A Day on the Farm

Hi Everyone~!
Today, Patty and her kindergarten class (along with four other kindergarten classes at her school and three other schools besides ours) went to visit a farm~ it was a stinky, dusty, fun adventure! I took the day off to attend this fabulous field trip. There were turkeys a gobblin, big and beautiful with mauvy-purple and bright bubblegum pink faces, feathers patterned with copper and black stripes! I never realized how gorgeous (and delicious) these animals are. Patty asked if these were the same turkeys we ate on Thanksgiving. I told her reluctantly yes, and she thought about it a long time and finally uttered, "Ewww." I may have a vegetarian on my hands as a result.

We saw goats leaping over fences, running wild! The next time you can't sleep, maybe count some goats. Of course there were lots o horses complete with an amazingly putrid stench and flies a buzzin' everywhere! The aroma in this animal area was sending the adults into hard core nausea attacks. The "petting zoo" area, where the kids could hold a tween size chick, not the cute, fuzzy, bright yellow ones, but a more skinny, unfluffy, brownish questionable disease-carrying chick type were passed amongst our kids' previously clean hands. Much to my delight, Patty did not want a thing to do with holding the tween chick. Yea!

The kids found their way through a towering corn maze that was fun, except I kept thinking of The Shining, where Jack Nicholson is chasing Shelley Duvall through a maze at night~ RED-RUM! RED RUM! Oy! The nightmares I had from that unbelievable movie~

The little farmers picked enormous zucchini, cucumber, pumpkins and teensy beensy radishes. It was a wonderful harvest feeling day, even though it was 94 degrees out and we were all sweltering in the still intense heat. The kids didn't even notice. It made me think that the novelty of a farm is something that only lasts a short time when kids are small and open to adventure and new things. Seeing the wonder through their eyes made it all worth the dusty, sweaty, horse crap smelling day!

Honoring Special Women Loved and Lost to Breast Cancer

I completed the 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk in '05...it was awesome!

Greetings and salutations! Hope this finds you well! Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I feel compelled to write about very special people who have lost their lives to breast cancer. Ya might need to grab a hankie for this one.

First and foremost, my paternal grandmother, Janice S. died at the age of 65. Her cancer started as breast cancer, then spread to her lungs and brain. Although she was a long time smoker, she also had a family history of breast cancer. She was ultra-creative, a writer for most of her successful career, writing copy for advertisers, and songs for my sisters and cousins. She was the ultimate devoted grandmother, she lived wherever we did, cooked amazing meals and had a cool dress up drawer filled with gaudy jewellery, clunky heels and wild wigs. My sister, Marcy and I donned the super-cool garb and transformed ourselves into "Rosemary and Tequila", two women of the world. (Not really sure where we got the name "Tequila" from at age 7 and 4...hmmm?)

My mom's very close friend, Cathy Smith, also died in her early 60's (I think), had breast cancer to start, then spread to other areas of her body. She was probably one of the most down to earth, fun people I have ever known. She was "Green Peace" before it was trendy.

My friend, Chelsea, lost her friend Alicia to breast cancer in her 20's. Yes, her 20's. Although I didn't know her personally, I saw the loss through Chelsea's eyes, and it was devastating that a girl in her 20's should be robbed of the vast experiences yet to come.

I was also touched by breast cancer a few years ago, by a girl who I had about 2 brief conversations with, named Sherrie. First conversation was in the cafeteria during lunch with Cole, when he was in kindergarten. If you have ever had lunch recently in a cafeteria with 150 kindergartners, the noise level is equivalent to a Bon Jovi, circa 1985, concert. (Sing with me: "We've gotta hold on to what we got, it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not, we got each other, and that's a lot for love...WE'LL GIVE IT A SHOT!...")

Anyhow, my eardrums throbbing, Sherrie was one of the sainthood moms working in the cafeteria to help control the mounting chaos. I was having lunch with Cole, back when he would let me sit next to him in front of his friends. I was wearing my mahjong tile bracelet that my mother in law gave me (I play mahj on Tuesday nights sometimes, when I can get out of the house) and she asked me if I played. We were really screaming to try to be heard. I screamed to her yes, I play, she yelled that she knows how to play, so I gave her my card and told her to call me if she wanted to join in on a game sometime. She checked out my business card and realized I was in pharmaceutical sales, sharing with me that she was a pharmacist, but now stayed at home to be with her two daughters who, I think were in 5th grade and middle school. The lunch hour ended and I scurried back to work.

The second conversation I had with Sherrie was on a field trip. I took the day off to go with Cole and his class to the fire station. Sherrie was there helping out. She said hello and that she was getting ready to go have some surgery. She didn't elaborate on what kind, but it didn't seem very serious. She was smiley, upbeat and carefree and we were trying to control the kids assigned to our group, so the conversation was short and scattered.

Months later, I heard she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn't see her around school again. I often thought of her and wondered how she was doing. I eventually heard that she was very sick and not coming back to volunteer at school.

Time passed, life was busy and hectic and running around all the time, working and taking care of the kids. One day, I was working, visiting doctors' offices as I normally do. I was walking quickly into a medical building, hoping to get in and see one last doctor before they closed for lunch, breezing past a man helping a very weak, sick woman walk. He had his arm around her shoulders, taking baby steps, carefully and lovingly.

