Anti-Dentite

Another way in which I am a very common American is my fear and dread of the dentist. I mean, really, who likes going to the dentist? Probably no one. But I go into some kind of convulsions every time I'm there.

My current dentist is a pretty concerned guy. He prescribed me valium for my visits. Hoorah. I do believe this helps to some degree, but I find when I'm in the chair, my entire body still shakes and I cannot unclench my fists until it's time to go.

Like most people, I've always had the fear of the drills. The vibration, the sound they make - it's all rather hair-raising. But my new fear is the anesthesia. Has it taken effect yet? They always give me the gum-poke test, but somewhere in my mind I could swear I'm still feeling something. So I get the second shot, which results in not being able to keep saliva in my mouth for about four hours. But damnit, I do not want to feel anything, thank you!

Remember that scene in "Castaway" when Tom Cruise had to remove his own molar with an ice skate? I swear, I would prefer to do that sometimes rather than visit the dentist. Giving me valium was really the only way my dentist could ensure that I would ever come back for treatment.

Mid-Life Crisis

Yesterday I was on the return leg of a three-hour round trip to the airport to drop off our house guest and I was thinking about Flannery O'Connor. I recently purchased everything Flannery ever wrote and have a pile of books on my nightstand, waiting for me like a terribly attractive new friend. Flannery died at the young age of 39 and seemed to have lived a rather solitary life. She lived with and was friends with Robert Fitzgerald and his family. She accomplished many worthy goals and will forever be known as one of the most influential southern writers of the twentieth century.

As fleeting thoughts of Flannery and her intense talent for the written word were fleeting through my transom, I was filled with the grim realization that my life bears almost no significance to anyone other than the handful of people who know me, and of course, myself. I mean, honestly, we're all in the same boat here. Most of us won't be remembered for anything really wonderful and significant a hundred years from now. Most of us will get up each day, eat our Wheaties, go to work, do the best job we can, come home, do whatever we do there, go to bed, wake up and repeat. We'll do some exciting things along the way. Hopefully, we all do some things in our lives that terrify us, excite us, make other people happy and better off, maybe even grow humans of our own and hope they grow up to be decent human beings.

As these thoughts of insignificance weighed down upon me, and I felt myself sinking further into the seat of my Jeep, my hands gripping tighter upon the wheel, I considered, "Is this what a mid-life crisis feels like?" And if so, does that mean that on the other side of this so-called crisis is a feeling of comfort and acceptance of this realized insignificance? I can only hope. And perhaps once I'm able to relax into my common life, I'll find the space to do my best work.

Getting Small

My evenings this week have been spent scouring, scrubbing, dusting, vacuuming, etc. my filthy house in preparation for a visitor. I find that cleaning is one of those tasks that frees the mind to think of all sorts of things. Most of what meanders through my transom is very uninteresting indeed. But one thing I have been thinking about is why it is so hard to sit down and write. And I don't mean in this wonderful little blogosphere. I mean, like, real writing.

For me, one of the first requirements to writing is having the time and focus to pay attention to details. For example, eavesdropping on people's conversations and paying attention to the way they string their words together. What do they choose to share with others? What is it about them that makes them unique?

If I can pay attention long enough to either remember these details or write them down, the next step is what I like to call "getting small." It has to do with having a quiet space and no interruptions. And in that space, it is having the ability to curl your mind up into a tight ball and hold inside of it all of those details and images and eventually, find the words spilling out onto the page.

I know he meant something else by it when he said "Let's Get Small," but Steve Martin was clearly onto something.

Let the cleaning begin!

Thus starts the first of several days of cleaning, in preparation for our special houseguest. I'm taking this opportunity to do that type of cleaning you maybe only do twice a year. Getting in the corners and the crevices and rooting out all of the dirt. I am bracing myself for spider encounters, as I'm sure there will be a few. Wish me luck, as I go forth in search of that which must be removed.

