Small things

Today, I can only manage small pieces of thoughts on paper. Fire in the hole.  The orange glow of my hair dryer frying in England and the orange glow of the afterburners on jets at the air show six hours later: identical.  By smell, the jets were powerful and the hair dryer… well, just that yucky "shouldn’t-have-done-that" smell.

Before having kids, I didn’t know that you could go to bed six times in one night.

Dreaming the impossible.  Liam, “Mom, could we just move our whole house next door to Grandma’s so I can cuddle with her whenever I want?”

Air shows and walking:  a juxtaposition.  This weekend’s sport was very sedentary compared to last weekend’s.  Air show observation: Many male spectators in the same age bracket… about the same age as Tom Cruise was when he filmed “Top Gun.”

Getting paid as a mom.  I paid to ride the bird to England and to hear a flight attendant say, “Your boys are so polite and well-mannered.  You wouldn’t believe what we have to put up with sometimes.”  My voice: “Thank you!”  My silent voice: “Oh my gosh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”  Followed by my thought: “You mean like when 2-year-old Will had pneumonia and screamed all the way home from England – in the row right behind 1^st class?”  We have all had our moments, but as related to flying – sometimes thankfully – we will never see those people again.

The English population doubles when the sun comes out and it’s 80 degrees.  Petrol stations run out of water, “Well, the sun is shining you see!”  Hoards of delicately colored English dash outside without sunscreen, only to see who looks more like a lobster Monday morning at work.  Screaming red is a painful color.

Liam, observing Grandma’s iron goose door holder that had fallen over.  “It’s dead right, Mom?  It’s RIP.  It’s with God.  Right, Mom?”

“I can’t do this!!!” Will, facing the line of at least a couple hundred people ahead of us at immigration.  Thank you, Steph, for the year of ancient civilizations.  A game of “What Greed god starts with the letter “X”?” got us through, dare I say, happily?  Then those Greek gods smiled down upon us as a woman opened the cordoned path and said, “You have small children.  Go to the front of the line.”

The Avon Lady is Still Walkin'!

Coming into the home stretch, I’m walking 3 -5 times a week, 4 – 6 miles.  A week ago Sunday I did 8 miles.  This week I did 4 miles of hills in Breakheart in the drizzling rain.  I figured a little rain training would be good… just in case. Thanks much to Marcia at Silver Clay for last Friday’s fundraiser!  We had a great crowd and Marcia donated $120 to my walk.  I have reached the $1,800 needed to walk, and I am nearly at my personal goal of $2,400.  Today I’m at $2,315.  (And... just as I am about to push the "publish" button on this post, I see that I am at $2,401!!! Thanks for the push over the top, Wendy!)

My walking partner, Amy Buckley, is training hard.  She will be walking 39 miles over the two days and is inspiring me as she walks 14 miles or more a few times a week.  Amy’s mom survived breast cancer several years ago.  Our husbands and kids are making plans for which “Cheering Stations” to go to during the walk.  Recently, Amy’s 8-year-old little girl told her, “Mommy, I’m so proud of you.  You are walking to help women you don’t even know.”

Last week, I cleaned out the breast cancer corner tucked away in our bedroom.  I had been putting it off for over two years.  I threw out all the literature on getting through chemo, side effects of treatment, etc.  Held onto the wig receipt and the outline of the study I’m participating in.  Plus, laughed and cried over all the cards and gifts many of you sent.

A couple pictures hit home: ones of my brother in Iowa with his little girl on the 4-wheeler and of my nephew, who also lives in Iowa.  My niece was one when I was diagnosed; I didn’t see her toddling around at two.  She jumped from baby to little girl in the year I went through treatment.  In the other picture, my nephew was bald – he shaved his head when I was going through chemo.

Finally, there was the card that then 6-year-old Will had given me.  It was a musical card and he had overlaid it with his own drawings.  On the inside, he had written, “Good job at chemo, Mom.”

Cool kids.

New Neighbors: The Vulpe vulpes

A new family has moved in behind us.  A mom, a dad, and nine kids.  The mom and dad were here last year at this time but with six different kids.  How could this be?  (Will & Liam love word play.  It’s rubbing off.) We have a fox family living in the ledge that we share with three to four of our human backyard neighbors.  For non-Massachusetts residents, ledge is another name for rocky soil – I think.  Picture yourself digging a hole with a spade, putting all your force into the “push,” expecting dirt to give way to the metal, only for the spade come to a dead stop, and feeling that “push” reverberate back through your body.  That’s underground ledge.  We have a row of ledge – above ground it’s made up of large boulders, underground who knows – in our backyard.

Summer and fall, our woodchuck lives in it, but now it’s a fox den.  The woodchuck was there first, which makes me wonder:  Is he the landlord or just dinner if he doesn’t agree to move out for a few months?  We saw the dad in late January, cozying up in the sun.  Perhaps he was working out rent payments with the woodchuck.

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Last year we watched six babies grow up, first spotting them after they had started to turn red.  This year, they are younger: brown with little white tips on their tails.  They are cute, strange little things.  They look like dogs but move like cats.  Pouncing & rolling on each other without a sound.

I didn’t bother to mention the family to our builders.  With all the noise they were making, I didn’t think the fox family would come out while they were working.  But the day after we first saw the babies, I got a call from the builder.  “I wasn’t sure if you know that you have an interesting... family living in your backyard.”

Yes, we have a family of Vulpe vulpe: the scientific name for "red fox."

Done with the LEGO Designs

A two-handed catch at 10 p.m. Friday night ended the LEGO designs for a few weeks.  Bill broke his right hand and dislocated his ring finger playing softball.  Put a baseball glove on a cricket hand and 27 years later… boom.  The strange splayed nature of his finger had the whole ER talking.  The doctor straightened his finger, put a cast on his hand/wrist, and told him to see an orthopedic surgeon on Monday – just in case. When I met Bill 23 years ago, softball was his summer love.  He even convinced me to play – but the first time a grounder hit my glove and flew up into my face, leaving lace marks and blood on my nose… Yeah.  Not my sport.  A new arrival from England, Bill was eager to try out this version of America’s favorite pastime.  While watching a group of co-workers playing softball, he was invited to come in and try his hand at batting.  He made contact with a pitch and started running.  Then he heard shouts from his teammates-to-be, “Drop the bat!  Ya gotta drop the bat!  You can’t run with the bat!”  Obediently, he dropped it.  Then tripped over it, rolled around a little bit in the dirt, and made it to first base – only because the short-stop was laughing so hard he couldn’t make the throw to first.  A career batting average of 1,000.

So now as the boys start their Little League season, Dad is on the sidelines.  “Can we tell them you were playing lacrosse?” I didn’t want them to see the cast and  fear the baseball field.  “No, it’s important that we show them how to play the game correctly.”

Baseball: Catch the ball in the glove, not barehanded, then transfer it to the other hand to throw.  Drop the bat before running to 1st.

Cricket: Catch the ball bare-handed with two hands.  Carry the bat when running.

The two do not combine well.

As Bill points out, married to him, I will never run out of material.

Heading out to play catch.