...but more than that, it gives me HOPE!
If you're young and assume you vote doesn't matter quite yet -- it DOES! If you're old and assume your vote doesn't matter anymore -- it DOES! If you've given up hope, thinking that the downward spiral this country is currently enduring is beyond repair -- it ISN'T.
Yes, we can all VOTE FOR CHANGE!
A few years ago, a little ditty about ways to be safe in an emergency made its way around the Internet.
One of the suggestions on that list was to enter your spouse's name on your cell phone under "ICE" for "in case of emergency," with the explanation that it gives emergency personnel an idea of whom to notify if they need to reach a close family member.
It's a good idea and of course, we implemented it. But we can't help but chuckle every time we see our names in the phones' contact lists, wondering what non-emergency personnel would think, should they find our phones. They probably assume we're just in one long, unending feud or that someone got snooty one day and the other followed suit.
Or that bitchy is as bitchy does.
I can hear it now: "Hey, I found your wife's phone. And dude --your wife sounds like a total bee-atch, man!"
She says: "hi, im alive. sorrz, cant write right now. ill myspace zou late."
(Two K-words: Köln and Karnival)
Having four kids within five years of each other has presented some entertaining scenarios.
All four kids had chicken pox together in 1992. That was a lovely, bonding opportunity for us all (she says sarcastically) which culminated in a trip to the emergency room with 2-year-old twins who had climbed to the top of a dresser to find -- and share -- a bottle of Benadryl. (That's a separate post... and one that I really should write, shouldn't I?)
Later, all four were all in braces at the same time. I have no entertaining tidbit to pass on about that situation. The only "joke" there was definitely me writing checks every month that approximated our mortgage payment.
I'm sure I'll have some entertaining (for you, maybe!) stories to tell next year when all four are in college and we'll be paying tuition for three of them. Stand by for that (she says sarcastically).
But today's story is the next installment in the Wisdom Tooth Saga, in which all four kids have their wisdom teeth extracted in quick succession. Actually, that's not entirely true because Elisabeth had hers out last year (or was it the year before?). It's the other three who are having the surgery done now (as in, these approximate days). Kat had hers out in late December and is still on "wisdom tooth maintenance."
And today was Peter's turn. As I write this, Peter is on the couch downstairs with Danelle, and is finally coming down a bit from his drug-induced stand-up comedy routine that we've been enjoying since the minute he woke up from the "thur-dury" as he's been calling it, due to a gauze-filled mouth. If those drugs just strip away inhibitions and make people more who they really are, the comedy routine is entirely apropos, as Peter is definitely a born comedian! (This picture was taken within moments of him waking up from surgery.)
After Kat's surgery a few weeks ago, she woke up crying, even sobbing at times, interrupting herself to say, "I don't know why I'm crying! Really, I'm fine. I'm just cryyyyying!" Fortunately, the nurses assured her that crying is an entirely normal reaction that many patients have after this surgery. Judging from their reaction to Peter's antics (they were cracking up with the rest of us), Kat's reaction is much more common than Peter's. "Thur-dury! Thwell. And it dudn't even huuwt! I think we thuld all jutt roll on oudda here!" He was Peter-the-Happy-Drunk-Stand-Up-Comic and we were all his audience. But just as were were about to order cocktails and enjoy the rest of the show, it was time for us to go.
So that's five out of six of us who have now had our wisdom teeth removed. For the record, here are our very different reactions:
Tom: Had the surgery after we were married, when he was about 31. He woke up suddenly, bolted to a full sit and was ready to go. He even insisted in stopping at the video store on the way home.
Me: I had the surgery at 19, accompanied by my then-boyfriend. The first person I saw upon waking up was the cute, young male orderly who helped me sit up. I (apparently... or so the story goes) proceeded to ask if I could hug him and, too impatient to wait for an answer, hugged him -- twice. Fortunately, my then-boyfriend had a sense of humor.
Elisabeth saw the whole thing as a scientific experiment and asked the oral surgeon to take part. She asked him to tell her a number and a color while she was out (being on Versed, she'd be able to converse, even while "under") and then quiz her multiple times as she was coming out from the anesthesia. He did. She failed. And failed. And failed. Her conclusion: the amnesic anesthesia was, indeed, an amnesic. That girls is a perpetual student!
Kat: Cried upon waking. Probably the most normal reaction, and the only one (so far) in our family who had it.
Peter: See above.
