Saying Thanks: Past, Present, and Future

Previously published The Brunswick News/Coastal Illustrated Nov. 19, 2009

 

                Volunteering in my daughter’s first grade class, I get to relearn some things I’ve had to toss out of my brain to make room for the more “important” stuff like my social security number and all my online passwords.  Just the other day, I was reminded that a long time ago, way before man created ESPN and Trivial Pursuit, the first Plymouth colonists gathered with their neighboring Indian friends to celebrate an ample harvest that has now become known as Thanksgiving.

                The main man around town, Governor William Bradford proclaimed to all “ye pilgrims, with your wives, and ye little ones do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29^th, the year of the lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock….”

                Trying embossing that place and date on a piece of Crane card stock these days and I can guarantee you won’t be able to afford the 10 pound turkey  or premium liquor.  But if we look on the bright side, we can always say thank goodness for the fruits of technology and the little ole thing called “ye” Evite.  This way we might be able to procure the 47 cups of peanut oil needed to fry the little sucker in the first place, as well as the 5 Brandy Alexanders needed to get through Aunt Shirley’s slide show of Eastern Europe.

                All of this got me thinking; how much have things really changed since that November 400 years ago?

                First, there’s the obvious: when the pilgrims headed up that hill to the meeting place, I’m certain when they arrived there wasn’t a single autumn checked tablecloth from the Martha Stewart Home Collection or a tissue paper turkey accordion in sight.  There was no Scattergories game to cause fighting between family members so vicious that it sends somebody packing for a premature departure.  There weren’t yet the airline tickets to buy that cost as much as college.  No one had the enjoyment of kicked seats and “Are we there, yet?”s for hours on end.  Last, but not least, there wasn’t one single, dirty Pyrex dish to soak and scour.

                We have made positive strides like having Hellman’s Mayonnaise and Ritz Cracker crumbs that we can pour all over our vegetables to our heart’s content.  We can gorge on sweet pecan pies with Tennessee bourbon and chocolate chips while ingesting, like my daughter does, Reddi-Wip straight from the can.  We may have to worry about cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes, but we don’t have to worry about diseases like small pox, polio, or that nasty gangrene.  And not only do we not have to shoot, pluck, and dress our own turkey; we can call the Fourth of May and pick one up the same day.

                There are however, some things that have stayed exactly the same.  Women still do most, if not all of the cooking.  And although we finally have forks, there are plenty of people around our table that still eat with their fingers.  But most importantly, Thanksgiving reminds us, like our predecessors, to focus not on the stuff we don’t have, but on the stuff we do.

                I always say that if you want to see simplicity and goodness, all you have to do is look at the world through the eyes of “ye little ones,” as Governor Bradford liked to call them.  I learned a lot while helping the first grade students write their own Thanksgiving Proclamations.  Here are some of the gems they shared.

Cason, Age 6:

                “I am thankful for my Dad because he takes the time to play with me and build Legos; and my Mom because she gives good hugs and is always nice to me.  I am thankful for my friends because they help me with things I can’t do and are fun to be with.”

 

Mary Ryals, Age 6:

                “I am thankful for my house because if we did not have a house we would have to live on the side of the road.  I am thankful for God because He is my father in Heaven.”

 

Malcolm, Age 7:

“I am thankful for the ocean because it has cool stuff in it.  I am thankful for my brother, Henry, and my sister, Emmie, because they annoy me but keep my life interesting.”

               

Maybe today in our fast paced, recession riddled, panicked world, we can, for a day at least, celebrate like the pilgrims before us the simple things like warmth, good food, health and love.  And as our wise Malcolm, in all the infinite wisdom of his seven years, reminds us: rejoice in family even if they do drive you crazy because, if nothing else, they’ll keep us entertained long after the leftovers (and Brandy Alexanders) are gone.

                Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

A Redneck Review

previously published in Coastal Illustrated on Oct. 31, 2012

 

Words of Wisdom from the Robertson Clan

            I’m tired; tired of fashion conscious vampires, relentless zombies, underage binge drinking Manhattanites, and Nancy Grace.

Pop-culture these days has left me scratching my head, covering my ears, and, for the first time in a decade, going to bed without turning on the TV after chewing on 4 ounces of dark chocolate with a pot of my peppermint tea.

