My friend, Mindy, picked me up from the conference yesterday shortly after 1 p.m. I’ve known Mindy since college when she used to have dirty laundry piled waist high in her room. I’d be amazed because Mindy would emerge perfectly coiffed and gorgeous from her haphazard room, like a three-tiered wedding cake popping out of a hurricane.

Mindy drove me to gaze at the ocean and to watch surfers catching those legendary California waves. On a distant rock, we could see the lumpy bodies of sea lions at rest. What a beautiful place.

We spent some time at her house, catching up on news both new and old. Her husband–also a friend of mine from collect–arrived and we laughed and chatted some more. I also met her almost-18 year old daughter (we are getting old, all of us with our children rushing toward adulthood).

Then, we went to In-and-Out Burger, that famous California fast-food restaurant. I give two-thumbs up to the burger, but alas, the fries disappointed me.

Somehow, time slid away from us and suddenly we were frantically checking the clock and I was saying from the back seat, “So, are we close to the airport?” I wasn’t really that worried until Mindy said, “Well, if you can’t check your bag, we can always send it to you.” Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that I might board the flight without my heavy orange-red suitcase.

We arrived without a minute to spare (literally, the woman said, “One more minute and I would have said, “No.”). It was 6 p.m. and my flight left at 6:33 p.m.

I used my fluffy hair as a shield so that my seat-mates wouldn’t think of talking to me. After six days of talking to strangers and vague acquaintances, I dreaded making any more small talk. (I am not talking about the Mt. Hermonistas, my three new BFFs you can see linked on Annie’s blog. Oh, and check out the video she posted. We find it hilarious, but maybe you had to be there? I make a brief appearance, so if you ever wondered what I sound like, now’s your chance! Click here.)

But, my hair only worked for awhile and then a man on the other side of the man next to me said, “MELODEE?” And I said (with a feeble wave), “Yes, it’s me!” before turning back to my book.

So, I’m home. I had to work at 10:00 p.m. until midnight, then my daughter woke up at 6:30 a.m. to curl next to me in bed and talk, talk, talk. She’s such a hoot. I really missed her–and in fact, missed everyone. (Absence makes the heart grow fonder, it’s true. Although I feel no more fond of the cats or the litter box than when I left.)

Last year when I came here, I spent a lot of time sitting with random strangers at meal-time, asking them all about their projects, their kids, their hometown, and their backgrounds. I sat next to strangers during chapel time, singing harmonies with them. I met a variety of people–including one woman who wrote a book with a talking llama as a character (she self-published, how not surprising)–and I am grateful for that experience.

This year, I came knowing another woman, Linda, who had the amazing experience of landing a book contract with Zondervan after coming to last year’s conference. Since we met, she started the blog, Spilt Milk, which is also the title of her book (out in 2009). Linda, an honest-to-God-real-housewife-of-the-OC, and I kept in touch over the year.

Linda brought her friend, Sarah, another OC-housewife and newish blogger. She has a blog called “the best days of my life,” which you will want to add to your blogroll and read daily (she updates daily, imagine that concept). She has a room adjacent to mine–the first night, I could hear her cell-phone conversation as clearly as if she were sitting on my lap. I held my breath, hoping that she wasn’t about to tell her husband about this frumpy housewife she’d met who was a friend of Linda’s. Fortunately, she never mentioned my name, nor mocked me behind my back. Which I always admire in a person, non-mockery of me, that is.

Anyway, we have bonded over our mutual weight-loss (she lost 60 pounds and has kept it off–well, she put it back on when she had a baby, then took it all off again). She’s a runner, a photographer, a mother of 2 little girls and a superb blogger. We got up for a 6 a.m. walk up to the cross at the crest of Mt. Hermon. We rock. Also? We’re tired.

Finally, last week, I received an email from a blogger named Annie. Annie knows someone who reads this blog (hello, you know who you are!) and that person told Annie that she thought I might be coming to this conference. So, Annie emailed me and asked and after I determined that she was definitely not a big hairy serial killer, I invited her to join Linda and me at lunch the first day.

