Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Pockets of Joy #1

   A few days ago I stumbled on a lovely and complex blog called  Bohemian Twilight    Soooo worth a steady gaze, especially if you are in need of the creative person’s equivalent of a B-12 shot in your upper arm.  Check it out and see for yourself.  I found her through some luscious home interior photos on Pinterest (she has a Tumblr slide show), so you can bet I am already planning on how to gypsify the farm.  PLEASE don’t anybody warn Handsome.  Okay?  Okay.  Deal.

Credit for both amazing photographs:
You are welcome for directing you there.
   In addition to the visual feast, this blogger has a lot of wisdom and insight to offer.  Read  her post on anger and the full moon.  Enlightening!

   On Fridays she graciously hosts a link-up where you can share your “Pockets of Joy” for that week.  I groove this.  I warmly welcome the intervalled practice of expressing gratitude and joy for the beauty in a person’s life.  We have so much!  And  sometimes intending to just maintain an “attitude of gratitude” can be rather thin and quiet, at least for me.  Sometimes it’s nice to share those feelings of bounty.

   So without further ado, my fledgling entry:
1.  Rituals.  Piping hot, strong and rich coffee very early every morning, sweetened with real sugar and real cream.  This (especially the cream) is a luxury item that starts the day off wonderfully.  Showering in the afternoon, right before Handsome arrives home.  Cleaning the kitchen just at sunset.  Locking up the animals as the moon reveals herself.  Braiding my legs together with his while we watch some History channel.  Daily rituals are joyful in their regularity.  They help us keep the pace of home.

2.  Weather.  Oklahoma’s extended drought and extreme heat wave have finally come to a close.  At least for now.  This week we have joyfully worked and played in mid-nineties, shade, and even the occassional rain shower.  This is a wonderful refreshment, one we cannot help but celebrate.

3.  Feeding the chickens.  I love delivering kitchen leftovers outside to the chickens and watching them jump and scurry for the best stuff.  I love the way their little talons sound on the gravel paths, the way they skeedaddle and sprint this way and that in feathery bursts of energy.  I have said it before and will say it again:  Letting the chickens go free range in the mornings is the best animal decision we have ever made on this farm.  This week the chickens are enjoying the cooler temps and have been especially joyful.

4.  Speaking of birds, the geese…  They are getting bolder and bolder, waddling up from the pond several times a day now.  I love to be busy indoors doing housework or writing and hear that strange but happy chorus of honking outside the south door.  One goose in particular, Mia, craves human touch all day.  He (Yep, it’s a he named Mia; I will have to tell that story soon.) honks until I am seated in the grass then curves his long neck in an inverted bass clef shape and whines while I pet him gently.  Geese are hilarious and affectionate and joyful creatures!

5.  Blogland.  Meeting people through blogging whom I would never have met otherwise, like Keda from South Africa.  Hello there!  Staying warm?  Check out her blog too.  Thorough, sensitive writing, beautiful lifestyle.  Truly.

6.  Health.  This week I am keenly aware of how good our health is and that we should be grateful for that.  We ate lightly, slept well, stayed really active, and enjoyed the myriad benefits of this practice.

7.  Music.  I rediscovered a Carla Bruni album and listened to it three and a half times while plowing through my overflowing ironing basket.  Something about her effervescent sound and her poetry got me thinking about bubbles, circles, fractals, and mandalas, so I detoured from ironing long enough to get these words out of my head.

Whether or not you participate in the Pockets link-up,
I would sure like to hear about your joys this week.
May they be genuine, multiplied, and ever changing.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

joy pockets

That’s Not Funny…LOL

   Shamefully, against my will, and much to the chagrin of my friends and family members, I am definitely suscestible to bouts of inappropriate laughter.  Lots of terrible, serious things make me grin, and no matter how old I grow I remain powerless against this weird force of nature.

It’s just laughter, though, so how harmful can that be?!?!?! 
   If an old person fall down, well good grief, apparently just thinking about it is making me laugh!  I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but that is FUNNY STUFF.  And obviously I am a bad person.
   If a small animal, but especially a cat, makes any kind of offensive maneuver against a human, that is giggling gold to me.

   If I hear a man scream in fear like a little girl, no matter the mortal danger, it is hilarious.  I crave to hear a squeaky, panicky voice shred a grown man’s face against his will.  And if either this or the cat-human thing happens on television, you can bet your angry scowl I will be rewinding and watching that bad boy for an hour and a half.

