A Phone Call From The 'Rents

My father called me yesterday to say he'd seen the interview and that he thought I did a fine job. He used adjectives that coded in my head as positive even though I can't for the life of me remember them. Calm? Composed? I know he said I looked "great" and I have it in my mind that he may have said I sounded "articulate". I know for a fact that he said I did NOT sound nervous or inexperienced. He said I didn't ramble. He said I made clear points and came across as sincere. Ha! If he'd only seen the un-edited version he would not have said that.

My father was both genuine and sweet. The fact that he called to tell me what he thought - and the fact that what he thought was positive - all of that tripped me out. You see, I had all kinds of classic cross-parent/child issues with him when I was younger. Every bit of what you'd expect from a daddy's girl who was abandoned due to the divorce process when she was 14, in the mid-80's by her Dartmouth-educated, dashingly handsome & charming father. Did I mention I'm an oldest child? I have always - all my life - been desperate for his approval and attention. To a degree that shocked his socks off when we finally talked about it all - a decade or so ago. I think he had NO idea how much his say so meant to me. He spent his life trying (and feeling like he was failing) to be "good enough" for HIS father. It was a complete surprise to him to have passed that down without meaning to. To be perfectly fair, he is so different from his father that I can understand why it didn't occur to him that I would feel the same way about him as he felt about Grandaddy.

My dad and I have a great relationship (now) - and I genuinely love to be around him. I feel so much more comfortable with him than I used to. I don't analyze everything he says looking for the barb, the criticism while simultaneously trying to contort his words into praise. I'm a lot better at being myself and letting him be himself. It helped A LOT to learn more about anxiety patterns and how they manifest themselves in families. (You know that time I invited my father over for supper - when I scrubbed my house, spent a week planning the menu and the entire day cooking it, making sure to find interesting recipes for some of his favorite foods - only to have him show up and say he couldn't eat a bite because the ladies at work had brought in potluck and made him try everything and he was too full? Yeah - that wasn't about me - and it wasn't just that my dad was being a big fat jerk!! It wasn't a failure in communication. I didn't do anything wrong. It was anxiety - and now I know. I know what to look and listen for - how to diffuse and interpret it. And sometimes I know how to avoid it - and sometimes I'm good at acknowledging it and poking fun at it in just the right ways. As I said - things are sooooo much better between us.)

As good as things are - the reality is that my internal negative critic uses my father's voice. And it probably always will. It sucks. It's probably not fair to him or me. But there you have it. I heard myself on TV, mangling basic grammar and I instantly imagined my father upon hearing it, being embarrassed to admit knowing me, much less to having sired me. And then he called to say I'd done a fine job, that he was proud of me.

I'm glad I'd already made my peace with how I'd done in the interview. I'd already writhed, talked myself through it, whined some more, and then truly decided I'd done the best I could have done - given that moment, those circumstances - and that it was fine to have it be exactly what it was. I didn't consciously know it, but I needed to have done all that on my own without the warping affect my dad's approval or lack thereof can have on me. So... how wonderful just to be able to listen and honestly thank him for caring enough to call, and to be able to allow myself to savor his words. This growing up stuff? So worth it sometimes.
Peace.

Afterthoughts

Today is Linus' older sister's 12th birthday. Yep, a leap baby. I love how both logical and nonsensical it is to have leap year. I am all kinds of behind on my chores around the house, in getting ready for a weekend full of kid activities (b/c if you think the kids have forgotten about Sharpie tag - you are sadly mistaken), and in figuring out the bills/budget to be ready for March. Luckily for me March has been postponed a wee bit. Anyone else have a colorful weekend planned?
Peace.

PS - I keep wanting to write about how I came across as racist/elitist myself in the tv interview when what I was trying to point out were the layers of racism and what role they played in the investigation. It's hard to find an entry point into the conversation - even if it's mostly a conversation in my head. I am inclined to jump in justifying and clarifying what I meant but another part of me has to acknowledge that as a white, suburban, privileged girl, I am not likely to be incredibly perceptive of all the nuances of racism no matter how much I try or how "good" my intentions are. So. In the part that got on the air I said (seemingly out of the blue),

I just don't think that even then, things were like that. I think a black man in our neighborhood might have just as easily have been overlooked because he was clearly a handyman, a worker man. I don't think it would have been particularly noteworthy.

I don't know whether it's because they chopped it or because I didn't articulate it well in the first place, but I certainly didn't mean to come across in a "Let them eat cake" kind of way. Here is more of what I was trying to get to: Yes, it was a white neighborhood. Yes, it is true no one reported a black man in the area. But the police chain of "logic" that followed was disastrously flawed by racism. To them - that there was no report of an alarming black man meant there could have been no black man around at all and therefore their black suspect should not be scrutinized despite other indicators that he could very well be the perpetrator.