             That was until I met the Robertson’s. For those of you who’ve had no introduction, I will attempt to fill you in. Phil, the Robertson patriarch, a former college quarterback from Monroe, Louisiana, left a coaching job to get back to the swamp and to his roots….making duck calls out of cedar trees and hunting birds in the bayou. With the help of his sons, Willie (CEO), Jase, and Jep, and his brother Si, Phil turned his passion into a thriving, multi-million dollar family business.

Enter the cable channel A&E, the title “Duck Dynasty”, two generations of rednecks, and a steady stream of no nonsense advice, and you’ll witness the deep South has it’s never quite been portrayed: stripped down and naked as a jay bird- no sappy caricatures or overly sugary accented diatribes…just an honest, beard wearin’, boot peddlin’, mud lovin’, squirrel eatin’, and fun stompin’ insider look at a serious money makin’ merry band of family centric country folk.

And I’ll admit it. Fried bullfrog licking, skinned squirrels, beaver pelts, fish gut pullin’, and dynamite explosions aside, oh what I’d do to be one of them.

Week after week for two seasons now, I have turned off, tuned in, and fell in love with this quirky family as they’ve given more priceless advice (served with a hefty side of knee slappin’ humor) than Oprah, the ladies from “The View”, Anderson Cooper, Mr. Clean and Martha combined.

And to think they never travel North of Shreveport.

So here are a few lessons I have learned from “Duck Dynasty”-TV’s most entertaining, lovable, scruffy, sweet tea drinking- from abnormally large Mason jar, I might add- clan:

First up, of course… since it’s the South, food:

As grumpy, ponytailed wearing, Tupperware tea cup toting, ‘Nam veteran, and Phil’s brother Si likes to say, “when the grub runs out. That’s when things get tough around the house.” And no one knows this more than Miss Kay, Phil’s wife, who believes way deep down beneath her apron covered bosoms that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But said man’s stomach has to be mighty tough since all sorts of chopped up, bone-in, and fresh killed critters will be going straight into it.

Not only does she believe squirrel brains make you smarter and that gator balls are even tastier when not in season, she swears that food can keep the young one’s mind off that dreaded hormonally induced idea of “only sex, sex, sex, sex.” She explains this to her 18 year old grandson’s girlfriend in the kitchen over a pot of freshly whisked roux….stirred with what appears to be a shovel straight from the garden.

“Nowadays it’s all about sex. That’s all that’s important. I’m about to bestow a little knowledge on these kids. There’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, special snack night, popcorn night, chip and dip night. That’s what you need to think about. It never hurts to have a good pan of cornbread around, either.”

No wonder her husband Phil always says it doesn’t matter if a woman “may be ugly but if she cooks squirrels and dumplin’s, that’s the women you go after.”

Trust me, I have written all of this down in order to scare the living daylights out of my children. Fear is a rational deterrent and as Phil told his grandson one day in the boat: “better a good day of fishin’ than a lifetime of crabs.”

But Miss Kay is not the only Robertson to know her way around the kitchen, or in Si’s case, around a hot pad on a camouflaged, airbrushed, Duck Commander RV.

“I am the MacGyver of cooking. If you bring me a piece of bread, cabbage and a coconut, mustard greens, pig feet, pinecones- hey, it’s good for the colon-and a woodpecker; I will make you a good chicken pot pie.” That’s great and all but after serving the boys his ‘Nam Surprise (pork & Beans, Spam, and hot sauce), even Si had to admit it “literally, back fired on me” if you know what he means. So after berating the guys about not knowing how to handle their beans and complaining about an intestinal horror show, Si ends up riding shot gun solo with a hermitically sealed helmet on an ATV behind the RV.

He’s also the one who claims to have never been in an auto accident.

“You’ve never even hit a deer,” asks his nephew, Jase.

“That ain’t a wreck. It’s food on the table, Jack.”

Next up in life lessons- how to love, work, and be somewhat civil with your family- because you can’t pick them off, one by one, from a duck blind, anyway…no matter how high you’re up in the sky with a free flowing Keurig and central heating and AC.

            My favorite “character” without a doubt is Phil’s son, Jase, the Duck Commander’s chief duck call expert and second-in-command to his brother Willie, a redneck who ”married a yuppie, lives in the suburbs” and is now scared of flying opossums, rigged-up racing lawn mowers, and manual labor.

            Jase, on the other hand, has never met a rodent he didn’t like. After hearing the “pitter, patter of little feet” at the Duck Commander Warehouse, he takes a hand saw to the ceiling.

