A Greener Biener

Once upon a time in an enchanted suburb there lived a family.

There was a king.  A queen.  A couple of princesses.  It was quite an ordinary family. They were content; not much happened in their little kingdom.

Then one day funny things did start to happen.

Funny, unexpected things that were not really the ha-ha kind of funny but more of the surreal funny of old-fashioned fairy tales.

The king, a rugged, tough guy sort of king, ignored a nagging pain in his side.  And wound up spending his magical summer in the hospital.

The brave queen soldiered on.

And then the princesses began acting funny.  They slept-walked into dangerous unknowns, narrowly escaping swirling attic fans and plunges.  They threw up.  They fainted.  Their fair coach failed to complete the trip home.

And yet despite grave doubts, the magical summer did end.  Happily-ever-after returned to enchanted suburbia.  And the brave queen soldiered on.

And then one day in the palace kitchen . . .

Princess number 2 skipped happily along, successfully navigating the stairs and turning the corner into the kitchen, for she wanted to know what was being prepared for dinner.  The Queen was there, chopping veggies; she was unaware of the terror lurking just feet from her precious princess.

The princess threw her hands up and started to scream.  And when I say she started to scream I mean SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM as in the horror industry was on the phone immediately trying to sign up such splendid vocal chords.

Her pointed finger shaking, she screamed on.  And when the queen followed the wiggling digit she saw, not 2 feet from the warm kitchen with the chopped vegetables and the screaming princess, a bear.

A BIG BEAR.

A BIG BLACK BEAR staring my shrieking princess in the eye.

A big black bear standing on the welcome mat inches outside our patio doors as if he had just taken the burgers from the grill and was merely waiting for the princess to lend him a hand in opening the door.

And then he loped away, pausing once for a slow backward glance.  He sauntered into our garden where he found our berries covered in snow, and with a cat-like grace leapt 6 feet to the top of the fence, strolled a bit up top, and disappeared into the afternoon sun.

And the brave queen?  She’s kind of at a loss here.

If we had paid any attention to the check engine light before we left, the car probably wouldn’t have stalled out.

Likewise, if Dave had heeded his check appendix light, he wouldn’t still be sitting in that lousy hospital bed and I might not consider vacation to be a four letter word.

Every day on the way to the hospital I pass the place where we were married.   Out front there’s this green guy with waving tentacles and fangs that hollers at me as I go by.  He’s all IN SICKNESS AND HEALTH this and FOR BETTER OR WORSE that.  And to think that 13 calm years of marriage had me thinking I was in for some wine sipping and sunset-ward sailing.

Other guys may say a quick goodbye to their appendix and head for the door.

Dave is not like other guys.  Today is his 11th day in the hospital, which by my calculations makes this the Worst Vacation Ever.

Turns out, if we had heeded that check appendix light when it burst in Colorado, the road to recovery would have been a whole lot smoother.  And this vacation would be more about rinsing sand from our nether regions and less about white blood cell counts and red jello.

Not that it’s all hospital gowns and stalled out engines (did I mention the car died? I think that was the same day Kira started throwing up. Or maybe it was just after my mother was diagnosed with Lyme disease, but before my father learned he was in the cast for another week. Funny how things blur together in these hazy summer days.)

Still, if you squint just so it’s almost like there is some good old fashioned vacationing going on out there –

There’s been broccoli picking in Grandma’s garden.

And a full moon over the bay.

My lucky sailor gals have a Grandma willing to take them on a boat-bound sleepover tied to the dock when loftier plans get foiled by hospital stays.

And then there’s mugs like this one.

I suppose it technically belongs to my sister, but it’s currently working overtime melting my aching heart, which despite nagging setbacks still harbors dreams of sailing off into the sunset with that guy I made those vows to.

Yeah, yeah, I’m still in.  For better or worse.  In sickness and health.

There’s nothing like it.

The crisp scent of ammonia in the morning.

The precious squeak of white shoes on linoleum.

The fluorescent lights and the beeping machines.  Nothing says vacation like the emergency room.

And this year, instead of wasting time with pedestrian trappings like sand castles or sailboats we simply unloaded the suitcases and the children and were on our way.

If you remember Jack Nickolson in Something’s Gotta Give,

then you’ve got a pretty good idea of how our first few nights at the beach went down.

We loaded up for the big road trip as planned, last Tuesday. The only addition to the car load of snacks, bathing suits and t-shirts was a bottle of ibuprofen for Dave’s unusual fever and stomach pain.  Funny thing; his appendix, which burst somewhere between Iowa and Wisconsin, didn’t slow him down a bit.  He sill managed a week’s worth of driving, basketball, jump rope and kickball games on the road out east.