Do you see how insidious this way of thinking is? It seems obvious to me that it is as racist to exclude as it is to target a suspect based solely/predominantly on skin color, but it played out in twisty ways. There were any number of good, honest reasons a black man could have been been in an area where he couldn't, at the time, have lived. I believe my parents and neighbors would have (in the absence of suspicious behavior) given an unknown man the benefit of the doubt, no matter his skin tone. I don't believe - even given the level of segregation at the time - that black skin in and of itself would have triggered the fear and assumptions of criminality the police presumed. The kind of racism that was ascribed to the people in the area wasn't necessarily there, but nevertheless it became the basis for police action and non-action.

It seems probable now that over 30 years ago an unlikely, white boy was suspected and wrongly persecuted while a suspicious black man went unscrutinized again and again and again. It would ABSOLUTELY have been racist and terrible to have had it happen the other way around - which I'm sure it has time and again elsewhere, elsewhen. But I can only speak to the case I know.

I'd like to say, too, that I don't think this was a case of "reverse" racism - if such a term ever applies - even if in this instance, the one who benefitted was black and the one targeted, white. Racism is racism. It is prejudice+power. The white cops had the prejudice and the power and it distorted their investigation, blinded them to other possibilities, and robbed them of a needed clarity. I don't believe I am wrong, naive or alone in longing for a "colorblind" system of law and order.

The last piece of the interview juxtaposed two of my statements, that in conjunction made no sense. I am quoted as saying

The cynical part of me feels like they just picked somebody who was unprotected and they targeted him. … They really believed they knew who did it.

Here's the full ramble: one side of me believes that since the police had no suspects (that fit their filtered expectations), they targeted the most (socially, economically, and politically) vulnerable person they could find close by. And then they pushed and pushed trying to make that piece fit into the puzzle. My more compassionate side recognizes the tremendous limitations and pressures the police faced and I try to give them credit for believing they had the real criminal. Ambivalence doesn't come across well in a tiny sound clip. Lesson learned. One of many lessons I have learned in this process.

I don't know if the man in custody now, the one being scrutinized decades after he should have been, had anything to do with anything. It seems likely given the reports of his DNA at the crime scene, but I'll let a court of law decide that. His being white, black or green won't bring my friend back to life or allow a 40-something year old man to relive his teenage years, this time without everyone believing him to be a rapist/murderer. A clear conviction could be considered justice - but would even that have the power to bring peace with it? I have to hope that there could be peace found in solving the mystery of my childhood friend's disappearance. But I also have to believe that peace and redemption are possible no matter the revelations (or possible lack thereof) at this point. Thanks to all for the encouraging words and kind thoughts.

I should go back and make my PS the main post, but it'll have to stand as is. I'm getting on with my day now that I have all of that out of my head!
Peace, peace, peace.

My Love Of Cob

I LOVE cob. I am in awe of <---this. For more info on the artist Sarah Machtey (and some incredible pictures of the work in progress) of this cob stairwell - go here. Someday I want a cob house or writing studio or something!

I tried to post about my reaction to the second (and final - thank the gods!) part of the interview that aired last night, but I just couldn't face it. Hence your getting cob. And a quick word to say that we biked Monday, swam yesterday and ran today. Registration for the race is on Saturday. I hold it out in front of me when I can't cope with anything else. Peace.

From The Mixed Up Files Of Ms. Lily E. Maniac

I have just spent an hour on the phone with a television news reporter (anchor) from my hometown. Last week when I posted about Havoc's turning nine, what that meant to me and how it was connected with the traumatic disappearance and murder of my childhood friend, I linked to a story about a new suspect they had in the case. There have been stories every few years for the last few decades - new evidence, new speculations on old information, and recently new techniques to apply to old evidence. This week the case was broken - or maybe it's still breaking. It hits me on so many levels that I haven't been able to break off bite size pieces to blog about. The first level is gratitude to have some closure and to take some comfort that this guy has been in jail for a majority of the intervening decades. I feel vindicated on behalf of our neighborhood and particularly on behalf of the young boys that were persecuted unjustly in the quest to solve Marcia's case. I have extremely mixed emotions with regards to the police and with regard to myself as a writer. I have been working (off and on in between all the family drama) with a writer (a crime blogger) on a book project about this very case. We've been working to tell the story from the center of the ripples on out. How this one little girl's life and disappearance affected the neighborhood, the city, the region. How it brought people together and blew things apart at the same. I have written so much about this personally in order to settle it enough that I could write professionally the story I feel needs to be written. It's unsettling in the very best way to have the whole project go sideways. So much of the challenge has been to write and ask about something that has remained a disturbing mystery. And now, there is an expectation that it will not be a mystery for very much longer.