And the rest is history. The four of us have been hanging out in our free time (between workshops, classes and meetings). I have laughed harder this week than I have in a very long time. Plus, they haven’t heard any of my stories. What’s old is new again! I accidentally made Annie shake with laughter during a prayer in chapel . . . the woman praying rambled on and on, running down a laundry list of topics she needed to speak with God about, including a dizzying request to “help us expect what we ought to expect and to lay down our expectations when what we were expecting fails to reach our expectations . . . let us expect what it unexpected and not expect what is unexpected and expect expectations that you expect us to expect . . . “

At that point, I opened my eyes and gazed at the back of the woman’s head and thought maybe she needed a hard thunk to get unstuck but I was too far back to be the thunker and then I shifted my eyes to the right and saw that Annie was also gazing at the long pray-er . . . who was, at that point, broaching the topic of Darfur with God and I am afraid that we burst into silent giggles. Because sometimes you have to laugh in church. It’s a rule.

Oh, so, anyway, Annie is hilarious and also, she writes a blog called “taking a step, towards my dream.“

Last night in the coffee shop, I suggested that we need to start a critique group. And also, we need to find a pair of pants that will fit us all. (If you get that joke, thank you.) We also discussed the question of hobos and why our children all speak about hobos as if they’ve seen them down at the local train depot. Where are the hobos, we asked? We talked about their bandana-bundles stuck on sticks and then, incredibly, the next afternoon ran across a man at the State Park who carried a stick with a red bundle dangling off the end. He looked pretty much like a suburban hobo which caused a great uproar among us.

In my absence my husband has been dealing with dental appointments, a wedding rehearsal, a wedding, a meeting, teaching a college class, watching our four kids, buying a birthday gift for the neighbor kid . . . all while being sick as a dog. I had a cold last week, a mild, wimpy cold, and he has a nasty cold this week, the superpower of all colds. Poor guy.

Okay, well, if I were more coherent and if I weren’t in a dimly lit hotel room (wooden paneling from 1980, I think) standing at a rickety dresser typing this (there’s no desk and I can’t cope with sitting on a bed with a laptop–I am inflexible), I would pause long enough to come up with an astonishing ending to this post.

However. Sorry, no can do. But do check out those blogs. (Just don’t like them better than me.) Ha ha. Yes, I’m funny. (But, as my dad would say, “looks aren’t everything!”)

Have I been here lately? I can’t remember. My life is spinning a little out of control, in a good way of course. (More about that later this week. If you’re lucky.)

First of all, you should know that I took my son’s dead iPod to Best Buy. I had purchased replacement insurance back in December–the salesperson told me it would cover “any damage.” At least that’s what I recall because why would I purchase insurance that didn’t cover accidental damage when the iPod was destined for accidental damage in the possession of my careless son? Anyway, the girl behind the counter said, “And what’s wrong with it?” and I said, “It went through the wash. I washed it. In the washing machine.”

And she said, “Um, that’s not covered.”

“Not covered? What is the point of insurance? What does it cover?”

“Well, if the screen went blank or the hard-drive crashed.”

I said, “Well, in that case, the screen went blank and the hard-drive crashed.”

She made an exception for me since I didn’t know the rules. Wasn’t that nice of her? And then I refused her offer to buy another insurance policy for the replacement iPod.

* * *

My 5-year old daughter poked herself in the eye with her finger this afternoon. I was standing nearby, folding socks, when she injured herself. She was mostly okay the rest of the afternoon, but while playing games with her daddy before bedtime, she excused herself three times to go lay down and rest. Then she’d come back: “I’m okay now,” and play awhile longer. At bedtime, she came in crying, her eyelid and cheek reddened . . . I examined her eyeball and it was barely bloodshot. I am hoping that a night of sleep will cure all that ails her.

I still can’t believe she inexplicably poked her own eyeball. How does that happen?

* * *

I stuck the new car tab onto the license plate today. Then, ever responsible, I replaced the old car registration with the new car registration. I checked the insurance card, too, and found it woefully out of date. This discovery propelled me through all the paperwork on my desk, on my kitchen counter and in the handy basket in the kitchen that catches all the mail that can’t be immediately discarded.

I never found the insurance card. Maybe it’s hidden somewhere in the glove compartment? I surrender. At least the new card is due in March. Until then, we will be on extra good behavior so the police have no reason to pull us over and demand to see our proof of insurance. (I haven’t had a ticket in fifteen years.)

