Frantic

Friday afternoon was spent frantically cleaning, for Russ had informed me that we were having company later that evening.

Don’t get me wrong—Anya and James are fun-loving non-judgmental friends, and we’ve shared some grand adventures through the years: dancing, hunting, and playing billiards.

Mostly in the living room, and mostly with the help of the Wii.

Tonight would surely follow suit, what with the arrival of the Lego Rock Band, the microphone, and guitars. Yes, plural.

There was no need for the frantic cleaning. The house wasn’t that messy, and they wouldn’t have commented anyway. They probably wouldn’t have even noticed. I sure don’t notice when I visit others’ homes.

No matter. Panic is my talent; frantic is my style.

I know I’m not alone in this. Millions of those internet memes have surfaced in the past year with some witty remark or another indicating that we all get more cleaning done in the ten minutes prior to the arrival of friends than we accomplish during the rest of the week. Or month. Or was it year?

Here is a pearl of wisdom that I encountered in my travels recently that I hope to someday embrace. I wish I could remember what the circumstances were—I’d love to give proper credit to this wise soul.

Long ago, I made the decision not to gussy up the house for company. That way, when they return to their own homes, they can look around and feel pleased that their home is not nearly the chaotic disaster that mine is.  I like to think that I’m doing a public service. If I can boost someone else’s confidence AND keep my own stress level down, it’s a win-win situation.

A, B, C, and D

Accepting
Blogger's
Challenge

Dang you, Heidi!

When my lovely, amazing, and talented friend Heidi suggested that I participate in a (the?) Blogger's Challenge with her this month, I was eager to join.

Heidi is very cool, and if this is what cool people are up to nowadays, I wanted to be a part of it.

I'm probably not the ideal candidate for this type of activity. My commitment to things like these (aw, fine, most things!) can be spotty, and my follow-through on tasks is iffy at best.

But my zest for starting new challenges is reliably enthusiastic, so I readily agreed.

Will I finish writing an entry for every letter of the alphabet over the next however-many days? Probably not, but you can still find ways to make reading these entries enjoyable. You could place bets on how many consecutive days I'll manage to write, if gambling is legal in your state. You could place wagers on what letter I'll leave off with when I abandon the challenge. There are any number of ways that you could derive pleasure from what will most likely result in failure.

Does this really count as four entries?
Heck if I know.

You see, Heidi presented this challenge idea on the fourth day of April, and presumably the fourth day of her own progress. How can you buddy-up with someone if you're forever trailing her? I didn't want to drag her down. She's my friend. And she's cool!

My participation was contingent on a letter E starting point for the following day. I'm pretty sure she didn't mind.

You know who did mind? My inner-obsessor.
My inner obsessor is very precise. Skipping A-D was akin to shirking responsibility, and if there's one thing I'm NOT, it's a responsibility shirker.

So, here we are.
A through D, check!

Onward and upward.




*Please note, no responsibilities were shirked in the making of this post.

Excuse Notes

Never have I been so grateful that excuse notes are only required for a late delivery and NOT a late pickup, for here is how yesterday’s note would have read:

To Whom It May Concern, 

Please excuse Mia’s mom’s tardiness during yesterday’s elementary school dismissal. You see, the postman delivered Lego Rock Band AND the new microphone for the Wii, and as a responsible parent, she simply had to test it out to make sure it was appropriate for the children.

After performing several Freddie Mercury songs, she realized that the entire family would benefit from an opportunity to celebrate Mercury’s heritage-- a celebration in the form of hummus. It was the culturally sensitive thing to do. So urgent was the need, so sincere was the desire to honor one of rock’s greatest icons, that Mia’s mom set aside the fact that she’s never made hummus before.

It seems she also set aside common sense, as she promptly forgot to make sure she had the necessary ingredients to make hummus. They had chick peas in the pantry. Wasn’t that all that really mattered?

