mommy's tummy, right?" Liam glanced at me, opened his mouth, then closed it. I think we both may have been thinking, "Ack, what the heck does she know?" Fleetingly, I thought 'biological birth whale mother?' I let it go.

The weekend started out with something for every one but nothing for everyone. Boutique shopping for me. A brewery for Bill. A swimming pool for Will & Liam. I even thought we all might enjoy a workshop in making tempura paints out of egg yolks. In reality, that was for me. Sunday morning we rose, packed up, and went to Mackworth Island to hike the circular cliff and see the fairy houses in the woods. However, we had a change of plans. A pleasant surprise: Low tide.

Finally, there was the something for everyone. Our first day at the beach this year. Rock climbing, shell seeking, playing football, rock collecting, rock throwing. Even a glance at a fisher cat, apparently a common but mean little creature in New England.

That good dose of sea air blew out the sticky cobwebs that were globbing up the transition between winter and spring. Today, the snowmen are going into the winter storage tub to make room for dafs on the mantel.

Happy Hump Day!

March Haiku

Are you up for haiku-ing? A little mental shake-up? An unusual exercise for the brain? This picture made me want to write a haiku. I haven't done that since middle school. In case you need a brush-up, haikus are 17 syllables long, written in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables.

Check out my haiku below the picture. If you come up with a haiku for this picture, add it as a comment under the same picture here on my Facebook page.

Go ahead... try it!

March morning glistens.
Winter sits on warm branches.
Spring night... winter gone.

Simple Squid Dinner

For dinner Monday night, I had leftover ingredients from the weekend to work with: a bowl of very ripe tomatoes, an onion, some garlic, two lemons, a handful of linguine, a bottle of Chardonnay, and one-and-a-half pounds of squid.  The squid was leftover from the paella Bill made Saturday night. I rustled through my on-line recipe box looking for an easy tomato-white wine sauce that I had made a few weeks ago. With a quick search for "squid," a stuffed squid popped up. Upon opening the bag of porcelain sleek & glossy white squid tubes, I decided stuffing them would be a ridiculous endeavor. I would just quickly chop them up. A deconstructed squid dish. (Think Indiana Jones, in battle with a whip when a quick shot just seemed to make more sense.)

Thankfully, all the skin, ink, and cartilage was gone before said squid entered our house. I was left with long white tubes and long purple tentacles. I chopped the squid tubes into calamari rings and threw them into a strainer to rinse. I picked up the tentacles, some 4 - 6 inches long, and put them into the strainer as well. It was right about then that I thought, "I'm a heck of a long way from Iowa."

I didn't have time to soak the pieces in milk to tenderize them. I didn't get the meat tenderizing hammer out because I didn't want squid juice squirting all over my clean counter and floor. Rather, I decided they would just need to tenderize as they simmered away in tomatoes, onions, garlic and wine for a half hour.

As the ingredients came to a happy simmer in the pan, I took one last peek before putting the cover on. Puzzled by the bizarreness of these little creatures, prepared by my Iowa-born hands, smothered in a Creole-infused sauce. Would my granddad have eaten these? He loved fish, but this was a far-cry from beer-battered bullheads. Would my dad knowingly eat these? (Dad had unknowingly eaten them as we ordered fried calamari once while he was visiting. We didn't tell him the source of the nice rubbery, crunchy appetizer.)

The end result was delicious served over rice.  So, do you eat chewy purple legs covered with little suction cups? Please do tell.

(This "recipe" is a little more complicated: Corn's On!)

Linda Malcolm on Facebook

With the help of Wendy Sue, my web guru, I am bringing Linda Malcolm to the age – gulp – of social media. Today, meet Linda Malcolm on Facebook. This is the best place to leave comments to my blog posts. Your comments are funny, thought-provoking, surprising, and relatable…“I’m-not- the-only-one-this-happens-to?!” They need to be seen by more people than just me!

