Morning Routine

How did the day begin? Well, I got up early. I usually wake up when the first few shafts or hints of daylight wend their intricate way through my beige cotton bedroom curtains, which at this time of the year is at 5 A.M. Yes, unfortunately that early. I am like a rooster. I am always up at dawn no matter when I go to bed. At least I don’t crow. Quiet as a mouse, I slip out of bed. The dog opens one eye watching me from dreamland but doesn’t follow me. Not yet.

I tiptoe downstairs and make my tea and slip outside to retrieve the paper out of the mailbox in our cul-de-sac. Early morning is a very serene time of day. The house is still and quiet. The kids snooze innocently in their beds. The husband mumbles in his sleep. The dog is too tired to pay attention.

Before I step out for the paper, I fill the shiny electric kettle just to the one-cup water line and press the on button. When I walk back in, the water is already boiling and gurgling away on the tile counter. I leave about an inch when I fill the tall glass with the hot water in order to add cream and then cold water. My teabag goes in the glass, seeps for a minute—I like my tea weak unlike everything else in my life—and gets disposed of in the compost bin under the kitchen sink. I leave about an inch when I fill my glass with the hot water in order to add cream and then cold water.

Cold air envelopes me as I open the fridge to reach for cream. The bottle of cream makes a faint clanging sound against the grey tile when I put it down to remove the plastic cap. It comes off with a little pop and out pours the thick off-white goodness. We buy the tastiest locally produced cream in glass bottles. A tablespoon or so goes straight into my glass of tea. As the heavy cream mixes with the hot Chai Tea, or sometimes my first cup is Jasmine Green Tea, it swirls around in circles. In order to sip my morning beverage as soon as possible, I add a few squirts of cold tap water.

The paper is spread on the wood counter island. I gently put my glass down after the first heavenly sip and start scanning the front page headlines. The house is still quiet. As I leaf through the paper and enjoy my tea, I hear the dog yawn, stretch, and clip-clop across the floor upstairs. The morning spell is interrupted when she descends the stairs noisily and joins me with huffs and puffs of joy and the occasional lick. Morning has broken. Literally.

Bike Bar and Baby

6/18/11
One of Chris' favorite breweries is Hopworks. Whenever we talk about going out, he usually wants to go there or to Double Mountain in Hood River, but that is a little far just for lunch.

Saturday, the day after the last day of work, we had a few errands to run in Portland and decided to hit a new Hopworks watering hole, Bike Bar, on Williams in North Portland. Chris was not disappointed. Along with a fantastic pint, he ordered a bacon cheese burger all the while playing with his brandnew computer, right out of the box. Outside Bike Bar, they have two stationary bicycles which generate electricity for the beer joint. Cool. Chris had a good time!

However, the favorite part of my day was holding a newborn little baby, baby Odin. Heidi's and Josh's. After lunch at Bike Bar we drove to West Linn to visit. Little Odin was beautiful particiularly after eating when I had him resting peacefully in my arms. Special. I should have taken a picture. Darn.

I'll Be Keeping My Day Job

A month or so ago my friend Jack, who is a photography teacher at one of the high schools in our district, launched a really cool project with his students. He came up with an idea for an ad campaign for healthy foods and found staff and students around the district for the actual pictures. On the day of the shoot, he had an area set up like a real photo shoot and then the "models" stopped by and their pictures taken by the students who were running the shoot. What a fabulous idea!

I brought my downhill skiing gear including hat, scarf and jacket. By the time I had put on all the gear and clothes, I was sweating like a pig. Luckily this didn't show in the picture. I had a hard time looking natural in front of the camera. Who knew it was that hard? Anyway, the results of the photoshoot were great. I saw all the pictures on display at the school. However, I don't think I will be doing any more modeling. For many reasons! :-)

Katinka in the Paper

Every year, the local papers--both the Oregonian and the Gresham Outlook--publish pictures of the area schools' valedictorians. This is Katinka's picture from the Outlook. When I read it, I beamed with pride. Again. She did an amazing thing.

Sequoia Draws

Sequoia is a budding artist. This is a drawing she did as school as part of an assignment. I found it tossed on the floor in Katinka's room.
"What?? Where did this come from? Who drew it?"
Sequoia nonchalantly said she did, "What's the big deal, mom?"
"It's fantastic. I love it, Maymay! Good job!"

School Is Out For Summer!

6/16/11
The very last day of high school for the kids--middle ended a day before--we celebrated by buying tons of ice cream and not just any ice cream but Ben & Jerry's in various flavors. The kids were elated when I walked in the door with a bag full of cartons. The Cookie Dough one was snapped up first. Sequoia had dibs on Strawberry Cheese Cake flavor. Tydon had his eye on Milk & Cookies. We all wanted Karamel Sutra in order to dig out the luscious band of soft caramel running down the whole middle part.

