Toodle-ing

A little out of sorts today…lots of fun things to do on the immediate horizon but a less than chipper/healthy partner to do them with.  So to make myself feel better I toodled on down to the local coffee house, grabbed myself a Mayan Mocha with hemp milk and parked it by the window and started catching up with other people’s lives on Facebook, hoping for inspiration on what to write.

All day long my brain seems to hop from inspiration to inspiration…thoughts that I think would be interesting to expound on when I get a spare moment and a computer, or even a piece of paper in front of me. Not necessarily subjects which I think would interest others to read, but thoughts that I would like to build upon and flesh out in my own mind. I am often amazed by how much I don’t know about how I feel regarding certain things. Nothing leaves me more frustrated than being forced to think about things on the fly, when I’m not ready, but have people staring at me with that “what-do-you-mean-you-have-no-opinion?!” look of shocked pity on their faces. (honestly, I REALLY need to bring earbuds when I come here…the ladies next to me talking about their dream refrigerators are considerably distracting.)  Seriously, one day I will sit down and make a list of the things I need to consider and form opinions on.

Today is not that day.

Today I am stealing a questionnaire from another blog I read and I am going to answer it and see what pops up about me.  I expect to have to exercise my brain a bit here. I think the point is to just pop off answers as they first enter your brain. More often than not I have to root around. Things don’t routinely just “pop” in this noggin.

So here goes.

What’s your favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon?

Ugh.  Maybe this is too hard. Sunday afternoons are hard.  I tend to get a bit crazy with everyone in the house so I tend to try and keep busy or facilitate Jeff in getting one of his projects done. What would I like to do? I think I would love to park my butt on a couch in the living room and sleep and read. Exciting, I know. My parents used to stuff us in the back seat of the car and take us on “drives”. Seems like we spent many Sunday afternoons chasing elk herds or checking out “property” way out in the middle of the woods. Come to think of it, I probably had a book with me and I know I slept a good portion of that time…

Tell us 3 random things about yourself…

#1. I like spicy things foods in odd combinations: Mayan Mochas, El Diablo donuts with ghost chilies, habanero martinis, mmmm.

#2. I have been coloring my hair using the same color for the past 5 years, or more, (Clairol Natural Instincts Cinnaberry.)

#3.  Anything about eyeballs totally grosses me out.

Tell us a song you knew all the words to in high school.

Oh man, BAM! Corey Hart “Never Surrender”.  In fact, I can remember most of them right now.  And just like that, a flood of songs come in…”Sun Glasses at Night”, anything by Tina Turner, C’est la Vie by Robbie Neville… I was just starting to get into Bruce Springsteen at that point thanks to a concert/date I was invited to so Tunnel of Love was a big one…and anything Madonna, just like the rest of the world.

What was the first concert you went to?

Shawn Cassidy, with my Brownie Troop.  I think I was 7.

What’s the most interesting job you’ve had?

Interesting/enjoyable – Early morning shift at the YMCA. I loved greeting all the people who were morning people like me and I enjoyed gently wearing down the people who weren’t..

Interesting/learned a lot – Cardiology transcriptionist. Although I generally filed most of the useful information I learned somewhere unreachable in my brain, it was NOT a boring job.  I actually loved it tremendously.

If you could choose one super power, what would it be?

Is photographic memory considered a super power? I think it is.   I also would love to be able to recall trivial facts at the drop of a hat.

And time travel.

That’s three, I know.

Maybe I should wish for mathematical abilities…

If you could live in a cartoon, which one would it be?

Wow, being out of TV land for so long, I barely remember much of what I watched (this is where that super power would come in handy.) Well, it wasn’t cartoon, but more of muppet show. Anyone remember Bear in the Big Blue House? Bear had the coolest house….

What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Callos – Tripe stew.

I’ve also eaten fried salmon skin, which was delicious.

Share one truth and one lie about yourself and let us guess which is which.

I effectively failed my Orals (Spanish Finals) in college.

I have tattoos my parents don’t even know about.

As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a “stewardess” who owned a dog grooming business.  I just recently found out that this early revelation nearly gave my grandma apoplexy. I remember she would ask me why I didn’t want to be a veterinarian instead. The thought of sick and hurting animals was/is too much for me. I’d rather deal with maimed humans.

If you could have an unlimited storage of one thing, what would it be?

Books.

What is your favorite kind of pie?