Facebook will also help me finish stories started on my blog. For instance, the afternoon of the Hump Day Short about Will and the hours he spends with the Children’s Dictionary, Liam came home with his first definition exercise. Honestly, the same day. After working with Liam on basic strategies of looking up words in the Children’s Dictionary, I was dying to tell you that a cow has four stomachs. However, I refuse to litter your in-box more than a couple times a week. But, I really – desperately – wanted you to know that a cow has four stomachs. Now, I can include P.S.’s like that on Facebook.

Anyway, borrowing a bit from Sally Fields – “You like me! Right now, you like me!” OK, her speech was within the context of confirmation while holding an Oscar; mine is in the context of… well, a directive. “Like” me on my new Facebook page. Please. Go here Linda Malcolm on Facebook and click "Like."

Nothing like begging for love.

:)

Happy Hump Day.

When Plans Change

Running a tight ship. Magically getting it all done. Type A personality. Everything has a place & everything in its place. A Pottery Barn house. Not me. So not me, particularly post-chemo with not a hormone in sight to glue it all together in the old memory bank. Consequently, I'm taking an Executive Functioning webinar, trying to re-train my brain in the ways of time management and using visible tools daily. It's helpful to have daily, weekly, monthly, and long-term planning pages in front of me -- as long as I remember to use them.

Early yesterday morning, I had created the perfect do-able list: take boys to school, meet workers at the house to get gas fire place working, write the Hump Day Short, grab lunch, buy humidfiers and toothbrushes, get home for webinar, pick up boys & take them to play dates, buy groceries, reverse pick up of boys, make quick taco dinner, have dinner together, get boys to bed at a decent hour.

Well, plans change in my non-Pottery Barn life. The best goof-up in my schedule was lunch. I stopped at a little restaurant that I had recently discovered; I'm usually there at odd times but yesterday I as there at noon. I sat down with my planning clipboard and a blank piece of paper (aka: grocery-list-in-the-making) as diners filtered in.

I recognized one woman as the mom of a Little Leaguer that played on Liam's team. And another as the mom of a little girl in my god-daughter's class. Long story short, we slid my table together with another and had lunch together. We chatted, laughed, joked, and poked. For not remembering either of their names nor ever having met the third woman, the conversation was lively. Enjoyable.

So if you felt the world brighten a bit around 12 Eastern time yesterday, it may have been the sparks from that lunch. Why won't you take your child bowling? Roller-skating? Should an inmate on death-row receive cancer treatment? When should you pay a contractor? Why was my Christmas wreath on the door until March 6th? (See the 1st and 2nd paragraph... and there WILL be new decor on my door TODAY! ...I'm putting it on my daily planner.)

Alas, much like the rest of the day's events, lunch went on longer than I had allowed in my planner. "Inhale lunch" then "Write Hump Day Short at library" then "Webinar at home." I skipped the middle task to get the next one done.

So, I'm writing the Hump Day Short at 5 a.m. And happily so. Lunch with these ladies and another surprise visit with old friends were the highlights of my day. Conversations when plans change.

I didn't have "Lunch with virtual strangers" nor "Unexpected chat with old friends" written in on my daily planning sheet.

Perhaps that's why I plan my day in pencil?

Happy Hump Day.

Children's Dictionaries

I’m not God. He made 24 hours in a day. He made us with the intent that we sleep for a good chunk of that time so as not to get grumpy. Well, probably many other reasons, but that’s certainly how he built me. Those are the parameters within which homework needs to get done: fit it into the 24-hour wheel of time, at home before you go to school the next day. Some days are busier than others; still the homework needs to be done. And truly, the word HOMEWORK that occupies Will’s mind takes much more time than the actual amount of homework to be done.

When the phrase, “You need to give me more time!” slipped from Will’s tongue for days; I tried the white board approach, with the evening laid-out in half-hour slots. I marked in dinner and bedtime then left all the other half-hour slots white. “Honey, that’s it right there. All that blank space is up to you to work out. I can’t give you any more time. That’s it. You need to get your homework done in that time.” It worked beautifully. A visual that said time is finite.