I entered the office and was told to sit in the waiting room for a few minutes. Ten minutes passed. I was getting anxious waiting. Suddenly, the door slowly opened and the couple who I zipped by ten minutes ago, inching along, came in. It was Sherrie and her husband. She had lost all of her hair and looked pale and weak. She appeared to be in immense pain. They sat in the chairs across from me. He held her in his arms, while I sat there with my big obnoxious sales bag by my feet. Her eyes were closed and she was quietly moaning. I didn't know if I should say hi to her, would she want anyone to see her in such a fragile state? No. Should I say hi to the husband, sharing that I knew Sherrie from school? I couldn't. Nothing seemed appropriate. There were no words. After all, we had just had 2 conversations, but I thought of her so often and wondered how she was doing. And now I knew just how she was doing. I said nothing. I was empty. My heart hurt.

The nurse opened the door to the completely silent, heavy waiting room, and I came flying through the door, safe from my uncertainty and horrific sadness.

I saw her obituary in the paper several months later. I read it feeling like even though I merely had 2 brief, scattered, casual conversations with this woman, that I lost a friend. I thought of her husband and her daughters and wondered how they were coping. The other day, while I drove through Parent Drop off, I noticed the school dedicated this area to her memory. I feel that I met Sherrie for a reason. Some people come into your life even for a moment and they can touch your heart. I know Sherrie has touched mine.

Ch ch ch changes...

I hate change. I try to avoid it at all costs. But change is inevitable. And sometimes, change ultimately causes evolutions of good things.

When I started my new job, everything was foreign, strange, confusing, and I was stumbling in the unfamilarness that was tripping me constantly. My first sales call was nerve wracking, meeting my first, new customer, introducing myself to all the associated staff within that account after driving in circles trying to find the blasted building. I nervously walked in, all faux confident, shiny, overly eager to make a decent impression.

I was greeted by two monstrous-sized, curt, awful gatekeepers, who made it crystal clear that they didn't care who I was, or what I wanted. Picture Ursula's two pet sea eels in The Little Mermaid. They knew why I was there, and gave me a slight head jerk to indicate "come on in" in their sub primate language. I was instructed to "sit here" and wait. I felt like I had just entered a women's prison. No one glanced in my direction nor acknowledged my presence. I was invisible. Talk about a place "...where everybody knows your name..."NOT!

Suddenly, I hear jubilant sorority screams and giggles. It was difficult to imagine the two sea eels emitting these sounds of happiness from their evil souls. It was another female, very pregnant rep, coming for a visit~ enter the flawless, surreal rock star of a girl. The urchins were hanging on the prego rocker's every word, grinning from ear to ear, one of them revealing a mouthful of rotted choppers.

They were exchanging stories about pregnancy, delivery, babies, kids...all subjects I LOVE to gab about~ I wanted to join in, but it was not my time or my place. Prego rocker was in the spotlight, I was just an outsider. I was shrouded with uncertainty and being new, so I sat there. Alone and quiet, looking at my shoes. Pathetic? Yes.

One year later, I have shed the newness, and opened myself up to get to know these STRANGErs, embracing the changes. As I entered this same account last week, rotted chopper urchin, greeted me with a HUGE, unexpected hug and called me "hun". Hun? We've come a long way, baby.

Windows Slammed Shut

It seems I keep having life revelations at Peter Piper Pizza. Maybe it’s because we spend so much time at this very fine eating establishment these days. We recently dined there, and the meanie mommy rule that I have there is that you eat first, then you can run around the kiddy interpretation of a casino, playing the rip off games, or climbing on the ultra-pathogen infested indoor playground equipment. But only after you have quasi-eaten to my satisfaction.

My kids wolfed down their synthetic cheese pizza to my delight, and were salivating at the awaiting golden tokens they would gamble away, all in the hopes of winning a crappy, plastic toy that would be added to the mountains of useless junk in our overflowing playroom.

Patty quickly blew through her tokens, and went to climb up the jungle gym which lead to a curly-q slide. She stood next to a posted, plastic sign that said, “You must be less than 42 inches to play.” The tippy top of her golden, baby fine hair touched the cutoff line on the sign for playing on the germy equipment. Too big. Too big? It was just yesterday that she was too scared to go up the climbing apparatus at all. I blinked and she finally got enough nerve to go up, but panicked at the top, too frightened to slide down, so I had to haul my way out of shape butt up the tiny, back-wrenching climbing thing and rescue her. And now, in just a blink, she was almost too big for it. It seems like our window for these kid things are closing too quickly for words.

As we waited for Patty to finish sliding down, Cole and I were talking about school lunches. “Who did you sit with at lunch today?” I asked him. “Do you have enough time to eat?” I was curious, since last year, that was a common complaint. He named off a few buddies that he often eats with, and explained, that yes, he has time to eat, but out of nowhere solicited firmly and matter of factly, Cole zinged me with: “Mom, you don’t need to come eat lunch with me anymore. No one does that in 3rd grade. No parents come eat with their kids.” Wham! The window of eating lunch with my first born, at school, was gone forever. Slammed shut.

These windows that continue to close so quickly and unexpectedly have taught me that I guess I need to look at each chance to spend time with our kids as a short term opportunity and a privilege. The one thing that is constant in life is change, but the precious times are so fleeting, I wish I could just freeze time, just for a minute or two.