            “That’s a U.V.,” he tells his co-workers, all motors running. “An Unidentified Varmint. Is this varmint domesticated? Is this varmint a nuisance? Is this varmint something I can eat for lunch?”

            But he is also the voice of steady reason:

“Having your brother as your boss is a lot like dating your cousin….a little weird.”

“I hate lawn mowers (as well as parallel parking and four-way stops.) Let’s get rid of them all. If you combine the time you waste cutting the grass with the time spent shaving your face, we’d have gotten to Venus….or we could be doin’…. whatever.’

Referring to his brother’s love of Ninja’s:  “Willie doesn’t have the body type to wear a leotard. When he takes off runnin’, he looks like two opossums fighting over a dead squirrel in a toe sack.”

“I’ve got a great filing system. It’s my retrieval system that sucks.”

And my absolute favorite: “When you don’t know what you are doing, it’s best to do it quickly.”

             Yes, words to live by my friends and when you are at a loss for words, never fret, here is a quick Robertson Glossary that may come somewhat close to saying exactly what you mean:

A Terrible Situation: “It’s like hide the puppies bad.”

Things are Looking Up: “Now we’re cooking with peanut oil.”

A Lazy Co-Worker: “He’s like a blister who shows up when the works all gone.”

A Good Time: “Funner than chunckin’ rocks at a sign.”

Too Fancy: “It’s got more sparkles than most Las Vegas showgirls.”

Fighting Words: “Ready to scratch some gravel with him.”

The God’s Honest Truth: “You never insult a man’s beard. You get thunder or lightening, either one.”

            I can’t help it, but I love the Robertson clan. They remind me, in Willie’s own words, that friends and family are like “having a great pit crew. They make you feel like you’ve won even though you lost…and they’re better than a trophy any day.” So, maybe what’s so delicious about this Louisiana Bayou family is they speak the truth straight from their camouflaged hunting vested hearts.

And yes, maybe we take the people we are closest with for granted, but in the end we always come back together…whether on a duck blind, over supper, or at a family yard sale with a bucket of gumbo and half a dozen mounted squirrels on a piece of scrap wood.

            As Phil reminds us, “we don’t need a world full of straight A students...I’m an ole C average man myself. Si, he’s probably a C minus.” But they are all A plus in my book on sound advice and common sense, not every Wednesday at 10 pm, but every single day of the week.

            Bite that bullet, y’all. See you at the beaver dam. Ka-pow.

 

Critters and Kids

Previously published on thesouthernc.com- August 8,2012

               “You’re a sweetheart to the max. I love you like Crispy Critters.”- Wesley Willis

    People like to say down here in the South that if you can fry it, well…. you can surely eat it. I don’t know about that seeing as it was my brother who inherited my PaPa’s .22, his deep fryer, and a shared affinity for wild, domestic, and backyard game. See, in tribute to the gentility of the stoic Peach state and, of course, concern for the fairer sex, I got the oak china cabinet and the crystal. Trust me, social stereotypes aside, I’m not complaining.

    But what I did become heir to was an appreciation of what you hunt, you eat. What manages to get away, well….that’s where all the good stories come from.

    Rabbit stew, venison jerky and 1950’s cordial glasses aside, it seems this has all fallen on deaf ears, or more correctly, on the freckled, tiny earring pierced ones of my eleven year old daughter with her two index fingers firmly shoved in deep.

   We’ve talked food chain, overpopulation, protein, and malnutrition. It doesn’t matter. There isn’t a caterpillar too fuzzy, a pig too fat, nor a bee too busy. Every creature-big or small- she encounters is not only worthy of life, but of a more prosperous one at that. She will not stop until the “meek” have inherited the earth, or at least her room, our porch, and every Tupperware container out of the kitchen.

   And that’s what I love about her the most.

   We’ve rescued lady bugs, turtles, frogs, dogs. We’ve resuscitated stunned birds, hermit crabs, sand dollars, cats, and a trio of three legged lizards.

    We’ve formed triages on the trampoline, emergency medivacs from kite string, and recovery rooms out of coolers equipped with the finest bottles of water straight from the freshest of springs.

   This summer was no exception up on Lake Winnipesaukee.

   “Baby, no, no, no. Don’t cry,” says my friend Nick to my daughter as she spots something suffering, then bends over to pick up a crumpled dragonfly off the swim dock they have just hoisted themselves onto. “Whatever you do darlin’, just don’t name him.”

