Mint Julep

Sometimes it feels like I’m in a sitcom. Or on a Candid Camera joke-type show. I find myself in a moment so ridiculous that I think, “Surely this cannot be real.” I expect to hear the laugh-track. I look around for the cameras. One of these moments happened over the weekend, on the porch of my house.

The house is a lovely 1925 Craftsman. What it lacks in modern amenities like up-to-date electrical, sliver-free floors and non-cracking plaster, it makes up for in charm. For the most part, the house is in great shape – it just needs some modernizing, attending to the finishes, and fixing of bizarre decisions made by previous residents. One such decision resides on our porch – I would say it “darkens” our porch, but since it is the light fixture that wouldn’t really be accurate. Our full-width porch is truly a feature of the house – it gives the home that beautiful, quintessential, Craftsman street presence that I love. It is warm and welcoming – offering a friendly transition from the outside world to the inside space. Unfortunately, someone, at some point, saw fit to install a ceiling fan as the light fixture.

You read right, we have a ceiling fan as our front porch light. A ceiling fan. Take just a moment to really let that sink in… A ceiling fan. Outside. On a porch. In Seattle. We do not live in the Deep South. We do not have 90-degree days with humidity so thick the air feels like you could sculpt with it. No, this is Seattle. Summer temperatures are in the 70s and there is almost always cool air coming off the Puget Sound. The chances of needing to relax on a shaded, fan-cooled front porch with a mint julep in hand are slim to none. Outdoor heaters, blankets, and hot toddies are more appropriate Seattle porch accessories. And yet, each time I emerge onto my porch or arrive home, the ridiculous ceiling fan suggests that I should ask somebody to fetch me my evening cocktail so I can cool off while surveying the plantation until dusk when the fireflies come out.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that we didn’t just move into this house; we’ve lived in it for almost 12 years. One could easily argue that we’ve had plenty of time to make some changes – if not a full remodel, certainly such small problems as taking care of a particularly hideous lighting fixture. One would be right, but one should also recall that I am married to an architect and we have always had big plans for doing a major overhaul on the house. Why nickel and dime ourselves on small fixes that will just get swept away when the larger remodel finally happens?  Why not wait and do it all in one fell swoop? This is our reasoning. But there is never enough money and never enough time and so, 12 years later, we still have a decrepit, old, white ceiling fan on our front porch.

I’ve never stopped hating the ceiling fan. Occasionally I notice it and it makes me simultaneously giggle and cringe when I consider how ridiculously out of place it is. Most of the time, though,  I just ignore it, as you do those things you’ve lived with so long that you’ve trained your brain to simply not see anymore.

Sunday night I had occasion to notice. For one thing, daylight savings time kicked in. Or off. Or whichever it is. I wish somebody would just pick a time and stick with it, but that’s another topic for another time. So Chester and I were coming home from running errands in the dark. We hauled our packages onto the porch and, as I dug around in my purse for the house keys (which are always, always, always at the bottom, no matter what – yet another topic), I noticed a strange, strong breeze. It had been windy the day before and for just a moment, I thought the wind must be picking back up for another round of gusts, but that wasn’t right. The trees and plants weren’t moving; the neighbor’s wind chimes weren’t clanging. It was only windy on the porch – a strange, swirling kind of windy. Then I looked up.

The porch fan was going! I had never, not in 12 years, seen the fan actually going. For more than a decade, it sat still and geographically incongruent, white paint peeling sadly off the blades that did nothing more than frame a light bulb. Now it was going with a vengeance, as if making up for lost time or attempting to launch itself to a more appropriate locale. It was spinning so fast, the whole thing was wobbling precariously.

At first I was afraid. What could have caused the ancient fan to start spinning if not some sort of angry fan spirit? Then I remembered I had taken down Halloween decorations the day before, including replacing the black-light with a regular light-bulb. All I did was un-screw one bulb and replace it with another, but I must have confused or otherwise angered the fan. (Never mind the logical explanation that an electrical short occurred. Matt pointed this out later and it is much too boring an explanation.) Finally I climbed on a rickety old IKEA porch chair to get a closer look at the whirling, wobbling fan. (Hey, why invest in nice, teak, well-crafted, outdoor furniture when you’re just going to remodel in 20 years, right?)

Upon taking a closer look, I could see three little pull-chains hanging down from the fan. I reached up cautiously, while ducking to avoid having my head taken off, and pulled the first. It simply turned the light off. I pulled the second; nothing happened as it was rusted in place. I pulled the third and the fan began to slow down. Hallelujah! I thought it was stopping, but no such luck – it continued to spin, just at a slower pace. I pulled the string again – no change. At this point I climbed down from the chair, both because I wasn’t sure what else to do and because Chester was pestering me for some goldfish crackers. (Apparently, standing on a chair, in the dark, cursing at and struggling with a possessed ceiling fan, does not indicate to a hungry seven-year-old that you are busy.)