Then come the Tuesday evenings when I hear, “I don’t have much homework, Mom. It won’t take me too long.” I do the math: “It won’t take me too long” + Tuesday = definitions and sentences for 10 spelling words are due tomorrow = The Children’s Dictionary. I cringe. I skip the white board for it is powerless over the Children’s Dictionary…

Five minutes ago, I opened the Children's Dictionary to find periscope, one of Will’s words. I landed at the end of the P’s. Py. Pyramid. Wow. The most amazing diagram of a pyramid. All the chambers, corridors, and galleries are illustrated in detail. Half the page is the Great Pyramid, Giza, Egypt. But, wait, I need periscope! With a backward flip of a few pages, past clear, color pictures of portcullis (very cool!), pole vault, platypus (my favorite animal), planets, piano, pheasant, and penknife, I skip right over the small diagram of the periscope. Fortunately, when I go forward to the periscope page, it is the only drawing on the two-page spread.

This is how the Children’s Dictionary works. The Children Dictionary opens the spigot of imagination time after time. This is why ten definitions and sentences take two hours. Which is fine if you want to make an evening of it.

I can only give you more time, Will, with a 6-inch thick, good, solid Webster’s.

Happy Hump Day -- and for those of you with Children's Dictionaries at home, we only have around 12 more Hump Days this school year.

Live Free or Die

While Bill is in England visiting his family, the boys and I are in New Hampshire for a little getaway.  This afternoon we went snow shoeing for the first time on a trail around America's Stonehenge in Salem, NH.  We mistakenly left the orange trail.  At the intersection of the blue and green trails -- and a half hour before the trail closed -- I called the trail office and asked for advice on which way to go.  We handed our snow shoes in just before dusk. I had arranged to stay at a hotel with a big pool.  Unfortunately, the configuration of the hotel room is exactly the same as that of the The Black Bra Inn.  Will noted, "It's not as luxurious as some."  But not as bad as others -- no lingerie was tucked under the bed legs.

To the pool we went.  We were there with 25 other boys.  First, I thought, "Great, kids for the boys to play with!"  That was a short-lived thought.  Boys were cannon-balling into the hot tub and grabbing each other around the neck to dunk and hold under water in the pool  They were taking cups of water and tossing them at each other, and me.  I could see bewilderment in my boys' eyes.  A parent asked me if I was doing OK with the raucous.  I asked if it was a bunch of boys from the same class.  No.  It's a hockey team. 9-year-olds

The icing on the cake was when a half dozen of them decided to treat the tiled pool deck as a slip'n'slide.  Getting a good running start, they threw themselves headfirst down the pool deck.  Surely, now, a parent will say something.  Oh indeed.  The video camera came out and a mom said, "Do it again!"  Is this how hockey players really lose their teeth?

As the slip'n'slide was in full tilt, the hotel front desk clerk kicked them out of the pool, telling them there was a private party coming in.  There was no private party.  I'm pretty sure the clerk was just scared to kick out a hockey team and hockey parents carrying red plastic cups.  Anyway, as they were kicked out of the pool, one of the dads handed me a small "Personal Bible: Verses of comfort, assurance, and salvation" as he explained, "I give them to everyone I meet.

Honest to Pete, I wanted to tell him to save his kid's teeth and chin before trying to save me..

Did I mention that New Hampshire's state motto is "Live Free or Die"?

Now, would you believe that at 11 p.m. the fire alarm went off in the hotel?  And following the beeps, a woman said, "A fire has been reported in the building.  Please leave the building."  Apparently, all fire alarms are now armed with a motherly voice. One 50-pound child woke up and looked at me wide-eyed.  The other 50-pound child did not hear it.  So we put clothes on him and opened our door.  The neighbors were just returning to their room.  Seems there had been a fire in a microwave.