Unfortunately, the family was out of tahini, which meant Mia’s mom needed to toast sesame seeds herself. Furthermore, the red peppers, which had been in the jar in the fridge since Christmas, had molded.  At this point, the only option was to slice and roast fresh peppers. (On sale at Sprouts this week, 88 cents each!) This worked out well, since the oven was already preheating for the sesame seeds, anyway.

Since all of this transpired at 2:28 pm, it seems a bit unreasonable to expect that Mia’s mom could have arrived for the 2:45 dismissal time. Especially considering the atrocious parking situation during dismissal, don’t you think? Thank goodness traffic started to clear up around 2:48.

Please accept this note of apology and the reassurance that this tardiness will not happen again.

Anytime soon, at least.

Going Blind

Amazing sights often top the list of powerful of experiences in life—glorious sunsets, majestic waterfalls, and the first long-awaited view of a newborn baby. I have those memories, too, and I’ll cherish them always, but near the pinnacle of my list of profound experiences is the day I lost my vision.

In theory, it should have been the best year of my career: I had reasonable class-sizes, motivated and compassionate students, two planning periods every day, and tons of new technology with which to experiment.

Yet by the end of every school day, I was absolutely ill. Head pounding, nauseated, and utterly exhausted, I could hardly remain upright throughout dinner, never mind helping with homework and housework.

Surely it was stress, but how? Things were better than they’d ever been!

One fine Thursday, while I was enjoying lunch with friends in a colleague’s classroom, something unexpected happened. I lost total vision in my left eye. All of it. Completely gone in an instant.

The situation seemed so surreal, I began to wonder if I was dreaming. So convinced was I that this was a dream that I did not mention this unusual development to any of my dining companions. How would I even bring it up? The students were due back in less than ten minutes. No sense in stirring up drama. Besides, I still had my right eye. Logic reassured me I could deal with it later.

Logic could not squelch my anxiety, and internal panic set in. Frantically I looked around the room, willing my left eye to see. That was when I noticed a banner that said ‘OCKS!’

OCKS?

Things were getting very sci-fi, very quickly.

There are my friends.There are the tables.There are the chairs.There is the trash can.There is the door.There is the banner above the door that says OCKS.

I cleaned my area, excused myself, and returned to my own classroom, running my hand along the wall to steady my nerves. What was happening?

In the privacy of my own classroom, several very unofficial self-conducted experiments revealed that all was not well with my right eye, either.  I could only see the right half of the words on the posters on the wall.

-O
-UR
-ST!

Looking down at the novel I’d hoped to read with the students that day, I knew there was no way I could convincingly translate the blurry Morse code of ink that covered each page. (More precisely, the right half of every page.)

Because they were very motivated and very compassionate students, my students cheerfully complied with my spontaneous change of plans for our lessons without question. I sensed skepticism when I asked a helper to take attendance for me, but nobody actually said anything, so no explanation was necessary.Thank goodness.

And then, less than an hour later, my vision returned.
I chalked the whole thing up to stress.
Wow, that stress sure can do weird things to a person.

Everything returned to normal.
Until it happened again.
And again.

I knew what had to be done, but things had not gone well at previous eye-doctor visits.There was the time back in high school when my cousin Justin had driven me to an appointment during a snowstorm.“The roads are gonna be awful! Would you just pick already? Those-ones-look-fine-hurry-up-let’s-go!”  he'd urged.

They did not look fine.  They made my ears—normally my finest feature—poke out like a Disney character’s. Which I did not realize until after we’d already made the purchase, of course.

Then there was the time in college when I thought contacts would be the solution to the vision challenge AND the ears-poking-out problem.  Maybe things have improved in the contact lens world since 1998, but these were no picnic. They were rigid and oddly-weighted to correct for astigmatism, and they were nearly impossible to remove. The first night I spent nearly two hours clawing at my eyes in an attempt to extricate them. During the extraction of the second one—the home stretch!—the lens flew out, shot across the bathroom, and landed directly in the toilet.Was I going to fish for it, sanitize it, and put in my eye?