With Chester all settled in with a video and some crackers, and the fan still spinning away, albeit somewhat more lazily, I decided to call Matt who, naturally, is in China for this and pretty much every other domestic debacle I’ve ever dealt with.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I began. “Uh, OK, what’s going on there?” Matt asked, sounding concerned and skeptical of my casual tone.

“Well, you know the porch fan?”

“Yeah…”

“It’s going.”

“Going.”

“Yes, going. Spinning. Operating. Circulating the frigid air.”

“That’s weird,” Matt accurately summarized.  “Did you try pulling the chains?”

In this manner, we walked through the pull-chain options and results: One pull (slower), two pulls (no change) and three pulls (back to jet-propulsion fast). Matt decided it must be an electrical short and that I, therefore, needed to turn the whole thing off and keep it off. While I certainly don’t want to burn the house down, the thought of no porch light for almost a week of these new, dark, daylight-savings days didn’t thrill me. “Let me just pull it one more time,” I said, teetering half-balanced on the chair. I reached up and gave it a final yank and the whole chain came off in my hand.

Picture the scene: I’m standing on a chair, in the dark, on my porch in Seattle, under a seriously malfunctioning ceiling fan, with a cordless phone between my shoulder and ear and a broken-off chain in my hand, trying to get help from a person in China. It was at this point that I listened closely for the laugh-track…  I scanned the perimeter for a hidden camera…  

“Are you there?” Matt said. “It broke off,” I replied. “The whole chain broke off.” There was a moment of silence before I said the only thing I could think to say…  “Can you bring me a mint julep?”

Nothing says fall like a raccoon penis

Fall is here. All the telltale signs confirm it – leaves are turning, a slight chill is in the air, the days are getting shorter, Starbucks is pushing pumpkin spice lattes (a little too early if you ask me) and, probably most definitively, the kids are back to school. At my house, that meant jumping, with full enthusiasm, into 2^nd grade. The first couple of weeks were all about who is in whose class and who has which teacher and all the cool new backpacks. Now we are into week 3, otherwise known as: The Week That Homework Begins.

Chester’s teacher sends homework in weekly packets on Mondays, which is great because I can plan our week around the inevitable soccer practices, music lessons, evening work commitments, and the nights I really just need to sit, semi-catatonic, drinking wine and watching my child “practice ninja skills” – which entails spreading Lego pieces across my bed and bouncing on it vigorously while simultaneously attempting to kick and light-saber the bouncing Lego bits into some other dimension.

This week’s homework packet included several math worksheets, a list of spelling words to learn, and, the most exciting part, an assignment to choose and research a nocturnal animal for an on-going project. Chester started strong with the math portion, completing it on Monday night. He was excited to move straight into nocturnal creature research, but, seeing as we are not nocturnal, we didn’t have time. I promised him we would be ALL OVER IT on Tuesday. Excitement was high. We talked at length about which creature he would choose. He was leaning towards the gliding gecko. I was lobbying hard for the raccoon. Why raccoon? I’m a sucker for several reasons:

1)      They are adorable. (Yes, I realize they are a pain in the ass, and can be mean, and are essentially like big, huge rats, but those little black masks! And the ringed, bushy tails!)

2)      They are fierce. (I love a critter that you just don’t mess with.)

3)      They are smart. (They can get into pretty much anything.)

4)      When my dad was a kid, he had a pet raccoon named Chucky. Chucky was orphaned and my dad bottled fed him and raised him to adulthood. My whole life, I heard stories about the bond between Chucky and my dad; the raccoon followed him around like a dog and even slept with him. It all ended tragically when my dad’s step-father decided Chucky had to be killed after biting a friend of my grandmother’s severely on the leg. (It should be noted that she stepped on him while he was sleeping on the front steps of the house. If you ask me, she had it coming.)

So there’s the family lore thing, but mostly it’s the adorable/fierce combo that draws me to raccoons. They are bad-asses and they look fantastic. Who doesn’t love that?

"I'm adorable and you don't want to mess with me."

We rushed home on Tuesday evening, quickly ate dinner, finished all our chores and got down to business. The first task was choosing the critter. This was harder than expected, as there are simply so many from which to choose. I thought Chester was pretty locked in on the gliding gecko of Southeast Asia, but by the time we got down to it, he felt he had already learned quite a bit about that creature and wanted to pick something different because “I like to learn new things, Mommy.” I couldn’t argue with that, so we pulled up a list. He was not interested in bats or cats of any type. After considering the aye-aye, bush rat, great gray slug, binturong, dwarf crocodile, Eastern woolly lemur, Panamian night monkey, and many others, we settled on . . . RACCOON! I did a silent, internal, happy-dance.

We learned a lot about raccoons as we searched for answers to the prompt questions posed by Chester’s teacher . . .

Where do raccoons live?