My neighbor’s pecan. And Kathleen Ebbert’s mince.

To. die. For.

Would you rather live in Disneyland or Sea World?

Good Lord. I almost deleted this question as I am not a huge fan of either. Crowds and tourists are not my favorite.  Crowds made up of tourists cause me to break out in hives. HOWEVER, I suppose if I had to choose, having never been there, I would say Sea World. Fish are very calming.

If you were an animal which one would you be and why?

I ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS wanted to be a seal when I was little. Watching them at the zoo was my favorite thing. Now that I am older and have a bit more of a grasp on what their life is really like I think I would rather be a house cat.

Did you have a nickname in high school?

No. The closest I came to a nickname was my friend Dez calling me “K-katie-katie” all of the time.  I think she had a nickname for everyone. She still does.

Apple juice or orange juice?

Orange, but it gives me old-person-tummy issues…probably from too many El Diablo donuts.

If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I am so obsessed with the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon that Scotland is at the top of my list right now. To be truthful, I have always had a desire to travel Great Britain. Must be the stellar weather.

Window or aisle seat on an airplane?

Aisle. My bladder demands it.

What’s your favorite Disney movie?

I have a tendency to get Disney and Pixar mixed up nowadays, but I think Lilo and Stitch has to be my all time fave. Though there are several that I will watch over and over.

Have you ever met anyone famous?

Not that I can think of right off the top of my head.  I have seen famous people, and from those embarrassing experiences, I should say that it is probably a good thing that I have not actually met any of them face-to-face.  For a long time growing up I was convinced that my family knew Johnny and Roseanne Cash. I distinctly remembered going to their house with my parents after our house burned down.  As I got older, I realized that our house never actually burned down, which lead me to the rather shattering realization that we must have never actually known the Cash’s.  I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when that reality hit at around age 12.

Are you a hugger?

Yes.  And an arm toucher.  I stay away from faces, backs and shoulders, but I have found myself unconsciously laying my hand on people’s arms while I talk to them at times lately.

Well, that was kinda fun…

Prioritizing and Sea Pigs

On my list to do today:

Barre3 workout (10-30 minute workout I am trying to do at home as an experiment)

Grocery list making

Costco shop

Orthodontist appt

Write something (literally, that is what I put, but I didn’t mean for my grocery list to count)

Swim team

Pilates class

Post office drop (crap, I REALLY can’t forget to do that)

Dinner plan/shop

What I’ve done today:

Ortho appt ($300 FREAKING dollars for retainers I can’t see lasting a week! I’m CRYING!)

Created a Gravatar (my online profile for…something)

Talked on the phone with Lulu (tried desperately to convince her to move. Preferably here.)

Ate a piece of toast.

Checked my Facebook (okay, this is an ongoing thing, it is open on my desktop. Slap me.)

Read some blogs.

Washed my bedding (didn’t have the foresight to put that on my list)

It is now, let’s see, 11:03 and I have done all of two things on my list. I cannot forgo Pilates at 1:00 and the rest of the day after that is dedicated to picking up/dropping off/watching kids. Being the creative time manipulator that I am, however, I believe I will be able to sneak in a post office drop during swim team, and perhaps come up with a grocery list, though it would be better if I did that in the next 5 minutes so that I could leave early for the gym and hit up Costco…of course, that would require that I pack a cooler or else be late at the bus stop so that I could drop all of the food off.

Costco is hereby moved to tomorrow’s list.