I want to talk and I don't want to talk. I want to say more of what is swirling around in my head and heart. I also don't want to link back or say specific things that could be searched and have my ex find randomly my site. I feel wide open to the healing process that comes with the new revelations. I feel drawn to add my voice to tell the part of the story that is mine to tell. I feel protective of my children and my life. I want to make peace with all the many layers. I feel rambly and incoherent. The news anchor was fantastic: warm, personal, easy to talk to, and insightful. I look forward to speaking with her again. I feel relieved, grateful, trustful (which is soooo unexpected for me where the media is concerned), angry, ambivalent, and drained.

And I have yet to open the ominous letter from my attorney that has been sitting on my desk for two days. Bleck. It is too cold to run. I don't have a pool or gym membership. I don't have a way to work my physical being into a state that will help absorb and process such big chunks of emotional/intellectual turmoil. Contemplative silence is the only other tool I can think of for this much churn. I don't know how to manage it, but I need to sit today. I will sit today. My head might explode otherwise. We don't want that now, do we? So, dear web friends, I will be sitting when I normally visit and comment. I won't be thinking of you because I'll be trying not to think of anything (which is a tall order for my buzzing brain), but I will be back as soon as I can. Peace!

What Nine Means To Me

My baby turned nine today. Nine. Is it a big deal to other parents? It took me a while today to remember exactly why nine jars me so - why my vision of my child flickers between baby and big kid. It took me a while because it's a gut thing, a sub-terranean thing - this business of what it means to be nine. The first nine year old I ever remember knowing was a strangely wise "big kid" - cool by virtue of her advanced years. In our small troop of neighborhood girls, she was just enough older that if she had pretended not to know us at school, we wouldn't have blamed her a bit. But she never did blow us off. She wasn't like that. She was both too kind and too popular to give in to the schoolyard caste system. She was unquestionably the girl boss in our neighborhood games - the one who came up with better poses for "Swinging Statues"; the one who told us Brownies the spooky Girl Scout campfire stories; the one who knew when to sass the boys back and when to make peace so they'd show us the bird eggs they'd found. I thought her very grown up. In fact, she was so grown up in my mind's eye, that it wasn't until I was in my twenties and saw her fourth grade school picture again after so many years that I realized what a baby she had been at the time. I wept. Big, fat, hot tears splashed onto the ducky fuzzed head of my newborn as I stared at her picture. In that, admittedly post-partum hazed moment, it struck me - literally STRUCK me - that she'd been a baby, someone's baby on the awful, February day she disappeared. I'd known her parents, so my brain must have realized at some point that she was someone's child, but it was my heart - my wide open, new mom heart - that broke all over again.
I had double vision: the confident, capable, compassionate big kid I remember overlaid by the image everyone else had always seen of a vulnerable, achingly innocent, and forever nine-year old girl. Nine. Never ten.



There are some images engraved in my mind that have not changed from that day. These photographs - dark and stark - match my memory exactly. They evoke the hot smells of cigarettes and coffee and the voices of the dozens of tired volunteer searchers - all carried on the cold wind. I can hear the ragged rustle of the bushes outside of my window as the German shepherds lunge through our hedges and comb our yard under the moonlight. I can feel the hexagonal pattern of the fabric on the back seat of our car - a pattern that I traced with my fingers over and over while we waited to be waved through the police cordon to get to our house. This is a view of my neighborhood in 1975:
Copeland Drive, in front of the home of Marcia Trimble, is crowded with police cars, Civil Defense vehicles and other cars as Middle Tennessee joins forces to search for the missing nine year-old. (Gerald Holly / The Tennessean) 2/28/1975


Tom McGinn, a Philadelphia dog trainer, unloads two of his German shepherds with the help of Metro Youth Guidance Officer Howard Bassham, while Sgt. Sherman Nickens, right, watch. (J.T. Phillips / The Tennessean) 3/4/1975



It's been helpful for me to dredge up these images, to write, to acknowledge the links. The formless dread I've been feeling is no longer so formless. I am facing a threat to my family - even if it is "only" a custody challenge and it resonates back in spiraling and layering ways with early trauma, fear, and the first loss I ever faced. A loss that I shared with my neighborhood, my city, and my era.

