Monthly Archives: July 2019

Kayaker vs. Landlubber

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My husband zeroes in on kayaks the way my radar finds ice cream parlors.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” he drools. “Long, slim — probably has great moves.”

I suppose I should be grateful that he’s not observing a Jennifer Aniston look-alike. For years, though, I resisted his enthusiasm in favor of practical considerations, such as bills, college savings and investments in ice cream.

Unfortunately, I asked what he wanted for Christmas.

Armed and dangerous with Internet facts and figures, he proclaimed an inflatable kayak as the bargain gift. “Costs less, yet withstands white-water conditions.”

White water?

He nearly lost his case.

Even writing about big waves shifts my stomach into N for nausea. Yet, this boat represented the boy’s special Christmas wish. …

We bought the kayak.

Hubby pumped it up in the living room to “test inflation pressures.” Later, in his office to “calculate seat placement.” Then to “practice paddling.”

“You’ve paddled canoes all your life,” I said.

“Entirely different technique,” he retorted.

Having braved his office carpet, he foamed at the mouth, waiting for spring. However, tornadoes sabotaged every plan for the kayak’s maiden voyage.

Then, days before a promising campout date, I fell, bruising every muscle I owned. Some landlubbers will do anything to avoid paddling a kayak.

My husband never once insinuated that I’d ruined our kayaking adventure. Because he said he’d paddle solo.

Hubby salivated as he hand-pumped the kayak.

Me? Not salivating. Donning a life jacket (Ouch!) seemed a sufficient challenge. As did entering this inflatable kayak. It threatened to drown me before we left shore.

Somehow, we managed, and Hubby expertly steered us through glass-like water reflecting blue sky draped with tulle clouds. Wild rose thickets wafted exquisite scents across the water.

We spotted ducks, geese leading mini-parades of fuzzy goslings, sunbathing turtles, and minnows playing in the shallows. Orange and black orioles, the first I’d seen in Indiana, darted past. A heron eyed us, unperturbed.

Meanwhile, my husband paddled and paddled. And paddled.

I could handle that. Why hadn’t he told me kayaking was so wonderful?

However, the troublemaker wind kicked up bigger waves.

This might prove a little more challenging than your office carpet.

Waves morphed into whitecaps. Whitecaps on a central Indiana lake?

My stomach plummeted. Waves slapped us ever closer to an island’s rough shoreline.

Hubby dug in, and we edged toward our bay, where the wind couldn’t bully our boat. Finally, we reached it.

Will I ever kayak on the sea?

Only if anesthetized.

More kayak trips on Indiana lakes and rivers? My stomach votes no.

But this landlubber votes yes … even when she’ll have to paddle.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Have you ever changed your mind about your husband’s favorite pastime?

Little League Love

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Fierce soprano voices yell, “Batter! Batter!” Super-sized helmets top skinny little necks. Pint-sized players wield mitts big as sofa pillows (and about as effective).

A hometown crowd cheers and munches hot dogs and popcorn.

It’s the season for Little League Love.

Unlike most onlookers, my husband and I are comfortable spectators. Our children are too old for Little League, and our grandchildren have taken different directions.

During our son’s baseball career, I spent years at ball parks with my eyes tightly shut — often double-covered with hands — only venturing out of hiding to visit the concession stand.

Now, I actually watch. These players’ ages range from nine to 12. Some kids probably do Gillette shaving commercials to supplement their allowances. Others might be mistaken for bats — except for hats, mitts and spit. For not only do they imitate favorite major league players with elaborate windups and batting rituals, they have mastered expectoration at near professional levels.

Moms don’t applaud this aspect of their game. But they cheer every catch, throw and at bat. Family members try to behave so their kids will. But when offspring are involved, the gentlest mom — and grandma — grows fangs when the umpire dares call their boy out.

I never acted like that. Though … I do admit going a little overboard in motivating my child, egged on by another mom.

Still, we helped our sluggish team morph into a slugging team. My friend jumped up and informed her 12-year-old that if he fanned again, she would dance for the crowd’s entertainment. I informed my son that I would sing. Very loud.

Not only did our boys smack the ball, we inspired the entire team. Yet nobody put our names on their trophy. Where’s the Mom Love in that?

A roar from the present crowd brings me back to the end of a last-inning 0-0 tie. On a wild pitch, a youngster steals home! After the good-sport slapping of hands, they adjourn to the concession stand, where winners celebrate and losers drown their sorrows in sno-cones — and all look forward to the next game.

It’s easy for me to laud the joys of Little League from my maybe-I’ll-go-to-the-game-maybe-not stance. For parents who spend enough time watching, waiting and transporting to earn a degree, Little League Love wears a little thin.

But one dad near us sees his sons’ games as win-win situations. If their teams win, he’ll return for championship competition. If they lose, he’ll stay home and run a combine over his neglected lawn.

This dad cares about his kids, but not too much about their games’ outcome. That’s the very best kind of Little League Love.

In Grandma’s eyes, no professional MLB player can compare with this little batter!

Your Extraordinary Ordinary:  What do you like best/least about Little League?

