Gatorade is our friend ...

Tucker is Sick

I mean really sick.  He hasn't been able to eat anything solid since last Thursday.  (Our plan to spend Friday at the amusement park came to a screeching halt when he didn't hold his breakfast down.)  I don't panic over a day of stomach virus, we've gotten through that before with no problem.  But this is no ordinary virus that's got hold of my baby.  Yesterday, I started him on a prescription anti-nausea medication, and it knocked him out.  But it didn't seem to give him more than a minimum level of relief.  And he still couldn't handle food.  By last night, he couldn't even handle clear liquids.

As soon as I can get him there this morning, we are going to be in the doctor's office.  At this point the doctor and I are both concerned about dehydration.  And I'm about half insane over my baby curled up in pain whimpering.  Would you keep us in your prayers today?   I don't know how soon I'll be able to check back in here but as soon as I can, I'll let you know what we've learned and how he's doing. 

Thank you

Light Reading

I was in the mood this week for something that would be fun, interesting, and not too taxing on the brain cells.  Every book I picked up was funnier, more interesting, and had more depth than I expected. 

I started with Christopher Moore's, Island of the Sequined Love Nun.  I'll admit it, I picked it up simply for the title.  I'm a sucker for anything absurd that looks like it won't dissolve into inanity after page 7.  I'll admit, Moore teeter's on the inane edge, but his characters are just quirky enough and likeable in a "thank god I never wound up in this place" kind of way that they kept me interested.  I was predisposed to like the story because the hero's name is Tucker.  Tucker makes his living as a pilot for the Mary Jean Cosmetics Corporation.  But he has an unfortunate meeting with a lady of the evening who's willing to give him one on the house if he'll induct her into the mile high club.  By the end of chapter three the pink corporate jet is in flames and so is Tucker's life.  From there, it gets really wild.   The back cover says its a brazen, ingenious, irreverent, wickedly funny novel from a modern master of the outrageous.  This book lives up to its cover. 

Next I found Undead and Unwed by Mary Jane Davidson.  You'll find it in the romance section even though its a wickedly irreverent (there come those descriptors again, maybe I need to consult my thesaurus) vampire novel.  I was tickled when I opened the book and read the description of our heroine being attacked in the Mall of America parking lot.  I'm such a pushover for books that are set in places I love and this one has a heroine living in the same little St Paul suburb I lived in.  Being killed isn't the worst part of Betsy Taylor's day, she wakes up in the morgue wearing a horrible pink suit and cheap shoes!  That's just a shade too much for the woman who fought off a vampire with nothing more than the toes of her Manolo Blahniks and the scent of garlic on her breath.

Let me give you more from the back cover of this one, "...what really bites is that she can't seem to stay dead.  Every night she rises, with a horrible craving for blood, and she's not taking too well to the liquid diet.  Worst of all, her new friends have the ridiculous idea that Betsy is the prophesied vampire queen, and they want her help in overthrowing the most obnoxious, power-hungry vampire in five centuries - a badly dressed Bela Lugosi wannabe, natch.  Frankly, Betsy couldn't care less about vamp politics, but they have a powerful weapon of persuasion: designer shoes.  How can any self-respecting girl say no?"

Years and years ago, Lorna Landvik wrote her first novel and my friend told me I should run to the bookstore for my copy.  I was foolish and forgot her advice until this week when I was shelving books and found it.  According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Patty Jane's House of Curl has the emotional warmth of Lake Wobegon and the tender/tough female characters who populated Fried Green Tomatoes ... a unique story.  This is a story of love and loss in which the men who come and go from the lives of the women at the center influence and shape the direction of their lives.  Patty Jane marries a young blond god with ambition to become a great architect.  But Thor disappears from her life mere weeks before the birth of their daughter.  Told from the viewpoint of the daughter, Patty Jane's House of Curl has the unmistakable flavor of Norwegian baked goods and the acrid aroma of a permanent wave.  I thought last night that I'd read a chapter or two just to see ... an hour and a half later, I realized I was on page 175 and couldn't put it down. 

The last book in my light reading week is a mystery.  The only part of my job that I really don't enjoy is that we have to go through the shelves and pull out books for return.  Doing returns means stripping off the covers and the first chapter of the book - effectively destroying it.    One book I was supposed to destroy on Tuesday evening caught my eye.  Tamar Myers' Baroque and Desperate, (A Den of Antiquity Mystery).  The heroine has the sassy kind of attitude I enjoy in others and can never quite pull off in my own life. 

