Keep It Simple

I read Rachelle's post about keeping it simple and her tendency to complicate things this morning. I do this all the time. It is what's been keeping me away from this space. I keep waiting to have the perfect photo or the great story to tell and that has me waiting and waiting and waiting and my voice begins to feel smaller and smaller and smaller. So instead of waiting for perfect and complicating the act to the point of silencing myself, I'm just going to jump in right here, right now. Keep it simple.

We had rain over the weekend, good drenching rainshowers and what was crunchy and sad is now a little greener, a little more supple. I'm thinking about planting some herbs for the Fall. I'm thinking thyme, rosemary, basil and flat-leaf parsley, lots and lots of flat-leaf parsley.

Max is marching with the entire 5th grade in the Howdy Night homecoming parade.

Frank has another staph infection. We keep moving forward, trying new things.

I am working on the long poem that was going to be my retreat project before the pinched nerve interfered. It has been difficult to let go of that vision of working on it in long stretches of time, but I am making progress in smaller doses.

September continues and the things that were once new become less so.

Sometimes the best you can do is show up and let yourself be seen.

We Did Some Yard Work This Weekend

Progress

We are slowly (painfully & slowly) making progress figuring out Frank's food allergies. This is the inevitable dance of food allergies where it is a step or two forward then a step back. We are trying to hit a constantly moving target. Some days are great and everything feels good and normal and then he suffers a setback and we are in emergency mode all over again.

(The literature on adult food allergies suggest that this trial and error is the most accurate way to find out which foods you are reacting to. Skin test are notoriously unreliable and the blood tests currently in use aren't much better.)

We have a small list of foods we consider safe, mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, brown rice. The difficult thing is to try something new, to willing add something to the mix that might make Frank miserable. We all hold our breath.

Last night on Facebook I admitted the allergies were kicking my ass and then like a beacon in the fog, I heard from several people with suggestions and ideas and encouragement. It is, I propose, what social networks are best at: that quick, heart-warming offer of aid and information.

Today was a better day. My ass feels a bit less kicked. So thank you, friends of mine, for your care and concern and advice. You made my day today.

Apples and Oranges and Beets and Tomatoes

As some of you know, Frank has been struggling with a skin-for-lack-of-a-better-word-condition for almost a year now. We have been through two dermatologists, an allergist and a rheumatologist, and in the end, they have all thrown various steroids and creams and antihistamines his direction and shrugged. Nothing really worked to make it better. Steroids would beat it back temporarily but it would resurface as soon as he stopped taking them. No one has any idea what might be causing it.

Yesterday Frank hooked back up with the general practitioner we both love, who looked over what all the specialists had done and said "I think this is a food allergy." Not a simple food allergy like "no shellfish for you" but a complicated cross reaction that could be anything.

So, Frank is now on an elimination diet. Nothing but fresh, raw fruit and vegetables for the next 14 days. One fruit and one vegetable per day and he cannot repeat either the next day.

This has thrown me into a tailspin. We are a foodie family. We cook. We eat. If we're not cooking or eating, we are talking about what we're going to cook and eat next.

I have been cooking for almost ten years for a family of three plus leftovers for the next day's lunch. I believe I'll have to half most of my recipes if I'm only cooking them for me & Max. How will we eat our plates of pasta while Frank sits at the table with a plate full of raw carrots?!

We will do anything, of course, to get to the bottom of what has been plaguing Frank. (I think he's secretly thrilled at the idea of eating a big plate of raw beets.)

Today he's eating carrots and bananas. I'll keep you posted.

Some Things

Our plumbago, that we assumed was killed by the one-two punch of last summer's drought plus the handful of hard freezes this winter, has come back and there was much rejoicing.

I have been writing 750 words a day over at 750.com instead of doing morning pages. It's kind of a blast.

Max & I have been working out together at the Y - also kind of a blast.

After more than a couple of years of being a one car family, and more than a year of knowing that we really needed an additional way to get around, we bought a motorcycle. Frank still wants to ride his bicycle when the weather's hospitable but now he has an alternative on those hot summer days.

I am a little bit in love with Google Chrome.

Max has been lobbying for a new computer (and more specifically a Mac) for over two years and finally his dreams are coming true. We are expecting the FedEx truck to deliver his new iMac any day now.

As a result of the computer purchase I got a free iPod touch. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

Good or Evil?

Frank's Birthday

Yesterday was Frank's birthday. I didn't write my traditional birthday blog post for him because I can't talk about his year without alluding to some things that I just cannot blog about. I will say this, he is handling an almost impossible situation with grace and compassion and I don't know what I would do without him.

