Life

According to the dictionary life is the animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual.  Put that way -- once you are no longer animate you are not alive -- seems scary and enlightening at the same time.  I am older but alive.

Age is encroaching -- something one never thinks will happen.  I am getting those wrinkles on my chest I used to see on older women.  My face looks older, but when I imagine myself I remember the way I looked when I was younger.  One's children get older, move away, go away, -- one way or another they are...away.  My oldest son, whom my world revolved around, is somewhat estranged from me.  No he is estranged, but he is nineteen -- does that count?  I think about death more now.  My death the deaths of my loved ones.  I fear dying alone, again something I never thought about before.  Perhaps being an Rn has focused much of my attention on the latter encroachment-of-age issue.  I see so many many older people discarded in the hospital and alone.  They have children because the tell me they do -- but they never visit.  I would rather be quartered and hung, no, fall from a plane, than to be in the hospital in my old age...alone.  I never thought about these things before, but my skin is changing.  My sleep habits are changing.  Age is encroaching, but I am still alive.

I look at anti-age creams now.  A year ago I did not.  I even think about extreme anti-aging measures like face lifts like which one is best and is 44 to early?  And of course botox or maybe dermabrasion.  Can I get botox injections into those permanent wrinkles in my chest?  At the end of the day, once gravity has finally kicked in, the wrinkles on my chest disappear but only because the weight of the aging skin below the chest pulls everything above taut.  I also have gray hair.  At first it was one or two but now there are so many new recruits.  I used to tweeze them out but then they came back kind of wiry.  Now I cut them off at the base but there are just too many.  I guess I should find solace in the fact I am still animate.  Alive.  And I do, I just wish I were the younger looking version of me without the more animated features of chest wrinkles, gray hair, spongy dry skin (yes, there is such a thing).  It is so hard to see oneself grow older.  Even harder to see your parents grow older.  It is the circle of life.  That's life.  The facts of life.  Life is what we make it.  Life is a canvas.  Life is full of ups and downs.  Yes, life, a very animated life with wrinkles is the much preferred alternative to the inanimate with or without wrinkles.  Although I prefer without wrinkles.

Coronado Island

Prior to moving to Chandler all we could think about was getting away to California for a cool (as in temperature) vacation.  For those of you who don't know we moved in July to a house with a swimming pool and "Wow!" who knew summer in Arizona could be so fun?  Alas summer is nearly over (yes, it is still in the 90's even in November) and we have been working so hard (that is another blog) we decided we should go on our much needed vacation to California. 

Our California destination?  Well our first pick was Santa Monica because of its 25 miles of bike pathway along the ocean, however the drive time seemed a bit difficult to navigate with only four days off so we decided on Coronado Island instead.  We stayed at Loew's Resort which was 4 miles from downtown Coronado and connected by a very nice two lane bike path. The Loew's was a decent hotel with horrible restaurant food -- seems to be more popular with conferences than families.  We did however enjoy the kayaking offered at their dock near the popular neighborhood of Coronado Cays.

If I were to review the town of Coronado (Island) I would say it has a beautiful sandy beach in front of Hotel del Coronado, a walkable downtown with lots of shopping and dining options.  They also had a really great dog park at the beach which the entire family enjoyed.  I would definitely not recommend biking in town.  I was nearly hit by a big suv trying to cross a crosswalk while the "little white man" was showing safe to walk.  Granted you may say it was an isolated incident however the downtown area was very congested with cars, with no bike lane and no riding on the sidewalks.  I had read there is a 30 mile-plus bike path along the entire San Diego Bay shoreline which perhaps is more conducive to hardcore cyclists than a biking family.  Overall for a biking mini-vacation it was fun, relaxing and active : two and half days of riding five hours each day to the town, around the town and to the beach.

Our next holiday/vacation is in December and we are headed to what should have been my birthplace: Boston.  I can't wait and aside from not anticipating the plane flight I am absolutely ecstatic!  Having visited Boston now three times I can't think of any other place where I feel most at home.  I love the weather, in the winter of course, the transportation system, the culture, the architecture -- the list goes on. We could not go to Germany this year due to buying our house but look forward to seeing my husband's family next summer as well as northern France.  Stay tuned..... 