   He knows her too well.

  “But his name is Chocolate,” she wails.

   I watch Nick shrug his shoulders across the water. It’s done.

   The next hour is a frantic blur of E.R. reality TV proportions as we hunt for iPhones for research purposes, fill empty beer bottles with fresh lake water, huddle in and around an empty chicken salad container that contains a working IV, a twisted up insect and half a dozen fresh picked wild blueberries...oh yeah, and prepare for the worst.

   It doesn’t take long.

   “For the LOVE of God,” Gramma yells over her knitting and Michael Phelps going for gold on the TV. “Someone pronounce the thing dead already.”

   The fact that my daughter has used her iPad as a sound machine near Chocolate’s ICU bed and is simulating noises from the woodland forest probably doesn’t help matters…or her grandmother’s sanity….or mine for that matter, either. But yet, she still isn’t ready to give up.

   “Shouldn’t someone tell her it’s dead,” whispers her Aunt Alicia, as we all peer into the plastic abyss of uneaten blueberries and lost hope. “It’s the humane thing to do.”

   But I can’t.

   “It can wait until the morning.”

   It was a restless night. Especially, I am sure, for Livi, who kept vigil over both of her two broken things: her dragonfly and her heart.

   The summer sun rises especially early in New England (around 4:30) and with it all sorts of critters: loons, ducks, insects, small children.

   I tip-toed downstairs.

   “Mom, guess what,” Livi pops up from the sofa. “Come look!”

   Sure enough, Chocolate was perched on top of a curling piece of birch bark, bright eyed and bushy tailed, flapping his once crumpled and mangled wings in a quick and steady rhythm like a heartbeat.

   “Come on, Mom.” She reaches for my hand. “Let’s go outside and let him go.”

   People who can feel someone else’s pain and tragedy and importance on this planet-I mean really feel it, not just pontificate on empty words and failed promises- are the ones who have the strength and endurance to stand by and to help. Of this, I am sure. And of this, I am hopeful.

   I think of my PaPa often. I picture him with his rifle, hunting squirrels and tending to his garden. I am grateful for the ultimate intangible gift he has given me: life and the continuation of it.

   No matter how great or how small.

The Real World

                                  previously published in the Coastal Illustrated- July 25, 2012

   I’m a huge fan of "The Real World."  The MTV reality show, that is. It’s been a safe place for two decades where people (usually cute, single, and self-absorbed twenty somethings) “stop being polite and start being real.”

   I was there in the beginning, in New York, a young 20-year-old myself; a loyal couch side voyeur into the “colliding worlds” of seven strangers living in an ultra-hip SOHO apartment rent free where they talked “smack” and tried to bring about world peace.

   I was sitting right there with Kevin, the angst-ridden poet, and the Jersey City, beeper wearing, rap record seeker named Heather B. I watched sweet, small town, Southern Julie traverse the scary Manhattan landscape in her schrunchie and acid-washed jeans.

   I was there, on Lombard Street (the most crooked street in the world), a junior at Georgia, watching the cast of "Real World: San Francisco" tackle issues such as HIV, post-graduation post-partum, and the trials and tribulations of living with a bicycle messenger, named Puck, with no redeeming social skills whatsoever and the nasty habit of putting the peanut butter knife back in the jar after he licked it clean.

   And here I find myself today, 20 years later, still fascinated as I watch seven strangers live together in a million dollar home, on a private island, in the Virgin Islands, you know, “being real," soaking up the sun and drinking rum punch like bonefide VIPS.

   Everything is the same, year after year after year. Except, I have come to realize: me.

   “Why are you yelling at the TV?” my husband asks from the kitchen where I like to pretend he is loading the dinner dishes into the dishwasher instead of downing Captain Crunch like he is leaving for a seven-month voyage out to sea. “You’ll wake up the kids.”

   “Look! Just look at this,” I plead, pausing the show. “Tell me, for the love of all things wise and wonderful…….…tell me. Tell me what do you see?”

   “A redheaded skinny dude passed out on a weird looking swing and a girl in a bikini putting peanut butter on him.”

   “Ughhhh! A weird looking swing?” I hop up from my yellow chair, wilding pointing at it frozen in the frame. “It’s a custom made porch swing made out of an old refurbished row boat with custom cushions on a custom made settee! That’s probably worth eight grand! What kind of person rubs peanut butter all over an 8,000 dollar swing?!”