Life with Boys

Sunday in the Park with Max

I am beginning to come out from under this wretched cold today and thought a walk in the park might help. It turned into more of a run in the park for Max and Frank. I followed them at a stroll, with the camera.

Why I Married the Guy

Thanks to some recent rain (praise all that is good and holy) we have a bloom of mushrooms in our front yard mulch.


Before he left for work this morning, Frank took the time to do this

so he could do this

and this

to please Max.

He's the kind of guy who does things like that.

Happy Father's Day

Here's to Lefty, the guy who give us the confidence to float around in the deep end!

On My Mind

I have a lot of things on my mind these days.

I'm saddened by the whole Prop 8 fiasco in California. I believe in equality for everyone. Period.

I'm thrilled to announce that Lefty's research will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Bacteriology. (Don't worry, if you can't find it on the newsstand, I can get you a copy.) This takes a huge, crushing amount of pressure off for his tenure review in the Fall.

I'm happy that The Kid is sad that the school year is almost over. It has been a rough year for him socially, losing a best friend and grieving that loss. He has made new friends and is beginning, I think, to find his tribe.

I'm worried about my little sister who's having some health issues, has a lot of questions and the answers are slow in coming. Do me a favor. Light a candle or whisper a prayer. Send a good thought in her direction.

I'm shocked by the idea, but I think I'm training to run a 5K once the long long Texas summer is over. Running is still so new, such an alien concept to me, I still can hardly believe I'm doing it.

What's on your mind these days?

(A note on comments: I am eternally grateful for every single comment I receive here and do a little happy dance every time a new comment appears. I know you're out there. Won't you take a moment and say hi?!)

Lefty's Back

This guy is back from almost a week in Philadelphia

and we are pretty happy about that.

Our Little Tripod

Lefty flew off this morning to his annual professional meeting. It's in Philadelphia this year which will allow him some hang out time with his Philly guitar buddies.

His absence unhinged us a little bit. The Kid and I will breeze through the weekdays while he's away but today has been hard. It may feel different if your family is larger, but our little tripod topples when someone is missing. A full weekend day without Lefty and we hardly knew what to do with ourselves. The Kid insisted the only thing that made him feel better was lying in the grass.

We muddled through, played some games, sat on the porch, listened to the birds and waited for the phone to ring - waited to hear Lefty say, "I made it. I'm here."

In Other News…

There are so many things I want to tell you today, how we spent an awesome long weekend with Lefty's oldest and dearest friend P, and how my kitchen table was turned into a recording studio, or how The Kid is sad that his best friend for the past two years has stopped being his friend and is now (the shoving on the playground has stopped) tormenting and teasing him mercilessly. He made The Kid so angry yesterday at lunch that The Kid hauled off and chucked his water bottle at him and must eat lunch by himself in "time out" today for a punishment. I could talk about the glorious inauguration of our 44^th president and how damn proud I am to be an American these days.

All that must wait because today I want to talk to you about this guy.

Today is Lefty's birthday. (Thus begins the five days in which we are the same age - on the 26^th I must resume my place as "the older woman".)

He is the solid foundation on which our little triangle balances. He is an amazing father, husband, musician, scientist and teacher. I love him madly and with all my heart.

Happy Birthday, Lefty!

How I Met Lefty

Mrs. G asks: How did you and Lefty meet and when did you know he was the one?

This is a story I love to tell. I'm a great believer in the power of stories to connect us to the past and to each other. We tell our family stories over and over.

Lefty and I met at a party, while we were both in graduate school at the University of Maine. It was a party I did not plan on attending. I was coming off a bad (and excruciatingly public) break up and was well into the recovery-no-more-dating-for-me-ever-again phase. No parties, no flirting, never again. But the party was thrown by a dear friend who called me and said she had no coffee filters and lord knows, you can't throw a party for graduate students in Maine, in March, without coffee. So I grabbed a handful and drove over, planning to say hi to a handful of people and return to my evening of listening to Melissa Etheridge and feeling dark.

The first room I walked into was the kitchen and Lefty was standing there, leaning against the counter, drinking cranberry juice out of a large plastic bottle. He was tall with a scruffy beard and had this way of leaning in and listening when you were talking that I immediately found enchanting.

That year, I was working part-time developing photographs and was half way through the story of some rather risqué photos and how flummoxed I'd been when the well endowed gentleman featured in them had come in to pick them up, when I noticed that Lefty had a hole in his jeans. A hole that was near the zipper. A hole through which I was quite certain I could see pubic hair peeking out. I stuttered through the rest of the story and then blushing furiously, I put my hand out to block my vision and said, "I'm sorry, but you have a hole in your pants and I'm finding it a little distracting."