Did I mention there are three hockey teams staying at this hotel tonight?

Overcoming Barriers

Barriers baffle me. I didn't knock this one off the hinges doing 98 like I did at the Museum of Science. It came down gently, but firmly, and landed on top of the van. At a railroad crossing.

First, know (Mom!) that I was in NO danger! We regularly criss-cross train tracks; the towns we normally travel through are on the commuter rail. I'm very conscious of the flat barrier: the thick white line painted on the roads well out of reach of the moving barrier's slice. I've given driving lessons to the boys on the importance of these lines. They'll be driving before we know it. (Wow, those are my dad's words -- they just fell out in his voice, so I guess I better leave them!)

This incident occurred on a funny right-hand turn. At a major intersection, there is a little ramp that shoots off the main road for right-hand turns. I've driven on it often but never when a train was approaching. I saw the lights flash so I stopped before the flat white line barrier. Then out of my rearview mirror, I saw motion, and a split second later, I heard the gently thud. I double-checked that I was safe -- because if necessary I could reverse doing 98. I was safe. I patiently waited for the train to go and for the barrier to lift. And it did.

I have been back to check that white line in relation to the barrier. The ramp has double white lines: one before the barrier and one after the barrier. Apparently, the second one is bolstered by the firm grip of the barrier.

Thankfully the boys weren't in the car with me. If they doubt me when the smoke alarm woman gets on her "fire, fire" kick, panic would've struck at the sight of a railroad barrier landing on the van.

A Sleet Day

(Written January 2011: The winter of 70+ inches of snow in Boston.)

I’m awake early this morning after a heavy snow dream: We drove up to our house and our roof had collapsed. When we went inside, we saw that only the attic had collapsed, but we watched as the plaster slowly peeled away from all the walls on the second floor. I left the dream having called a roofer and wondering if we should call the construction company.

In real life, we have had 70 inches of snow – I’m not sure if that includes the two inches of ice from last Thursday. There have been enough snow days that Will wakes up assuming it’s a snow day until told otherwise. For days we have been watching six to eight inches of ice on the narrow overhang above the deck, just over the door to our house. Last weekend, from the driveway I looked up concerned that it would collapse, but Bill was unsure that anything could be done.

On Monday, Bill went away on business for the week. Tuesday we had twelve more inches of snow. Wednesday we woke up to sleet and another snow day. That morning the boys were in their pj’s playing and I decided to take a quick shower – until I opened the curtain to look out my bedroom window. Eight inches of snow rested on the window pane. Aha! This is the roof of the overhang! Right outside my bedroom window! I can shovel this roof from my bedroom window!

Armed with a baby snow shovel and a full-size snow shovel, I opened the window. Unfortunately, this particular window is one that when the lock is released the top window falls down a bit. But I was still able to reach out and push a lot of snow off. If I leaned my upper body out of the window, I could reach right to the edge of the ice. Looking at the amount of ice built up, I hoped that if the wall gave and took me with it, that someone would find the little orange snow shovel so they would know I hadn’t jumped due to another snow day. The amount of ice under the snow was shocking: Six inches thick up to a small boulder in a corner where the sun rarely glanced. Still I had done what I could – as the morning news had suggested – in removing snow behind the ice to avoid an ice jam.

I was ready to move on to window #2. I started the usual dance with the funky window: push the top one up that had fallen and hold it in place while pushing the other one down. We’ve done it a million times. But today, the top window pops out of the frame and thuds onto the ice roof I had just shoveled from my bedroom window. Moments of silence… then under my breath… “Nooo!”

My neighbor had told me to call if I needed anything while Bill was away. “My bedroom window fell out while I was shoveling my roof.” I scrapped that scenario and lunged out the open hole to grab the window – wet but no broken glass. Forty-five minutes later, I had learned a lot about window design, including how the little pulley system should work if the window is installed properly. I gave up on proper installation and managed to wedge it into the slides, delicately push it up, and snap the lock.