How about you? When was the last time the police pulled you over? Don’t you hate that moment when you realize the flashing lights in your rearview mirror are flashing at you? Tell us all about how you broke the law. Come on. You know you want to. Confession is good for the soul . . . and far better than a sharp stick (or a finger) in the eye.

My husband schedule the cleaning lady for 9 a.m. Saturday morning. I left a list of things to clean from most important (kitchen!) to least (windows). I was dreaming up stuff to add to the list because I didn’t really want much done, just the kitchen and guest bathroom made presentable. Then I took off for the day. I shopped for bargains and then saw a movie (”Atonement”). (The movie was good, but make me want to read the book because I have a feeling the book is better. The book is always better!)

My cell phone battery was dead, so I dug up four quarters and found a pay-phone so I could check in with my husband and let him know what time the movie would be over. (I had to see a later show than I had hoped.)

“So, did the cleaning lady come?” I asked him.

“Well, she did, but she thought we just need a routine cleaning, so she couldn’t do it.”

“She couldn’t do it?”

“No,” he said, “She looked at your list and looked at the areas and said there was no way she could do that in four hours. She offered to get a co-worker and come back. She said it would take two of them at least four hours working together.”

“And how much would that cost?”

“Two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“WHAT?! Are you kidding? That’s crazy!”

“I told her you probably wouldn’t go for that.”

A cleaning lady refused to clean my house! (So, it is true. You really do have to clean your house before the cleaning lady arrives.) I would have happily paid her $100 for four hours worth of work, but she rejected me and my money. Furthermore, she cost herself a customer because I will never again call her and offer her work.

I am mortified and mystified that my kitchen and bathroom were deemed too big of a job for one person to handle in four hours.

So, I cleaned them myself. (It did not take four hours.)
If ever there was a time for you to drop by, that time is now. Come one, come all! By tomorrow at 11 a.m., my house will be the cleanest it has been in years (but please, do not open the door to the Boy Cave because I simply did not have enough time to tackle that job. And the cleaning lady probably would have charged me a thousand bucks to deal with that.)

You’ve probably been picturing me like the little Dutch boy with his finger stuck in the dike, holding off impending disaster by plugging my heat pump leak with an index finger since last Wednesday. But no, that’s not it.

Wednesday afternoon I walked my kids over to the neighbor’s house, came home to curling iron my hair, dot some makeup on my aging face and pull on some black pants. The sun warmed the air with half-hearted strength. Summer is ending. I wore a sweater.

Cars jammed the parking lot, even though I had arrived twenty minutes early. I joined a line that snaked across the asphalt. I had no idea why I was standing in line nor did I ask or speak to the couple in front of me, even though I knew them and I’d just spoken to the woman earlier in the week about becoming my daughter’s preschool teacher. After some minutes, a man appeared on the steps above us and announced that due to the length of the line, we were invited to just come inside and sign the guestbook on our way to the reception.

I walked up to the front row and sat between my husband and my friend. She said, “There are no tissues to be found in this church!” and I opened my purse and handed her three. My husband patted my knee.

The funeral celebrated the life of a father–almost exactly the age of my own deceased father who was born fourteen days before Jeff’s birth on September 15, 1942–husband, grandfather and friend. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from tearing up, but this strategy failed completely during the congregational singing of “There is a Redeemer,” a song written and recorded by the late Keith Green.

By the time we sang, “When I stand in glory, I shall see His face . . .” the lump in my throat convulsed and burst into a sob. I couldn’t catch my breath and then I held my breath on purpose, thinking that I could prevent what Oprah calls “The Ugly Cry” if only I didn’t breathe. As the music flowed, I remembered that I had to breathe and that breathing would keep my heart beating in rhythm and if my heart continued to beat I would not collapse in tears, never to stop crying again.

So, I told myself, “Breathe,” and I did. I gulped in air, bit my lip and gathered my composure as the song ended.

Why does music unravel my soul?

My husband spoke eloquently about his friend and I understood for the first time how deeply this loss affected him. When Jeff’s children spoke, I could hardly bear it. I felt their loss as a daughter who lost her own father, and yet I rejoiced with them because their father had lived his life with such joy and with a lack of regret, unlike my own father.

