A year ago at this time, I was giddy with anticipation. I loaded LM up in the car and drove 11 hours to my sister’s home in Michigan. We arose early the next morning, loaded all 6 of us into a rented mini-van (much to Bear’s disdain) and drove 5 hours to my grandparent’s home in western Illinois. At the time, due to limited vacation days and a lack of funds, I hadn’t seen my grandparents in 6 years or more. When I had lived in Illinois, they were a short two hour drive, one I would frequent with the baby in tow just to spend the day with Gram. Now, it took a series of logistics to get us there with the limited time that we had and the very limited funds, but it was a priority of the highest order.

On the drive, we sang songs like “Sweet Home Alabama” and “We Will Rock You” at the top of our lungs. We giggled and laughed and told stories from our childhood days. LM had been 2 ½ the last time we had see my grandparents, so we took the time to familiarize him with the stories, to get familiar with people he didn’t have a mental image for other than through pictures.

As we drove across the flat, patchwork farmland of Illinois, I traveled back to my youth, to days of going to Bobby Walter’s for ice cream. A tradition so entrenched that the owner would even be sure to have lemon ice cream on hand if he heard my mother was coming to town for a visit. We saw the pharmacy where we used to stop to see my aunt.

We hadn’t told my grandma that LM and I were coming. She was expecting my sister and her family, they make the journey twice a year to see her, but I was along for the surprise. She wasn’t at all certain who I was at first, despite being the only redhead in the family. She said later she just couldn’t for the life of her believe that I was there, all the way from Pennsylvania.

We spent a very short two days there, but they are days I will not soon forget. I can sit in my grandmother’s kitchen and close my eyes and hear my mother when she talks. Without saying it aloud, we all silently miss Mom together. She is there, with us, bridging the generations. I can see her smile as she hugs her mom, I can hear them laugh together. I can see it all come back together, if I just close my eyes and listen.

G’ma’s house has a certain smell to it. It smells old, but in a comforting way. Her table is always set the same way, meals will always include Jell-o. Granddad will always fall asleep in his wheelchair. And after the meals are complete, G’ma will dump the leftovers into a pot, mix in a little milk, warm it just enough and take it outside for the kitties. She used to do this everyday on the farm and has continued to do so even now that they live in town, feeding cats that are no longer her own.

My sister and her family are on their way again this year. They will go make sure that all the jobs that need to be done around the apartment are taken care of. They will go to Wal*Mart and make sure they have the clothes and supplies that they need. They will treat them all to Hardee’s or maybe a pizza. They will stay two towns away as it’s the closest motel, one with a pool for the kids. They will drive through the towns that defined the phrase, “nothing to do”. Small towns of no more than 500 people and a post office. And before they leave, G’ma will give my sister a box or two filled with items that she wants us to have. Some items of no consequence at all, but tucked unnoticeably inside will be something precious. Last year, we found the wedding bands of my g’ma and her mother both, tucked inside a little handbag. Slowly, she gives us her life’s mementos. And we treasure every part.

I miss her today. I miss the way my granddad smiles when George does something mischievous. I will miss talking with my uncle, the only child left of three, the one who maybe said three words to me as a child and now will talk on and on. I miss the three great-grandchildren going outside to sweep off the porch, doing the little things they know how to do to help out.

I will even miss George’s water bottle, filled with orange cracker backwash.

Today I am homesick.

Apparently God means for me to be surrounded by phlegm. Not only do I have to listen to my co-worker (see previous post) but my dog has caught Kennel Cough from the Bark Park. For those who don’t know about Kennel Cough, it means that my dog sounds like an 80 year old, three-pack a day’er with his wheezing and coughing and hacking. He gags and coughs and appears to be on the verge of puking but then doesn’t. Except that last night he did.

So. There’s the cough. And then there’s the puke.

This is my life.

The vet will prescribe medicine and beg me not to bring my dog in with his contagious cough and we will not be permitted to go to the Bark Park until he is cured, despite the fact that the park is where he caught it from to begin with.

There go my weekend plans.

The man in the office next to me, our newest, latest employee, is doing that thing men do when they suck the snot out of their throats and into their mouth where they can just hack it out only he’s not getting to the hacking part just that God-awful sound of sucking snot.

I might not last the day.

George and Little Bird were on spring break last week (although I thought spring in Michigan came sometime in July?) anywho –

While Little Bird went to her favorite day camp, George spent a few days at his friend Jimmy’s house under the care of Jimmy’s mom. At some point during the three days, she bribed the two boys to go pick up sticks in the yard, promising a penny for each and every stick they picked up. (Anyone who has spent a couple of days with two five year olds would understand the necessity of this bribe!)

After several minutes, she peeked out into the yard to check on their progress. George’s pile of sticks was at least twice the size of Jimmy’s. Suspicious, Jimmy’s mom watched for a few minutes to see what was causing the discrepancy.