I helped myself to lots of Cherry Garcia. Nobody else seems to like that flavor. I love it! Ordinarily I really don't care for anything cherry-flavored, but there is just something about this ice cream especially when it's half melted, and the pieces of cherries and bits of chocolate are easy to get to. Mmmmmmm. Good thing I don't have ice cream for dinner every night...

Quick. Grab it.

The little ducklings at Farmer Mike’s were adorable. I wanted to linger despite the chaos of chicken slaughter and barn equipment mess just to keep looking at them. Small and fragile and huddled together, they peeked at me warily as I tried to snap a picture. The photo was meant to remind me of one of the beautiful moments of today.

Some days I feel I have to lunge at and cling to the little glimmers of lighthearted delight I encounter. These moments are easily drowned in the avalanche of cerebral onslaught our senses experience every day. They need to be horded and guarded and revered. For me, they are immortalized with a simple photograph and extended with a few sentences committed to paper.

Bottomless Pit

6/11/11

"Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word."
-Laurence Olivier

Time Flies on Restless Pinions

6/9/11

“I hope your dreams take you... to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known.”

I look at her blue cap and gown, and I think, “Not long ago she was my beautiful little baby.” It is true when they say to enjoy your kids while you can, and that the years go whizzing by, and all of a sudden your little darlings are gone. My oldest child graduated from high school Thursday night, and I am still reeling from missing her toddler-self. Time is marching too fast for me.

Now she will be out in the world independently making decisions about her own life and future, and I am afraid haven’t taught her everything she needs to know. There’s more wisdom and knowledge to impart, but I ran out of time. She will make mistakes that I can’t fix. She will fall down and I can’t be there to pick her up.

As a mother, I have prepared her and me for this moment for a long time, but I still can’t shake the feeling of entering a period of existential dread. I am very excited for her. Don’t get me wrong. She is extraordinarily talented and ambitious, and her heart is filled with kindness. Life has lots of adventures and accomplishments in store for her. Life for me, however, will be a balance act of finding a new semblance of normalcy without her. I will miss her. Our family will miss her.

Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen

My first attempt at making truffles. It was pretty easy. How can you go wrong with chocolate and cream? It was the decorating part that was tricky, dipping in milk chocolate and drizzling with white chocolate, but they turned out smashing if I may say so. They are for Tink's graduation party. My baby is graduating from high school tomorrow! Yikes. This requires lots of truffles. Eating of lots of truffles. Lots.

Extraordinary Eggs

6/7/11

Live modestly. Eat decadently. That’s my motto in these desperate times. The few extra dollars I manage to squirrel away I happily spend on food. It would pain me to spend any more of my hard earned money on clothes, cars, or trinkets, but when it comes to food, my wallet is wide open.

Chris and I make weekly trips away from the consumer wasteland that is Gresham, also known as the armpit of Multnomah County. Every weekend we drive into Portland in search of better quality food. We usually hit Trader Joe’s for nuts, cheese, cereal, bread, dog treats (!), and wine in search of mostly organic high quality staples and perishables. Next stop is New Seasons for the well stocked and well staffed meat counter, Stumptown coffee, tea selection, and cream in glass bottles. We often pick up organic vegetables there as well particularly leafy greens like kale and chard and amazing fresh asparagus in the spring. Some weeks our pit stop includes Costco because of the awesome prices on giant bins of organic mixed lettuce and baby spinach. However, lately we have grown disenchanted with Costco due to their ever-changing product lineup. The minute you get accustomed to a product, they switch it out. Very annoying.

This summer is the second summer we have purchased a share in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) at Dancing Roots Farm in Corbett. Starting in May, we go to the farm every Monday evening and pick up freshly harvested outstanding organic vegetables. In addition to veggies we get eggs. Farmer Mike brings us a dozen eggs weekly from his free range chickens. His eggs are absolutely fresh and tastes heavenly. The egg yolks are astonishingly yellow and perky. I love the varied colors of the eggs in any given carton. A few times a year, we also buy chicken from Mike and at Thanksgiving last year, a succulent turkey. New for us this year is the purchase of half a cow, grass-fed and free of antibiotics, to be delivered in the fall.

Needless to say, all this running around and concern about quality ends up costing extra money. To me it is worth it. I can’t stand the thought of horrendous animal factory feed lots, and fields and agricultural workers exposed to toxic pesticides. I would like to think that I contribute to all that misery as little as possible. It surprises me how little people seem to care about the food they put in their bodies, how little they care where it came from, and how it was produced and by whom. People are remarkably lackadaisical and unreflective about the horrors of mass food production and the diseases that ensue. Every local grocery store contains more chemicals packed in bottles and boxes and covering the produce than a Chinese River and people aren’t alarmed, not even concerned. Odd.

Zebra Walk

Whenever I am working at my closest school for the whole day and do not need to drive between several buildings in the middle of the workday, I leave the car at home and walk to work. Today was one of those days. The walk to school takes about 12-13 minutes along flat residential streets in suburbia, so it does not exactly require prodigious effort. It is more of a humdrum stroll easily accomplished while half asleep.

