this moment

"A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

 

 

inspired by SouleMama

Bikes, trikes and banana seats

The bicycle show was nothing like a car show.

Before you interrupt me to point out the many differences between bikes and cars and all of the reasons I had to expect the bike show to be different from a car show, let me remind you that this is my blog. Making the points and missing the points are my responsibilities.

 

My first realization that things were different came when I pulled out my camera. Bikes are much harder to photograph than cars. They are like skeletons without muscle and skin. Focus on a bicycle and see every other bike and pair of legs behind it. I needed to focus on the bits and pieces.

 

Luckily, focusing on the bits and pieces was easy. There were more bits and pieces than fully assembled bicycles. That's another difference between a bike show and a car show. Someone can easily show up at a bike show with unrideable bikes. Dozens of them. The logistics would be a bit more problematic with undriveable cars.

 

I also came to the realization that we really don't know anything about bicycles.

So enjoy a couple of bikes and some random shiny bits!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this moment

"A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

 

 

inspired by SouleMama

Her discount daughter

She walks into the toy store, pet sitting money burning a hole in her pocket. She has been begging me to drive her down here all week. The moment has finally arrived. Striding through the aisles of this upscale wonderland, she begins to make selections. "That one costs ninety dollars," I say. Or, "You don't have quite enough money for this." I can see the sparkle fading from her eyes. I quickly change tactics. "Do you want me to show you some things in your price range?" She is clearly relieved. Until I start showing her the options. I admit to feeling a bit disappointed myself. The affordable options are lousy in this wealthy suburban toy store. I would hate to see my daughter spend her hard earned money on a trinket that wouldn't last until bedtime. This is shaping up to be one of those teachable moments where everyone ends up in tears. I begin orchestrating our escape to somewhere less soul crushing, when the sale table catches my eye.

 

"Let's see what's over here," I say, leading her to the discount bins. "These toys are on sale so they might be in your price range." The sparkle comes back as she beelines for the vanilla scented French doll, with shiny silver shoes. I try to break the bad news gently as I tell her that, even on sale, those dolls are very expensive. She sets the doll back down on the table and I notice two things. The first is the big 75% off sticker on the box. I do a quick calculation in my head. I tell her she can buy the doll!

 

The second thing I notice is that this doll is black. There is another doll in the discount bin. She is Asian. I look over my shoulder at the regularly priced dolls on the shelves behind me. White. My daughter is already crooning to the doll she has swept back up off the table and is rushing to the register with. She is thrilled. I am a bit jealous of her oblivious joy. The minority dolls cost 75% less than their white counterparts.

 

I have a bit of a queasy feeling as I help my little girl release her "daughter" from the box. Is it the overpowering scent of vanilla, the strange racial inequality I just encountered or the fact that I have suddenly become a grandma? 

 

 

Chicken Dance!

I will have a side of victory dance with my cake today!

Our chickens are coming home!

 

What chickens? The ones we had a permit to keep before the permit was revoked because one of my neighbors objected to living next to chickens. So our sweet baby chicks, aged 48 hours old, were kicked to the curb. Homeless. Until a dear friend of mine, upon receiving my teary plea, agreed to grant me an illegal favor. The chicks were hastily driven across town lines to a place where keeping chickens isn't exactly considered legal. And there they lived, for six weeks, smiled upon by the neighbors and doted upon by my dear friend and her children, while I struggled to right this wrong.

 

And last night, thanks to the support of countless friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and strangers, the wrong was righted. My permit has been reinstated.

Our seven little hens are coming home!

 

 

The day they were evicted.

 

 

Six weeks later!

 

 

Rainy Days

Isn't there something about rainy days and Mondays? They always make me sad? Depressed? Whatever it is, I am pretty sure I should be feeling completely wretched. And I will. Or at least I will try to if I have time. But right now, we're on our way out the door. We're on our way to the water park! Er... watery park? Um... playground... in the rain...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

High School Reunion

I had a dream that I was at my high school reunion, cooking Banana French Toast Flambé, in a cast iron skillet, over a campfire.  When I woke up I did some fuzzy math that added up to 20 years. I graduated from high school 20 years ago? I asked my friend, Google, if there was a reunion planned this summer. There was. The location would even allow for the cooking of flaming breakfast foods, in cast iron skillets.

It started as a dream but it had quickly turned into a dilemma. Would I go to my high school reunion? My children declared that I had to go to my reunion and make my dream come true! I was enticed by their poetic logic. But I don't know how to make Banana French Toast Flambé. More importantly, I don't particularly like it.

So, breakfast foods aside, would I go? I started asking people their opinions. Everyone had one. Pretty much the same one. I should go. "It will be fun," and "Everyone has changed," were very popular arguments. If I really wanted to attempt to have fun in a room full of people, who are essentially strangers, then couldn't I just go clubbing?