Into the Great Outdoors

Despite a forecast of 100% rain, and a strange sense of impending danger, I ventured out on a camping weekend Saturday morning. We got lucky and had a day of sunshine and few raindrops along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. But my spidey-senses began tingling anew when we ran into a hopeful fisherman at the Lyre River.

"Have you heard about the cougar sightings?" he asked. I immediately thought of the reports of a Cougar in Discovery Park in Seattle. But no, he meant right there, less than a mile or two from our campsite. "She crossed the river from over there," he said, pointing in the direction of where we had parked ourselves for the night, "and she has been sighted five times in the campground going after small dogs." His eyes immediately pointed at Buddy who was splashing through the shallow water of the river, oblivious to this new peril.

We headed back to our side of the river, my head filling with images of cougar eyes reflecting the light of our campfire from the nearby trees. How would I defend myself? Throw a camping chair at it?

Later that evening, after we had eaten dinner, Rob wandered down to the water to watch the incoming swell. I could hear him, just down from our campsite, chatting away with someone. I immediately thought he must have bumped into a surf buddy. The sun went down quickly and I found myself alone with Buddy at the campfire. I began taking a mental inventory of all of the things around me that I could throw at the cougar that was sure to show up any minute while Rob was away.

Eventually, Rob came back with a friend in tow. He introduced me to "Rick" and I assumed this was someone he knew and liked. Rick followed us back to our campfire and began chatting away. I quickly deduced that Rob didn't know this guy from a can of paint and we had ourselves a little campfire crasher.

About five minutes into the conversation, Rick asked, "Do you want to hear something really freaky?" Still obsessed with the idea of cougars popping out of the bushes, I assumed I was going to get a scary animal encounter story. "Sure!" I say. "It's really freaky," he warned. Like I was going to say no now! "Go ahead," I urged.

"Did you hear about the little girl that went missing in McCleary?" I had a vague recollection of a news story. "Well," he continues, "I got picked up by the cops and questioned about that. I was a suspect."

Every red flag in my brain popped up in full alert. The cougar suddenly seemed like small potatoes. I cautiously asked more questions about the circumstances, but Rick's details on the story were confusing and vague. Something about being in Alma (which is not terribly far from McCleary), but then about being in Forks when he was questioned. Apparently, he decided to bail out of Forks directly after being questioned, which was, by the way, about three days ago.

My head was swimming, and my visions of cougar attacks were quickly being replaced by visions of being hacked to bits by psycho boy in my sleep. Who was this freak? And why was he sitting at my campfire?

Rob and I headed to bed very early that night in an effort to escape Rick's company, and I hoped that the cougar would get Rick before he got us later that night. The next morning, we woke to a downpour and were staying dry in the camper when the crasher came to call once again. Rob succeeded in giving him the brush-off, but I was sure Rick was memorizing our license plate number while he loitered in our space once again.

We decided to head home early, not only to escape the rain, but also the predictable return visit of our unwanted guest. The great outdoors left me pining for the safety and comfort of the tidy indoors, where only housecats lurk in the shadows and the criminal elements are all on TV.

One last salad for Babou

My story with Babou begins with a case of mistaken identity. Rob and I had just found our little dreamhouse, and while touring the house for the first time, we noticed the owners had two pet rabbits stacked in separate cages in the workshop. It was sad to see them hidden away like that, and not even sharing the same space. One was white with black spots - he looked like a miniature dalmation. The other was a lop-eared all-black rabbit. When we entered negotiations with the sellers, we offered to take one of the rabbits and their foosball table in exchange for them not having to finish some work on the house. We never met the owners, and all of the negotiations were handled through our Realtors.

When the day came that we got the keys and showed up to our new house, we found that instead of the little dalmation bunny we had requested, the sellers had left us the black lop-eared. We immediately moved the bunny into the house and named him Babou. He had a permanently grumpy look on his face and was as shy as a rabbit could be.

