Top Ten for 2010

I am glad 2010 is over. It has brought many blessings and new and exciting things. But it has also been personally draining and exhausting. I am a goal setter, but not a goal achiever, and this is problematic in a culture that values putting off the natural woman and striving for perfection.

If you are wondering why Michael Jackson is staring at you, skip down to number 10, but y'all come back ya hear?

Here are some happy things about 2010. Yeah, Michael is one of them.

1. The best thing about 2010 was that my daughter had a year of healing, physically and mentally, and she is on her way. We didn't know what to expect. We were terrified as much as any two parents could possibly be, but she is remarkable in the progress she has made and her determination to beat her illnesses. I admire her ability to pick herself up every day and work toward getting better.

2. My brother in law Mike is alive and well. He walks with a crutch and his legs don't work like he would like them to. But he is a medical miracle. He is back at work. He survived a burst illiac artery in June which most people do not. We can't imagine life without his tension-relieving sense of humor and generous nature. It's a good thing that I didn't have to pray at our Christmas family dinner, because I would have been reduced to a pile of mashed potatoes when I think of the blessing of his life, and how we almost lost him.

3. My Mom survived breast cancer and Darren's Mom has recovered from her debilitating auto immune disease. I can't even say what it was because the words are so long. I have high hopes that my Mom's back surgery will be successful later this month, and that her health will be restored. Good luck Mom!

4.Being PTA president has been surprisngly pleasant and enjoyable. It has been rewarding and self-esteem boosting. I feel like I have done well, and can say that I have achieved the goal of doing my best for our school. I am proud of the work that I have done, and actually have some goals in this area that are achievable in the months to come. Wow, achievable goals, who would have thought?

5. Our puppy Theo brings joy and more joy even though he poops a lot and chews things up. He is adorable and fast as snot and we all love him except one person in our family. And that's OK because he has five other people who can't imagine life without him. He is a trail runner and a mountain climber (even a moose chaser) and that makes Darren happy. Darren frequently says what a cool dog he is. This is way more than I had hoped for when we got a dog. Darren was less than enthusiastic, but now we finally have somone in the family who can keep up with my ultra-fit, super outdoorsy husband.

6. Speaking of outdoorsy, I have taken up snow shoeing with Darren and I love it and am starting not to hate winter with the same vitriolic passion that I used to. We have couple unit time and I get to breathe fresh air and exercise while enjoying our beautiful surroundings. And it is so cheap and accessible and easy. One can't fail at snow-shoeing. There is virtually no skill required, (why else would I be able to do it) except it is sometimes hard to get those tennis racquets all buckled up!

7. My shoulder is healed. I can move it almost 100% and this makes me so grateful and happy. I can do anything I want to do without worry or concern, and I am attempting to do just that. It does not pop out of the socket anymore and I truly hope that I will never have to endure seven shoulder dislocations again. The surgery was a great success.

8. Zumba class is a riot and so fun and such good exercise. What an amazing discovery for me. I did it all through the summer and less in the fall, but I resolve (how I despise that word because it is most uncharitable) to keep it up this winter. The music and the energy are fantastic.

9.My kids are healthy and happy (at least it seems that way, one never really knows) and they seem to be growing up to be intelligent, kind, good people despite their mother's erratic behavior. Hooray!

10. And last but not least, my Michael Jackson Wii game (bonus white glove included) that I got for Christmas is "SICK" (to use teenage phraseology). I am thrilled and surprised that I am not a complete washed-out has-been and that I actually have some moves. I beat everyone in the family, probably because I was very "impressionable" when Michael's music was at the height of mania. It swept over me, seeped into my blood and stayed around until Michael was no longer recognizable.

I lived for "stomps" at school when I could rock out to "BAD" and "BEAT IT." And I will never forget when a crowd of my friends gathered in the fall of 1983 in the dark to watch MTV's new video "THRILLER." I secretly wondered how a white 17-year old Mormon girl from Salt Lake City could have Michael's baby someday. That was before he got all gross and freaky! Whoops, not a secret anymore!

Happy New Year!

A 70s Christmas-Da Do Run Run

It was a 70s Christmas for me this year in 2010. I took a trip down memory lane as I went through my stocking. I had thrown a tiny tube of Strawberry Bonne Bell lip smacker (you mothers know that sometimes you have to add a bit to your own stocking) and I was back in the past. Right then and there, while wrapping paper fluttered around me, I smothered that lip gloss all over my mouth so I looked like a three-year old who just got into her big sister's "private stuff."