I was still conflicted. I had no real desire to go to my reunion but I worried that I would be missing out on something that was supposed to be important to me if I didn't. As a parent of home educated kids, the irony was not lost on me. My kids would never have high school reunions if they never attend high school. They will either stay in touch with their friends, reconnect with their friends, or move on with their lives. If at the age of awfully close to 40, they are looking for fun with strangers, they can go to a club.

But I told myself that this is different. I had unwillingly spent 12 years of my life with most of these people. We shared teachers, 1974 or 1975 birthdates, and a geographic location. We may remember things about each other.

Would we remember each other?  I spent most of my time in school  trying to blend into the background while covertly reading and writing. (Sorry, teachers. In spite of my good grades, I usually wasn't studying or taking notes. Or paying attention.) As an introverted child, I was uncomfortable in my school environment. I avoided most of my classmates. Admittedly, a few of them really warranted avoiding at the time, but others were people that I thought of as interesting, clever, funny and kind. I would have enjoyed their company under different circumstances. A reunion was unlikely to provide those different circumstances. My dearest childhood friends wouldn't be there either.

Yesterday was my 20th high school reunion. I didn't go. I hope those that did had a fantastic time and got what they wanted from the experience. And me? My 10 year old son made an amazing Chocolate Layer Cheesecake, from scratch, and I drove him around so he could share slices of it with friends.

Did I make the right choice? Well, my math may still be a bit fuzzy, but I am pretty sure that cheesecake with friends is greater than french toast with strangers.

this moment

"A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

 

 

 inspired by SouleMama

Clown Cars

I love these little clown cars! Okay, maybe the technical term is microcar, but fill some itty bitty cars with my family, and if it reminds you of a circus, you can go right ahead and call it like you see it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bat Sitting

My kids landed themselves a sweet pet sitting gig. For five days they would feed and water a few cats and clean their litter boxes. Now, I don't mean to brag, but my kids are relatively competent when it comes to pouring stuff, so this job was made for them. All I needed to do was provide transportation, then stand back and watch them enjoy the thrill of gainful employment. Which is just what I was doing, until I noticed something out of place.

 

I could clearly see a little pile of brown on the sunroom floor that hadn't been there before. One of the cats must have puked. Since my kids aren't exactly skilled in the cleaning vomit off of rugs department, I decided to lend a hand. I gathered up as much maturity as I could muster and marched myself resolutely across the room. As I approached the cat vomit, it slowly backed away from me.

 

I may have lost a little of that maturity I had gathered up, in my panicky, screeching, dash to the other side of the French doors, but I wasn't about to go back in there to look for it. That was no ordinary puke. That furball had wings and teeth. It began to dawn on me that I was either dealing with some kind of nightmare cats from another dimension, or that brown stuff wasn't vomit. Okay, so maybe it was a bat. Yup, just a harmless little fuzzy brown bat. A harmless, big eared cutie pie, like a squirrel with wings,  that would bite and scratch the bejeezus out of me and send me to the hospital for a painful series of rabies shots. This was no time for panic. It was time for procrastination.

 

Someone was going to have to deal with that bat, and that someone was going to have to be me. But not yet. I made some phone calls. Yes, the cats are up to date on their vaccines. Good. If the bat is a baby I should return it to it's nest. Really? Call animal control so they can kill it and test it for rabies. But it didn't bite anyone. Leave the windows open so it can fly out when it gets dark. And all sorts of other things can get in? Ugh. Somehow, stalling wasn't getting me anywhere. I needed to put on my big girl pants and get that bat out of the house.

 

I grabbed a large plastic bowl and a laminated placemat, trapped the bat, and tossed everything; bat, bowl and mat, right out the window. Easy as pie. I was feeling a wee bit like a superhero as I secured the window screen in place and slid the window shut. Until I saw what was happening outside.

 

Around the corner of the house came the neighborhood tom cat, striding purposefully toward the bowl of bat sitting on the ground outside the window. My fingers flew to the window locks and I flung the window open. Approximately two inches. Stupid child safety latches! I resorted to pounding on the window and screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" as the cat leaned over and put his face in the bowl. At this point, my children, who were safely shut in the kitchen at the other end of the house, were sure I had been bitten. I have to give them credit, because although what I screamed for them to do next surely made no sense to them at all, they immediately did it. "Call Mr Scraggles!!! Go out on the steps and call Mr Scraggles!!!"

 

Luckily, either Mr Scraggles doesn't like bat, or all of the yelling ruined his appetite, because he walked off looking slightly annoyed. Tragedy averted. I rushed outside and, using a long stick, I managed to dump the bat out of the bowl so that nothing else would confuse it for a meal. The bat screamed at me softly in morse code as I did. It may have been thanking me for saving it's life.

 

Now that the bat was safely outside it looked rather cute and helpless. This little mosquito eating ball of fluff was a tiny miracle. I grabbed my camera and got a bit closer to snap a photo. As I did, the bat bared it's teeth at me and rose up on it's wings.

 

Now I know that I am a superhero, because surely, no ordinary person could run as fast as I did while screaming that loudly.

 

This Moment

 

"A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember." 



 

inspired by SouleMama