   He didn’t know the answer either. It may be time to stop watching the “real world,” or at least that would be the advice I would get from my OB….with my high blood pressure and all that. But seriously y’all, it gets harder and harder to watch two 25 year olds banter back and forth about how unfair life is while drinking vodka-laced Hawaiian Punch on a four hundred count, perfectly white, perfectly pristine, silk duvet and matching European shams encasing the finest of Egyptian cotton.

  Yes, get over it, life is unfair…..and so is a $2,000 dollar comforter set that no matter how many times they tell you is pre-treated, will never come back from the dry cleaners stain free.

 See, the real, “real” world is not what you ever thought it would turn out to be. For me, this is a rather perplexing thought as I prepare my oldest to leave the safety of the candy-colored tiled path of elementary school and straight into the scary scuffed up, smelly sneaker, locker clanging hall of middle school-ville.

 

  What words of wisdom do I give her? How to I make the crushing blows of faltering, not fitting in, fear of failure, not hurt so much? How do you encourage and guide your child to adulthood while preparing them for life’s let downs?

  We were all told the same things: the world’s our oyster….only we never really knew that literally, and figuratively, the price would cost as much as the market could bear.

  We were informed of “Oh, all the places you’ll go” but most of us at the time we’re not thinking a ranch in the suburbs with a mortgage, two car payments and student loans.

  Even those words we all absorbed as adolescents like a rich wine, the ones about being your own individual and “taking the road least traveled by” and that would make all the difference wasn’t even…”sigh”…. the poets intended meaning. 

  If we had read it more closely and with greater perspective, the poem would read as the poet intended; a nostalgic view of a man looking back on his life and contemplating the weight of the choices he made and do they really matter. The path was already chosen; you cannot go back and choose again.

  I have been thinking about that a lot this past week as I write this from a porch overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee and the woods of North Eastern New Hampshire. Especially, as I prepare my daughter for the first days of middle school come August.

  We have hiked these woods together, the same ones our poet Robert Frost walked for most of his adult life, since she was two years old. There is something eerily majestic and wise and dangerous about them. No, no two paths ever look the exact same. But there are tricky similarities that make you pause and wonder what you might miss depending on the path you’ve taken. As Frost tells us, there is not much you can do fretting about it; choice is an inevitability, a sure bed rock of life like the passing of time.

  Sometimes, the path turns rocky and steep in a hurry and we have no choice but to turn back. I hope she realizes that to retrace ones steps does not equate to failure. It stands for being smart and safe about her choices.

  Other times, the path is not particularly challenging and quiet and sparse. I hope she learns to not be disappointed but to keep going, you never know what you will find -a gentle pond, a great river, a regal mountain- if you stay the course.

  But always, no matter what mossy, rocky, footstep trodden path she takes…..the road will always lead home. And I will always be waiting.

  As adults, we learn to live with regret. Toss it around, shake it out and then put it back up, in its rightful place, out of reach. For a child, regret is a foreign concept too soon learned… for their own good.

  I only wish she learns the real world is what she makes of it. Hopefully, for her, that will make all the difference.

A VIP Kinda Town

 

A friend of mine recently asked an interesting question. If I could go back and change one thing, what would that be?

Of course, a million and one things blew through my brain all at once.

I would have worn white every fall after Labor Day, eaten dessert for breakfast, and never turned on the blessed TV.

I would have thought twice before leaving the house, even if it was only to the grocery, wearing my hot pink scrunchie, no make-up, and my pajama top charading as an extra-large Tee.

I would never have let my mom talk me into picking out Periwinkle (is it blue, is it purple? Who care?)for my bridesmaids dresses because I wanted black instead.

I would have laughed harder, even if I accidently snorted or spewed liquid from the side of my mouth and nose.

And I wouldn’t have felt silly for crying, even though my heart felt slightly closed up, just a little, every time I was done.

I would have liked myself more.

“You’re not dying, for Christ’s sake,” Alicia reminds me. “It’s a hypothetical question. And no, it’s not like Back to the Future where you can wipe out your children’s existence because you wish you and Doogie Howser had met on a blind date.”

“Are you sure,” I ask back. “I mean, I don’t like to tempt fate.”

“For the love of God, just pick one thing you regret from the past and tell me why you wish you could change it.”