Smells bring back the strongest memories sometimes, and this smell took me to the Christmas when I got a GIANT tube of Bonne Bell lip smacker in my stocking with a Barry Manilow tape and of course the token orange. I was 13 then, but now I was back in time crooning, "Looks Like we Made It" by Barry Manilow, Shaun Cassidy's "Da Do Run Run Run,"and the Bee Gees's "Stayin' Alive."

I was back in disco class with my best friend Teresa at Cottonwood Elementary in Salt Lake City. The strobe lights were turning on the lunch room ceiling and I had on my bell bottoms. My back pocket was stuffed with that GIANT tube of Bonne Bell and an enormous Goody Comb so I could comb back my feathered hair. A cursive "E" hung from my neck. I had bought it at "Grand Central."

The Bee Gees were the living end, but Andy Gibb was the cutest, we all agreed. And there was no denying how we all felt when John Travolta had on those white pants."Well you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man, no time to talk," I grooved. My braces were not the little "brackets" that they call braces today, they were BANDS, and they literally took up my entire mouth for a year and a half. I am sure they sparkled with the disco ball.

In 2010 in my own living room this 44-year old woman was remembering slobbering all over the cover of Shaun Cassidy's album, remembering how my Dad said his music was "asinine." And of course in the privacy of my own room I was weeping silently, "Oh Mandy, how you came and you gave without taking, but I sent you away, Oh Mandy, well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking AND I NEED YOU!" I played that song over and over and wondered if I could ever love anyone as much as Barry obviously loved Mandy, but more importanly would anyone ever love me like that?? I wanted to meet Mandy, this intensely loveable woman and get some tips from her. Sigh.

Back to the present. When we went to my sister in law's later on Christmas day, I said to her, "Look what I got!" I pulled the tube of lip smacker from my pocket and said, "Smell this." She smelled it and got this Oh, is there anything else in this life but this smell look on her face and then said quietly, "Can I put some on?" I nodded, thrilled to find another 70s chick who could appreciate my euphoria. It was just like junior high when your friend asked to share and you said yes, and your Mom said, "Don't share lip gloss!" and you told her that you only shared with Teresa, and she rolled her eyes. Such bad girls.

"The watermelon was amazing too!" we agreed. Next year, I'll take another trip with watermelon.

Winter Pants

An entire season has passed since I blogged last. It's gone from late summer to early winter in a flash. It's gone from the pool, to raking leaves, to carving pumpkins, to stuffing ourselves at Thanksgiving, to stuffing ourselves because it's December. Wow, how easy it is to measure the changing seasons by what you're eating and how your pants fit.

Morning Closet Ritual: Oh, it looks like I'm back in my winter pants. I wish I was still in my summer pants. Much bad lanugage. The only thing to do is put a sock in my mouth and scream bloody murder at the injustice of it all. Curse all the bakers and chocolate makers of the world! Especially those devils in Switzerland, the Linderball (sp?) makers. How dare they think they can control me! I'll show them. Then I spit the sock into the clothes hamper and walk out into broad daylight to face the world.

Ahem.

I did blog a bit on my PTA blog www.cascadepta.blogspot.com, lest any of you might think I had just become lazy. You could just click on it and then I could get my visitors up to 10 or so. That would be a nice thing to do for me since I am so sad about my winter pants.

But it looks like I might be clicking away again soon. It's not because my PTA blog has taken off and fulfilled its intended function--to provide an educational forum for parents--no not at all. Ha! I don't think there's a blog out there that has been more ignored by its intended audience than that one. I think my Mom read it once. Thanks Mom! I can always count on her!

I am going to be a part of "Mom Click," a weekly blogging section about parenting in the Provo Daily Herald. I will be writing about being a mother of teenagers, something I know nothing about but should after all this time. I seem to become worse at it the longer I do it. So if the Daily Herald is hoping for tips or words of wisdom, they have asked the wrong mama. I am struggling with basic communication skills with my teenagers, and I thought I learned to talk a long time ago, like about 43 years ago. Apparently not.

I will "discuss" this on Monday in the first issue of "Mom Click." It promises to be most educational. I don't have the link to that exciting section yet, but it will be forthcoming.

P.S. Goal for this week: Go in and out of the closet quickly. Avoid lingering there.

The Summer of Cherry Coke Slurpees

Cousins--Lisa and Mike's kids and my kids (minus Adrie) at Hebgen Lake, Montana in July.

Every summer goes by quickly, that goes without saying. Almost every kid will attest to that. To someone who loves the summer with a passion, it's hard to see my favorite season pass by without being anxious and irritated. But this year it went by especially fast for me, perhaps because of what was looming with a big grin at the finish line--a big P a big T and a big A, in that order. But as that zoomed glaringly into focus, some other things happened along the way.