Turns out, George has figured out how to make a buck. Before placing his stick in his pile, he broke it in two.

The vet recommended a trainer for Gabe when I was there last week. She hadn’t used him personally, but was interested in hearing what I had to say if I did choose to use him.

I visited the website and found it to be a franchise company with branches in 8 countries and across the nation. Training came with a lifetime guarantee and that was applicable to any location you moved to as well.

I called the local guy and we talked for several minutes about Gabe and about the problem I was having with him (leash aggression). He asked me a lot of questions related and unrelated to the problem to get a general feel for Gabe’s personality and demeanor. Does he bark at the doorbell? (I dismantled the doorbell when the kids downstairs damaged it). Does he jump on people when they come into the home? (No one ever comes into my house except my ex husband and Gabe knows him.) Does he steal your shoes? (No, but we keep them in the closet.) Does he counter-surf, stealing things off the counter? (Um, no, but I nearly beat the tar out of him the one time he tried that as a puppy so I doubt it’s likely to happen again.) Does he tug on the leash when you walk? (No, but we’ve used a choker, then a prong choker, then an elastic choker, and now a Halti collar to curb pulling.) He and I both agreed that it sounded like Gabe is a pretty well socialized, balanced, happy dog without many issues, but that the problems we have out walking are something that should be addressed through training.

So then he elaborates about the lifetime guarantee for training and goes on to say that the first visit is usually 2-3 hours long and then he would come back as many times as necessary for that problem or any other problem that I ever have with Gabe.

My mind starts ticking away. Hmm…so it’s a flat, one-time rate that will last me the lifetime of my dog, how much is this gonna set me back?

Five.Hundred.Dollars.

Yeah, well, dude, let me call ya back…..

So I go back to the website and I read articles from various newspapers about local franchise openings and such and I try to read between the lines about the actual training that they do to figure out if it’s something that I think would warrant Five.Hundred.Dollars.

One of the articles read:

“Tycocki explained what we were going to do. When the dog, at the moment it was Zoe, does something bad, you growl Bahhh! at it. Again, I wanted to laugh, but I was willing to believe anything because my puppy had driven me to desperation. Zoe began to lick my hand, and Scott quickly growled BAHHH! It worked. Her ears were back. She stopped. She was looking right at Scott. ‘This is good,’ Tycocki said, ‘exactly what you want. She’s submissive and completely paying attention.’”

I read several other articles just to be sure I was getting this right. This company is all about communicating to your dog as your dog’s mother would have trained him, to use dog language to train your dog, not treats or punishment.

To be perfectly clear then, this company wants me to pay Five.Hundred.Dollars to teach me how to GROWL at my dog.

GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

Just saved myself Five.Hundred.Smackaroos.

I arrived at pottery class with minimal expectations and a complete lack of enthusiasm. Our instructor sat down at the wheel and showed us a new technique for a pot, which actually seemed like something I might be able to do (unlike the mugs she was proposing last week). Charlie was already itching to get on the wheel and didn’t even give her the respect of sitting down and listening to her. He had brought his 10 year old daughter to class and she was more attentive than he was.

When it was time for me to wedge my clay and sit down at the wheel I did so absentmindedly. I was frustrated with my lack of skill at the wheel. I was feeling as though I would not be able to conquer the walls, I would never make a pot with sides or depth or height. I was worried that my ‘successes’ would be at the hands of my teacher, who was able to fix all my errors with a soft, gentle, mindless touch.

I centered the clay and tried to focus my energy. I pushed my thumbs in and began to make space, make room, to delve into the heart of the clay. When I moved my hands to either side, positioned them to mold the clay between, my teacher said, “close your eyes, Amy”. Without even thinking long enough about how dumb it sounded, I did.

I just felt.

I felt the clay, the thickness, the softness; I felt how it swayed between my fingers and held there until it ran smoothly. I let my hands tell me when to move up and let them guide me as I brought the clay up and up and up.

And when I opened my eyes, my pot had walls.

I made five pots last night. Now that I have walls I have a new struggle of trimming the lip without killing the rest of the pot, but by night’s end, I was feeling accomplished and proud of my silly pots. They are far from perfectly symmetrical. They certainly aren’t the same thickness throughout, but one demon was quieted last night. One voice stopped talking and let me create.

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I begin to really see.

I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. It wasn’t so much just a simple reluctance to come to work again with nothing to do. It felt more like the sort of day where I want to pull on my favorite blue t-shirt and slip my comfortable faded black sweatshirt over the top, (even though, or perhaps even because, they don’t match), to put on a pair of sweats and never leave my house kind of a day.

But, I do that nearly every weekend. So why did I need it today?

I got up and took the dog out and checked my email and thought about calling out from work, but I realized there was nothing at home that was going to delight me any differently today than it would on a typical Saturday, so what was the point?