Never.

Desperation forced me to set aside those experiences and to set up an appointment.

“Well, what brings you in today?” Can cheery optometrists be trusted, I wondered.

“I think I might be going blind,” I whispered, worried that if I used my speaking voice, I’d burst into tears right there in front of him. He checked my eyes while I explained the odd circumstances of late.

“Your vision is quite good," he announced, "I could write you a light prescription for glasses, if you’d like, but it might not be worth the hassle of keeping up with them.”

Wait. What?

He said he suspected that I was suffering from migraines, and he recommended that I visit my physician. Very common, lots of preventative medication available, blah-blah-blah.I struggled to listen to everything he was saying, but it was hard because my brain just kept singing I’m not going blind! I’m not going crazy!

I’d always thought that migraines were headaches, but apparently they can manifest themselves in all kinds of ways—a sort of ‘total body experience’ for a percentage of the population. Sometimes people can have an early warnings of an impending migraine-- seeing wavy lines, odd glows, or even partial words are just some of the aura indicators that a migraine is imminent. 

Many things can trigger migraines, he told me. Foods, smells, lights…Lights.

Like… new super-efficient fluorescent lighting, installed at my campus last summer? Clearly it was unofficial-self-conducted mini-experiment time.

I wore sunglasses indoors at work the very next day. I may have looked weird, but I felt fantastic. By the end of that week, I felt ten years younger. It wasn’t long before I’d reclaimed my energy and health.

For the next two years, I wore sunglasses at work. The As Seen on TV HD Vision ones were my favorites because the lenses have a wonderful goldeny hue and the frames aren’t brain-squeezers. No one at work—staff nor students—ever gave me a hard time about my new accessory. My family, on the other hand, was very vocal with their opinions when I decided to get a few of those jazzy glasses-holding chains. I promised to never wear those in public—at least around them.

I never had another episode of blindness at work again. At Home Depot, twice. At Goodwill. At Kroger. At Ikea, even, but never again at work. 

You never know when an energy-efficient destination will sneak up on you. I’ve gotten in the habit of keeping sunglasses with me nearly all the time, just in case.The modern world is a vicious place if you are sensitive to energy-efficient lighting.

Sometimes I wonder if there are lots of other people out there with similar symptoms, wondering why on earth they feel so awful all the time. Are they secretly terrified that they are going blind? I predict that more of these cases will surface now that regulations are becoming stricter about energy consumption and efficiency.

In fact, I should probably buy stock in As Seen on TV HD Vision glasses.

Married to a Millipede

“Your sock situation is out of control,” I seethed. It sounded meaner than I’d meant, but I couldn’t help it; I was certain I’d be pairing socks in my dreams that night.

“You’re right. I’m so sorry,” he replied, forever sincere. “You must feel like you’re married to a millipede.”

My annoyance defrosted by leaps and bounds as I pondered this.

Married to a Millipede: A Collection of Memoirs by Courtney Sanders-Robinson

This has potential, I thought.

Suddenly, I was grateful for our sock farm.


 

The Anti-Pollyanna Game

Remember that movie called Pollyanna, where the golden-curled ever-optimistic Hayley Mills heals the tiny town with her Glad Game? The object of the game is to soothe yourself through any of life’s disappointments by looking on the bright side and finding something to be glad about.

I have a game like that.

My game can prevent road rage, alleviate the agony of waiting in long lines at the grocery store, and even make peace with the crab grass on the lawn.

I should probably caution you that it is not very cheerful, though. In fact, Pollyanna would be mortified to be associated with my distorted version of her friendly little pastime.

Here is how my game works:

When something stressful or annoying happens, try to think of something truly terrible that will force you to extend your patience and compassion.