"Are You Sucking Kidding Me?"

Fifteen years ago, when I was much more judgemental, if my then four year old son had said this I would have been appalled and embarrassed.  Fifteen years later -- ahhh, well, what are you going to do?  I only hope and pray my-now-four-year-old doesn't say this to his teacher when she says "Tommy the Tyrannosaurus is going to be here today for show and tell!"  It's actually funny because he says it with just the right inflection (high and long notes) and uses it appropriately in sentence structure every time.  For example, yesterday I said I have moved all the snacks out of his reach so he cannot climb the pantry shelves to get them for himself and he said "are you f**ing kidding me?"  Fortunately, only his father and I know what he is saying because his "f's" sound like "s's" so the end result is: "are you sucking kidding me?  I haven't decided if this version is better than the correct form of the slang. 

I am really trying to clean up my vocabulary since this is not going to score me any points with the other mom's especially if their offspring says either version of the aforementioned -- and I seriously doubt they will be impressed if it is used correctly in a sentence.

Bike Off The Hook

I am pretty sure "off the hook" is slang for really cool, but I am using it in a literal sense.  Driving back from a suburban bike ride along the SRP canal system in April-- my bike came off the "hook" and onto the road at 60 miles per hour.  When my husband said "we just lost your bike" I thought he was kidding until I looked behind us.  I don't know if it was my unrelenting recent hormone issues or just plain displaced attachment issues because one would have thought I ran over my dog. Granted I had my Haro for nearly ten years, but, come on -- it is a freaking bike.  As a much after thought -- we are so grateful there were no cars tailgating us as is the usual case on highway 347 or the situation could have been much worse.  And I emphasize "much after thought" because I was too angry to care about anything but my poor bike.  Sadly, I screamed at my husband for not putting the bike on the rack right and yelled at myself for letting my husband put my bike on the rack.  After years of being a single parent and doing everything myself -- it seems I had become lax since getting married.  Or so I felt at the time.

After my near nervous breakdown on the road -- and after some time had passed we assessed the bike.  Oddly, it was not in as bad condition as we had expected.  The fork was slightly twisted, a pedal broken, the seat minimally mangled on one side -- but all in all in pretty decent shape.  I, on the other hand, had to apologize for losing my mind temporarily.  After some soul searching I realized our search for a house outside-the-much-despised-Maricopa was taking a toll on me and my mental state -- or lack thereof.  Our suburban bike ride along the canal that day was in a neighborhood we were looking to possibly buy in -- leaving the area that day we realized it wasn't going to be easy to escape Maricopa.  It took my bike taking-one-for-the-team for me to realize I had to "let it go."

Which I did and in the end my bike survived with only a hundred dollars or so worth of repairs.  We called Thule, maker of the bike hitch, and asked what we could be doing wrong and it turns out they had an answer.  Apparently, small bikes like mine (13 inches) cannot just "sit" on the rack they need a bike adapter bar which Thule sent us for free! So now we use the bike adapter as well as multiple ties to make sure the bike is going to stay on the rack.  I still let my husband load the bikes, but when he is not looking I double check to make sure everything is just right.

Monsoon Season

When we first got home a few days ago I noticed something in the lake behind our house.  From a distance I thought it was some type of  USGF test on the lake and/or inhabitants, but upon closer inspection I realized it was our umbrella.  Since monsoon season has started we have been fishing things both out of the lake and our pool.  You would think after three weeks here we would remember to tie down the umbrella and put things away.  Not so.  I came home today to find our umbrella in the swimming pool and pool raft in the lake.  This time the umbrella was easy to fetch out -- unlike Saturday trying to retrieve it from the lake.

Since we didn't have a boat and none of our neighbors were home we had to let the umbrella circle the lake an untold number of times until we were able to rescue it 15 hours later.  It was stinky and dirty but very much intact.  Yep, monsoon season is keeping us busy.  Regardless -- we are loving our house and our Chandler location.  It could only be more perfect if Jace were here with us.