He didn't flinch, or seem embarrassed or even look surprised. He laughed. And then I laughed. And the air crackled for just a second between us and I found it kind of hard to breathe properly.

Lefty and his friend left the party before I did and when I saw he was leaving I did something that I had never (really, I swear, never) done before. I wrote my name and number on a hastily grabbed scrap of paper, pressed it into his hand and said, 'If you don't call me I'm going to be very disappointed."

When I got home, I woke my sister up and told her all about it.

There was definitely something going on from the first time we met. Something about the energy between us that stunned me. I knew that something important was happening. I wasn't sure what it was, but I knew I liked it.

Dead Armadillo

I walked Lefty into his office this morning and we went across the hall to his lab. He showed me how some of his experiments are going. Then he opened the freezer next to me and said, "Look. Here's that armadillo I told you about." And there it was a smallish frozen armadillo. (One of his colleagues does research with small mammals.) I grew up in Texas and have seen armadillos before, they are freaky looking things and this one was creepier than most. I would share, but I didn't have my camera with me. Darn. Then he held out a plate and said "Smell this." I said, "No, and I will not pull your finger either."

On a completely different note - I quit drinking coffee this week. (Gasp!) It no longer makes me happy. But tonight I am doing something that makes me really happy. Do you want to guess?

Lefty the Magnificent

Lefty took his microbiology dog and pony show on the road today to The Kid's old preschool, where he wowed the Older 4's class with a microscope and funky bacteria that smells like poo. Yes, he let them smell it, but they made him smell it first!

He also took along some bioluminescent bacteria that glows in the dark. Unfortunately, even with the blinds closed, the classroom wasn't dark enough to really see the glow. So, Lefty, ever resourceful, took 15 four year olds into the tiny bathroom where it was dark enough to see the glow in all its eerie glory.

The kids loved him and it lifted something elemental in Lefty's spirit. You could see it in his eyes.

This, combined with something Karen said in the comments of my last post "We need to put ourselves out there" as artists, not should, not must, but need, made me rethink an answer I gave a few months ago. When the same preschool teacher asked if I would come and talk about poetry to her class. I stalled, never giving her an answer because the idea scared me a lot little. Tomorrow I'm calling her to set up a date to come in and read to her class and talk about poetry, because I need to put myself out there.

And It Was the Truth

I feel compelled to mention that we have been at war with Iraq for five years. Five years. All this time at war has surely broken us in some terrible way.

And on a lighter note, the lovely Karen wrote today about the first time her husband met her parents, and it reminded me of the first time Lefty met my mom.

We had lunch in Orono, Maine. An Italian place, pasta and salads. I may have had a glass of wine - I was nervous. There was talking and laughing, Lefty has a gift for making people feel at ease. My mom liked him, she smiled a lot and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I walked her out to her car after lunch, and as we crossed the street she looked me in the eye and said, "Genetic hair disaster waiting to happen."

Where’s the Moon?

We spent some time on the deck yesterday, basking in the sun, celebrating the first afternoon of Spring Break. We couldn't help but notice the moon halfway up the sky and Lefty decided to break out his telescope and show The Kid some moon craters.

Please forgive the mess. Our deck is still in winter mode and covered with purple bird poop and tiny bits of dirt and pecans shells. Yes, when he's not wrapping pecans lovingly in wee leaf blankets, The Kid is smashing them with a miniature bat. The squirrels in our backyard love these pre-opened pecans. We have the fattest, happiest squirrels on the block - when The Kid walks outside the squirrels give him a standing ovation with their furry little paws.

So out came the the telescope. Some adjustments were made.
The Kid looked at some moon craters which were very exciting for about five minutes. (Yes, they have matching t-shirts. I have one too!)

Then he wanted to look at a piece of cheese popcorn with the telescope. Then he was bored.
I wanted to look at the tiny tree growing in our clogged rain gutter.

Be the Baking Powder. Be the Salt.

There are some things going on at Lefty's work that are making him unhappy. The kind of things, I think, that are almost always going on between faculty and administration (I initially typed assministration and I was so tempted to leave it that way) in a university, but it's stressing him out. In an attempt to lighten his mood (which I know is annoying, but I'm genetically programmed to do – I just can't stop myself) I've been thinking of things that might make him smile. This morning, I said this: The world is already full of flour. Try and find a way today to be the leavening, make things lighter. Be the baking powder. Be the salt.