I am, however, writing. I spent all morning, even at the orthodontist and while eating my toast (not while on the phone, however, I am not that obsessed — or talented) trying to compose my profile. I like it, it was fun to write. But I don’t think it sounds like me. It sounds more like what I want me to be, but it definitely doesn’t sound like me.  Here’s the thing though. I believe it IS me. I do have an unbound obsession with the ocean. While I am no mermaid, I’ve never scuba dived or surfed and it wasn’t until just over a year ago that I was ever so far out on the water that I couldn’t see land, I truly believe that it is THE cornerstone of my life. I can’t put my finger on why, really. In my profile I think I blame my dad and his career in the Coast Guard for my life being so closely tied to the water. Again, it wasn’t like we were a fishing family, a sailing family, or even a family that owned a beach house.  His job was policing the waterways and thus we spent half his career living within driving, if not sight distance, from some form of it.  I am so incredibly thankful for that! I think that the combination of the years where we lived almost on top of it (Astoria, Novato, Astoria, Astoria, Seattle) balanced by the years when we did not (Washington DC, and uh, Washington DC) are what cemented in me the desire to always be near it. My years in Walla Walla onion country were…not torture. I survived the wheat fields and dust storms, and even remember them fondly as adventurous days and beautiful vistas.  But I always had home to go back to with access to the Puget Sound, or Grays Harbor or, in California with that awesome drive out to Stinson Beach.  Corvallis, Oregon and the Willamette Valley were a great few years, and there was the river always nearby, but there were those weekends when we HAD to make the drive out to Newport, ostensibly for a bowl of chowder, but honestly, I think it was the wind and the saltwater smells of fish and sand and seaweed and tides that really pulled me back. It certainly wasn’t the search for sunshine! Jacksonville was the only time I was content with just knowing that the ocean was there, I recall very few visits to the beach but I was kinda busy being a new mom just then. Pensacola….a whole different story. I am not a person who likes to do stuff by myself. But I remember quite a few Sundays when Gary was on duty, and I went early to the beach by myself, before church services got out and families took over the sand. Those were beautiful, calm mornings of reveling in salt and sand with nary a wave or a ripple on the water. Corpus Christie? Not the prettiest beach, in fact, I remember being quite depressed by it with the tar balls that would wash up from the off shore rigs, the litter and desecration left behind by the campers and vehicles allowed on the sand —and it wasn’t the most pleasant smelling as far as tidal flats go, but we lived RIGHT smack on the bay, and I can forgive quite a lot when I live right on the water. Then there was Hawaii. . .

. . .

. . .

. . . oh, sorry.  Where was I? Oh yeah, Hawaii.

<insert Koko Head-sized, plumeria-scented, sand-dusted, warm-water floating, island-longing, don’t-even-care-about-the-monster-bugs sigh>

ANYwho…I think it is sufficient to say that I love my briny ocean water.  So why does my profile feel so foreign? Maybe because it is the first time I have ever really explored this part of me. Anyone who knows me knows that I carry the beach theme around in my back pocket or around my neck like a scarf. I can’t get enough of the turquoise blue to bottle green color scheme. I feel a bit passé these days as it seems like it is a passing trend nowadays, but I’m afraid I will always have blue walls in my house, jars of sea glass on every flat surface, and random shells and rocks on the kitchen windowsill (okay, and the bathroom window sill, and the living room window sill….)  The funny thing is that I hardly even think about it anymore other than to note that it is what I like. I don’t consciously think that these things I love pull me in because they remind me of Lanikai Beach, or Hood Canal, or that island in the Bahamas. It is, happily, more visceral than that (whew, that was an ugly word to spell, thank you Spell Check).  I will admit that it is a pleasure to come upon something I have collected (most recently a pasta dish from Ikea that I bought three years ago) and realize that it is the exact color of the water as you enter the Gulf Stream.

I love that.

But what about the rest of my profile. Do I really have salt water in my veins? Do I really carry within me the ability to refresh someone like jumping into the REALLY cold water at the canal can? And man, that water can be cold –  but despite rendering me breathless and perhaps a bit panicked upon first entering, there is nothing like the feeling of it fizzing up around me. Almost like jumping into an icy glass of seltzer water, only wilder and with stuff in it. Some of it I can see, (which has the ability to gross me out, I will not lie) and some of it which I can’t, (which has the ability to scare the bejeezus out of me if I let it.) Most of the time I try hard to concentrate on what I am feeling when I am in the water, and not just the lack of blood flow to my brain and other extremities, but the buoyancy, the depth, the sense or recklessness that it inspires. This water isn’t captive. It isn’t still or recycled.  It moves. It’s been EVERYWHERE. There is salt in it that has been carried around for millennia and originated in the antarctic. There is dust in it that has blown in from the deserts of Africa. There are objects in it that have been brought over from Asia. It is a literal soup of everything that makes up the world. And here I am, just floating in it, a little cold, a little grossed out, but part of it.

Amazing. As much as I am in it at that moment – I want it to be in me.  I want to be a brew of everything that I have experienced, touched, heard, loved, hated, seen, tasted. I want them at once to be a part of me, but also I want them to be noticed for their ipseity (I fell in love with that word, I hope I used it correctly!) I wand those things to be cherished and noticed as amazing pieces of the whole. As you look at the ocean, it is just that. It is The Ocean. But upon closer inspection, even in a glassful of water dipped from the shore, it is so much more. And it is all beautiful (well, maybe not the sea pig (thank you so much, Lisa Curtis for that revelation today) so much, or the sturgeon…okay, even the sea pig and the sturgeon, I’m feeling benevolent today), without being strictly pretty.