For example, if you get cut off in traffic, invent a tragic tale to justify the rude person’s behavior. He probably just received a call from the pet hospital that his dog was hit by a car, and now he is rushing to be by its side in its time of need.

Still irked? Compound the situation.

Maybe his dog AND his wife were both hit by the speeding car. Wouldn’t you be driving like a madman?! Oh, that poor, poor man. I certainly hope he gets there quickly and safely.

I’m realizing, as I type this, that the Anti-Pollyanna Game looks much more twisted in writing, but I’m telling you, it works! In fact, I’m playing the game right now.

Thank goodness my time-sensitive prescription in Dallas won’t be ready until after 2:30. It won’t goof up my afternoon/evening too much, considering that this minor time-setback will keep me off the road during what will surely be a fatal car wreck at that intersection. How could I possibly be annoyed about this situation when this delay will SAVE MY LIFE.

I’m thankful!

I’m relieved!
I’m the luckiest person in the world!

Forgive Me, Freya

If there is not already a statute of limitations on seventh-grade secrets between cousins, I would like to initiate one.  Better make it effective retroactively, though, since I let this cat out of the bag years ago.

Freya was an early reader.

Freya was a passionate reader.
Freya was a skilled and sophisticated reader—far more than I was, despite the fact that I was two years older. I would not be the least bit surprised if she was reading on a college level by the time she was in third grade.

Even though nearly twenty years have passed, I will always remember the time when my cousin Freya shared an embarrassing situation that had happened to her at school.  The task was reading aloud—something she’d always been a champ at—but in this instance, a certain four-letter single-syllable word created gallons of red-hot middle school embarrassment*.

The word rhymes with hint.

Okay, not really, but it looks like it should.

P-I-N-T

Hint. Mint. Lint.

When kids are early independent readers, it is usually because their decoding skills are in tip-top shape. They confidently use their skills to attack new words by sounding them out and making connections to familiar words and spelling patterns. Here is where capable independent silent readers sometimes fall through the cracks. She’d probably read that word a zillion times in her head, but because there wasn’t an opportunity to discuss exceptions to the rule, the pronunciation of the word got away from her.

So now there’s this amazing reader doubting herself (because you know there had to be snickers from classmates, “Haha, who mispronounces pint?!”)

I wish I’d known then how many times I’d encounter that situation as a middle school reading teacher. For some kids, it was not a big deal, but for the tender-hearted, passionate readers, it was mortifying.

 

Whenever this type of situation would happen in class, we’d pause in our lessons and I’d tell the students the pint story, because preservation of self-esteem is always worth the time.

Mispronunciations of this nature are not signs of a troubled reader; it’s just as likely that the student is a strong independent reader.

No harm, no foul, no need for self-doubt.

Whether or not folks are willing to admit it, it’s safe to say that everyone has these kinds of linguistic transgressions. I’ll admit it. I spent the bulk of my childhood (and even my teenage years) thinking “bane of my existence” was a compliment. Since my mother said it to me often, I assumed it meant “joy of my life”. For reasons I still can’t explain, I thought a Rottweiler was a car and a Studebaker was a dog until fairly recently.

A website called iusedtobelieve.com invites readers to submit their peculiar misunderstandings. I was surprised to see that many users confessed that when they were younger, they’d thought they were traveling to different planets by plane. It’s not so far-fetched—the plane leaves the earth, passes through the clouds, and eventually lands in a place with a (usually) different climate and landscape from the original location.

It’s amazing what you can go on believing when the world hasn’t had an opportunity to correct you.

Missed opportunities can’t be used to assess intelligence or worth of others, but we can’t allow missed opportunities to influence how we feel about ourselves, either.

It’s important to remember that experience trumps missed opportunities. Make the error. Experience it publicly, even, but don’t let it ruin your day or your self-esteem. Add the experience to your collection and just keep growing.

 

 

*Ever have trouble spelling embarrassment? Here’s a tip—two ‘r’s, two ‘s’s—really red, smiling shyly.