I did not speak at my own father’s funeral, nor could I have managed. I admired these three grown kids who loved their father freely, who embraced the love he gave them. I also listened with some envy–their father lived 18 years longer than mine did. If your father is still alive, if your mother is still alive, be grateful. I had my own father for only 24 years.

Two of his children sang and again, I cried. By the time the slideshow ended, showing picture after picture of Jeff with his family through the years, my three tissues were wet wads, useless.

When the funeral ended, I hugged the widow and then I had to hurry home to my children. Life resumed, regular precious life.

The rest of the week has been unremarkable, as life does after a crisis. A second repairman came to look at the heat pump and fix what the first repairman had been unable to solve in two visits. I helped the young moms of the church paint the nursery. The ceiling hole remains and we are reduced to sharing one bathroom with its inadequate showerhead. I’ve taken baths again which reminds me of college when I had no choice; the entire girls’ dorm only had bathtubs without showers.

I’ve taken my daughter to the pool where she swims in near solitude. The summer crowds have thinned. Everyone has abandoned summer for fall, even though the calendar offers us a few remaining summer days. I’ve been cleaning bedrooms, vacuuming happily with my new vacuum cleaner, worrying a little about the school year, neglecting my own mother, planning a birthday party for my daughter which will take place on my dead father’s sixty-fifth birthday.

I’m drifting in a swirl of sorrow and monotony with spots of joy here and there like lumps in a batter. This is life and as happens from time to time, I am painfully aware of its rushing current which drags some of us out to sea and some of us to shore, while most of us bob in the waves, feeling no current, but only motion.

And my email box is stuffed full and I can’t seem to catch up.

When we were first married twenty years ago, I was in a big hurry to adopt a kitten. Those were the days when I longed to nurture something, anything, preferably something cute. My lifetime allotment of the desire to nurture has dwindled dangerously close to empty. But then, I had to have a kitten.

And so we ended up with two, Sterling and Hamden. Sterling began life as a calm stray, but turned into a raving lunatic by the end of his 11 year lifespan. He spent his kittenhood spilling his water bowl and knocking things off tables. Hamden, on the other hand, was a perfect cat, an orange tabby with paws that looked like oversized mittens. He, alas, died from diabetes when he was 12. I loved that cat.
By then, our twins were five and our baby was a baby. But for some reason, we decided we must have another cat. And so, Millie the Millenium cat came home from the Humane Society.

Soon after, we got a dog, a Newfoundland, and Millie was not pleased. Soon after that, another baby was born into our family and Millie went crazy. She licked herself until she bled and refused to come down from the television. My husband took her to the vet thinking that perhaps she had an allergy, but no. Millie was mentally ill and needed to be medicated the rest of her life. Poor Millie.

After Millie, we adopted a spunky black cat named Shadow. Shadow behaved much like a dog and insisted on going outdoors. He followed us around the block. He was plucky. He, unfortunately, disappeared and right after that, the notice from our town reminded us that coyotes had been spotted in town and to be careful with our pets. Oh. Thanks.

After that, my husband said, “No more pets!” and frankly, I agreed, though I didn’t want to be the one to tell the kids. So, my husband told the kids and predictably, our youngest son cried a river of sorrow.

Within a month, my husband informed me, “The neighbor has kittens. I told her we’d take two.”

Wha–??!

We ended up with three mutant cats, two with no tails, one with half a tail with a bent end. They had fleas when we got them. They are ugly. The bent-tail cat walks funny, with her feet turned out. One tailless cat is freaked out all the time and looks at me as if I intend to carve her up with a butcher knife at any time. She is the most paranoid cat ever and her name is Roy.

The last cat is fluffy. She has long fur, but no tail and looks like a walking cloud. She’s sweet, though if someone walks too close to her, she’s apt to snag them with a claw just for the heck of it. Also, her hair has become matted because I have no innate longing to nurture, thus I ignore the cats as much as possible and I didn’t realize she needed to be brushed from time to time. The cats aren’t even on my to-do list. Poor cats.
So terrible mats developed on her back, months ago (I really should not be allowed to own pets) and TONIGHT, finally, tonight, I took clippers to her back and with much difficulty, shaved her.