   This next one is bad.  It could cause you to stop reading my blog forever and shake your head slowly in disgust, breathing dramatically as you click the X button in the upper right hand corner of your monitor.  Ready?
   When my husband or one of our children or maybe one of my parents or siblings has suffered a M-I-N-O-R injury, maybe something that just causes some momentary stress or requires little more than a dab of N-n-n-neo…  Sporin… and a bandage, well, it is embarrassing, but I do laugh.  Out loud.  It has caused a few fights, rest assured. 
   I like to think that it’s part of my maternal instincts, actually.  You know, maybe the annoying (and potentially infuriating) giggles from your should-be caregiver can distract you from your pain.  That kind of thing.

   Today Handsome was mad at me for something.  Something kind of big.  And I had to cover my face with both hands and pull on the skin beneath my eyes to try and settle down.  Because the madder he got the funnier it was to me.   I COUDLN’T HELP IT!!!  It was uncontrollable!  Try as I might, I could not wipe that stupid grin off of my guilty face, and of course that fueled his anger fire a bit.
   He broke for a just moment, chortling at me with adorable mercy.  But then to compensate for this breach in strategy he dove into further explanation of why he was so mad at me, and GOD HELP ME it was funny!!!
   I think maybe I am allergic to crisis and laughter is how the allergy manifests itself.  Lots of things make it worse and nothing really makes it better except to just laugh it out.
   If you are ever the unhappy victim of my inappropriate laughter, just let the goofy flame burn itself out.  Don’t bother trying to reason with me at all.  FOR SURE do not say, “I am serious!!!”
   Oh man, anyone who is serious is instantly hilarious to me, that’s just how it goes. 
   Thank you, MamaKat, for prompting me to admit this terrible truth.  I feel better, sort of.  At lots of other people’s expense.

They are Definitely Growing Up

   With each of my two children, both girls, I have experienced dozens of corner-turning moments, lots of times when we were certainly crossing thresholds that held bittersweet significance.  And as crucial as each moment felt while we were in it, each of them in fact passed and moved us onward toward another bigger milestone, another dose of pain and pleasure. 
   Some occurred simultaneously for both girls; others shine in my memory just for one sister or the other.  And I am well aware that as grown as they seem today at 15 and 13, still more growth is in store and more separations and reunions loom in the future.  Still many more thousands of miles are left in their life journeys. 


  That is perhaps the strongest evidence that growth has happened:  I can now better separate my need to be close to them from their need just to live their lives as separate, unique human beings.
Or dinosaurs.
 
  Infancy held a dozen revelations every hour.  I loved becoming acquainted with their tiny, beautiful faces, that sweet baby fragrance, their miraculous sounds and overall delicacy.  Learning how to soothe them, following the swell of breast milk, and drifting into the bizarre sleep patterns of those first weeks of life were joyful if mysterious times. 
   Returning to work after six weeks of maternity leave, though, that really got my attention.  I had certainly never hurt so badly before and thought I would never hurt so badly again. 
LOLOLOLOL!!!!!
Amateur.
   I cried hot, vicious tears on my drive from daycare to office, and not just that first day.  It happened on lots of morning drives.  And again when Preschool and Kindergarten started.  Oh, and Middle School.  Oh, and even present day, every single time I drop them off after spending an amazing day together.
   A gentle note to new parents: 
Even if you think today has brought you the hardest lesson,
the deepest pain, the sorest disappointment, etc,
STEEL YOURSELF. 
It gets worse. 

Today is AWESOME
compared to what tomorrow might be.
Enjoy it for all it’s worth.

On the other hand,
it also gets much better in surprising ways.
Rejoice in every detail.
It is all part of an amazing plan,
and you will be okay with plenty of love.
  
    Seeing each of the girls walk independently for the first time, both toward me and away from me, those moments convinced me that life was speeding by too fast.  I had no idea that in about five or six minutes I would be enrolling my oldest in summertime Driver’s Ed.
   Realizing they no longer needed me to wash their hair at bath time, that stung a little.  It took a long time for me to appreciate the additional free time in the evenings, but I have to admit it is wonderful to have taught them little things like that, to know they care about themselves as young ladies and can take care of themselves.  Now I look forward to maybe washing a grandchild’s hair one day. 

One of my all time favorite activities for kids:
Letting them soap and shampoo themselves in the sunshine
after a long day of playing outside.
Just rinse with the garden hose, find some clean dry pajamas,
and go soak up some air conditioning and yummy treats.
Your neighbors will hear the delightful giggles,
and at bedtime you will be afforded some extra cuddling.

   When I noticed that conversations about boys had begun to electrically charge the air, I saw my chickens differently. 

   When my youngest tried on swimsuits one spring and I felt that salty pang of protectiveness, “Don’t anybody look at her!!!” I knew things were changing again.
 