Now that I have connected some dots - it makes sense that the bare trees, the fading light, the cold wind, and the barking dogs have felt ominous. The pieces are settling. I am settling. My old grief is very much a part of where I come from. My fear of future grief and loss on any scale relating to my children is understandable. Strangely, connecting the two has melted the icy panic inside of me. Connecting the dots of experience enables me to connect to the healing and growth I've gained too. Someday maybe I'll detail how and why Marcia's faith impacted mine. Maybe someday I'll own up to exactly how much time I spent (and how much mayonaise and lemon juice I used) trying to get my hair to look just like hers. Tonight, though, I'm going to go sneak a peek at my sleeping big boy/little kid. Tonight I'm going to breathe deeply. I'm going to trust the process - not necessarily the court process or the police process or even the family process - but the bigger, wider, more cosmic process. Strangely I find that tonight, after all this, I can trust that it really will be ok. No matter what. Peace.

**Edited to add - here is the link for the first story breaking on this case. It is a pivotal story for me personally - and a huge story for Nashville then and now. Peace.

Awry

I so wanted to have a kick ass post for the last day of NaBlo! Instead, pretty much all I can dish up is crap with a side order of stress. Weeellll - that's not completely accurate. Today is Havoc's birthday. That's fun. My "baby" is nine! I am working hard today to concentrate on him - his excitement, his sweetness, his enthusiasm. I want to be fully present to his nine-ness without the tinge of sadness that seeps from the past and the worry that casts shadows on the future. It's taking some work not to let my thoughts spiral back to the day Havoc was born. Towards the context that involved my ex. Towards the mixed up way things were when I was desperately trying to hope and pretend away my concerns. I can see myself that day: deliriously in love with my new baby, delighted with my sons who were now big brothers, joyful that my mother was so close and helpful, and lonely/sad/worried about Mr. Tapioca leaving us in the hospital because he was sick and needed to get enough rest to be able to go back to work. I want to shout to my then-self from this point in time and say, "Yes - you're right - those little red flags are not your imagining! Brace yourself! It'll be a little better for a little while and then it's going to suck glass shards! But you and your babies will be ok!"

But I can't shout back to myself. I also can't hear my future self shouting back to me today. I wish I could! I would love to hear that it's going to be rough going for a bit, but ultimately ok. I want that to be the message I would hear if I could. But what if the message is - "Hey - those looming depositions, the lying petitions, and the rest of the soulless court stuff? It is going to shred you and your family! Enjoy what peace drippings you can muster right now, because it's only going to get worse!" Gaaak. Fears, hopes, faith and rage. Nausea. I can't navigate that today. I can't make it go away - or be funny. (I wish I could make it funny! If Linsey can make a post that was both touching and hilarious about the love of her life being diagnosed with celiac disease - why can't I pull an iota of wry humor out of the absurdity that is this pending court case? NOT to trivialize what is so hurtful but to be able to enter into it fully enough to get past the paralyzing aspects. I want to hold up the ridiculous parts in affirmation of the entirety because being able to do so would mean my faith that it will be "ok" was solid. Can't do it today. Not by a long shot.)

No. Here's what I can do. Even if it's it's boring to write about. Today I can go to Havoc's classroom to see their international project presentations. I can admire his "German" chocolate brownies (even if I can't eat them because coconut give me hives.) I can pick up a few more birthday gifts from the Kitchenworks store for the budding chef. I can squeeze him and get us ready for tomorrow's houseful of nine year olds. I can scream and rage "Mr. Tapioca Head is a pathetic, empty liar no matter what happens in court!" in my head all the while smiling at and being pleasant to everyone. (<--I'm Southern like that.) Today I can be a flawed, angry, loving, and not-funny mom. Tomorrow I might could be something else. (<--That's the best cliffhanger I can manage. It translates to "Y'all come back, now. Ya hear?")
Peace.

In Which Mayhem Is A Weirdo (I Mean Boy-o)

Last night the kids were maniacally jolly as they cleaned up after supper. They were ricocheting around the kitchen, scrubbing and pinging off of each other. It was NOT quiet but they were operating just under the reprimand threshold. They were silly and sarcastic with each other - all five of them dishing back what they were served - all the while loading dishes, wiping counters, and sweeping floors. The three adults (and the two dogs) retreated to the library which is connected to the kitchen by an open doorway as well as a window-like pass-thru above the sink. In short, we could hear everything but couldn't be seen. Often this is an ideal set up. Every once in a while, it means the adults miss a key element to a situation.

As the kids finished up their chores they trickled into the library one by one. Mayhem, being in charge of trash and recycling, was one of the last to finish. The normal rattling and rustling sounds I heard from the kitchen in no way prepared me for Mayhem's appearance. He walked through the library with trash bags in hand and his (abundant) hair sticking straight up off the top of his head. We are talking a 10-inch long, crazy, white boy 'fro. There was a moment of utter silence, then everybody gabbled at once. "What happened?" "What did you do?" "Your hair!"