They are, as we expected, very adaptable and live pretty much everywhere. Forests are their original habitat, but now they also live in mountains, coastal marshes and urban areas.

How do they make their homes?

Turns out raccoons don’t so much make their own homes, as they simply commandeer existing places to hunker down, sleep, and have babies. They use places like tree hollows, rock crevices, and pre-owned burrows. (Raccoons are not only cute and tough, they are also efficient.)

What do they eat?

Raccoons aren’t picky eaters; they dine on pretty much everything. In fact, they are considered one of the most omnivorous animals in the world. Their diet consists of fruits, nuts, fish, eggs, insects, worms, and, as Chester accurately noted, “stuff they find when they knock over the trash.”

How do they protect themselves?

Raccoons are excellent runners and climbers, but, when worse comes to worse, they protect themselves with super sharp claws and teeth. (Remember, bad-asses.)

What are three interesting facts about your animal?

It was tough to choose, but these were Chester’s top picks:

1)      They have black fur around their eyes that looks like a robber’s mask. In Chester's words, "Don't ever take a raccoon to a bank. Ever." Probably good advice.

2)      Their best sense is touch - they have very sensitive paws. (Adorable, tough, AND sensitive! They just keep getting better.)

3)      They are extremely smart and able to understand abstract concepts. For example, in studies, they have been able to figure out not only how to undo a variety of locks and latches, but how to undo them quickly again, even after those locks and latches were reversed or flipped. (I’ve met PEOPLE who are unable to do this.)

And the most AWESOME fact of all in Chester’s opinion . . . Raccoons have an approximately 4 inch penis bone that is “strongly bent at the front end.” Anyone who has a boy, is a boy, or has spent any amount of time around boys, can attest to how fascinating, hilarious and utterly glee-inducing this fact is. A penis bone! That’s curved! It’s 4 inches! Good stuff.

 Chester desperately wanted to use the 4-inch, strongly-curved penis bone as one of his three interesting facts. I oscillated wildly about what to do . . . On one hand, I figured, “Hey, it’s a scientific fact and it’s interesting to him, so what the heck?” On the other hand, I imagined Chester presenting his research and the entire class melting down in chaos – boys in laughing fits blurting “penis, penis, penis!” over and over again, girls shrieking “Eeeew, gross!” I imagined Teacher Richard not appreciating this scene (even though, since he is a boy, he’d probably be laughing hysterically inside.) I ultimately decided it was probably better to keep the baculum (that’s fancy science talk for penis bone) off the actual written research. I assured Chester he could tell his friends about it though – perhaps on the playground. (Note to parents of Chester’s friends: You’re welcome.)

Baculum or “penis bone” – It is hilarious.

So, the first week of homework was a success, for the most part. Chester was proud to turn his assignments in early on Wednesday, which was a good thing because it made up for the crying meltdown over spelling words on the drive to school. Now I know that when my second grader is trying to learn how to spell “knight” and “night,” and remember which is which, homework veers less toward interesting and hilarious, and more toward stress-inducing. 

I’m just glad we’ll always have the raccoon penis bone to lighten the mood and cheer us up during times of homework stress. The baculum is now officially on my list of seasonal delights – fiery-colored leaves, cozy sweater weather, new clothes and shoes, and the raccoon penis. Don’t you just love fall?

Art Girl versus Money Girl

A couple of weeks ago, I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed and saw a link to a video. The title caught my eye . . . “What if money was no object?” I was intrigued because, let’s face it, money is, in fact, almost always an object. I decided to watch. The video was a series of images set to a portion of a lecture by the late British philosopher Alan Watts. It was aesthetically pleasing, interesting, and enjoyable to watch. It was thought-provoking, as you would expect words of wisdom from a greatly respected philosopher to be. But beyond all that, it got under my skin.

The video keeps playing in my head because it stirred a pot that is always bubbling and brewing in my mind. It provoked another battle in a war I've long been waging with myself. The adversaries in this conflict are Art Girl and Money Girl. They’re both nice gals; it’s just that they’re almost always at odds with each other. Art Girl loves to dance and write. Money Girl likes to go on vacations and have a house that isn't falling down around her. She likes to shop for pretty things and send her kid to a good school. Money Girl isn't ridiculously materialistic. She's not talking about month-long vacations on an estate in the South of France or a private Caribbean island (not that that wouldn't be lovely). She just likes a few relaxing days with her family once or twice a year – preferably somewhere warm.

The “What if money was no object” video is one perspective on how to handle the conflict between Art Girl and Money Girl – a struggle I’m guessing is common for many of us. For some people maybe it’s Outdoor Guy or Sports Girl or Craft Guy who is battling Money Guy, but the essence of the struggle is the same. Alan Watts’ advice on the issue is this: Figure out how you would really enjoy spending your life and do that. Forget about the money. Chasing money will cause you to live a life you don’t like and that is stupid. Watts suggests that if you do what you truly desire, you will become a master at it and the money will follow. Watts definitely sides with Art Girl.