Aleks: We'll wait on Aleks' surgery for two reasons: 1.) He's not complaining of any pain yet and these surgeries are expensive (even with insurance -- and even with dual coverage, as Peter has). And 2.) I greatly fear for his reaction, upon waking! I have a feeling he'd engage those nice, friendly nurses in a political, philosophic, religious, social, and existential debate... both crying and laughing as he espouses his not-entirely-open-minded viewpoint!
I've been called a hopeless optimist before, but I can't imagine that positive thinking alone could have strung events together as smoothly as they've fallen together over the past 24 hours.
Yesterday, Peter sold his gas-guzzling "lifted" monstrosity of a truck (disclaimer: Mom's opinion... not fact) to a 15-year-old and his dad who drove up from Portland to buy the ol' thang. This left Peter without transportation and, coincidentally, I didn't need the Honda today so I told him he could take it, but he'd need to buy a car quickly. Unbeknownst to me, Peter already had things worked out (ah, the joys of self-sufficient adult kids!): his friend was selling the exact Subaru Legacy AWD that Peter had his eye on and agreed to sell it to Peter today as soon as he bought the car he had his eye on (a Legacy wagon). Over the course of today, those transactions each went off without a hitch and Peter is now the proud owner of a much more sensible, economical, environmentally friendly car.
While I was home car-less today and not in need of one anyway, Kat texted me from school: "My license tabs expire today!" Renewing the registration on Kat's car was one of those things we'd been meaning to take care of for about a month but never got around to -- until today. We no longer had the choice to procrastinate, so I texted Kat back: "Let's go today when you get home." I knew we'd pay for our procrastination since today is the last day of the month and tomorrow it'd be illegal for Kat to drive her car. We expected long lines both at the state emissions station where we'd have the car tested to make sure it complied with environmental emissions requirements and at the state licensing office 10 miles away, where we'd renew our registration. As we left our house, I told Kat to be prepared to wait in a lot of long lines and exercise great patience before the whole registration ordeal was over.
Amazingly, there was absolutely no line at the emissions station, and the normally grumpy staff was even almost jovial, joking with us and giving us a hearty congratulations for passing. (Little did they know that I was, in fact, relieved!)
What luck, I thought -- and off we headed to the Department of Licensing office 10 miles away. Not only did I expect the two-lane road that connected the emissions office and the registration office to be bumper-to-bumper with evening rush hour commuters, I also expected long lines at the small registration office, where it isn't unusual for the line to wind out the door and around the corner.
Again, we were in luck! The road was wide open and miracle of miracles (especially for the last day of the month at 4:30!), there was no one at the licensing office! We walked right up to the window where we were asked for $74.75 in "cash-or-check-no-credit-cards-allowed."
What? 'Oh crap,' I thought as I began to rummage through my purse. 'I don't have my ch...' But there, buried at the very bottom of my purse, was the checkbook that I rarely carry with me. I vaguely remember throwing it into my purse a few weeks ago and fortunately I'd never gotten around to removing it. Phew! I wrote the check, again commenting on our amazing luck.
Taken by our good fortune, we jokingly said that we should "Jiffy Lube the car too," just to test our luck. Surely the lines at Jiffy Lube would be long and treacherous, we joked as we drove by. But wait a minute! What's this? A guy with a placard that says "Right now! $21.99!" Could we BE so lucky? 'Sure,' I thought, 'Great price, but I'll bet the line is really, really lo....'
There was no one there! We drove right into the stall and they got to work immediately, even replacing a burned out blinker light, an air filter and some weird gizmo that cost $10 that I was assured we needed. (Yes, at this point, I was beginning to blindly trust not only our luck but the people we were encountering...) We were out of JiffyLube with a freshly maintained, licensed and emissioned car within only 15 minutes of arriving there! That had never happened to me before!
From Jiffy Lube, we headed to the gym, where I had resigned myself to running on the elliptical trainer (yuuuuuuuk!) because the guys swim team occupies the entire pool every afternoon from 3:00 to 5:00. I have come to love swimming but I still dread any sort of exercise that poops me out and makes me sweat, so I wasn't looking forward to today's land work-out. Kat's friend works at the front desk of the gym, so we chatted with her briefly, which was when she told me that I'd probably be happy to hear that the guys were at a swim meet and the pool was basically empty.
Woooo-hooooo! I mean, seriously.
I LOVE swimming by myself in that Olympic-size pool! It was glorious, refreshing and rejuvenating and just all-around positive... especially on a day like today, when things are just completely falling together! I swam hard for 40 laps, lost in my own world that had, for some reason, been extraordinarily positive on this particular day.
