It's amazing how easily one sinks into regular patterns.  I'm the one who always leaves work early to drive the boys to their respective practices, Steve needs to be at the clinic to finish up with patients.  So, yesterday I run home to drive Riley to baseball practice.  I honked the horn in the driveway, he eventually runs out...late, he had fallen asleep on the couch.  I know as soon as I drop him off I have to turn around and bring Connor to swimming about 20 minutes later.  I come back into the house, calling his name to get ready and I change my own clothes and throw down some food.  I had just talked to him an hour before and he was studying for a final.  I thought he probably had his ipod on and couldn't hear me.  I looked everywhere and he was nowhere to be found.  The panic set in after I had exhausted all the neighbors and friends...then I saw his phone on the table and knew something was out of sorts.  I did begin to panic a bit.  I drove to swim practice and he wasn't there, I drove back to the ball field and asked Riley who didn't know where he was since he had fallen asleep.  It was as if a fog descended...he had literally disappeared into thin air.  When my husband finally returned my call I was in state of panic.  Then the dumbest male logic ever roared it's stupid head and he said, "Well now you're making me ruin the surprise"  A friend had picked up Connor to plan something for my birthday bash on the 27th, and she was going to drop him off at swimming.  To which I replied, then why, when I told you that I would drop off Riley and then come back and pick up Connor, didn't you tell me that one of the swim team parents was picking up Connor!  Instead I was in a state of panic trying to find him?  What did he think my reaction would be?  That  would just shrug my shoulders and go on with my business?  He just couldn't image why I would be alarmed, because he knew that nothing had happened.  Again, I replied a bit too forcefully "BUT I DIDN'T KNOW THAT, YOU BIG JERK!"  This is a direct example of what I mean when I say that there is a distinct deficiency of common sense with the men in my house and extremely bad communication.  I did refuse, however to feel bad about ruining a surprise, which I still don't technically know about except that there is a surprise coming.  The weather has been chilly, though, inside my house.  I slept alone, quietly and peacefully knowing both my boys were safely asleep in their beds.

 

On a dream land note, some nefarious characters of late, but in the midst of a frightful moment when I yelled in frustration to my adversary, "Don't you know you can't win!"  a messanger from another world came through a window and handed me a glass and gold box full of letters....hmm, I didn't read them in the dream but it's nice to know I can receive mail from beyond.

My youngest son finally got his own email address, to which I have complete access.  Mind you, I take no pleasure in spying on my kid...but I check it anyway.  I mostly stick to reading the subject line of his emails and don't snoop into the body, unless there is something that makes my eyebrows raise.  I am astounded at how badly they write.  I know about all the texting shorthand, which I think is bad enough.  It's the tragic way they spell when they are actually trying to use a complete word.   I try to sympathize because I'm not, by nature, that good at spelling.  I have to work on it....alot.  But I would have hoped that by now they would understand the basics of grammer.  Now I know that I'm the spawn of a grammatical tyrant and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but I can just imagine where literature will stand when the texting generation comes of age and attempts to makes it's mark in perpetuity.  My son thinks I lame, and writes badly because it's the thing to speak like this: iz u 4 reel?  I don't know it just bugs me.  To appear stupid for the sake of convenience can never be good.  I told both my boys that I would solemnly vow to text, speak and write in complete sentences until the day I die. 

My youngest son has been spending an inordinate amount of time getting ready in the morning, including deoderant, and axe body spray.  He is also less snarly than usual.  So I asked him if he was ever going to tell me his girlfriends name.  I wish I would have had a camera because the look was one of complete shock, awe, one that said "holy shit does my mother have spies in the school checking up on me?".  I told him I was pyschic...then I laughed and explained how due to my unbelievable powers of observation, I had figured out that he was a)trying to impress someone and b) his better mood probably meant it was a girl.  He was duly impressed until I laid out the ground rules for "going out"  She can't call our house, or vise versa, you can't visit each other's houses or go on dates.  He said that pretty much ruled everything out.  I had to agree, except there is email and school.  He is only twelve years old, for the love of God!  Using all the restraint I could muster, I explained that there would be no opportunity on my watch for any kissing, and since I have access to his email, like random drug testing, he will just never know when I might pop in and read something.  He left for the day shaking his head with his brother saying this: "Dude, that's why I'm not going to date until after I go to college"