Here is where certain people will go “WHAT? The ocean is full of pretty! Pretty shells, pretty fish, pretty sunsets, pretty beaches!”.  I grew up mainly on the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Ocean beauty here consists of surf with the power to eat you, and if you are lucky, spit you out. Beauty has to be found in the near constant storms that blow in and the grey, mildly depressing days in-between them; the pebbly, or flat out rocky beaches; the sluggish schlumping and aquatic farm-like stench of sea lions and seals on the beach; the smell of salt water tidal flats and fishing nets and rotting piles of sand flea infested bull kelp at low tide, and the tidal pools harboring horny-fleshed starfish and pouty anenomes, and if you’re lucky, a sea cucumber or stranded nudabranch. Beauty here is that which makes you shield your eyes on a sunny, blue-skied day and feel like it is all TOO MUCH sugar. Others would say that it makes you truly appreciate the “beautiful days when the sun shines”. I love those days, but for me the real days are the ones when the sun hides and you have to be a little creative to find the “pretty”.

. . .Gosh, I got a little carried away there, I can’t exactly remember where I was going with this reverie… see people, this is why I need to practice at writing, I’ve completely lost my train of thought (oh! and just like that a squirrel runs across the back fence! Hey, Floki!)

Oh, so I believe I was trying to justify my profile description. Searching for the saltwater in my veins, the dynamism of my existence, my personal effervescence.  Maybe my words were just too fancy.  Perhaps I should have stuck with my hope that I am wilder than I appear, that I am hiding something beneath the surface that will surprise you but hopefully leave you with a positive feeling, if not giddily sweet aftertaste, once you get over the shock.

I think I can manage that. Care to take a dive?

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Whew! What a night…

I knew it was going to be a challenge right off the bat. But I thought it was a good idea and probably the right thing to do. I also knew it could go south at a moments notice and I fully prepared myself for everything that could possibly go wrong. I did not prepare myself for all that could go right.

For the past two years, Jeff and I have been taking the kids to the Rock and Worship Roadshow sponsored by Compassion International and hosted by one of our family’s favorite music bands, Mercy Me.  It never fails to impress us. We are exposed to different varieties of music that we normally wouldn’t listen too, but that never fails to appeal to at least one of us at any given time, and it is all positive and upbeat.  It is loud. We buy T-shirts. We come home late sore and hoarse and exhausted.  We love it!  This year the event was scheduled for a Sunday night, at a larger venue, requiring different ticket purchasing procedures and without the headliner of Mercy Me.  The kids still wanted to go, but Jeff and I made the executive decision based on the timing, that this year we would pass. Noah was the least thrilled with our decision, as he is a huge fan of one the headlining bands, Skillet , a heavy metal rock band. I was a little bummed as well as I was hoping to see Third Day , but a united front was had and it was expected they would get over it. 

They did.

Then last Wednesday I received an e-mail from Compassion International.  We have sponsored a child for the past two years, who we were given at the first Rock and Worship Roadshow. Obed’s letters are looked forward to with great pleasure by our whole family. Granted, I am the only one who writes at this point, but seeing his pictures of cars and hearing of his favorite foods and hopes for the future are great motivators.  The e-mail was asking for volunteers to help hand out Compassion International packets at the upcoming Road Show. Volunteers would receive entry free into the concert in return for about an hour’s work. 

In all honesty, the concert tickets cost all of $10. It wasn’t about the money. But I immediately thought it would be interesting to see who would be up for working for their bread and butter. I only offered it to the two eldest in my family as the other two were too young or still recovering health wise and not entirely up to a late night out.  Mac gave it some thought, but as he wasn’t a huge fan of any of the bands, decided he would pass. Noah jumped at it. 

This made me nervous.

Noah and I have not been on the best of terms lately. There are reasons, there is history that I won’t go into here, but the thought of spending an extended period of one-on-one time with him, worrying about his behavior and dedication to the job in the face of virtually being on his own in the Tacoma Dome…well, I’m not proud to say I let my imagination go and it was not a pretty thing. I won’t paint a picture of all the visions I had of him being irresponsible, pushing boundaries in public, disappearing at inopportune times, shirking his volunteer responsibilities…you name it, I pictured it, and by the time we were in the car on the way to the Tacoma Dome, I could barely speak to him.  