   Am I the only dorky mom who felt nostalgic when her kids perfected cursive?  When this happened in our home, I was in shock.  Like everything else, it seemed like only yesterday that we were practicing their crayon-grinding ABC’s.

    I knew I was losing my place of authority and guidance in their life when they started telling me about their plans instead of asking me what would be alright, what the family had going on.  And the tone of voice that comes with that shift in power is something a mother cannot forget or ignore.  I am so happy to have lots of video recordings of more innocent times to remind me that there were many years rich with laughter and trust and joy that preceded this darkness.
And then, of course, one day they just up and got tattoos.
Look at her tough expression.  Rebel.  xoxoxo


   So I cannot reduce my feelings and memories into a single moment when I realized the girls were growing up.  They have been growing up ever since they were born.  Difficult circumstances have brought certain things along more rapidly than I would like, but I suppose there would never have come a day when I would be ready to send them out of the nest anyway.

Lorikeets at the Oklahoma City Zoo
Autumn 2003

   Time is fluid but strong, an ever moving river, very much beyond our control and sometimes even our understanding.  Our main job is to love without limits as constantly and as thoroughly as we can.  This goes a long way toward easing the sting of lost time.  Realizing that growing up, moving on, and being happy is exactly what children are supposed to do is a deep, meaningful comfort to parents who hate the echo of an empty nest.
   Count your blessings.  Relish the details of today.  Enjoy your memories and trust that you have thousands more happy memories yet to be made.
Above all, believe in the power of love.

Red Writing Hood          Mama’s Losin’ It

Top Five Shows I Wish Would Return

   As a kid I didn’t watch all that much television, at least not by today’s standards.  My Mom was vigilant about keeping us from becoming video zombies.  She trained us to look at the paper TV guide every week and mark what shows looked good to us, what shows were worth the expense of time and daylight.  Remember when you had to watch shows pretty much right when they were aired?  No DVR in the 1980s, man.  And taping shows to VHS rarely happened.  It required great electronics skill, a massive coordination of hours and minutes, and relatively expensive tapes.
   I cannot remember exactly, but it seems like we were allowed an hour or so per week.  We might have been allotted more time in front of the tube when school was out; I can’t remember.
   The funny thing is, even though I sometimes complained, that really seemed like more than enough time.  I was way busier playing outside, learning how to do penny drops from the metal swing set frame, perfecting round offs and attempting handsprings, riding banana-seat bikes, and of course having those all-important crushes on boys who were too old for me… 
   Television was more of a family affair in our home than an isolating activity, something that with time and distance I see was unique.  For this and so many other reasons, I am grateful to my parents.  They trained me to use TV as a respite at the end of a full week, not the backdrop of my life and certainly not the focus of any day.

   Having said all of that, I did grow up having some fave shows that would be ever so great to see again!  Beyond syndication, beyond rebooting, just more of the good stuff.

I Dream of Jeannie.  I wanted a secret room like her plush genie bottle soooo badly…  And I liked Major Healey okay, but oh my goodness, why in the world did she have to keep messing things up with Major Nelson???  What a romance!  What a fantasy to have that kind of power and beauty.
Fantasy Island.  “Boss, de plane!  De plane!”  Speaking of fantasies, this show sent my preadolescent mind into high gear.  What a fascinating thing to glimpse into what people believe will solve their problems versus what truth already lies within their own grasp.  And when I first stepped onto the grounds of a Mexico resort on my honeymoon with Handsome, I felt like Mr. Roarke might emerge at any moment.  Yes, new episodes of Fantasy Island would be a cool thing.

Dukes of Hazzard.  I would love, love, love a comeback TV show of the Duke family and their misadventures, not just a lame movie starring all the wrong people.  Gyoog, gyoog, gyoog!
Reading Rainbow.  Oh stop it…  Don’t judge me.  You know this show was impossible to ignore.  It was a quiet time standby for my thousands of babysitting victims.  Err, clients? 
  

The Cosby Show.  What television parents had more wisdom and love to share than the Huxtables?  Not even Aunt Bea in Mayberry, I am convinced of it.  “Come here.  Come here, come here, come here!”  And Lisa Bonet’s character was a major style influence on my life, even though it took me years to share that with people.