Dog on Vacation

We are in the midst of planning our two week summer vacation which is basically a road trip consisting of camping, biking and hiking.  In the initial stages it was a no-brainer that Jack would come with us.  Now as the specifics of the trip start to take shape we realize logistically it is going to be a nightmare.  Traveling with a small child has taught us not to have any specific plans such as "we will go here or there at this time and then tomorrow we will do this at this time."  We have learned we can have a general idea of what we will do and when, as well as a backup plan if a certain little person is having a mental breakdown.  Now add having to find campgrounds/beaches/hotels that allow dogs when you don't know what day you will be at that particular campground,beach or hotel.  To make matters worse we can't leave our dog tied to the tent if we want to go on a bike ride (which is the point of going on a biking, hiking and camping vacation) -- well we could, but I won't.  It gives me the chills to think of the consequences of leaving my beautiful friendly boxer alone at a campsite!  Well, I won't even go there....

So where does Jack the Boxer go if he can't go there with us?  We have taken him to kennels before.  The last time he got ticks and then so did our house.  We left him with my mom for two weeks and he came home skinny and with bi-lateral flank hair loss.  I had a friend watch him in my home once, but she said he wouldn't eat -- so we ended our vacation early.  We had our neighbor come over on a daily basis to walk him when we were gone for eight days.  On that vacation the neighbor gave our door code to his son-in-law (someone we did not know) so he could walk Jack because the neighbor was unavailable.  There seem to be very few solutions offering a happy ending for Jack while we are on our road trip.

If you read my last post you know we bought a Weehoo because our bikes weren't getting used and we needed to find a solution on how to bring the little guy along.  Now, the only solution I can come up with for Jack on our vacation is a Weehoo for dogs!

Weehoo Igo Review

After realizing our mountain bikes have just become decorations in our garage I decided to try to find something that would enable us to ride our bikes again with our almost four year old.  Last year in Germany we tried out the bike trailer and our son hated it.  He complained of being hit in the face with rocks and that he was hot.  It seemed to us his complaints stemmed mostly from being isolated.  Next we tried the Ibert handlebar seat, but it would only work on my husband’s bike and pedaling was difficult.  The search was on for a bike apparatus that would work for our family.

By pure accident I came across the Weehoo when searching the REI website for trail-a-bikes.  At first glance I knew this was going to work out great.  I read all the reviews as well as reviews on other websites and the feedback was nothing but positive.  I watched a user posted video on You Tube which convinced my husband to try it.  We received it last Thursday and after several bike rides (if you build it they will use it) – we can say without regret we “love it!”  Our son enjoys participating by pedaling (at 3 ½ he can reach the pedals) and because it is open he seems to feel a part of the biking experience. 

What really sold us on the Weehoo was the fact our son can ride this up to 75lbs!  We also like that we have been able to enjoy long bike rides and not worry we will  have to stop when he gets tired – if he does he just takes a nap!  I love the 5 point harness seat and all the storage options.  Both my husband and I have pulled the Weehoo and love the way it tracks right behind our bikes.  Purchasing it from REI provided one other huge benefit:  they put it together!

We try to make very smart purchases and I feel this is one of the best we have made.  We are looking forward to enjoying our long term love relationship with the Weehoo.

An Alien Ate You?

Al·ien·ate (ly-nt, l--):   1. To cause to become unfriendly or hostile; estrange: alienate a friend; alienate potential supporters by taking extreme positions. See Synonyms at estrange. 2. To cause to become withdrawn or unresponsive; isolate or dissociate emotionally.  3. To cause to be transferred; turn away: "He succeeded . . . in alienating the affections of my only ward" (Oscar Wilde). 4. Law To transfer (property or a right) to the ownership of another, especially by an act of the owner rather than by inheritance.

This is what alienate means to an adult, but to my almost four year old it means something else.  My darling boy was listening, intently apparently, to a conversation with his father about my feeling alienated.  He promptly asked me why "did an alien ate you?"