I like Watts’ advice; I really do. It’s beautiful and idealistic, and I’d like to believe he’s right. Unfortunately, I’m not sure he is. Maybe money can’t buy you happiness, but it certainly can help! What if you like the things money buys? What if you live in (and love) an expensive city? What if vacations and fast cars and fine dining make you happy, but you love doing something that holds very little promise for significant or even reasonable compensation?

Some fields, no matter how successful you become, just don’t pay a lot. Sure, a preschool teacher could rise through the education ranks into a more lucrative administrative position or become such an expert in some aspect of early childhood education that he or she could write a book and go out on the lecture circuit. But then the teacher isn’t teaching anymore, are they? Teaching was what the teacher really loved.

Watts suggests that our society doesn't teach people to do what they love, but I’m also not sure I agree with that. My parents, teachers, and career counselors doled out quite a lot of “do what makes you happy” guidance. In fact, my friend Marla and I have spent a great deal of time discussing how frequently we heard that advice as we were growing up. We always come to the conclusion that young people really ought to also hear the other side of the simple and clichéd “do what you love” and “happiness is all that matters” refrain.

Human beings are multifaceted creatures; there are a variety of things that bring us satisfaction and make us happy. Some of these things are, quite possibly, at odds. Given that, it feels simplistic and confusing to say “just do what you love doing.” I suppose this is where prioritization comes in – of course there are lots of things that make my life fulfilling and genuinely happy. If I had to pick just one, it would be my family. Sadly, spending time with my family does not pay well. In fact, having a family REQUIRES money.

I have a friend who recently shared a story about his adult son, who always wanted to be an artist. He pursued that dream, often barely making ends meet and living on next to nothing. He was okay with that because he was doing what he really wanted to do. Well, time went by and he got a little older, as we all tend to do. He met a nice girl, got married, and started a family. He still loves making art – that’s what he wants to do and he’s good at it, but you can probably guess that he also loves his family and being a “starving artist” isn't really working out now, no matter how much he enjoys it. He was whining excessively about the unfairness of it all and his dad’s response was: “If you really wanted to be an artist, you shouldn't have gotten married and had a kid.” Harsh? Definitely. True? I’m not sure. Maybe.

What I've tried to do – in my battle between Art Girl and Money Girl – is combine the two. I've been fairly successful at it; I work in the arts, but not as an artist. I’m an arts administrator, which is a pretty good attempt at making both Art Girl and Money Girl happy. Sometimes it feels like a good compromise, but a lot of times it feels like the result of trying to appease both is that neither one ends up happy. Trying to feed Art Girl and Money Girl ultimately leaves them both hungry. Doing something meaningful is great; I really appreciate that about my job. I believe in it. But, at the end of the day (actually many, many days), it’s still a job. When I explain to people what I do, they often say, “Your job sounds so fun!” Yes, parts of it are fun, but the vast majority of the time, it’s deadlines and budgets and stress and crazy customers just like everybody else’s job. It often has me working long hours away from other parts of my life that make me very happy. I don’t make as much money doing it as I likely could in another field, and I don’t have the opportunity to fully exercise the creativity I feel.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that happiness really is the most important thing, but it’s more complicated than that. Don’t we need to honestly consider WHAT makes us happy? It’s great if someone loves teaching preschool, but what if the same person also loves going on luxury vacations and wearing couture fashion? He or she is never going to be able to do that on a preschool teacher’s salary. Some people are totally inspired by doing social work and helping members of society who need special assistance. That’s fantastic, unless they have an expensive hobby that brings them great joy. They’re probably not going to be able to fund horseback riding or yacht racing with a social worker paycheck. We need to consider these things before we make major life decisions. Maybe we end up deciding it’s more important to do something we truly love and we can stand letting yachting or Chanel bags or whatever it is go. Maybe we don’t. The point is, either way it should be a conscious decision, made with obvious consequences taken fully into consideration.

What do you think? Who is more powerful, important, and/or reasonable – Art Girl or Money Girl? How do you reconcile the two in your life?

For the LOVE of PINK pants!

Can we talk about the sweat pants that have the word “LOVE” or “PINK” (or both) emblazoned across the butt? Every time I leave the house, I see at least half a dozen women displaying some spangled, sequined, glittered version of “LOVE PINK” on their asses. (Why never “GRACE GREEN” or “JUSTICE PUCE” or “LIBERTY CHARTREUSE”?) I can’t make a trip to the ATM or grocery store or coffee shop without being nearly blinded by butt-bling. I don’t understand this phenomenon.