The CT Scan tech asked me if he had a high tolerance for pain.   I think he just hates the idea of missing a game.

Understandably, Dave didn’t sleep well the night of the surgery, but it was not the beeping machines or the nurses in and out of his room demanding vitals that he blamed.  No, it was the screams of “STOP HIM HE’S GOING TO JUMP!” and “SOMEONE CALL THE ER, HE’S JUMPING!” that kept him up.

Turns out that one of the druggies from detox decided he’d had enough of the cafeteria food and thought he’d sail off into the sunset instead.  Hard to blame him considering the tantalizing view from the hospital windows.

Don’t get any ideas, dear husband.  My only wish is that you mend well and come back to me and then, I promise, we will sail off into the sunset together.

While I’ve been busy with a bunch of this

and a whole lot of that

I haven’t had much time to pay attention to what’s going on in my own backyard.  Yes, you’re seeing right.  It’s time for the Aerial Squirrel Olympics.

And the garden, while not defying gravity, is worthy of some medals of its own.  Fat snap peas hang from stalks that sail skyward

We’ve had fresh salad every night

The strawberries are ruby red gems of tasty goodness

Even those I have neglected are putting out.  Ignore an onion long enough and she’ll do something to attract your attention –

Likewise the weeds.  I knew it would pay off to put off pulling this guy.

And just like that the summer is sailing past, and it is time to hang up the jump ropes and the swim goggles, wish the veggies good luck with their battle against the weeds, and load up the car for the jumbo July road trip.

We’ll catch you from the road.  ‘Til then…Wagons East!

Chicken:

Not a chicken:

Hang tight. We have just about reached the end of my knowledge about chickens.

They have beady little eyes.

The color of the eggs they lay is directly linked to the color of their earlobes.  Impressive sounding, right?  At least until you get to the obvious follow-up question.

So no, I do not know how one locates a chicken earlobe.

I also do not know how the eggs decide who will go on to become a big chick and who joins us for breakfast.

Nor do I understand what drove the children to spend copious amounts of time passing weeds into the coop.

Perhaps it had to do with the pathetic state of farm strawberries this year.  Hail damaged and dusty, we picked barely enough to squeak out 4 jars of jam  Hardly enough to get us through the summer, let alone the school year, but I am not concerned in the slightest.

Who needs cowboy-hick-farmland berries anyway?

Not us.

We are partial to their beautifully bountiful backyard suburban cousins.

We’ve spoken before about my aversion to teeth. I especially deplore this habit they have of being cohesive team players in the mouth one day and walking the plank the next.

Warning: this post features a picture of one terribly frightening mug

Isn’t it horrible?  The mish-mash of unevenness and drool and bloody gums.  This maw only an orthodontist could love.

But be yea warned.  The pirate behind these pearls is one tough negotiator. She who takes her fairies seriously and who frankly has had it with quarters.

If she really considered herself a friend to the fairies she might have thought twice about throwing a wrench into the tooth fairy’s already tight schedule.  The poor fairy, who not only had to deal with the existential parenting conundrum of keeping faith alive, but now had to scramble and rummage through the dark house in hopes of discovering an unfamiliar yet worthy toy.

Impressively, I happened upon this.  One perfect glass frog.  More than equal in value to one bloody little baby tooth.

The next morning breakfast was full of musings.  Yes, my pirate was thrilled with her bounty, but how had the fairy found such a gem?

And if she had such awesome toys in her arsenal, what’s the deal with the lousy quarters?

What exactly are the logistics of maneuvering it beneath the pillow?

And what on earth could she be planning with all those teeth?

Ahhhh.  Hello my beautiful sunny iris.

If you squint just right it don’t you think it almost looks like that smoking hot orb that used to hang in the sky above this fair land?

Forgive me the sarcasm.

It’s not as if I’m one of those cheery sunshiny types.  I don’t need the sun to make me smile.  I like dreary rainy days that dispense permission to lounge in sweatpants with each thirst-quenching drop.

But enough is enough. I’m getting kind of cranky.

Maybe that has something to do with swim team practices in the cold rain and my inability to differentiate between a character-building, commitment-keeping lesson and being a mean parent.