With time, Babou began enjoying his trips out of his cage. He would hop around the living room and eventually take up residence under the enormous parrot cage that houses our two small, evil little lovebirds. If we let the birds out at the same time as Babou, they would often get into little boxing matches. The birds would harass Babou and he would lunge at them with his front paws. We understood his frustration.

Babou was a complicated little being. I never knew what made him happy or what pissed him off (other than the birds). The only thing I knew with absolute certainty was that he loved a good salad. Every morning I piled fresh greens, carrots, broccoli, berries and every once in awhile, his favorite garnish -- bird seed -- onto a little plate and Babou would relish every morsel until it was gone. Rob always joked that the rabbit often ate better than we did. But it was always the one thing I could do for Babs that I knew made him the happiest bunny for those few minutes while he munched away.

After we had been in our house for six years, and Babou was about seven and a half years old, we had to make the big decision to move him outdoors. Rob's allergies had escalated to a frightening point, and we knew for certain that rabbit hair was the major cause. We purchased a really nice, brand new hutch for Babs and moved him right outside the back door, under a protective canopy. He still got his salad every morning, and spent precious summer moments hopping around the front yard while we hung out in the hot tub and checked the skies for predators.

This morning I made a really great salad for Babou. A large romaine leaf, topped with two half slices of fresh tomato from our neighbor's garden, a carrot and three raspberries. But when I delivered the salad to Babou, I discovered he had passed away in the night. Luckily I had a chance to spend some time with him last night, and I could see that he was having trouble moving around and had turned into a little old man. I'll miss making Babs a salad each day. He was a quiet, peaceful presence and will be remembered as an important member of our family for the last seven and a half years. Rest in peace, little bunnyman.

The expanding self

I just have to be a chick for a moment and write about, what else, my body. Around the time the clock struck midnight on my 40th birthday, a funny thing happened. My jeans got a little tighter. A few days into 40, I discovered how much I love wearing skirts. I don't have to feel my flesh straining against seams that are becoming too weak to hold back the avalanche that is threatening. The avalanche of my expanding self.

I have to stop right here and say that I have always had a fairly healthy body image. I don't sit around comparing myself to anorexic supermodels in Cosmo and Vogue. I am more realistic than that, and I appreciate lots of things about my smoking hot body. But the smoke and the heat are doing little to burn away the squish that is now taking over my womanly form. And I'm feeling a little freaked about it.

What's funny, though, is how being freaked does not neatly lead me towards feeling motivated to do something about it. I take my 2-3 mile daily walk with Buddy, but that about encapsulates my daily workout. I think about the Pilates book I got for my birthday. I think about lifting weights while I watch TV at night. Have I done any of these things yet? No, not really.

But I have rediscovered all of my silky nightgowns that so comfortably allow my expanding self to relax in the evening. And I'm hoping beyond hope, that before I turn into the blob that ate Bremerton, I will find my exercise muse again.

Blogs are boring tripe

I cannot think of one damned interesting thing to write about today. I just made my first peach cobbler. Boring! I am getting my hair cut tomorrow. Yawn! Who cares, anyway? My life is only really interesting to one person, and we all know who that is.

I was recently talking to a friend, who also happens to be my old boss at the newspaper where I once worked, and he was saying that he just doesn't get this whole blogging thing. After spending his life in journalism, I am sure that blogging looks like a lot of tripe to him. But I guess, to me, it's the next stage of journal writing. And reading other people's blogs is sometimes like reading their private diaries, depending on the writer.

I started my first journal when I was nine years old. Mr. Peine, my fourth grade teacher, made us keep a spiral notebook of all of our thoughts. I was instantly hooked. I still have every journal I've kept since then, and they could fill an entire bookcase.

The problem with keeping a blog is that you can't really write everything you could in a journal (unless you want to risk being put in the loony bin). And there are days like today when nothing interesting really comes to mind, so you end up blathering on and on with a bunch of crap no one wants to read anyway (and probably no one is reading this anyway, so who cares!).

I think I've successfully managed to write a whole post without saying a goddamned thing. Go me!