I should start out by admitting that I’m extremely logo averse – I don’t like Louis Vuitton bags or the Coach purses with big Cs all over them. I think the last time I wore something with a giant logo on it was in sixth grade when I had a multi-colored sweater that prominently featured a giant Jordache horse, or maybe in junior high when I most definitely had some Esprit and Vaurnet France t-shirts. Sometime during high school, I got uncomfortable with the idea of being a human advertisement. I do not see myself as a walking billboard – my ass included. Are some people so brand loyal that they willingly and happily turn their butts into billboards (some larger than others)?

 No, thank you.

And maybe I’m weird, but I have this crazy notion that words, and their placement in the world, mean something. I don’t understand the point of “LOVE” or “PINK” or “LOVE PINK” across the butt. Are these women suggesting that others should love their butts? Are they proudly communicating that they love their own butts? Do they love butts in general? Do they love pink? Are they making sure, in case we’re color blind, that we know their sweat pants are, in fact, pink? (What about when the pants aren’t pink?!) See how confusing this is? Is their enthusiasm for the pants so great that they need to announce it to the world? Are they trying to accentuate their butts? (This last possibility seems like a bad idea seeing as the vast majority of the wearers really should not be calling any extra attention to their asses.)

Maybe if you’re a twelve-year-old girl, having a sweet word like “love” or “pink” displayed across your posterior seems cute and crazy, and especially irresistible when it’s rendered in pink sequins and makes you think you’re an “Angel” a la Gisele. My recollection is that girls of that age are just discovering that their asses are of interest to others and therefore useful for more than sitting on. Beyond the early teens though, I can’t think of any reasonable excuse. There are more sophisticated ways of calling attention to your feminine assets than affixing a sparkly sign to your ass.

No Subtlety here.

Gone Away

My mom always told me, “You will be able to count the true friends you have in your life on one hand.”

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years and I’m still not sure exactly how to interpret it. Is it a depressing commentary on how few people will genuinely be your friends? Or, is it a beautiful statement about the meaning of friendship and the depth of emotion, loyalty, and attachment that comes along with it? Either way, I’ve found it (along with most things my mom ever told me) to be pretty true.

I say you can count your true friends on both hands instead of one (I’m more of an idealistic dreamer than my practical, realist mom), but the basic theory is the same. Acquaintances come and go, and some “friends” are really something more like buddies – people who hang out with you for a certain period and then fade away. The point is, the true friends, the people you really love and that love you back, the ones who are there for you through thick and thin, those people with whom you just keep getting closer no matter the time or distance, are few and far between.

I have a handful (maybe two handfuls) of those friends and I am extremely thankful for them. Unfortunately, none of them live where I live, which doesn’t mean much except that I miss them and don’t get to see them as often as I’d like. I’m jealous of people who have close friends in close proximity. One of the great things about true friends is how you can go weeks, months, even years without seeing them and, then, when you do, you start right back in like you haven’t missed a beat. Still, it would be nice to be able to spontaneously meet after work for a drink or get together for lunch or have them just a hop, skip, and a jump away if you needed emergency dressing room advice.

I wasn’t always true-friendless in Seattle. In fact, some of my closest friends lived here before moving away. The impending departure of good friends has gotten me thinking about my string of former Seattleite friends and the trend of them leaving and me staying. Interestingly, these friends seem to correspond to each distinct period of my life.

At this point, I’ve been living in Seattle for almost half my life. It is my home. It’s where I became the adult person I am today. When that journey began nearly twenty years ago, my best childhood friend, Marla was living in Seattle as well. (Marla and I met on the bus to a volleyball away-game in 7^th grade. I was still pretty new in town, having just moved in 6^th grade, and was settled into a seat all by myself. Marla came along, scanning the rows for a place to sit. She looked at the empty spot beside me a bit cautiously and asked, “Can I sit there?” “Sure,” I shrugged, and by the end of that trip, we were best friends. Once we started talking, we never really stopped.)

Me and Marla - 1989

(You can tell we're good friends because we're happy here despite the dreadful blue, shiny unitards that were our freshman year dance team uniforms.)

After graduating from Oregon State University, we both moved to Seattle, and while we lived in different neighborhoods and were doing different things – me working and Marla attending graduate school – we saw each other quite a bit. Marla was the lone person who knew me, in a brand new, big huge sea of people. I always felt like a big city girl trapped in a small town growing up, so I was more than ready to immerse myself in urban life, but it was nice having somebody from my hometown just beyond the ship canal bridge. Marla helped me look for my first apartment – and understood how hilarious it was when the apartment manager tried to romanticize a tiny first floor unit by suggesting the tree outside the window made it “just like living in the country.” It makes me laugh now to think of what small town girls we were – bumbling along in the city, meeting new people and trying to figure out the oddities of urban life. We found a new pizza place (nothing could replace our hometown Pizza Deli of course, but we did our best) and discussed strange people like the guy with the implanted vampire fangs, who routinely stared at Marla on the bus. One evening, at what was probably the height of our small town girl naiveté, we stopped by the Safeway on Broadway to pick up some drinks to accompany our take-out Thai food. We were standing in the check-out line, chatting away, completely oblivious to the fact that a pair of police officers were pepper-spraying some hoodlum into submission on the floor not ten feet away from us. We both starting coughing – subtly at first, and then a little harder. We looked at each other in confusion as our eyes began watering and we noticed people clearing out.