I shoveled from window #2 without incident then went downstairs to check on the boys. “I thought you were going to shower, Mom.” My straight hair had been sleeted on while I was clearing snow, so the curls were wet and crazy. “No, I decided to shovel snow. I’m going out to do the steps now.” Two feet of roof snow was on the steps.

As long as I was out, I thought it would be a good idea to clear a path to the mailbox from the drive before all of the sleet froze on top of the snow banks. The box itself was the only thing visible, gulping for air under a muddy snow mound. Slowly, I cleared a shovel’s width of snow and ice, three feet high. I moved to the street side, thinking I would help out the mailman as well. Then a snow plow came over the hill. So I stepped back into my drive. And as he left the ridge in the drive, I smiled pointed to my shovel and to him. He backed up and cleared the ridge he had just left in the drive. I gave him a thumb’s up as he went on his way.

I returned to the box. My three feet of snow had returned: the ridge across my drive was now another three-foot high muddy, icy, slushy mound filling my little path to the box. I cleared it again from my drive and left the street-side mound for the government to deal with. My shower was long over due.

Call Me Carol

After two and a half days in the house and at least one more ahead of me, I had to take a breather late Sunday afternoon.  I took Liam to the doctor then administered a round of Advil to keep his fever in check; then I told Bill I had to get out for a while.  I said I was going shopping – because I didn't know what else a mother does spur of the moment on a Sunday afternoon when she proclaims, “Enough!  You shall all survive without me for a couple hours!”  (I had showered that morning, so exercise was out of the question.) I went to the new Container Store, taking with me measurements of our three new bathroom drawers.  Their contents were chaos.  In the bathroom storage aisle, I perused the robust inventory for just the right stackable trays.  Voices of a man and a woman in front of me were getting louder.  “You want to talk about all your shit now?  You think I’ve got a lot!” decried a husband, too loudly, to his wife who was walking away from him.  Couples together over five years do not belong in an organizing store together.

As I tried to add tray widths together that would get close to the overall drawer width, a sweet lady picked up a piece of plastic with 24 holes in it.  “Oh, this would be nice on my vanity.”  I ignored her.  I was trying to add 8 + 8 + 3 1/2  – was that more than 19 ¼?  Or, maybe 6 + 9 +….  “Hmmm, do you think round ones would fit in the square holes?”  Well, you probably know that  saying as well as I do.  “I really don’t know.”  We were talking about lipstick.  She had a pretty shade of red on her lips.  “I wish I had one with me to test it out.”  Oh dear...  I felt that Carol Burnett glowering eye twitch and lip pucker setting in as I again loss track of my addition.

And my lip pucker was void of color.  And my purse was void of Elizabeth Arden, Clinique, and Estee Lauder tubes of color – round or square.  My dear, I don’t even have my Avon Care Deeply lip balm on me.  I gave it to my son as I left the house.  His lips are so dry from fever -- he thought the dead skin flaps were little wings sprouting on his lips.

Despite my annoyance at not being able to concentrate on simple addition while half-participating in this conversation, I stood up a little straighter.  This woman was asking my opinion about a lipstick tray.  I had succeeded.  The shower, blow-dry, and simple make-up application made me look more like a woman shopping and less like a tired Mom.  For a couple hours.

Until I went home and flopped down onto the couch.  Too tired to glower, twitch, or pucker.

Two ear tugs to Moms.

Sitting and Watching

Day 1 - Friday, Jan. 25th Ribbons of pink sunrise surround our house this morning.  Horizontal pinks line the sky and grow in intensity before giving way to the full glare of the morning sun.

That’s the background view out the window as I sit on the couch watching Liam.  At sunrise, he woke up screaming with a fever and a headache.  When I explained he had a bug, Liam wondered if it was a hot bug that landed on the top of his head.  When I explained he had a fever, Liam decided it was because he I had too many dreams in his head.