One thing. Just one, small thing in a span of forty freaking years. Easy for her to say….she not even 35 (not to mention, she has no idea who Doogie Howser is. As if….)

Then it came to me. Only it wasn’t for a few more days.

“Where’s the older, bald guy with the cool mustache? I’ve missed him for awhile,” I ask someone from the drive thru window of the 19^th Hole after ordering a bottle of Simi chard.

“You mean Super Dave?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, rummaging, as always, through my wallet. “He’s tall, sweet in a gruff way, always laughs at my jokes.”

“Yeah, you’re talking about Dave,” he tells me. His voice is kind. “I’m sorry. He died of a heart attack a week ago Tuesday.”

Finally. Me, a loss for words.

Stay sweet, Super Dave would always tell me. Year after year after year….he’d say, stay sweet. How could I have never, ever, even asked him his name?

He’d pick out the perfect Pinot to have with beef, the crispest white for fried catfish, and best bloody mix for Sunday brunch. Tell me how you like it, he’d always ask me on my out the door.

We talked about other things too, in all the years I knew him. We talked about golf, college football, our lousy island internet connection, seasonal traffic, and all kinds of weather. I saw him at least once a week for as long as I can remember. I knew him, or at least, I thought I did. But I never asked him his name.

I found out even more about “Super Dave” Person, in the days that followed. Things I should have known awhile ago. He was born in Savannah, went to high school at Glynn Academy… the class of’67 to be exact… and served in the Army during the Vietnam conflict. He has two sons and five grandchildren.

Dave Person had been a part of the island, the community, a part of us, for over forty years. And I never thought to ask his name.

Dave. David. Super Dave. David Person.

Stay sweet.

I guess I just thought he’d always be there. Part of a spoke that turned the day to day wheel of my small world I’d like to think of as well greased. Ready to go. Contained. Business as usual.

Y’all have no idea how much I would love to pull up to the 19^th Hole and ask him right now if he could recommend a great Cabernet that’s got the right hint of tobacco, deep red currant, but not too sweet. I’d ask him about the weather, too.

I’d hear a baseball game in the background, smell the faint hint of cigarette smoke, and listen to Dave shooting the bull with his customers as he would ring me up. Then he’d give me the VIP service, as he liked to call it, by scrawling my own crazy signature across the credit card receipt, close the window, and get on with his business….as usual.

Tell me how you liked it.

How I wish I could.

Since Dave died, that Tuesday, May 8^th, I’ve thought a lot about where we live, our small town.

It’s not like I originally thought, each one of us living as separate wheels, moving in all sorts of crazy directions, casually crossing paths now and then, yielding, catching up, or running smack right in to one another, if we’re lucky, to visit and then go off again.

No, I think those of us who dwell here are more like thousands of pieces of a moving ladder, a giant strand of DNA. A living helix that is bound together at the stripped down essence of it all. We may spin and rotate in different directions, separately, molecule by molecule, person by person, all the time, but we still move with the same underlying purpose. Connected. The same strain.

My regret? Easy. It’s not asking for a name.

Stay sweet, y’all.

I'll Have Another

previously published in Coastal Illustrated on May 30th



I stepped in it, y’all.

And I mean both figuratively and literally.

Not too long ago, I was atop my high horse telling everyone who would listen how I was done. Finished.  Absolutely complete. No longer interested in the baby train, dirty diaper, sleepless nights of life on the Midnight Express.  I had gotten off, if you catch my drift, and was well into that Autumn of Motherhood, no longer looking back, but forward, to ten day vacations and available cash.

Then, I brought home a puppy.

It happened on the evening of “the most exciting two minutes in sports” , the Kentucky Derby where the little known 3 year old chestnut colt, I’ll Have Another, came from behind to beat out the favorite to win, Bodemeister, by one and a half lengths.

It was quite an exciting race.  And as the patrons from all around hoisted their glasses, chanting I’ll have Another, I was chasing my own dream, a teeny tiny puppy up for auction at Frederica Academy’s Derby Day Fundraiser named Mint Julep.  She was my quarter horse.  I was all in.

Luckily, we came home the winner and I was totally and in love. And life as we know it at home hasn’t been the same since.

See Mint Julep or “Jules” as we call her, came with an actual instruction book which she smartly chewed up upon arrival.  Not to be bested, I was able to look up a few things online (well, before she almost chewed through the USB cord that’s attached to my hard drive) and found out that training a puppy is not that different than “training” a baby.