My Little Munchkin Is Growing Up

And before I know it he will move out and I will only hear from him once a month.  He dresses himself now and drinks out of  "big boy cups."  He is done with diapers and naps.  Ethan promised me he would never move out, but the oldest, Jace, promised that too.  Today he told me he wants to be a taxi driver when he grows up.  Of course this is only because he saw a bright green prius and asked me what it was and I told him a Taxi driver (because it was).  A month ago he wanted to be a doctor.  Right now he loves shooting his nerf guns, collecting rocks, leaves and any other bizarre little item that strikes his fancy and will fit in his pocket.  His current favorite song is Cee Lo's "Forget You."  He bobs his head from side to side and sings "ooohhh oooh."  Sadly, he does not like heavy metal.  I am forced to listen to pop music when we are together. 

A friend told me today even when my munchkin drives me nuts I should not wish the time away because before I know it he will be grown up (and I do know this all too well), move out and move on wtih his life and I will miss the days of my clingy needy little three year old boy.  I already do.

Please Prepare For Descent

I love to hear those words after flying for nine hours.  Once this announcement is made from the pilot I to put everything away in their proper-easy-to-get-to places.  And after everything is stowed I start to relax (or tense up because I think we will crash) knowing that soon -- one way or another we will be on the ground.  I feel the same way now only I am not flying.  Just like in preparation for landing I am now making preparations for my long awaited move.

Prepare for descent could mean anything to anybody I suppose.  Descent into hell.  Descent into madness, chaos, darkness or misery -- been there and done all of those.  For me prepare for descent means butterflies and rose gardens.  It is no surprise to anyone who knows me how much I dislike where I live let alone Arizona.  Preparation for moving and selling a house is more complicated than preparing for landing yet very similar because they both involve stowing things away.  Also with similar consequences -- crashing and burning.  Of course we want to get the most for our house and at the very least what we paid.  Unfortunately the market doesn't agree with what we want for our house but we are going to ask for it anyway hoping there is someone out there who wants this house badly enough to pay it.  So while we are waiting I am preparing myself for my inevitable descent into something better!

Summer is Just Around the Corner

Is there anywhere in this country where the sun and clouds reign equally?  Nothing is more depressing to me than to wake up to yet another sunny day.  Perhaps it is because I realize in about two months the temperatures here will be climbing back up into the 80's which only heralds in the over 100 degree days soon thereafter.  With the high temperatures and unending sunshine comes the days of constant noise from the air conditioner running non-stop, continuous fight against the onslaught of scorpions trying to take over our home, and finally the disgusting overwhelming heat that keeps us confined to the house full noise and scorpions.

Granted weather in Arizona for five months out of the year is quite pleasant if you like continuous sunshine and temps in the 60's to 70's, but the other seven months are quite unbearable if you like to be outside.  My friend who lives in New York complained she and her family (including the dog) were becoming tired of being inside since winter began.  She said even the dog won't go out in the cold.  I say wait until your dog gets here -- she will be stuck inside, again, only this time she really can't go out because her paws will get burnt or she could die of heat stroke from trying to walk from the park to the house.

I just long for walks in the cold, clouds and rainy days.  I wouldn't mind the sunny days so much if there just weren't so may of them and they weren't harbingers of what is to come.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Three year old insights:

• “I tooted. Did you smell it?”
• "Do you understand what is coming out of my mouth?”
• "The light is green…go faster.”
• “Move out of the way. Beep at them momma."
• “To Infinity and Beyond.”
• “Bullshit.”
• “You are the meanest momma and I am going to shoot you (with the little toy gun he found at park).” I hope this isn’t a sign of something more formidable to come.
• After being told he is going to a different “Little Gym”: “This gym is sucked up.” I prefer not to tell you what he really meant and just take this as a cue I need to stop saying the “F” word.

My oldest son showed up on Christmas Eve …high, here are some righteous insights he had to pass on:

• “Yeah I smoked pot two hours ago, but I’m not high.”
• “What’s wrong with pot? it is natural and from the earth.”
• “You just don’t worry about my life – I got it handled. I know what I am doing.”  This quote is my personal favorite and one that makes me laugh frequently.