   So there you have it.  The top five shows for which I would happily sacrifice all past, present, and future episodes of reality television and extreme making over in order to watch new again.  If any of you are fancy-pants enough in the entertainment world to make this happen, I will bake you cookies once a week for the rest of my life.  Just don’t tell my Mom how much time I spend watching it all.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Car Show Culture

   I entered this marriage with a perspective that cars were nothing more than modes of transportation.  Learning through Handsome, then, the scope of artistic expression and passion and also the varying skills required in his car world, was eye opening. 
   Suffice it to say that his mechanical and electronic skills far exceed my own and most likely always will.  But my passion for this brave world is beginning to give his a run for its money. 
   Wait, does Passion have money? 
And if so, where does Passion get it? 
I don’t think Passion needs money,
but Passion sure can cost you money. 
I digress…
   We attended our second car show of this season over the weekend.  In Oklahoma we are already deep in the throes of an extreme summer, and we had a really wonderful time!
These Camaros’ lucky parking arrangement
had me craving a Dreamsicle. 
Bad.  Like, real bad.
“Would you like a white SS with orange racing stripes,
or an orange SS with white racing stripes, ma’am?”
   At any given car show you are likely to see every imaginable shade of red.  Every shade of most colors, actually, but red does seem to dominate.  Car owners, body men, and painters swim in color and pattern just like any other visual artist does.  Some people work hard at staying factory-original; other people take license to be very imaginative with their interior and exterior schemes.  The results are always interesting and often cause for friendly debate. 
   This photograph reminds me of a central theme that makes me kind of emotional.  Patriotism is pervasive, though inarticulate, at these gatherings.  In ten years I have never once heard mention of politics at these events, but there is lots of cultural exchange and fabric-of-life kind of talk.  And so much of it fortifies my opinion of living in this country!
   In sharing with each other your vehicles and your stories, you are helping to build a spontaneous oral history.  You are cross-pollinating the widely flung tales of people, families, and businesses through the decades, over the miles of these United States.
   And by the way, oral histories are arguably the most valuable bits of record we could possess.  More on that another time…
   If you listen closely, you can absorb who was president when this car was popular and why that matters; what industries were strongest then; how music impacted people that year; why someone chose that car and how he paid for it, whether a romance was important then, etc, etc.  Fascinating stuff! 
   People are interesting, and they are very willing to share their stories, especially when those stories can be illustrated by a big, beautiful, well loved machine.    I have seen men and women of all ages bond happily and anonymously this way, and that is just cool.
  
Some vehicles strike the marrow in my bones. 
This perfectly intense black Chevy truck
was one such creature this past weekend. 
I feel like Darth Vader would drive it.
   Speaking of a shared culture, only a few cars at the shows we frequent ever boast this kind of frenzy-causing ability.  This particular car is said to be titled in Georgia AND the owner had installed the right horn in his General Lee! 
   He was happy to oblige the crowd all day long.  Even across the expansive parking lot, Hazzard’s twelve-syllable anthem is absolutely laughter inducing!  Suddenly every one’s a southerner.
  
   If you are too young to have any stories to tell about actual social reform in the 1960s, then you are just exactly the right age to feel like you…
A.)  were blood related to the Duke family.
B.)  at one time were in love with a member of the Duke family. 
C.)  wanted to have your car worked on by Cooter.  Or…
D.)  were sympathetic to poor old Roscoe P. Coltrane and his misadventure sidekick, Flash.

“Geyoog, geyoog, geyoog!”
This is a veritable tuxedo on wheels. 
Even sitting still she looks fast, smooth, and classy.
She kinda took my breath away. 
I just love than rear wheel skirt, so ladylike…
Can you tell from this photo that the bed of this truck is textured? 
   It has been sprayed with bed liner material mixed with the same paint as the body.  What’s special about this find is that Handsome’s Dad is who started doing this way back in the early 1980s.  He was a pioneer, and people who show cars still know him by name.  He owned a body shop where were sown the seeds of automotive passion as well as a very respectable work ethic in his young son, my future Love.
   Saturday’s car show was excellent.  We saw friends, soaked up the sights, and celebrated some common appreciation for a pretty special art form.  Like always, though, at the end of the day we were ready to pack up and drive home.  We had memories to file away, a car cleaning bag to replace to the shop shelves, and a mild case of dehydration to nurse.
   The last thing we do before leaving is attend the awards ceremony.  Should our entry number be called (it often is), Handsome assigns me the task and the honor of accepting our trophy. 

   I dig it baby.  This is my moment.

   I mentally pretend to have not only invented cars but also to have personally designed whichever one we brought that day.  I imagine having hand painted the car with a brush built from a wild boar’s whiskers. 
(Victoria Jackson with Paul Simon? 
Classic SNL?  Look it up, it’s super funny.)
  
   As I sashay up to the microphone, flapping my pointy elbows like a rooster (this is part of the act) I notice a sour, humid odor that proves I have been at a car show all day in 95-degree heat. 

   And without warning my Car Guru fantasy shifts to thoughts of slipping into and drinking in deep gulps of the swimming pool waiting for us at home…

   Cars smell good.  Boys who work on cars smell good.  Girls who attend seven-hour car shows in summertime?  Not so much.