Mayhem's face was bright red and his voice choked as he said something about needing to remember to be careful around wall sockets - but he could not maintain when he saw my panicked face. He burst out laughing. He hadn't gotten even partway electrocuted. He had made his bushy hair stand on end by rubbing a trash bag on his head*. Ha ha ha. Not only did he get laughs for looking ridiculous but he scored on mom. The kids think "getting" me like that is absolutely hilarious. Last night they thought it was so funny that it spurred them to reminisce about past successes in pushing the mama juuuuust far enough. They brought up the time Chaos gave Mayhem a swirlie. That memorable incident happened on a day they were being weird and push, push, pushing me. They weren't being "bad" or breaking any actual rules but they had hovered and interrupted, been rambunctious and loud. Some days using every mama tool in my kit just barely covers it, you know? The kids know to a scarily exact degree how hesitant I am to waste my mama credit on minor infractions. They know this, in large part, because they have repeatedly conducted experiments to find out precisely where the line is between pranks that will "only" earn them extra chores and behavior which will result in restriction (or worse). Bet couldn't believe the swirlie. She said to them, "I can't believe y'all did that! What if she hadn't laughed?!" and she made a mock serious "oooooh" face to indicate the trouble they would have been in. Chaos said, "We'd already had to do all our laundry, pick up our rooms, clean the kitchen ("And the bathroom," reminded the Princessa), and walk around the block!" ("Yeah, twice," added Mayhem.) "What else could she have made us do? It was a joke and we had nothing to lose!" Bet mouthed to me across the room, "What's he going to do? Sue you?" Spot on! That day I had played all of my (minor suit) cards and the kids had totally called my "bluff", winning the hand. Although the look on their faces last spring and the look on Mayhem's face last night, when for a split second they had to wonder, "Oh crap, what if this joke is too far?" tells me that we're still squarely in the midst of healthy limit testing and I still (for a few more short years) do hold the trump cards.
Peace.

*You may think - as did I - that rubbing a plastic bag on one's head is a strange and random thing to do (especially when one has been told all one's life by one's worry wart mom not to put plastic bags over one's head). I asked him why. Was he trying to make his hair stick up? Did he know that would happen? And why a garbage bag? His answer, "I had no idea what would happen. That's why I did it, mom. To find out. It's called an experiment." Ahhh. You know, even as a middle schooler, I did NOT look at things and wonder what would happen if I hit them with a hammer, put them in the microwave, or rubbed them on the top of my head. Linus says that's because I'm not a boy. You think?

Old Home Week (Or Something)

I don't know if the purging of twenty year old boxes I did the other night sent out this mighty nostalgia vibe or what - but today has pretty much freaked me out. I'm registered with this great website/board thingy (that's the technical name for it) that reconnects sailors with their shipmates from yesteryear. It has been interesting fun the past few months to hear what everyone has been up to. Navy linguists formed a close-knit community back in the 80's and even though I was "only" a reservist, it was great to be a small part of it then and it's fascinating to be pulled back into the fringes now. Today, however, was just uncanny.

I hadn't even signed on in weeks. I'd promised a buddy (Matt) who had just found me that I'd write back as soon as I returned from a trip - which I never did! Lame-O friend! Today I got a message from someone new asking if I was the same Lilymane who had been to Misawa TAD in the late 80's. Why, yes. That was me. I wrote back and he wrote back - and I was very surprised to learn that I had thrown a drink in his face. I remember the drinks we were drinking that night. They were called Chu hai's (sp?). They tasted like Sprite but had an evil, delayed kick. The bar was at the top of this steep hill- we are talking vertical incline. It was set up that way, I suspect, so that sailors could just roll down the hill back to base because there is no way you could have walked UP that thing after a Chu hai or two!

Somehow in all this e-reminiscing, I remembered to write to my buddy Matt. In doing so, I noticed that there had been a lot of "visitors" to my profile since the last time I'd logged in. It's kind of fun to scroll through and see who's been checking to see if you're a shipmate they remember. I didn't recognize many of the names - but one jumped out at me. Not to rehash very, very old drama - but there was a boy I was madly in love with. We were sort of an on again, off again undefined relationship, but really? I was off the deep end about this guy. I was quite torn up to come back from that TAD to Japan to find a friend of his waiting for me at the airport instead of him. In fact, I never heard from him again and only saw him once more. We literally ran into each other about a year later. We turned a corner and smacked into each other. "Sorry!" "Sorry!" we both said and kept walking. That was it. For 17 years. Then there was his name on my visitor log. But had he written me? Noooo. Boys!!!!!