My brother in law Mike is alive and well. It is a miracle that he lives and breathes. Anyone who knows anything about medicine tells him that. The chances of surviving a burst illiac artery are slim at best. He has extensive nerve damage in his right leg and no feeling from the hip to the ankle. We are so thrilled that he's alive that the fact that he walks with a walker or crutches is almost of no consequence. He craves cherry coke slurpees and shows all who come to visit the massive scar that railroads down his chest three to four inches wide.

It is a miracle to us that he can drink cherry coke slurpees considering that everything in his abdominal cavity was basically shut down for four weeks. My sister Lisa, who once rolled her eyes at the slurpee habit, will now let him consume whatever his heart desires. He is 30 pounds thinner and weak. A lot of regular food is hard to digest. But not the slurpees. Seven Eleven is about two minutes down the road, good news for all those making multiple trips for him.

The kidney that doctors thought would be damaged beyond repair is functioning optimally.

Best of all is his sense of humor. It has always been legendary, and I wondered if he might be different when he got home after 5 weeks in the hospital. I wondered if we would all still be laughing. I wasn't disappointed when I first talked to him and was almost immediately laughing--just like always. His sense of humor remains smooth and unblemished, as if he hadn't been anywhere near death's door and back.

Physical therapy is life's work right now. His doctors say he can never move another piece of furniture in his life. Mike actually thanked the doctor for this piece of news, since he has been on more elder's quorum moves than he likes to remember. That means he and his family will stay put as well, which makes us all happy.

So Mike--son, brother, brother in law, husband, dad, uncle, and friend to many, is working each day to get his life back to a state of normalcy.

Once you've nearly died, though, normal is never what it once was.

The Silk Strand of Life

Lisa and Mike 2009


So, "so much has happened since the last time I wrote!!!!!!!" That is how I began every entry of my journal as a teenager. And then I would drivel on about this boy or that, who was my true friend or not, how I could possibly survive my life during adolescence without so and so, and the lameness of every person in my household. "I just can't deal with it anymore!!! See ya soon!!!!!!"

Lord help anyone associated with me during that time. And then just recently, I blathered on to a friend about how I just couldn't keep my plants alive, how I seemed to be spending the summer in the car, how there just wasn't time to do what I wanted to do. She agreed, oh, she agreed. Blather blather blather. The injustice of womanhood, how it eats away at our very souls. How it disrespects our true needs!

And then real life came last week and smacked me across the head and humbled me to my knees, no, to my very belly.

Life is so real. Life is fragile. Life is tenuous. Life is a thread, a beam, a silk strand, the wind's whisper.

There is no way to describe my sister Lisa's anguish when she heard the words, "I'm not sure there's much else we can do for him," from the doctor's mouth. Or her horror when he said, "You'd better call the family," and "Come back now and see him." Or the flicker of hope in her eyes when he added, almost as an afterthought, "We may be able to do another angiogram to locate the bleeding." That was the only lifeline he gave her, this doctor, who has sworn above all to preserve,sustain and heal human life. We clung to it.

An unexplained rupture of the illiac artery had flooded my brother in law Mike's abdomen with blood and was drowning out his other organs. By the time he was stable 101 units of blood had been transfused into his body, replacing his own blood supply many times over.

"We've never seen a burst artery without some sort of trauma or accident," one doctor said. "Touch and go," said another.

There was the arrival of family, his 16-year old son, who was allowed back to see his dad as he was prepped for the "last ditch procedure." The aging parents who were dumbfounded by the news of their youngest son. A beloved brother, whose vow to give up cigarettes was put on hold indefinitely during his harried drive to the hospital. The 13-year old daughter and 8-year old son, who were not allowed back to see their dad, but cried in the family waiting room, their idyllic summer morning suddenly upended by catastrophe. Another brother saying on the phone, "I knew I should have stayed home, I just had this feeling . . ."

I stood in the hall and called and called everyone who loved Mike and Lisa and who needed to come. My own mother stood with me, walking from me to the room to Lisa and back to me. "I can't stand this!" she whispered. Thank heavens for contact lists on cell phones. Really, how did people used to do this? I watched Lisa talk to Mike, telling him to hold on, being so strong.

And then waiting, praying, and waiting some more until another doctor came in and sat down in the "consultation room." Ten pairs of eyes bored into him, gauging his facial expressions, his body language before he spoke, trying to decipher the outcome.

"He is stable," he said. "He is stable." Three beautiful words. "Not out of the woods yet," he continued, "but headed in the right direction." Not so beautiful, but still hopeful.