After giving him a dose of Tylenol, I sit and watch Liam.  Feeling his hot head.  Moving covers on and off.  Looking for any sign of a febrile seizure.  Realistic or not, that’s where my mind goes when fever comes into our house.

Will had a febrile seizure 6 years and 11 months ago when he was two, but I didn’t know that until we got to the hospital by ambulance.  I was at the kitchen counter, chatting away with my back to him.  When all was quiet behind me, I turned to see him slumped over in his chair.  I dialed 911.  I took him out of his chair and watched his lips turn blue.  His body was limp and I couldn’t feel his breath.  The quiet words “This is it?  I’ve lost him?” laced through my numb mind.

Then, I heard a firm voice say aloud, “No!  This is not going to happen!”  I did the Heimlich maneuver thinking perhaps he had choked on a grape.  I gave him a couple puffs mouth-to-mouth to make him breathe.  By that time, a police officer was at my door.  I opened the door from the floor where I was crouched holding Will, waiting to give him to somebody who could do more than I.  My neighbor arrived and arranged to get Bill from work to the hospital to meet me.  The ambulance arrived.  The paramedics were so calm, saying that he was responsive and coming around.  I didn’t see it.  I wanted them to whisk him out of my arms and make him better.

I sat in the front seat of the ambulance on the way to the hospital.  My body pulled taut, emotional armor.  My mind pleading with God.  I heard the paramedics calm again, saying he was still coming around.  I don’t remember much between that ride and the point where Will from the hospital bed hugged me and asked for the “fuzzy” oxygen monitor to be taken out from between his toes.  My body, emotions, and mind went limp.  Over the hump.  On our way to normal.

With a rotating 3-hour pattern of Tylenol then Advil, Will was fine a few days later.  However, I sat looking at the shadow of his blue lips for days.  Then the phone rang a week later and the voice of our adoption social worker was on the other end.  Linda... Will has a little brother, and Korea is willing to waive the age restriction for parents if you and Bill will raise the boys together.  My sobbing must have been confusing to her.

The call brought me out of a funk and left me with a feeling of ubiquitous webbing between Will’s seizure and bringing home his little brother Liam.  Had we passed a universal test?  Were there underpinnings of a gracious hand at work?

Day 4 – Monday, Jan. 28th

Blue gray sky puts a drab coating over the morning, sitting day 4 with Liam – still fighting a fever with alternating Tylenol and Advil every three hours.  Liam asks if I’m writing a story.

Yes.

Is it a mystery?

I smile, Yes.

The Color of Dirt

Between style and practicality, I am undoubtedly on the more practical side.  While coordinating a painting project at school a couple years ago, I answered the paint store question of “what color do you want?” with the phrase “the color of dirt.”  Not what is most soothing or most energizing, no my preference then was the color that will show dirt the least on the bathroom door. Planning our new kitchen is the closest I’ve ever been to choosing style over practicality.  And what I’ve learned is that Malcolm floor dirt is a shade of tan.  Indeed, the new wood floor which I specifically wanted stained dark walnut shows every piece of Malcolm kitchen dirt.  Consequently, it gets swept more often.

However, I lucked out on the countertop – one of the most painful, permanent decisions I made during the renovation process.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around what material or color.  I’m not a shiny, buffed granite kind of gal, but I needed something hearty that wouldn’t absorb liquids or require constant upkeep.  I found a piece of polished granite, took a picture of it, emailed the picture to Bill in China, got approval from China, ordered the granite, and ordered the shine to be removed.  It was honed to a dull, earthy finish and sealed for life.

Men built like Greek gods installed the 300 pound slabs, and the crumb angels sang.  It is the absolute color of Malcolm countertop dirt.  Take a look… see if you can find the dried pasta sauce, brown sugar, bread & potato chip crumbs, coffee and hot cocoa stains, and grape stems.  Normally, these remnants aren’t here all the time; I just stylized the granite a bit for this shot.  Really it’s ALL there.  Practicality and style harmonizing above the dark walnut floor.