When the book opens, Abigail Timberlake is waking from a nightmare about Yankee terrorists and the Pledge of Allegiance on an airplane returning from vacation, "You had a nightmare," the young man beside me said.  "I didn't know what to do, so I poked you with my magazine."
   I stared at him.  He was handsome, too handsome for me to have missed when I boarded the plane.  That's what happens when your cruise ship docks in San Juan on its final night and you suddenly discover you have a taste for Puerto Rican rum. 
   "My name is Tradd Burton," he said, and gave me an easy good-old-boy grin.  "Tradd Maxwell Burton."
   "Abigail Timberlake," I grunted.  I do not dispense my middle name to strangers.
   "You from Charlotte," he asked. 
   I nodded and my seatmate became a blur.  There was no need to ask where he was from, Tradd Maxwell Burton couldn't say the pledge of allegiance in under a minute if he taped it and played it on fast forward.
   "You been on a cruise?" he asked.
   "How'd you guess?"
   "I saw the name of your cruise line on your bag when you put it in your overhead."
   "You're very observant," I said, and closed my eyes.  The young man had a right to be flattered.  Usually I reserve sarcasm for close relatives and other people I care about. 

Oh, yeah, I bought it.  I felt a moment of guilt over my spendthrift waste of money - but with the employee discount it was only $4.  So I skipped my nightly diet coke and cashews at the Candy Craze.  I'd rather have the book.  It really was a struggle, but the innocent little think was looking up at me so trustingly.  It just didn't deserve to have it's little cover ripped off.  And, well, I was weak. 

I gave in to another weakness that evening and bought a book of poetry.  I've been reading Neruda for months on the recommendation of two different people who's opinion I value highly.  This week I bought The Captain's Verses.  Which is a collection of Neruda's love poems.  I wouldn't classify this as light reading unless the light refers to the glow from the fires he ignites with his - how do you describe what he does with words?  I'm at a loss.   

I can't read this for more than one or two poems at a time.  It just takes me that long to appreciate what is before my eyes and truth be told I'm not sure I fully appreciate it even at that slow pace.  His words flare up throughout my day and I see shades of meaning from each new look at what he's said to me.  That's the power of Neruda, he doesn't speak language, he speaks through language and says things that make words seem like white noise you have to put up with to get the picture you must see. 

Let me share with you the poem I read yesterday, I'll tell you at the end which line it is that won't leave me alone, and maybe you'll come back in a day or two and tell me which line grabbed you ...

The Question

Love, a question
has destroyed you.

I have come back to you
from thorny uncertainty.

I want you straight as
the sword or the road.

But you insist
on keeping a nook
of shadow that I do not want.

My love,
understand me,
I love all of you,
from eyes to feet, to toenails,
inside,
all the brightness, which you kept.

It is I, my love,
who knocks at your door.
It is not the ghost, it is not
the one who once stopped
at your window.
I knock down the door:
I enter all your life:
I come to live in your soul:
you can not cope with me.

You must open door to door,
you must obey me,
you must open your eyes
so that I may search in them,
you must see how I walk
with heavy steps
along all the roads
that, blind, were waiting for me.

Do not fear,
I am yours,
but
I am not the passenger or the beggar,
I am your master,
the one you were waiting for,
and now I enter
your life,
no more to leave it,
love, love, love
but to stay.

The line that keeps coming into my mind for consideration more than any other is I come to live in your soul: you can not cope with me.  There are others that won't let me go, but this one has really challenged me to think about how much I approach relationships, or rather how much I don't allow relationships to approach me unless I already have my coping strategy in place.  One of the things I'm learning about myself is (and this is not all bad) how very much I hold myself apart.  It's important to have boundaries.  But unless  boundaries are challenged, they become rigid walls which allow no intimate exchange.  I want intimacy in my life.  I want to drop my walls and be open to the relationship that can't be coped with or strategized. 

Yeah - I'm glad I picked this week to be for light reading. 

It took a while ....