A week later he is still stable, in a semi-conscious state. His abdomen has still not been stitched closed because his organs are still too swollen. They were able to save his right kidney. He has had two operations since to remove clotted blood and check organs and another one will happen later this week. The tube down his throat can't be removed until he is less sedated. He fidgets with it and tries to spit it out. But when they reduce sedation his pain levels go way up. They are searching for the right balance. He has bags of antibiotics and nutrition flowing into him continuously.

If I know him, when he wakes up fully, he will want a Dr. Pepper.

Meanwhile Lisa holds his hand for most of the day and tells him funny things the kids said or who came to see him. His eyes flicker open in understanding and awareness but then close again as too much awareness of what he's been through could impede his healing.

And as for the 100's of us who love him, not healing is unacceptable.

Get well Mike.

A Most Perfect Weekend

I just got back from a girls weekend with my long-time friend Danell. I consider myself sane again after this much-needed trip. In other words I feel I can live life again without feeling the need to check myself in somewhere where there are no sharp objects. This is good news for everyone associated with me in any way.

I flew into LA on Friday. Danell picked me up with 1940s sattelite music playing on the radio. Cheerful, happy, playful. The SUN was shining and it was 70 degrees. There were palm trees. There were no clouds, or precipitation of any sort anywhere! I was giddy! For any of you who live in Utah or who have been in Utah recently, you will know why this weather was like manna from heaven. And why I was delirously giddy.

We spent the day getting pampered at cheap places in China town, and eating amazing Italian food that wasn't in China town. Hey, how does an hour foot massage sound, followed by an hour table massage followed by am hour facial? Yes, you are turning a lovely shade of green, the same color as the mask that Wendy put on my face.

Saturday: Farmer's Market, The Grove, shopping, lunch, the BEACH. Waves and sand and sun and waves and sun and sand and warmth. Warmth I haven't felt for a long time. Glorious and restful and peaceful and better than any precription for anti-depressants that I've ever had.

Why do I live in Utah. Why? I am so much happier here.

And then a seagull pooped on my shoulder and I was back to reality. And that reality was is that even at the beach you can get pooped on. Nothing is as good as it seems. But it was still pretty amazing.

Sunday: the Getty. Glorious gardens, and more 70 degree sun without wind and clouds. A Leonardo da Vinci exhibit that showed his intricate drawings that classify him as an inspired genius. Icing on the cake.

Hours and hours on conversation with Danell, someone who knows me well. We made some plans for self-improvement and vowed to check up and check in with each other. The beautitful thing about this is that I believe I will follow through this time. I haven't been able to say that for a long time. She was just what I needed when I needed it most.

Thanks Danell for navigating me around LA for three days, for the cheerful music, for all the healthy, flavorful food, for the fashion tips, but most of all for the great advice and true friendship.

That said, If I see one more snowflake I think I will permanently lose it. Even if it gets cold again in Utah (today is looking fairly promising) I refuse to wear my winter shoes. I will tool around in sandals pretending it's spring, my little toesies freezing. They are painted a bring spring green which Darren calls garrish, and I call hopeful.

Hope is in the air.

Pleasures and Perils of Life with Puppy

So our little puppy came home a couple of weeks ago. He is a lot of work and fun, just like all good things, I suppose. I won't beat around the bush, I'm crazy in love with him! His name is Theo Mark Garff Hawkins, and he puts a smile on my face. It is hilarious to watch him try to eat worms, attack plants, rip bark off a tree, or watch with rapt curiosity as a robin hops across the yard. The best of all is watching him play chase and ball with Nathan, kind of like a little brother would.

He falls asleep in the silliest places, almost on his feet sometimes. He wears himself out and then just collapses wherever he is. He gets upset when he's too excited and overstimulated, but by far his biggest problem is his nippiness. He thinks humanflesh is fantastic to sink his little teeth into despite his many bite toys that are supposed to "distract" him. He goes insane over his "good behavior" treats, kind of like a cat with cat nip. We have not been up at night with him much, and that was my greatest fear. He stays in his crate and sleeps all night.

Leah is like a little mother to him, fussing and fretting about him and letting thoughts of his welfare and whereabouts occupy her for hours on end. This is a good thing. Darren seems amused with his silliness, and is even admitting that he is "pretty darn cute." (see photo)

My goal to preserve the carpet has almost been met, despite a few accidents and mishaps. When spraying the cleaner to clean up the messes, Theo attacks the spray bottle and wrestles it to the ground like a bird after the kill.

All in all, we're well on our way to understanding the "man's best friend" adage, and books like "Old Yeller" and "All Creatures Great and Small" now have more meaning than ever.

Amazing how something so small can be so big, cliche and all.