I have always had pride in my ability to respond with difficulty head on with ingenuity and hard work.  Yesterday for the first time in my life, I had to walk into the local bank president's office and tell him that our business account was in the red because payments that were approved and checks issued from the government and various insurance industries had not arrived and I had paid bills in good faith that the money was coming...only it didn't.  Even after I was literally on the phone all day in between patients checking when said checks were mailed...they all responded "we should have received them by now..." and we hadn't.  It was horrifying to say the least, and all I could do was tell him that indeed the money would be here asap, and please don't assess our account with dozen's of overdrafts.  My husband's response was simple, if I do the work and submit it on time, why can't I get paid on time?  Sadly, I explained because they can.  It is getting much worse out there when there literally is no money to go around.  The money finally came two weeks after it was promised, and the banker saw that I hd accounted for every dime, and what was worse, they had been dated two weeks prior.   I am morally exhausted and free falling is all the more difficult when I hold my breath.  If I could never utilize another form of insurance again, I would.  If we could simply be paid for services rendered at the time, all the time life would be less stressful.  About half our practice does that, but for the other half, it's a crap shoot.  Today, though, I can take a breath and know I survived yet another opportunity for humility.

 

Finally, after walking twice and scoring two runs, he gets a hit! 

I know I've said this about health and wellness, but I'd like to extend this idea to the economy as well.  My husband and I got into a fight about whether or not we should invest in an electronic pool cover, which really isn't the issue.  He's been more than frustrated about "other people" receiving help, when we work so hard and are still struggling.  I made the point that turning the economy around has to start somewhere, it will be a struggle to fix things, do improvements etc. but when we do, we, in our own way, stimulate the economy.  We can help a business, by giving them business.  Holding on to what we have is only responsible if we also share what can responsibly.  Hey, I'm all in for prosecuting those that are in large part the instigators of this economic disaster, but for the rest of us?  It is within our power to rebuild our lives by investing in each other, one job, or adjustment at a time.

I had dinner with my parents and a very close friend and his partner Saturday night.  As a mother's day gift, I brought the dinner (home made lasagna0 and all the fixin's with me.  Our friends are from San Francisco and don't get to visit that often, but when they do I'm there with bells on because it is so refreshing to have good conversation with people who truly understand and appreciate good wine and food.  I'm not necessarily proud of the fact that I sound like a snob, but I can't remember the last time I sat at a table from 6 to one o'clock in the morning!  I didn't realize I was so starved to be able to sit and listen and talk about culture, religion, politics, the dreamworld, theater, cinema and laugh until my face hurt, without having to couch my behavior or feel judged.   Living in a small town has its advantages, but the homogeny of it all can make feel like living in a spiritual dead zone.  I like to sit and have a marvelous dinner, drink lots wine and talk for hours.  That usually never happens at my house...the men there shovel it in at warp speed and run off to their various activities, which I usually support with vibrancy.  Once in awhile, though, I just want to sit and talk with people who are like me for a change.  I've also found that I'm a much better listener when someone actually listens to what I have to say.  I guess it was the mother's day gift I really needed...of course the cuisenart, and movie with my sons was good too!

I turn fifty in June.  I'm quite proud of that fact, because I am entering the second half of my personal century as a 35 year old.  No, I'm not delusional and I haven't had plastic surgery.  I have, though practiced what I've preached for ever...good health is rarely effortless and takes time and commitment, enough said.  Anyway, my husband thinks I should cut my hair, which would be more appropriate for my age.  I think that bit of philosophy is stupid and I plan on growing my hair until at least the big 50, mostly because I love my long hair, it frames my big head (that is literal and not figurative) nicely.  Perhaps the expectations we have about age, is part of the reason we age badly.  I have no expectations about age appropriate anything...it is of no significance to me.  My behavior is based entirely on what I've built my life to be: an educated woman committed to the evolution process, increment by increment on a daily basis.  That works for me.  I think it keeps me from being a philosophical agoraphobe.  I can move outside the room of personal philosophy.  I am not afraid to go ouside.  I don't need everything delivered to me inside a very comfortable house.  Face it, if you stay too long in one place it gets old, worn and smelly.  I can come and go as I see fit.  Moving outside my personal space doesn't mean I am homeless philosophically, it simply means I don't bind myself in by it.  So, I will keep my long hair until I see fit to cut it, if ever.  I do know I will freefall into 50 with pride, long hair and a kick ass party!