Baby:

7 AM Feed, change, play, nap in crib

10 Am Feed, change, play, nap in crib

12 pm feed, change, play, nap in crib

Repeat every three hours.

Puppy:

7 AM Feed, walk, play, nap in crate

10 AM walk, play, nap in crate

12 PM walk, play, nap in crate

Repeat every three hours.

See what I’m talking about. Except, I’m beat, missing my favorite pair of flip flops, and can no longer leave the house for more than two hours.

Sounds like motherhood to me.  And now that I have welcomed home yet another bundle of joy- and in the spirit of celebrating this very special occasion- I am writing a letter for my baby just like the ones I penned for my other two babies after I brought them home from the hospital all those years ago.

Here goes: 

My dearest Jules,

If you are reading this letter, it is your twenty first birthday( in dog years- actually in human years it’s your third so guess I will be reading it to you, then again you’re a dog-but I digress.)  Since it is so fresh in my mind, I just wanted to tell you know how much you mean to me and how my life has changed so profoundly because of that Derby Day in May, 2012 when I brought you home, barely three pounds of fluff and fur that I could hold in the cradle of a single arm. 

You see, I loved you the minute I saw you, when those two gorgeous brown pools of reflective light met mine. Actually, to be fair, I kind of stalked you around the Retreat Ballroom because I wanted to take you home so badly.  Even the Humane Society volunteer with the clip board that was your charge probably, at one time or another, considered filing a restraining order. But see, I didn’t care.  I knew we were supposed to be together.  Little did I know that my sweet husband, you’re father, had instructed the volunteer to come to him whenever someone put in a bid to take you home.  He would counter.  It was kismet.  Our fate had already been sealed.

And I adored you even more that very first night, after I took you home and you immediately pooped on my sleeping daughters head and then ceremoniously chewed up every No 2 pencil at my desk, before falling asleep curled up in my lap.  I didn’t care that when getting up and maneuvering anywhere in the house, we had to walk slowly, head down, and alert for any land minds you laid out for us with loving care when we put you down on the ground for just a sec.  I love the way one of your ears flops down more than the other, and how you watch me with such concentration while I type, cook, brush my teeth, and pretend to iron. Not to mention, how you love puddles after a good rain, pouncing through the grass after crickets, pawing one of the cat’s fur balls around the house, and sleeping at my feet, after gnawing on them, at the end of a long day. It’s like you’ve have always been here and it’s only been a few, short weeks.  

     See, you came to be not because of a snow storm in April at a wedding weekend in Ann Harbor, Michigan. Or like another one of my children, as the result of 9 dollar ovulation test kit from the CVS.  No. You choose us, sweet Jules, when you stared at us with those puppy dog eyes and cocked your adorable teeny puppy dog ear.  Also, you came to be a part of our family because of a text exchange I had with your father precisely one week before we took you home.  I’ll share it with you now:

Your Father: I just realized I will be at a golf member-guest party on the 11^{th of} May- our wedding anniversary!  Whoops!  Guess we can go out to dinner another night.

Your Mother: Whoops! Yes, that’s right.  And isn’t it a bit clichéd to not remember when your anniversary is?

Father: I did remember, but I’m not missing member-guest! :)

Mother: Even better! :(

Father: I’ll get u a new vacuum cleaner or a new frying pan to make up for it!

Mother: U can’t stop topping yourself today, can u?  What’s next? A new blender and a dust pan?

Father: U know how Christmas is really for your birthday too?

Mom:

Dad: Hello?????

     So, when our eyes met and we fell in love that afternoon, and your father mouthed the words “No Way In Hell” from across the ballroom, I held up my cell phone, and he knew right then and there that we would be together, forever, as a family. 

Much Love and Always,

Your Mother

It’s important to note that Derby winner, I’ll Have Another, went on to win the Preakness last Saturday in a photo finish against the mighty Bodemeister; securing the second win he needed to capture the Triple Crown. 

But what I take away from the whole experience, besides finding a dog I adore wholeheartedly, was exploring exactly what the phrase I’ll Have Another really means.  For the owner of I’ll Have Another, J. Paul Reddam, it means another cookie after dinner while relaxing on the couch.  For WC Fields, when asked what he believed in, he responded “I believe I’ll have another drink.”