“Hmmm . . . why are we the only ones still standing at the register?”

“Oh look, the police have that man down on the floor! He’s struggling . . . Huh. Weird.”

We finally figured it out – but I think it took the checker yelling something very obvious like “PEPPER SPRAY!” at the top of his lungs at us. Ah, city life! Well, Marla finished graduate school in no time and moved to the Portland area for a great job in her field and to be closer to her then-fiancé, soon-to-be husband Steve.   

(Marla and I recently took a trip together to celebrate a big birthday year. (Yes, we’re both 30! It’s hard to believe, isn’t it!?) We spent eight glorious days exploring Boston and Cape Cod – doing whatever we wanted and talking the entire time. It was the most time we had spent together since high school and it felt exactly the same – no beats missed.)

Me and Marla in Nantucket - May 2012

(We're happy here both because we're really good friends and because we're having a fabulous time in Nantucket.)

So suddenly, Marla was gone. Fortunately for me, by the time Marla moved away, Amy (who I met when we were both summer interns) finished college and moved to Seattle. Amy is hands-down one of the most fun people I’ve ever met. She’s smart, and hilarious, and refreshingly blunt, and rolls with the punches with such grace and efficiency, it never ceases to astonish me. Being with her is a guaranteed great time. It doesn’t matter if we’re sitting in our sweats watching TV, or having martinis for lunch, or getting lost in the middle of the night in the Eastern Washington desert, or carrying a pitch-covered Christmas tree twelve blocks from a tree lot to a tiny apartment. And so, with Amy by my side, my fun, and crazy, and sometimes painful, but never lonely, 20s ensued. For a brief period, she moved to California where her then-boyfriend, eventually-to-be husband Larry was still finishing college. It wasn’t too long before they both returned to Seattle and Amy moved into an apartment right around the corner from mine. Most Monday nights, we had dinner and watched TV at Amy’s apartment, and, once a week, we did our laundry over beers at the now defunct Sit & Spin. Much analysis of our budding careers and love (or lack-thereof) lives occurred over those laundry nights.

Amy and I had as much fun as a couple of 20-somethings should – going out and having fun, and staying in and bemoaning that our lives were not yet what we hoped they would be. It was perfect . . . until Larry got into medical school in Chicago and suddenly, Amy was gone. Amy and Larry are settled in Yakima now, which is certainly closer to Seattle than Chicago, but with kids and busy lives, we don’t see each other nearly enough.

After Amy left Seattle, it took quite a while for my next really good, true friend to come along. I was busy with work and graduate school (both of which provided lots of distractions in the way of professional and academic challenges, as well as a number of friends). At some point during all of that, Wil and Grisell moved to Seattle from Miami and Wil began working with my husband, Matt. The relationship began as a professional connection, but quickly turned to friendship. Wil and Grisell made requisite work-related social events much more fun and it wasn’t long before we were doing lots of things together outside of the work realm. We rang in the New Year together, we camped and dug for oysters together, we gathered for dinner parties and Super Bowl parties. We even witnessed Janet Jackson’s famous wardrobe malfunction together! One of our dinner parties devolved into what was most certainly the most drunken badminton game of all time.

Our sons Chester and Roman were born 6 weeks apart during the summer of 2006 and Grisell and I spent that summer and fall taking walks with the babies, conducting research on whether strollers or front-carriers made them cry the least, meeting for coffee with the babies, figuring out how in the world to get them to sleep, and basically propping each other up during those scary and difficult early parenting months. I’ll never forget the first time we laid Roman and Chester down together on a blanket at Green Lake – they turned their little heads toward each other and stared as if to say “Well hello there, I guess we’re going to be friends!” (Miraculously, neither one of them was crying at that moment.)

Me and Grisell - August 2006 - New Moms

We’ve spent six wonderful years sharing parenting milestones– birthday parties, play-dates at parks, trick-or-treating, Easter egg hunting, and treks to the zoo. We’ve gone through Thomas the Train, Buzz Lightyear, Beyblades, and Batman together. Our dinner parties look quite a bit different now – instead of playing falling-down-drunk badminton, our bourbon comes in much more responsible quantities and we’re typically playing tag with the kids in between sips. Our idea of a fantastic evening is walking to the park after one of Wil’s delicious grilled dinners, watching Chester and Roman alternate between racing each other and sweetly holding hands – friends since birth.