Then, I examined her hind quarters and discovered matted poop. That explains why I plunged her into a sinkful of water and massaged her butt with my hands . . . touching poop. I’ve been a mother for fourteen years and I have no less distaste for touching poop than in my pre-motherhood days.

The cat, however, seems grateful.

I am inordinately pleased with the accomplishment of this random task and I thought you’d want to know.

So there.

“Hello. I’m calling to report a student absence.”

“Teacher’s name?”

“Wood.”

“Student’s name?”

“John Smith*.” (*not actual name)

“Reason for absence? Is your student ill?”

“Uh . . . . uh . . . . uh . . . ”

“It’s all right if he’s not ill. I’ll just write parent permission.”

Thus, I was saved from lying before 8:00 in the morning. Today, our older boys had a school-at-home end-of-the-year picnic and the local waterpark had a homeschool day (tickets only $11 compared to the normal $35 price) and so we pulled our younger son out of school, took the day off work and frolicked all day.

However, so did about a kajillion other families, so the waterpark was really crowded. And the pool meant for the younger set was as cold as the ocean water off the coast of Washington, no exaggeration. My 4-year old did cavort in the chilly water and slide down the crowded slide and even dip her face into the water–just because she can–but she had more fun riding rides (an ancient carousel and an assortment of old carnival rides). We slid down one of those giant slides on black carpet–she on my lap–but at the tippy-top, she decided that she didn’t want to do it, but I said, “Oh, too late, we’re sliding,” and we did and when we reached the bottom, she immediately turned to me for a hug with a crumpled chin and an accusatory look. “That scared me!” she said.

We set our 14-year old twin boys free with instructions to meet us at 3:30 p.m. and they eventually found some friends they knew from homeschool P.E. class. I still have no idea if they went on a single waterslide or if they merely savored their freedom by wandering around, bumping into people.

My husband spent the afternoon with our 9-year old, standing in long lines to ride 3-minute waterslides. They also rode a rollercoaster twice. Oh, and my 9-year old went into the wave pool . . . my husband reported that he immediately lost sight of him in the chaos of the crowded waves. My son swam to the very far end of the wave-pool where the waves are of Perfect Storm dimension and, as he reports, “I almost drowned.” He realized he couldn’t tread the rough water for long and wisely swam to safety. My husband relayed this story to me with some shame, as he is the reigning Mr. Safety.
And, as if all that adventure weren’t enough, I spent an hour and a half at our own pool when we returned to town so my daughter could swim even longer. She is practicing underwater somersaults, but she calls them “underdogs.” That child has enough energy to power a small city.

The original point of this dissertation was to explain my dismay this morning when I realized that a domestic bomb of some sort had exploded, leaving mounds of laundry and stacks of dirty dishes everywhere. I was puzzled until I remember yesterday:

School, followed by work on VBS (Vacation Bible School), followed by a lengthy visit with a friend (whom I’ve been begging to come over . . . she came to pick up some VBS materials, but also to chat which was awesome). She left and I took the kids to the pool . . . came home in time for dinner (thank God for Crock-Pots) . . . then my mother stopped by, then I left for a meeting (VBS!) at church at 8:00 p.m., returning home by 10:00 p.m. I don’t think I washed a single load of laundry yesterday and so today, the molehills have turned into mountains.

But, happy day, Paris Hilton went back to jail and I can’t help but feel opposing emotions: pity for her because she is so clearly distraught, but pleasure because justice is served. If only Paris had been forced to have temper tantrums when she was three and didn’t get her way, she might not be having temper tantrums at age 26 when she doesn’t get her way. I hope that she is in jail thinking about how she messed up and not wondering why this bad thing is happening to her. I suspect she feels like a victim and not like a criminal, though.
You might find it odd that I have an opinion about Paris Hilton, but, of course, I have an opinion about everything. Or almost everything.

When you start writing in a blog, you never know where you’ll end up. My first big national publication!

* * *

I received the following response via email from someone of an older generation. I thought you might find it as thought-provoking as I did:

Here are my unsolicited thoughts on “Fortress America.” I was the age of your boys in the late 1950s and early 1960s growing up in Steilacoom. Both my parents worked, so during the summer we were on our own roaming the streets of Steilacoom. On warm days, while wearing swimming suits and flip flops (no helmets), we rode our bikes to American Lake to go swimming. We built rafts out of driftwood and floated out into Puget Sound paddling back with makeshift paddles. We rode our bikes up to Chambers Creek and used the rope swing to drop into the freezing cold water (sometimes naked).