As I drove to work I realized that what I really wanted was to linger around and do nothing with someone. I really wanted to call up a friend and go for a long lunch, or to lay on the couch and watch back to back movies with someone snuggled next to me, or even to just sit with a little child and play. I wanted a slow, easy, comfortable day, but I wanted it shared.

I have pottery class tonight and I honestly don’t want to go. I don’t want to go hear about how good Charlie used to be and about how he has people begging him to make him something (even though he only just last week at the tail end of class completely a single pot). I don’t want to go and struggle with getting my blasted walls to come up again. I don’t want to endure my instructor telling me how to make god-awful mugs that I wouldn’t be caught dead with. I want to sit and do something that feels familiar, to laugh, to cry to just be, but to be with someone.

I used to go over to my friend Suzan’s house. More than 8 years ago now. We used to play gin rummy by all the wrong rules (we thought we were doing it right!) We would laugh and talk and play cards for hours. We talked about topics that were deeply serious and topics that had no relevance to life at all. And all of it was good for my soul.

That’s the sort of evening I need.

Funny thing is, I don’t have a single person of that sort in my life anymore with which to do such things. My relationships now all seem to be centered around something, not just carefree like they were back when. I have work friends, I have hang-out-at-the-bar friends, I have friends I could go to dinner with on the weekend, but who live too far to just get together for a bit after work. My family is all at least 10 hours away from me. I have great friends that I could hang out with, if only we didn’t live 4 states away from each other.

I didn’t grow up in PA, I didn’t go to high school or college in PA, my family didn’t live in PA, and until about 6 years ago, I had never even held a job in PA. How is it that given such circumstances, people make casual but lasting friendships? Or why is it that I can have such superficial relationships now, but nothing that delves any deeper? Nothing that cuts to the chase and gets to the point so we can just exist without pretenses?

I don’t want to invite someone over that I feel like I need to a) clean, b) cook or even c) shower before they arrive. I want to just have people in my life that can stop by unannounced and we can have a ball together doing nothing. Is that possible as an adult? Do people actually do this? Am I just dreaming about wanting to be on Friends?

Sigh. I guess it’s just that sort of day.

Anyone up for a game of gin?

The process of sorting through my books is a process of sorting through the stages of my life. I found, nestled inside the pages, the questions (typed on a typewriter) for my American Novel 326 final. Inside another text I found my handwritten notes for the very same final. I have found post it notes with questions about the text. “- similar theme mentioned in the opening – sig?” There are books that have spurred passionate discussions, vividly drawn to mind as I flip through the pages. In one book I found a name and an address of someone I don’t know. I have a stack of Agatha Christie paperbacks – some of the first books I fell in love with as a young adult. They were before my college days, before I met Jen who taught me it was sacrilege to break the binding of a book. I learned from her that to love books is to handle them with great care. Most of my books look brand new.

There are a few books I’m not sure how I ended up with – they were my husband’s, although I am certain he doesn’t miss them; he read because I read. It’s easy to see my favorite authors, and how varied my tastes are. I have several books by Chaim Potok, Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, and Nicholas Sparks. I have the books to represent my college coursework in American Novel, Contemporary Lit, Shakespeare I, II, III, Classical and Children’s Literature.

What I’m learning most, however, is that the process of listing my books hasn’t been as difficult as I thought. I’ve sold and mailed two books thus far and found a sort of joy in knowing someone was going to enjoy the books that I have loved as well. I know the Art Center where I take pottery classes is having a book sale in the summer and I have several books to donate to that cause, too. As I sort through a stack each night, separating the sell-able from the donate-able, I have come to realize that there is a distinct separation between owning books and loving books and one does not directly imply the other. I can love books for the rest of my life and not own shelves of them. At least I’m going to try!!

I found a couple more books that I love and just can’t part with – there haven’t been many that I’ve staked my claim to, but thus far, in addition to the ones I mentioned earlier, I’ve held onto “East of the Mountain” by Guterson and “The Good Husband” by Godwin. I’ll let you know if there are more as I go.

I know I won’t be banking my first million by selling my books. I also realize most of them probably won’t even sell. The lesson that God is teaching me isn’t about financial gain from personal sacrifice as it is about the emotional gain when I break my unhealthy relationship with these material objects. I still have a lot to learn. Tonight, I am grateful that God is a patient and loving teacher!

If a 203 pound Mastiff runs at the speed of a yard a second towards his owner who is standing 10 feet away and rams his basketball-sized head into the inside of his owner’s knee as she steps forward to (stupidly) try to cut him off at the pass, her knee will:

A. have a bruise the size of a grapefruit;
B. hurt when she walks, sits, stands or lays down;
C. turn the most atrocious shades of purple and blue within an hour;
D. not heal for the next month, during the onset of ‘shorts season’; or
E. All the Above.

Some lessons must apparently be learned the very hard way.