Yes, I am THAT awesome.

Then, I missed the exit to the Tacoma Dome. 

Surprisingly, nothing was said. Even more surprisingly, I discovered I actually did the right thing, took the next exit, dutifully followed the signs (even though it seemed I was going the wrong was as the Port of Tacoma loomed closer and closer) and –SUPRISE — there was the parking lot!

Cash Only and me with nothing but a debit card.

Noah forks over a $20 bill he had brought to pay for “merch” (am I the only one who is creeped out by that slang term for “merchandise”?). Of course, he pointed out there would be ATMs for me to get money to replace it with. But still, there was no hesitation and no obvious eye rolling. 

Wow.

The thing that really weirded me out was that he stuck by my side the entire night, except for when he was handing out his packets. I had fully intended to lecture him repeatedly on where/when we were to meet, with expected penalties if he were to fail (again, this is not without precedent, the county fair fiasco comes to mind). However, I was pretty much saved the need as we were given instructions by the volunteer coordinator as to when/where we were to rondezvous after our stints.  I thought I was being rather benevolent when I told the coordinator that he did not have to put us in the same section to hand out packets at this point. Call me crazy. So I got put down on the floor (score!) and Noah got assigned to an upper level. I wasn’t entire worried as he was assigned with a lady who was even more motherly than I am, she fussed over his smock/apron thingy, made sure he had pens to hand out and coordinated with him numerous times to make sure they were in the right place.  I have to admit I laughed a little at that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point, the music was loud, but it was good. I was excited, I really love this show. It is everything I like about concerts without the immediate fear of being trampled, separated, or beat down by some overzealous fan. The most irritating person there was the security person who kept telling us to put our cameras away (what?!? are you SERIOUS?) She mellowed out eventually and I struck back by videoing her dancing to Third Day…but I deleted it afterwards. The time came for us to hand out our pamphlets and I was fairly successful. I think we were given 15-20 each and I only had 5 remaining by the time the intermission was over. Each packet is representative of a specific child.

The child’s picture is on the front along with his name, birthdate and country of residence. God, I had some cute kids. None of them was over 6 years old and each of them called to me. I don’t know what possessed me to look at each one before I handed him or her to an audience member who stuck out a hand. But each one left my hand with a prayer that this was their moment. This was going to be their game changer. It was slow going. We had about 15 minutes to hand them out and it required a lot of walking back and forth, holding a packet up so that people could see it. I remember when I took Obed’s.  I waited until the very last second, even then hesitating at the added responsibility. But every time I glanced at the volunteer as she walked by she would purposefully catch my eye and smile.  So I started doing that, I don’t know how successful I was with it, but I did manage to get a few last second hands. It was pretty fulfilling, though I will admit that I felt bad for the five children I had remaining in my hand as the lights went back down and the music cranked up. I headed back to the Compassion booth where we were to return our packets and aprons and on the way was joined by the lady from Noah’s group. She asked if I was with “the young man”. When I said yes she put her hand on my arm and exclaimed, “He handed out ALL of his packets and half of mine!”

Wow.

Proud doesn’t even begin. 

Now, I know it is mostly a matter of luck, he had a row full of compassionate givers who literally cleaned him out within the first 30 seconds of availability. But the look on his face was what made my night. He was pretty astounded, rather than impressed with himself. A piece of me expected him to brag. He didn’t. He was amazed.

The rest of the evening we got to park ourselves wherever there was an empty seat and enjoy the rest of the show, so we boldly parked our bums in the front row of section 2, right on the floor. 

SUH-WEET!!

The acts were fun and talented and LOUD and full of energy and positive messages. I love that the only hard core, borderline offensive preaching was done outside on soap boxes and largely ignored (they were pretty mean sounding). Inside, the message was positive, fun, and focused on getting people to be joyful and hoarse and deaf and exhausted!

In front of the Compassion Booth…sort of

And boy howdy. We were.

Welcome back!

Okay, if you are here, it is because of one of two things…you either successfully made the transition from the old site (liveforwater@blogspot.com) and I applaud you…or I actually got the Facebook thing to work and you managed to see it despite being glued to the playoff game!

Of course, you might just be lost….or bored and have stumbled upon me accidentally. 

whatever…

Welcome!