But Tucker couldn't hold out forever.  There were just too many temptations on this place.  Too many things begging to be touched and experimented with.  I'm surprised that it was the cat food that attracted his attention.  I would have thought there would be SOOO many other things that he would be less likely to resist.  But in the end, it was the cat food that got him.  A 20 lb bag of cat food.  Tossed onto the roof of the shed, scattered around the storage room - and poured into the sink and toilet.  Enough to cause a serious plumbing problem.

His Grandma was ...

He went to bed a sad Tucker.  A lost and found Tucker.  A why, oh why does this always happen to me Tucker.

2200 feet of track, a ten story drop, five inverted turns, 60 mph, suspended from track so smooth it feels like flying ...

not bad.

My brother has been watching the mail like a little kid.  He won the auction on e-bay and he knew it was only a matter of time before the prize arrived.  Last night he was rewarded.  It's a radio controlled submarine.  He carefully assembled it and tested it in my bathroom last night to make sure it was loaded with proper ballast.  We checked the website and there aren't any posted rules against bringing submarines into the wave pool.  So today, he and I are taking the kiddos (rain or shine, but it looks like we will finally have shine) to the park. 

The Gang's All Here

Well, this is my crew.  Yesterday morning, they woke up feisty from the sleepover of the night before.  Mom and I were bleary eyed and dragging.  So we took a vote and decided to let the people at the Duck Inn cook breakfast.  See that black van in the background?  After I snapped this photo the boys ran to find their seats and it looked like something out of a slapstick comedy.  The whole back end of the van was bobbing up and down.

There is much I have enjoyed about my time in Arkansas.  June was one of the wettest summer months I can ever recall spending here.  The lawns and gardens are green and lush, fat with big drops of water.  The morning dew is so heavy that it feels like rain even when no rain is falling.  I was wishing that we'd be going back to the park pretty much every day this week, but it's looking like rain again today, so I'll have to find some indoor fun.  Although ... it is a nice WARM rain - maybe I'll take the kids to play putt putt golf.  Talk about your water traps. 

Last night I saw a woman I haven't seen in 25 years.   I graduated high school with her daughter, not a close friend, but a girl I spent time with and liked.  Tracie and I aspired to different lives.  She desperately wanted to be a cheerleader, but was so quiet in temperament and deportment that even though she finally made the squad it was never a good fit.  I loved cheering, went to all the games, but I never wanted to be a cheerleader, because I had too much fun as a spectator.  (Plus, my boyfriend was in the band, and during the third quarter of every game we recklessly flirted with the possibility of demerits for a Public Display of Affection with our not quite hand holding ...) 

Tracie's mother was also at every game.  Wanda was a bold dark eyed beauty with an air that said she knew exactly what men were thinking as she walked by.  When we were in junior high school, she informed Tracie that the man she called father, wasn't her biological dad.  Several days later, she informed her husband of the same news.  I still remember the days between the announcements being filled with tears and the trauma of teen aged girls in possession of adult news and information without any real wisdom for handling it.

By the time we began our freshman year, a quiet divorce had taken place.  Apparently, the marriage couldn't stand that much truth.  Over the next three years we watched relationships bloom and fade as the newly single Mom (a much more rare creature then than now) grew into her own.  Finally she remarried a man several years her junior, and really upset the town wags.  Wanda caught the coach.  Steve was a big handsome man with the kind of personality that made everyone want to be his friend.  I remember that the gossips said she wasn't good enough for him, and surprisingly to me, the catty remarks that she and Tracie had to endure increased rather than fading after this marriage.  I saw my friend become more quiet and more withdrawn in the face of raised eyebrows and remarks about apples and trees.  She didn't even try out to be a cheerleader for our senior year.

Some women might have bowed to pressure to conform to the standards of their community.  Not Tracie's mom.  She dressed in sexy (but not slutty) clothing and wore her fingernails long with bright red polish.  She drove a sexy little car.  She didn't strut, exactly, but the way she walked was a thing of grace and beauty that I've never come close to copying. 

I haven't thought about Wanda much over the years.  Last night she came into the bookstore.  An attractive, quiet older woman who asked me about a new release and purchased two hardbacks.  I didn't recognize her until she handed me her license and I read the address.  The most notorious woman in town has become a much tamer kitten with the softening influence of years.  She's still beautiful.  And when I looked at her closely, I saw more of Tracie than I'd ever found in her face before.  I wonder now whether she regrets the way she lived her life or whether she would do it all again.  I wonder what kind of relationship she has with her daughter.  I just wonder ...