I wrote him and said hey. I'd love to hear from him. I kept waiting for some angst to hit me about him - because man, oh man, was I in love with him at the time - but there was nothing weird at all. I just wondered what he'd been up to all these years and hoped he'd write back. I did finally hit the send button on the email to Matt - only to have the phone ring that very second. I saw the caller ID and it said "San Diego" with some number. As Sweet Hubby is in San Diego this week on business, I assumed it was him. Nope. It was my Navy buddy Lisa, (whom I talk to maybe twice a year) calling me on her way to her ship to let me know she's coming through here on her way to South Carolina next month!!

But wait there's more! After spending the better part of the day emailing various and sundry other Navy buddies (because I was on a roll!), I got an email from my writer pal Steve. He was forwarding on an email from our mutual friend Julia that we had both lost track of about 7 or 8 years ago! Seems she had randomly found the website for the research we're doing on our book project. She had forgotten we knew each other. Julia and I had been friends since I was in Kindergarten (she is a year older) and I'd met Steve through friends in a theater program when I was in the 8th grade. I'd been the one to introduce them to each other - and they went right out and fell in love and had a turbulent relationship for like, six or seven years. (And I thought dating the same boy for THREE years in high school was an eternity!) She'd forgotten she'd just walked in and practically stole this boy away from me? I say that with a smile because I think Steve and I were always destined to be "just friends". It is so interesting to me what we remember and what we forget. She forgot she stole a boy from me in the 8th grade and I forgot I'd thrown a drink in a cheeky boy's face!

Lest you think I'm forgetting to post these next few days - rest assured. I haven't forgotten you, I'm just ignoring you. Ha ha. In addition to Mother's Day - it is the appointed time for family May celebrations. Tidget's birthday is on the 15th, the Princessa's on the 19th, and Marmie's (=my mother's) b'day on the 21st. We will be busy making tacos and strawberry shortcake (the traditional fare in our house for May birthdays!) There is also the wee matter of VBGF being here to help us get the house on the market, SH coming back in from a week out of town, Nurse Nice cycling up to see us, and my sister leaving to go back to Paris. So. Ignoring you. Feel free to ignore me back and we'll catch up again on Monday, eh?
Peace my internetchiks.

Feel The Love And Taste The Soup

Happy Valentine's Day all!
After my last (rather grumpy) post (sorry!) I have been in a great mood. GREAT! I don't actually (<--that word was for you Richard) know why. There are lots of reasons I could still be grumpy: flu like virus has applied for resident status, cold rain turned into snow, it's still February. On the flip side, the tide has turned and here are my guesses why: the days are getting longer, I have no stress, I am EXCITED about my training. And? Mr. Tapioca Head let me know there was a show featuring building with cob on last night. How decent was that? It's a little known fact about me, but I'm a cob fanatic. Of the armchair variety. I haven't had the chance to work with it yet but it is in my future. I know it. I know it the way you just know some things about yourself.

In other news, I am in the middle of making homemade chicken soup for the first time ever. I buy canned chicken stock and cook with it all the time. Seriously, like four times a week. Yet last week when I went to the store, the labels on the cans were all different and I didn't see the one I usually buy. I resorted to reading the labels to decide which to get. (<--That, by the way, only confused me more as they all seemed more or less the same. In the end, it was the price stickers, not the labels that decided me.) One label got me thinking. It bragged "Voted #1 Most Like Homemade". You know, I'm not sure that I would have been qualified to participate in that voting. I can't think that I've ever had homemade chicken soup! Not to bust on my mom or anything. She is a great cook and makes delicious soups from scratch. She just happens to make things like potato-leek soup and gazpacho. Not chicken. Maybe my aunt has made some that I've eaten? I don't know. I do know that I've never made it before.

Unlike my secret cob enthusiasm, it's a well known fact that I have issues with chicken. Particularly with the gross bits - like the bones and the cartilege and the stringy vein things and even like chicken breasts in the form of slimy raw slabs on my cutting board. BLECK. I don't eat drumsticks or wings or thighs. Ever. Many have been the days when I have done all the dinner prep but have been unable to force myself to cut the gooey chicken breasts. Luckily for the children who like more than salad for supper, SH and VBGF are not nearly so squeamish and one or the other has stepped in to do the cutting. VBGF has even taught me the trick of cutting chicken breasts while they're still partly frozen. This is brilliant! Chicken is way less disgusting when it is semi-frozen. Which brings us back to the crazy idea of me making chicken soup. From scratch. Well, at least from grocery store scratch. It's not like I killed the chicken and plucked its feathers out or anything. Store bought ingredients are close enough to scratch for me!