I had another ominous dream last night that challenged me to think this: At what point can one see that a person who is in a leadership role isn't the person that people thought they were?  I know there are plenty of stories of corrupt leadership out there, especially these days.  My question is for those who follow.  There has to be a point where things just don't add up.  As adults, we should have developed enough of an internal moral acumen to know if a leader is actually who they say they are.  This culture tends to base so much on outward appearances, and much less on observing more carefully the smaller ins and outs of their behavior, like how they treat other people, how well they listen and how clearly they walk the talk.  Like get caught up in shiney baubles, it appears that it doesn't take much to be a wolf in sheep's clothing, especially when we forget what a sheep is supposed to look and act like in the first place.  My dream centered around observing a young man try to get on and drive a bus.  The people in the bus were rightly hesitant, but opened the door to him anyway, in reality, he was an older man with a beard an thinning hair.  His motives were murderous, and he ended up killing another young man.  It was horrifying to watch people become duped, and watch as an innocent man got killed.  At what point does a leader gain our trust?  Do we put too much into appearance these days?  I don't want to advocate fear, because I've been preaching agianst it...but I do think it's important to see who does have influence over our journies in this world and if we go deeper than just appearances, because people aren't always who they appear to be on the surface, it's important to go deeper.

During a hellish first baseball game, (my son was so nervous he struck out...twice) someone brought up how angry they were that Al Gore's movie was shown during earth day at the middle school.  It seems they believed it was all a fairy tale.  Me?  Always the rational one, simply stated that none of us are scientists, but if anything, the focus on global warming should help us realize that we treat the planet like crap and that can't be good.  (I liked the movie)  Then another parent ranted a bit about how sharing a glass could get their kid sick, I started thinking.  We are distancing ourselves from the organic, from our natural world as if it runs counter to human survival.  Have we come to feel safe in machine-run, sterilized world that alarmingly sounds like one of the many postapolcalytic books I read in school?  It is so counter intuitive to want to rid the world of all germs.  Our bodies need to learn to work within nature, not in spite of it, to adapt to a changing world and not to kill it.  More than anything I am alarmed by the growing fear of almost everything, from sickness, the economy, neighboring countries, religious differences etc.  It doesn't feel like we're building the skills to adapt and change but to render any and all things different extinct in one form or another.  Maybe my perceptions were way too intense for a baseball game, but the conversations about earth day and germs created an almost brittle atmosphere, that coupled with a group of nervous twelve year olds made sitting there almost oppressive.  I could barely concentrate as one fearful conversation led to the next.  Perhaps more sarcastically that I intended, I altered the conversation by saying, that we all thought junior high would kill us too, and we're all still here....with our complete faculties in tact, is yet to be seen.  I will say this here, if we don't get a hold on the growing wave of fear that seems to be growing daily, we may not survive all the world changes that are coming.

My youngest son made the traveling team for baseball, it's a big deal.  I didn't realize quite how big a deal it was until the coach told the parents after practice one night that in order to play, he needed an official birth certificate to prove is only twleve.  I'M NOT KIDDING!  I guess there has been too much sneaking around and slipping in minor league players as ringers.  My first reaction was to laugh...like in church because I'm not a seasoned "sports" parent.  Then, I got irritated because I had to drive out to the Polk County Register of Deeds and pay for one, because I couldn't trust them to mail it to me on time, given my karmic record at the moment and I couldn't go down in history as "that mom who ruined her son's potential baseball carreer because I didn't the necessary proofs that would allow him to play"  I am actually dreading the first game.  I have visions of screaming parents, talent scouts, and kids with budding anxiety disorders.  Whatever happened to being a kid and playing baseball because its just all American fun?  I don't know if I'm ready for this.  We also got the game schedule which includes driving up to two hours on a school night twice a week and tournaments on the weekends where people are actually excited to camp overnight...in tents.  I'm trying to find a way to not look like I don't love and support my kid and still get room service.   I'm thinking that my husband will be on tournament duty since baseball is right down his alley.  I can deal with swim meets, because it actually is fun without the cutthroat competition and if we have to travel far we stay in hotels with amenities and a bar/restaurant.  He should have gotten a signing bonus, because this feels like the bigtime.

I awoke from a very complicated dream last night to one of our cats...the silly, girly one...standing on, and kneading my stomache.  It startled me at first to wake to a rhythmic motion on my abdomen and a loud purring sound in the dark, then I just burst into laughter.  It was as if she was comforting me, that or my belly was squishy enough to express her nesting instincts.  My husband was in the other bedroom (late nite TV for me) which is probably why she felt comfortable climbing on the bed.  It was a great distraction to the complications of the dream, which of course are full of so much action I can hardly keep things straight.  Who would have thought a little kneading was all I needed?