I set off in the overcast but comfortably warm morning with my Timbuk2 bag, containing my lunch and notebooks, on my back and wearing only a t-shirt and skirt. On my feet I had flip flops, my favorite zebra-striped flip flops. Walking briskly in flip flops requires skill and agility which eluded me this morning. My shoes felt too big and were bothering me, so I kicked them off. Clasping them in both hands, I continued on barefoot and unfazed.

As soon as I felt the earth--slightly subjugated under a layer of pavement but nevertheless grounding--beneath my toes, my mood brightened and my step quickened. The world came into focus. Barefoot habits have that kind of influence and power. Every nerve ending in the soles of my feet woke up with a shout of glee. My feet tingled with wellbeing. Suddenly a tedious walk of quiet desperation to work turned into a triumphant prose-worthy journey of quintessential discovery. A Clydesdale horse turned into a Zebra. Never underestimate drudgery.

Flatness

6/5/11

Sunday was a flat day. The weather was flat. The food was bland. The wine was flavorless like grocery store strawberries. My mood was muted like a matte photograph. The book I was reading was lifeless. TV offerings were vapid much like all other days. My writing was deflated and pointless like a collapsed arch. Sapless. A horizontal watery kind of day. A ho hum pancake day. And that's all I have to say about that.

First Day of Summer Heat

6/4/2011

Our first real day of summer seemed unreal. We had planned to go play disc golf at Dabney State Park with Eden, Megan, and Jared. When I was getting ready in the morning, I put on a skirt and t-shirt and then I couldn't decide which sweater or jacket to bring. Finally, I settled on one and walked outside around 9:30AM only to find that it was too hot to bring a jacket. How about that?? We are so not used to warm weather. It was almost hard to leave to house without that jacket. I kept thinking I would need it in the shade at the park. Nope. Too warm. Aaah! Finally, some summer.

Disc golfing was a blast. On the second hole, both Megan and I lost our discs in the pond. Eden, the hero, decided to jump in and look for them in the murky water. He found Megan's disc but not mine. However, he found five other discs. Score! Apparently, few people find it worthwhile to get into that freezing water to retrieve lost discs. Maybe it's been too cold until now. Eden didn't seem to suffer and finished playing 18 holes in his soggy clothes in the much awaited summer heat.

Katinka, the Science Scholar

6/3/2011

Katinka was awarded the Science Merit Scholar Award during senior assembly today. The science department teachers picked her as the most outstanding student of the year. What a nice accomplishment! She wants to continue studying science in college, biology at the University of Oregon. I have no doubt that she will do great. She is very bright, hard working, ambitious, and determined. I am very very proud of her. Go Tink!

Run, Bay, Run!

Bailey is recovering from hamstring surgery he had on February 2nd this year—his right hamstring was completely detached from the hipbone—and has just finished 8 weeks of weekly physical therapy. Now he is on to 8 weeks of running exercises and strength training, which he is doing on his own according to a schedule given to him by the physical therapist. Every other day this first week, he is supposed to spend 20-30 minutes alternating between running and walking every 2 minutes. In addition, he does lunges and grapevines and more. This morning at 6AM Bay and I went out together to run. It was a little chilly and barely dry. The rain seemed to be hanging in the air, which is really perfect weather for running. We ran around the neighborhood before the world was up and about. It is such a peaceful time of the day, my favorite. Only a few cars buzzed by and a handful of joggers and walkers shared the empty streets. I'm a seeker of daily silver linings, and filling my lungs with fresh early morning air and exercising with my son certainly enhanced the day.

Dental Delight

My mouth was forced agape for 1.5 hours. This kind of experience is generally a fairly objectionable ordeal; however, I managed well due to the impressive and kind professionals involved. Today I had a temporary crown put in because of a cracked molar as well as impressions made for the permanent crown. Customer service, or rather patient service, makes the dentist’s office where I go a pleasant place. My family and I have always been treated with the utmost friendliness by both office and medical staff. They are always patient and helpful even when I take up inconsiderate amounts of their time over the phone trying to schedule the whole family for teeth cleanings. They joke around and remember our names when all eight of us stream through the door like a freak show passing through town. The dentists and assistants take their time explaining procedures. The hygienists are gentle. All in all, I feel well cared for when I walk in. Today was no exception. My visit to the dentist’s was quite nice. It may even have been the best part of the day. At this point one might wonder what the hell is wrong with me. Lying supine in a vinyl chair with buzzing appliances filling the mouth is not exactly a knee-slapper. Maybe I had just anxiously anticipated the worst, and it turned out to be easypeasy? I need more excitement and hullabaloo in my life I think. More inspiring events and more adventures. More kerfuffle. It is pretty pathetic when a dental procedure earns the highlight-of-the-day award.