I really hope this works. But if not, hey, I got another day of sitting in a coffee shop playing on my laptop.  Who knew that was my to be a milestone in my life. I had no idea that it was something I aspired to!

True to form, however, I have to tell you that I am jumping into this new WordPress site without truly feeling like I have ahandle on it. You might end up following me across the world wide web hopping from blog site to blog site. How exciting is that!! Ugh. However, if you get sick of following me, you can find a ton of other interesting blogs on WordPress to follow. In fact I got sidetracked from setting this thing up several times and spent about 2 hours just reading other blogs. I found a great one that had an article on what happened when they gave a blank map of the US to a group of Europeans and vice versa…hilarious. And sad. Mostly sad because I could relate with both the Europeans trying to fill out the US map (although I DO know that Washington State is not, in fact, Canada and I am pretty sure there is no state called Lesser Dakota) as well as the Americans trying to fill out the European map (I actually thought I knew where Ireland was, now I am not so sure). It kind of staggers me the things that I don’t know. Seriously.  I don’t expect myself to know quite a bit, but the amount of things I think I should know, that I don’t . . . well, it’s depressing.  I should know how to change a tire or put chains on. My dad actually tried to teach me how to do the latter, when I was in high school. On a freezing cold evening in the garage. It was a nightmare. There was blood involved, all of it mine.  And unfortunately, all I really retained from that lesson was the fact that I do NOT enjoy placing my head under a car. That realization was reinforced the night he helped me change the oil in my Range Rover. The car was up on a jack and all I could think about was the possibility of it falling down on my noggin, and the likelihood that by the time the shocks rebounded, my brain would be squashed all over the lovely heated garage floor (different garage than the chain lesson). What else don’t I know that I should? My kids social security numbers, how to access our shared bank account on line (so don’t bother to get me drunk to find out).  I don’t know how to properly tie off and weave in the end of a crochet project, this despite the fact that I just spent the last two months doing nothing but crocheting in cars, on bleachers and at home on the couch. That is lame because I simply have been too lazy to look it up in my how-to book. I don’t know how to hook up or start the generator. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I could even find it at this point in time.  I don’t know how to use a curling iron to do anything other than repeat all the mistakes I made with it in 8th grade. I don’t know how to walk properly in high heels (I look like I’m walking up a step hill, even when I’m on flat ground).  I should know how to make pizza dough that doesn’t come out of a tube. I should know how to download things off of my computer on to my kids hand held devices, but I don’t really want to know that, so I don’t.  I should know how to use most of the power tools in our shop without fearing decapitation or loss of sight, but I don’t.  I should know how to divide fractions without having to Google it EVERY SINGLE TIME.  I should know how to spell the word “weird” without having to depend on spell check to do it for me. Here is a big one. I REALLY, REALLY, need to know how to back a boat trailer. I cannot begin to describe the agony I feel having to sit in the boat, or on the pier hanging onto the boat, while Jeff retrieves the truck and trailer, backs it down the boat ramp, gets out, drives the boat onto the trailer, gets back into the truck, and drives it up the ramp. Sometimes, when necessary, I can drive the boat onto the trailer, but it is never without enormous amounts of fear and several PTSD-type flashbacks to when I screwed it up and nearly caused monumental destruction to both boat and marriage. I also don’t know how to tie a respectable knot to save my life. I don’t know how to dock a boat without same PTSD flashbacks. 

This is getting kind of depressing. And none of those things, bar the boating skills and perhaps the generator, and the tire chains are things that I really NEED to know how to do, but I should know them due to the fact that, well–because dammit! There are a ton of things that I would LOVE to know how to do. Like curl my hair, breeze through the set up of a blog site, use 98% of my computer, drive a car like an Indie driver and live to park it in the driveway, how to apply eyeliner so that it doesn’t end up on my lower lip by the end of the day, how to like cooking, how to ride a motorcycle without looking like it took off down the street without my intending for it to, whip a truck and trailer backwards down the boat ramp like I was born in Bizarro World . . .

                         Pretty much where I love to be on the boat.

Rather than calling these shortcomings, I have decided I shall call them goals. The only one that scares me is the cooking one…and the boat. As it probably should. I think a healthy dose of fear, far from keeping you from doing something, can help you make sure you do it safely and intelligently.  There is a time and a place to just let go and jump. Behind the wheel of your husband’s beloved Whaler is not one of those times. 

Sigh.