On the way home we stopped at Safeway to get a few ingredients for the chicken tetrazzini I was planning to make (or rather, THREE of them -- one vegetarian version for Kat, a regular version, and one with mushrooms for me since no one else likes mushrooms and I adore them) and would you believe it...
The French bread had just come out of the oven and was still steaming hot and absolutely heavenly! How could we even BE so lucky? It was so delicious that... well, that we decided that it was almost as good as being in Germany again!
Why is it that some days flow like this one and some days don't? And why is it that we tend to pay closer attention and take things so personally when, unlike today, the day just goes completely wrong? I have a feeling that those days are much easier to remember -- and I know for certain that they're easier to complain about!
Over the years, our family dinner conversations have gone through quite a few changes.
When the kids were very young, mealtime conversations focused on the meal itself: "Careful with your cup! Don't spill!"
Later, dinnertime conversations centered around the events of the day: "What did you and Ryan do at Cub Scouts today?"
Later still, dinner was a time to gossip, kvetch or ruminate: "Ashley talked about me behind my back, then Jason assumed it was true and told Austin and..."
And then, as the kids hit their mid high school years, conversations focused on the social hot topic of the day: "Who are you asking to the homecoming dance?"
Now that the kids are in (and out of) college and in their last year of high school, and now that they're enrolled in courses with titles like Eastern Philosophy and Religion, Microeconomics, AP Biology, AP Government & Politics, and AP English Composition, our dinner conversations sound more like a heated debate on CNN than like a family dinner. In the past week or so, all of these words have been uttered and/or/discussed and/or debated at our dinner table:
As you can imagine, our dinner conversations can get quite lively these days. Peter and Aleks have quite different philosophies about many things, and both are quite knowledgeable, so sparks tend to fly when those two get going.
This morning at 6 AM Elisabeth boarded a plane bound for Germany. Is it just a coincidence that when I was exactly the same age, 23, I also went to Germany alone? That trip was life-altering for me in so many ways that still have a daily impact today, 28 years later. I fell in love on that trip and although I didn't marry Thomas, he still remains a dear friend today. But more significantly, I believe that had I not gone on that trip and fallen in love, Tom and I wouldn't be married today, just a few months away from celebrating our silver (25 years!) wedding anniversary.
When I went to Germany in 1980, I had finished college and had applied to the Stanford Graduate School of Education. A few weeks after arriving in Germany, I received a telegram (you're snickering!) from my parents, notifying me that I had been accepted. Coincidentally, Elisabeth has also applied to graduate school, a Nurse Practitioner program through a local Seattle university and, like me, she'll hear from the admissions office while she's abroad. (Unlike me, though, the mode of notification will be immediate and far less expensive.)
I don't expect that Elisabeth will fall in love on this trip (though I wouldn't be surprised if she did), but I do think the trip will have a significant impact on her life. The timing is perfect for her to be traveling alone, though two weeks is nowhere near enough. Unfortunately, Elisabeth never had a chance to travel after graduating from Cal two years ago because she'd been recruited directly out of school and began work within a week of graduation. She landed a fabulous job as a medical device rep for a company that gave her a car (including paying for gas, insurance, maintenance, etc.), a laptop, a Treo, a home office, a ton of freedom, and an amazing salary. I always told her that, with a first job like that, no other job will ever be good enough. But to her credit, she didn't look at another job; instead she looked at continuing her education. I think going to grad school is a great idea for her, but I'm so glad she's traveling a bit first. I only wish that she could really immerse herself in another culture for a few months on end, like her cousin Dawn did in India.
When we were in Germany last September, Elisabeth went to the Oktoberfest with Geoffrey's son Lionel, while I headed to Nurnberg to visit Thomas and his family. At Oktoberfest, Elisabeth met the guys in a fairly well-known German band, and she and a woman who she also met in Munchen last fall will be traveling with them while she's in Germany. How much fun is that?! Ah, to be 23 again!
Or maybe not. Having my life turned upside-down at 23 was exciting and exhilarating and the mystery of what my future had in store for me was filled with positive promise and hopeful anticipation. I have a feeling that having one's life turn upside-down at 51 is a very, very different experience, and nowhere near as positive and exciting as it is at 23. So this time I'll live vicariously through my daughter, eagerly awaiting notification that she's arrived and that her adventures have begun.
Elisabeth, that's code for you to call or e-mail me and let me know you've arrived! ;-)