Well, you know what they say . . . The only constant is change, or something like that. (I’m not really sure who “they” are, but “they” are infuriatingly right about these sorts of things.) Now Wil and Grisell and Roman and baby brother, Lorenzo are going away too – moving back to Miami to be closer to family. I know we’ll always be friends with them (and now we have a great excuse to visit Florida) – just like I’ll always be friends with Marla and Amy. This friends-going-away business has happened before and I know distance doesn’t really mean much when it comes to true friends, but it does feel like the end of an era – of another phase of my life.

So here I am, true-friendless in Seattle once again. Sometimes I wonder why I always stay while everyone else goes. I wonder if maybe I’ll ever be the one to leave. I’ve certainly had chances and have always chosen to stay. I’ve cited financial or other practical reasons each time, to myself and to others, but deep down I know it’s because I’m really connected to this place.  

I’m left wondering what and who the next phase will bring. Maybe my mom is right – maybe I’ve already been blessed with as many true friends as one can expect to have in life and my one handful is complete. Or maybe there will be more – perhaps the mom of one of Chester’s elementary school classmates? Maybe someone I meet through my own adventures? At any rate, I’m looking forward to it, as well as to plenty of visits to and from Marla and Amy and Wil and Grisell.

Agreed?

Is there nothing we can all agree on? In this season of ramping up for the big presidential election in the fall, polarized media coverage, and heated debates on everything from insurance to immigration, I’m wondering if there is anything we can all agree on anymore. There used to be the Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you – but even that seems to have gone by the wayside, judging by out of control greed, rampant individualism, and random acts of violence.

Well, call me a dreamer, but I’m holding out hope that there must be SOMETHING. If not the serious issues like economics, politics, or religion, perhaps the more mundane and trivial details that come up as we navigate day-to-day existence. Here are just a few examples of things we should all be able to agree on:

1) Katy Perry sucks. She does. Can we please agree that Katy Perry’s fifteen minutes of fame should have been up a long, long time ago? Why does she continue to assault us with her overly-produced, ridiculously rhyming, formulaic “music” and her tits and ass, sexualized shtick? You can’t go to the gym, grocery store, or gynecologist these days without hearing some form of Katy Perry – either blasted over the sound system or “muzaked” into an elevator or waiting room. I can’t take my child to the new Pixar movie without Katy Perry popping up in preview form. Who could watch a full, feature-length “documentary” about Katy Perry?! I could barely make it through the preview – Katy’s pink hair, blue hair, no wait, its pink again hair; rotating peppermint candies on Katy’s pointy bra; Katy astride a giant phallic gun shooting whipped cream or some sort of foam onto a stadium full of preteen girls; Katy hunched over in emotional agony as her divorce from Russell Brand is announced. The mind-numbing, faux drama is bad. The twisted combination of preteen girl fan-base and overtly sexual messaging is bad. It’s like Hustler magazine meets Candyland the preschool game.

2) Hair should not be striped. Ladies, let’s agree that bad highlights have got to go. What is it with the striped hair? It was trashy a decade ago, now it’s just ridiculous. It actually makes me angry when I see it. Why is it so prevalent? Who are the hair stylists who commit this atrocity? I am declaring bad highlights, lowlights, and the “lights” you can’t even make sense of a crime against humanity, and all that is good and beautiful in the world. Subtle variations in color are one thing; they provide texture and depth, but hair is not meant to be striped. Let’s all agree to say “NO!” to bad highlights.

3) 99.9% of the time, despite what commercials would have you believe, women do not have an orgasm when they put on moisturizer, apply makeup, or shampoo their hair. Can we agree that this is true? I’ll admit I have not checked this statistic or put it to any kind of scientific test (OK, I just made it up; isn’t that what everyone does with statistics these days?), but I’m going out on a limb based on personal experience as a moisturizer using, makeup applying, hair shampooing female. These personal grooming activities exist on a scale of “tedious chore” to “mildly enjoyable” simply because you’re devoting some attention to yourself for two minutes. And let’s face it . . . even if putting on moisturizer felt that good, the 20 seconds it takes to do it certainly wouldn’t get you there. So, men of the world, stop wondering why your girlfriend/wife doesn’t look like that when she puts on her makeup and women of the world, stop wondering if something is wrong with your products because they don’t seem to be working like they’re supposed to.     

4) If a platypus could sing, it would sound like Adam Levine. This is my own personal theory, but I’m pretty sure it’s right on the money. Try this . . . when you hear a Maroon 5 song, close your eyes and imagine a platypus. Go ahead, I’ll wait . . . it shouldn’t take long seeing as a Maroon 5 song is on any given radio station pretty much every five minutes . . . take your time . . . There! See! It works, doesn’t it?

So what if we can’t agree on immigration policy or childhood immunization? Who cares if we can’t see eye to eye on religion or reproduction? Let’s get on the same page with the simple, frivolous, day-to-day details. Please? Can we pretty, pretty please at least agree Adam Levine sounds like a platypus? If we can’t get on board with that, there’s no hope.

How about agree to disagree? I guess that’s something.