It’s a phrase we use when we partake in something we don’t necessarily need, but want all the same.  For me, it represents a romantic gesture made during the run for the roses. Did I need another dog? No. Did I want her? You have no idea how much. I guess in the end, when it comes down to an act of love, my answer will always be yes, I’ll have another. Please.   

Unsung Heroes

It happens every year.

And for the life of me, I just can’t figure out why.  Whenever they come out with the Top Ten Most Dangerous Jobs List every year, it always leaves me wondering who “they” actually are and what type of qualifications “they” possess to come up with the list in the first place.

They certainly haven’t stared down fear as they look into their own tired eyes through the bathroom mirror while cleaning their kid’s projectile vomit from their face, arms, and legs, knowing it will be a mere 24 hours before they’ll be right back in the bathroom, but this time laying on the cool tile floor, sick as a dog, in between the toilet and the sink.

Have they ever changed a diaper on a freeway or ripped open 17 juice boxes and served 40 snacks from the front seat without a seatbelt, extra napkins, or a "thank you" and a "please"?

Have they ever been hit in the head with baseball, a Frisbee, a half-dressed Polly Pocket doll, and a fat piece of orange sidewalk chalk- all at the same time-simply trying to navigate their way, in peace, from the driveway to the mailbox for their People magazine?

No.  I don’t think so.  If they had, motherhood would make the Top Ten List every stinking time.

What I do find fascinating about these lists y’all, (besides whoever makes them probably sits around and watches "Deadliest Catch" and "Ice Road Truckers all day"), is how a mother’s job title fits into every single one of these dangerous occupations. It’s actually uncanny. 

Let’s take a look at a few shall we:

Garbage Collector: 

It’s true if your job is to hang off the back of a three ton truck barreling down the road at 60 mph; it’s probably pretty dicey wondering if you’ll fall off and all.  But if you’ve ever emptied a stuffed dirty diaper bail on a empty stomach and 3 hours sleep, chances are greater or at least equal to fainting, then tumbling down the stairs, and hitting your head on a remote control airplane than plummeting of a garbage truck and into the street.

Wild Animal Tamer:

No one wants to tussle with a hungry crocodile; I’ll be the first to admit that.  But y’all can’t tell me wrestling a fifty pound, over-sugared, over-tired toddler out of the pool at lunch time doesn’t require a lot of skill.  Please.  Not to mention, I have seen moms do it with a baby on their hip, designer sunglasses a top their head, and a full glass of iced tea in their hand- without even one spill. 

Truck Drivers/Taxi Drivers/Chauffeurs:

This one to me is a no brainer.  Especially, since we SHARE the same roads with them anyways.  But truck driver’s, well, they’re  cruising solo, for MONEY, in the safety of an air-conditioned cab way up high out of reach of paper airplanes and empty goldfish pouches.  And if they’re taxi drivers or chauffeurs, they have the privilege of rolling up the window partition thingy that separates them from their passengers or can at least kick them out for being rude and yelling at the top of their lungs “please, pull over, I have to PEE! PEE!  PEE!” or “Stop touching me!” over and over and over again while you just trying to make it a few miles down the street.

Fisherman:

I have no doubt that’s a scary job, being out on a small boat in the middle of a vast sea.  But how about being alone with a pre-teen or teenager after school sitting around the kitchen table?

Mom: How was your day?

Kid: Good

Mom: What did you do in school?

Kid: Nothing

Mom: So how did you do on the science test?

Kid: Can we stop talking now.  It’s exhausting and "Deadliest Catch" is on.

I know fisherman put their lives in danger every day so we can eat, but at least they get something on their line every now and then.  mom’s fish all day, every day, and rarely reel in anything but an empty table five minutes after dinnertime, a stack of dirty dishes, and eight loads of smelly laundry.

 So, now do you see what I’m talking about?  Being a mother is one of the toughest, thankless, most mind boggling and exhausting occupations out there.

Moms are the unsung heroes, the battered and the bruised, the very ones who take a licking and keep on kicking.  They are the soldiers that keep marching on.

But if you ask anyone of them, they’d probably all tell you the same thing.  They wouldn’t trade their job for anything in the world.

Happy Moms Day, ladies!  I know it’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.  Actually, literally, the whole world does, or we would cease to exist as a species………

So pamper yourself every once and awhile and keep on, keeping on. 

See you in the trenches.