It sounds easy. The main ingredient is a 3-4 pound chicken cut up into 8 or 9 pieces. How hard can it be to buy a chicken? Let me tell you! I looked through the entire poultry section at the grocery and no joy. I saw all the parts separately. I saw chicken breasts stuffed and ready to grill. I saw seasoned chicken wings ready to heat. I saw whole chicken "roasters" with pop up thermometers imbedded in the frozen chicken flesh. I saw already cooked rotisserie chickens. I saw not one plain old, raw, whole chicken. I felt foolish asking the butcher about it, but I needn't have. They didn't have any out. He said that he'd just had to throw away a bunch that had gone past their sell dates. He seemed miffed that here it was cold and flu season and no one was buying his whole chickens. "Perfect for making soup with," he said to me. "Fantastic, because that's what I'm doing, for the first time ever." I said to him. He was more than happy to go get me a fresh one that had just arrived and he even offered to cut it up into 8 or 9 pieces for me. That was nice and all, but I have to say that the package was completely slimy when he handed it to me. I almost abandoned the whole project then and there. The project was even more imperiled when I got home.

I wasn't sure I could touch the chicken. I could barely stand to look at it as I opened the package. I did, in fact, turn my head as I dumped the styrofoam package into the pot. (This bit of information is important in a minute.) I added cold water and chunked up veggies (including a parsnip - because I LOVE parsnips). I didn't see the instruction to add the "cleaned" chicken to the pot until later. I have no idea what cleaning a chicken involves. Is it part of the chopping process? Is it just a matter of rinsing? Surely there's no soap involved. Be that as it may, I inadvertently skipped this step in my anxiety over how to get the 8-9 pieces into the pot without touching or looking at them. Still, we bubbled along for the rest of the afternoon. The kitchen smelled heavenly. The children literally SHOUTED at me from the garage. "That smells GREAT! Is that dinner?!" (No, we had clam sauce spaghetti - from scratch, no bones - last night. The soup is for Thursday.)

I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I don't have any fancy way to separate the fat out of the soup so I followed the instruction about putting the whole pot into the fridge overnight. This morning Sweet Hubby went to work late. (It is, after all, Valentine's Day and we have lots of children who stay awake longer than I do, but who are handily all in school by 8:30 am.) As he was leaving, I was getting ready for Homemade Chicken Soup - Day 2. He admired my efforts thus far and offered to help with the next steps. THANK GOD! I am really trying to get over being so easily squicked out, but there were bones and globby bits and lumps of chicken skin roiling around in the pot. Intellectually, I have no issue with these things. I'm not even close to a vegetarian. You might could get me sad about the plight of veal in its baby cow days, but chickens? Have you seen live chickens? Have you smelled them? I have no guilt over eating them or problems with the fact that the disgusting bits are the very bits that make the soup taste delicious. However, it's those bits bubbling about that make me gag uncontrollably. Don't you wish you could cook with ME?

"My" first chicken soup is a joint project. As Sweet Hubby was separating out the ooky parts, he asked me how I had handled the little paper package with the unmentionables like the heart and gizzard*. I told him that this chicken didn't come with that. "Uh huh," he says, "Well, here's the thing. You know those parts are very good for the flavoring, right?" Yes, yes, yes. I explained the part where it's not my brain but my tummy that objects to those parts and I probably would have put them in they'd been there (and if I could have done so without throwing up). "The reason I ask is, I just took some of them out. Now I'm wondering about the paper." Oh hey, it doesn't tell you so in the recipe, but take it from me that you should LOOK at those 8-9 chicken pieces as you dump them in the pot otherwise you might end up with bonus cellulose.

Anyone want to join us at table tomorrow night for homemade chicken and paper soup?
Peace.

**Gizzards. When I was a little girl, you could get gizzards on Tuesdays from Kentucky Fried Chicken. You may be surprised to learn that this was a huge treat for me and my little sister. My father (who loves all vegetables without exception and eats weird foods in general) does not eat fast food or desserts. He'll have second helpings of collard greens; he'll fight you for the last escargot on the plate; and he can tell the difference between brands of capers - but he will not go through a drive thru. Not for money or love. Only he used to - for gizzards. On Tuesdays. On the premise of getting "treats" for Tidget and me. I don't know when they stopped selling them and I don't know if I'd be game for having them again if they made a surprise comeback at KFC, but I have fond memories of gizzard night with my dad. What's the weirdest food you've ever eaten?