But never mind a couple of wet, whiny kids, we’ve got strawberries bursting out of their patch–

My favorite flower flax is flexing its, um, floral-ness

And speaking of things that are taking delight in this everlasting deluge, there’s this, er, thing

This unidentified random weed that I neglected and it grew and grew and just when it started towering over me and hungrily licking its chops it burst into lovely light pink blossoms and now it’s not that scary anymore. In fact, I’m renaming it ‘flowering bush’ and inviting it to stay.

This is the garden.

Unfortunately, that big bare spot to the south represents the broccoli, pepper and eggplant sprouts that, like my shivering swimmers, proved not to be fans of icy rain.   But it’s okay, because I’m sure these guys will fit in just fine–

They look so hearty and tough.

And I’ll just bet they don’t complain to their mother even though she’s hardly the one who voluntarily begged to be signed up to swim.

Outside.

In Colorado.

In stupid old unpredictable May.

My kids have been asking for a pet since they could speak.  Something warm and fuzzy they could cuddle and love.

Hello Fluffy

Who cares that this adorable critter arrived alongside 30 pounds of his friends to take a spicy steam bath?  If my babies want a pet, then a pet they shall have.

At least for an hour or so.

And nothing says cuddly and sweet like a crayfish.  True, online experts claim them to be “incredibly aggressive, territorial and even cannibalistic,” yet they also find them to be “surprisingly entertaining pets to keep.”

And if by entertaining they mean catching the little mud-bugger as he leaps from his tupperware and sprints across the lawn, then I guess they are spot on.

***note to the greener reader***

Yes, I do realize that nothing in this post could possibly be construed as green.  Some might even call it tactless and carnivorous.  And for that I am sorry.  But hey — you know what goes really well with crawfish? Nudity.  It’s true, just ask anyone who’s spent time in New Orleans. So if it helps at all, I did also talk today about getting naked;  just click over to Mama Bird Diaries and check it out.

Do you want to know the best thing about this plastic baggie full of mouse skeletons?

It’s not my maternal pride over the obvious CSI skills my daughters’ exhibit.

It’s not knowing that our neighborhood owls are eating well, controlling the mouse population, and selecting our pine tree for the repository of their pellets/gifts.  Though all those things are clearly good things.

No, the best part about this cluster of doom is that it was not my Mother’s Day gift.

Because while I appreciate the heck out of every thoughtful token my daughters have bestowed over the years, it would have taken considerably more energy then I’ve got to muster up the necessary ooohs and ahhhs over this bag o’ bones.

In between dissections, the little naturalists did make themselves available to do mom’s bidding.  They scowled and declined happily lent a hand.  All it took was a subtle reminder that IT IS MOTHER’S DAY THAT’S WHY.

And in honor of Mother’s Day the hammock was to be hung.  I held the image all day as I seeded and weeded, knowing that soon I would be rocking gently beneath the trees.  Relaxing.

Sure enough, there was plenty of relaxing on Mother’s Day.

I know what you’re thinking, but you’re crazy.  It’s enough for me to simply watch my offspring relax with a good book.

Besides, between the children reading in the hammock and these love doves being all lovey dovey

And strawberries putting out their flowery best

And rhubarb so ripe it practically crisped itself,

And our future salads poking through to say hello

The day was perfect.

Especially since the mouse skulls weren’t destined for my room.  They were for the 2nd grade teacher.  Because nobody musters up excitement over mouse-parts-in-a-bag like a teacher.

Is what’s good for the goose chicken . . . good for the gander children?

These children that I have coddled and cuddled for over ten years? The ones who, yes, have a tendency to fall on their heads but otherwise have demonstrated good judgment and responsibility in spades.

Free range these children? These peace-loving, tree-hugging, flower children o’mine?

Yes.  I know the answer is yes.  It is time to let them out into that big bad world out there.

And in defense of that world, it’s been putting on a good show.  You’d never guess that she’s hell-bent on scaring me to pieces.  What with the blushing blossoms on her fruit trees

And her sweet young sprouts,

the world is practically bursting apart with displays of innocence.  It’s as if Mother Earth has draped herself in springtime in an evil attempt to forcefully loosen my hold and get my precious babes out into her play-land.

Which I know to be full of danger.

But it’s working.  I’m breaking down.  I am being fooled by Mama Nature.

Fooled into letting them ride their bikes without tethering them to bubble-wrap.  Fooled into giving them opportunities to flourish and the freedom to fail.  Fooled into free-ranging my chickadees.

No, not because it would make their flesh succulent and tender.

It’s because the little box that I yearn to keep them in is busting at the seams and at some point they may want to do things, like go to college.  Or get married.

And I hear that’s kind of hard to do when you’re being raised like veal.