America the Ugly

While I was heartened by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act yesterday, I was extremely disheartened by the disgusting wave of anger, hatred and ignorance that swelled around the issue. It’s ugly; just plain ugly. (I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m left-leaning in my political ideology and I do believe everyone should have access to health care, but my comments here are NOT about the pros or cons of the Affordable Care Act; They are about the shameful reactions of so many that make me depressed and embarrassed.)

Of course I don’t expect everyone to agree with President Obama’s health care solution or to agree with the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold it. We are a large, complicated nation of 313 million diverse people with widely varying circumstances, ideologies and opinions. And the health care issue is enormously complicated. I absolutely understand differences of opinion and support each person’s right to have and express their own thoughts on the issue. What I can’t accept is the vitriolic, hateful, selfish, and downright ignorant manner in which it is being done – in the news, in social media, and in conversations from the water cooler to radio talk shows.

The health care system is broken. Fixing it isn’t going to be easy and with our widely diverse population it isn’t going to be perfect for each and every individual right out of the gate, if ever. That’s not the way big, societal change works. I’m not anywhere close to an expert on the health care issue, nor am I a constitutional scholar, but understanding that large scale societal change is incremental, difficult, and often painful seems like simple common sense to me.

Perfection is the surest way to prevent progress. If what we’re looking for is a perfect solution – perfect for every individual, perfect for every circumstance – before we implement anything, it will never happen. Progress has to start somewhere and that starting point is never perfection.

I’m not a Rah-Rah-Sis-Boom-Bah Obama fan. He wasn’t my first choice for a candidate in 2008. I always felt his promises of cure-all hope and sweeping change were unrealistic. But I am pleased that he has managed to begin to affect change in an area of society that really needs it. We could do with more elected officials who are willing to make unpopular decisions if it means getting something done. Of course elected officials are suppose to represent their constituents, but again, those constituents vary widely and elected officials can’t expect or be expected to please everyone all the time. They should see, and respond to, a bigger picture than each individual. I don’t think they always do the best job, but that’s the idea. I want my elected officials to make the best decisions for our society, not just for ME, ME, ME.

Obama certainly isn’t winning any popularity points for his health care solution, so I can’t image he’s sticking with it for political gain. That leads me to believe he’s committed to it because he truly believes we need change and he’s doing his best to start the process of making that painful, incremental change happen. Is it perfect? No. Does it need all sorts of examination and changing and tweaking to make it better? I’m sure it does. So let’s get on with it; at least the ball is rolling.

There are those who will, at this point, site statistics and stories about how terribly and unjustly certain individuals and groups of people will be “punished” by the mandate. Perhaps there is some truth to those claims, but there are just as many statistics and stories that not only dispute those claims, but tell of countless people who will benefit. So what if you’re not one of them? This democracy isn’t about individuals – it’s about the good of the whole and sometimes individuals have to make sacrifices for that. Why have we lost touch with that concept?

So many of the comments I’m hearing and seeing around this issue have nothing to do with the real issue of fixing the health care problem. It’s as though people are so self-centered and nasty these days, they seize upon any opportunity to be as pissed-off and mean as possible.

I’ve got news for these people: calling the President “a worthless piece of shit” isn’t doing anything to help solve any problem. It doesn’t make you smart or powerful or remotely useful. It makes you negative and ugly and part of a very sad problem. I’m sure I’ll get crucified for being an “over-educated, liberal elite” for saying this, but if you can’t string a few words together in your native language well enough for me to understand what you’re talking about, I can hardly be expected to assume you have credibility on anything, much less something as complicated as the national health care issue.

I’ve seen a form of this one a few times over the past 24 hours: “I’ll quit my job before they get one cent of tax money from me to support all the worthless people that choose not to work.” Well, if that isn’t an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face, I don’t know what is; very mature and productive. If you have the luxury of quitting your job so you don’t have to pay taxes, great, go for it, but please don’t drive on the roads my tax dollars pay for or send your kids to the socialist schools I support.

As for all the incredibly insightful “Fuck Obama” comments and variations thereof (including but not limited to, “Go fuck yourself, Obama,” “Fuck you, Obama,” and “Obama can fuck himself”), seriously, if that is the most intelligent thing you can think of to say, you need to go back to something far more remedial than the health care issue.

You don’t need to agree with the Affordable Care Act. You don’t need to like Obama. You don’t need to support his policies or politics, but what I do expect from my fellow Americans is to respect each other as human beings. Didn’t we all learn that valuable lesson in preschool? I teach my son not to call names – it doesn’t matter how much you disagree with someone or how angry they make you, you don’t hit them or bite them or call them names. That’s not a productive or acceptable way to exist in society. In fact, it’s mean and counterproductive. So, for those who didn’t grasp that lesson at age four, here it is one more time: You don’t call any other human being a “worthless piece of shit.” I don’t want my country to be ugly like that, so stop it.