Navy Buddies

My Navy buddy Jenn hijacked my day by sending me an invite to join a coolie cool website (database? forum? online thingie?) called Together We Served. The point is to connect people who were in the Navy together. I spent the better part of the day avoiding the work I was supposed to be doing (=writing) by filling in the online questionnaires in my profile (=writing). Sadly I don't think my word count for the one translates to the other. On the flip side, I found a couple of long lost buddies on there. I also spent a considerable amount of time staring at the wall remembering those times - those very weird times.

I was 17 when I went to boot camp. I think of Bug who turned 16 a couple of months ago and of Chaos who is fixing to turn 15 in June. Seventeen felt old enough for me to leave home but I can't imagine my sons leaving home so soon. Chaos keeps talking about joining the service (the Army) after he graduates from high school instead of going to college. Can I tell you how much I hate that idea? (Not just the idea of the Army instead of the Navy - but the idea of him serving the Powers That Be at all. I joined for all the right reasons - I was patriotic and couldn't imagine not serving - but the equation is different now it seems. I don't want their precious lives being squandered.) I don't say anything against it - I just let it slide, hoping he changes his mind. I'll support him all the way if it's what he does decide to do (even if I am cringing inside that he wants to be a ground pounder) but you better believe I will be in that recruiter's office with him to make sure he gets the best deal he can.

While my friends were at sorority mixers and keg parties, I was in the Navy learning to say things like "multiple re-entry vehicle" in Russian. (Well that and things like "very pencil" which is the first thing I learned to say in Russian (the week before classes started), but I learned it from a guy who turned out to be an Arab linguist so it doesn't count. It also doesn't make any more sense in Russian in case you were wondering.) But back to the multiple re-entry vehicles...You know how when you learn a language, you usually have lists of vocabulary words? And you know how teachers always make you write sentences using your vocabulary words from the list each week? Do you have any idea how hard it is to write sentences that make even a modicum of sense when your vocabulary lists are generated by the armed services?? There was one module (Mod VII - we called it the "luurve mod") where the nouns were all hardware - submachine gun (automatic weapon), bomb, mine, mortar, gun (heavy weapon), cannon, MRV, etc. Then they gave us one verb - to love. Riiiiight. Our sentences that week were all "I love automatic weapons. You love bombs. He loves mines and mortars. We love heavy weapons. They love multiple re-entry vehicles." I have to say that the whole experience was a bit surreal.

I still have all my old letters and notes and things from that time. (I'm a writer! I never throw away things people have written me.) It's a bit pathetic to have love letters in languages you can't read anymore. I spent most of an hour trying to decipher what turned out to be a note we passed back in forth in class deciding what time we were going to work out at the gym. I used to be able to recognize the words "Wash Me" in about ten languages because I had a '65 Mustang and people thought it was funny to draw in the dust on her door panels. God, I loved that car! I have so many great memories from that time. I also have a dark hole smack in the middle of my memory of that time and PTSD that can be traced straight to that dark hole.

I am still really close with several of the friends I made then - and today (on the site) I saw the profiles of some buddies I'd lost touch with. (I also saw the profile of a guy I dated briefly who once got jealous (and drunk) and shook me so hard up against a brico brick wall in his rage that he gave me a concussion. Jerk. You'd think I'd be over that by now, but you know what? I'm not. Still, he had a nice smile in his profile picture. I hope he grew up to be less of an ass hat.)

This past spring I made a pilgrimage of sorts back to where I was stationed twenty years ago and put to rest some ghosts. I reconnected with my teacher. We had one main teacher - for 8 hours a day, five days a week, for 47 weeks. I had one of the best and it was GREAT to see her after all this time. I'm so glad I made that trip in April because it made today easier. Today I got to think about the great times I had back then without the bad times overshadowing it. I remembered all kinds of fun, little details I'd forgotten about parties and outings. (Egad - there are pictures of me drinking beer out of a funnel/surgical tube contraption. I DO NOT want my sons to see those! Honestly, I don't have any idea what we were even doing. I mean, what was the point? Can, funnel, hose - why not just drink out of the can?) After all the time spent staring at the wall lost in reminisces and shivering in today's 25 degree pre-storm grayness - the strangest realization for me is that how much I want this to be my next triathlon. I think I'm going to try to talk my Navy buddies into doing it with me - even if only as an excuse to try to get us all together back in our old stomping grounds.

Peace.
PS - School has already been canceled for the rest of the week here so if I don't post tomorrow it's because my children have driven me up a wall and I'm hovering there. Also everyone think good (and contraction-y) thoughts for St. Ann who is due to deliver any day now. What better day to deliver than on the day of the full moon in the middle of a winter storm? Go baby!