One time I rode my bike to Lacey and stayed the night with a friend at a cabin owned by his grandparents (no adult supervision). We lived in a world of risk and there were occasionally some consequences. One of my friends (R. M. age 10) was hit by a car while riding his bike on Nisqually Street and died on the spot. Perhaps you have met his mother.

Did we have sex predators in the 1950s? No one talked about sex predators or sex for that matter, but they were out there. I encountered a couple of them. What kept us safe most of the time is that we roamed the streets in packs or at least with a buddy or brother. We also became “street smart” and knew who the weird people were in town and to keep our distance.

I guess the point is that we learned to live in a world of risk, and we developed a base of knowledge about these things that we would use during our life. I remember my childhood as being very carefree, but I know now it was not risk free. We did learn how to weigh risk versus opportunity. I’m not sure kids learn these things now, but maybe they don’t need to learn these lessons. Anything they want to know they can find on Google.

I’m also putting this comment (from the blog) here because I think it offers a great counter-balance to my article (no “flaming” from me . . . I think this is a complex issue and I agree with this commenter on many points):

I loved the article too, but I am compelled to ask, “Why not?” There were sex offenders in the 60s and 70s too, and in fact, crime rates were higher then. It’s actually SAFER out there today. I don’t want to minimize the horror of a sex offender on your street, and I’m not saying let your little ones out unsupervised, but aren’t your twins old enough to understand and stay away? The sex offender is a known risk that teenagers should certainly be able to comprehend and avoid.

Remember too, kids are most likely to be molested by someone they know and trust. Sad to say that stranger abduction is one of the things LEAST likely to happen to our kids, but we’ve been trained by the media to worry about it to a ridiculous degree.

If we agree that kids benefit from some independence, then let’s give them some. Isn’t there something to be said for teaching the skills they need for independence (street smarts, not going with strangers, etc) and letting them start using them, slowly but surely? I suspect we are protecting our kids to the detriment of their own safety skills. Remember the little boy scout who got lost in the woods last summer or the summer before, and he hid from the searchers because he was afraid they’d abduct him? He could have died because he didn’t have a good understanding of how to get help when he was alone and needed it!

I adore my kids and don’t want anything bad to happen to them, ever. I feel that part of my job is to teach them the skills they will need to stay safe and let them practice those skills as they get older. If I could walk to school at eight years old in the 1970s, my kids can today, as long they know how to be safe and I can ignore the Culture Of Fear that the 24 hour news organizations have polluted our culture with.

Zipping up my flame suit now.

Thanks, everyone, for your congratulatory comments and for your thoughtful responses. (I’m having issues with Gmail right now, so may not respond personally to all my comments as I normally do.)

Last night, I drove into Seattle to meet a friend who was passing through on her way to Vancouver, B.C.  We hadn’t met face-to-face before–she lives in New Jersey, within spitting distance of Manhattan.  She used some highfalutin technological GPS gadget thingamajig to find us a restaurant.  We ended up in a laquered black and red Thai place and despite my utter lack of experience with Thai food (unless you count that Thai sauce from Trader Joe’s), I enjoyed the meal.  More than that, I enjoyed the conversation.  It’s always pleasant to converse with someone who is talkative and in possession of strong opinions.

I had to walk to my car alone.  She offered to walk me there (basement of a parking garage!), but I said, “no, I’m fine,” and I was.  Lucky for me, no crazed urban rapist followed me or I would have had to do some extreme mom-karate moves, killing the guy with one well-placed kick.  I say “lucky” because I’m sure I would have pulled a muscle if I’d been forced to defend myself.

I didn’t get home until almost 11:00 p.m.  By then, I had to peel my contacts off my bloodshot eyeballs. 

But it was all worth it, even my exhaustion today.

Oh, but bad news. I have recently been informed that you’re only supposed to have one space after a period. This forces me to undo a habit I have had since that typing class I took in high school. Ack. My thumb believes two spaces are necessary at the end of a sentence. I do not think my brain is strong enough to foil the unconscious space-space of my thumb.