Drinking It All In

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We Americans treasure our beverages. We are born yelling for something to drink, and we spend our lives attached to Mommy, baby bottle, sippy cup, glass, coffee mug, teacup, wine goblet, and milk carton. During toddler years, we dump beverages rather than drink them. Still, we establish lifelong consumption patterns.

Case in point: upon marriage, I, whose family considered orange juice a semi-luxury, discovered my husband considered it nonnegotiable. This, despite a weekly grocery budget of $15. No apple, cranberry, grape, or — God forbid — grapefruit juice. No insidious combinations like orange-papaya. Hubby preferred freshly squeezed orange juice, but graciously agreed to drink bottled until conditions permitted the proper beverage. (He’s still waiting.)

I, on the other hand, absorbed Mom and Dad’s edict that chili demanded Pepsi. Sadly, I have strayed. I now drink diet Pepsi, or even diet Coke. But never, with chili, pizza or Mexican food, will I ascribe to my spouse’s unswerving devotion to milk.

Not that I dislike milk. During family visits, I purchase five kinds (whole milk, 2%, 1%, skim, and rice milk, depending on who’s allergic, growing, dieting, or protesting). Milk is a basic value Hubby and I share.

However, despite noble coffee-consuming roots, he drinks only tea. I, though a coffee aficionado since serving at a Denny’s overnight during college, occasionally drink tea to preserve our marriage.

That Denny’s experience at age 18 in Oregon, impacted my beverage history in other ways. Having smelled the aggregate breath of cowboys who donned menus and made marriage (and other) proposals, I nixed beer as an option. Ditto, when working as a janitor. I sniffed open whiskey bottles in a law firm’s board room. Whew — smelled like turpentine!

Later, when legal, Hubby and I surmised that wine recommended by a cork-sniffing steward really should taste better than that. And cost a lot less.

So, we’ve mostly stuck to orange juice-Pepsi-milk-coffee-tea dependence.

And water. However, I note the wordy truth observed by the late journalist Ambrose Bierce: “Upon nothing has so great and diligent an ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages, except for the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water.”

Many would rather die of thirst than drink H2O — unless poured from a plastic bottle. Recently, the FDA stated each American averaged 26 gallons of bottled water per year. We hadn’t sucked so many plastic bottles since infancy.

Not my thing, nor Hubby’s. But he remains hopelessly devoted to morning orange juice and tea. I don’t object because I want my coffee.

And because his ancestors came from Boston. In 1773, when England messed with their favorite beverage, those people got a little testy. …

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your favorite beverage? Your least favorite?

Firefly Romance

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As a child, did you run barefoot through the summer dusk, catching fireflies? Like me, you probably incarcerated them in mayonnaise jars with holey lids.

My parents tried to persuade me to release them.

This made no sense. My folks constantly looked for ways to save money. What wasn’t to love about a cool invention that lowered the electric bill? Still, when they insisted the fireflies were crying for their mommies, I freed them, trusting they were flitting home to hugs, baths and clean jammies, too.

Growing older, I wondered if something less Disney was going on. Sure enough, research revealed those Snow White scenes were actually firefly date nights. Since their adult lives last only a few weeks, love strikes these bugs like lightning; they do some serious speed dating.

Like me, Sara Lewis, a Tufts University scientist, loves to watch fireflies. Unlike me, she gets paid. For the past 25 years, Sara has noticed different species use specific flashes and delays to communicate. Opposites often attract, as seen in the following Photinus marginellus exchange:

P. marginellus Guy: Flash! (Two-second pause.) Flash! (Two seconds.) Flash! (The P. marginellus guys are the faithful, consistent types, but a little boring.)

P. marginellus Girl: Flash! (Zero delay. The P. marginellus girls are a little easy.)

A reversed pattern characterizes Photinus carolinus fireflies; with six flashes in three seconds, guys define the word “flashy.” P. carolinus women, however, wait 10 whole seconds before emitting short, coy responses that declare these dudes better show up with candy and roses.

Which some do. According to Lewis, males often bring “nuptial gifts” — food to sustain females as they lay eggs. Even in the insect kingdom, women love their Fannie May’s. Tied with red satin ribbons, thank you very much.

Because the girls are so picky, P. carolinus guys often gather in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina-Tennessee border. There, they synchronize flashes to attract their ladies’ notice, creating spectacular light shows.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side to all this love and light. The female of one species fakes the signals of others to lure unsuspecting males to her place for dinner — with him as the main course!

Eww. I’m tempted to go inside and refresh my psyche with a pure-minded sitcom.

But strains of the Mills Brothers’ old song, “The Glow-Worm,” float through my mind. Hundreds of fireflies appear, tiny lights glimmering like shiny gold confetti. My husband joins me, and we hold hands, glad that children won’t lack fireflies for their mayonnaise jars.

And that these sparks light up summer evenings for all young — and old — lovers snuggling on a porch in the summer twilight.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your favorite firefly memory?

A Little Watering Excitement

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Reading this title, even I think I ought to get out more. Who spends Saturday nights holding a hose?

Of course, I blame my parents for my less-than-wild lifestyle. Mom, a pastor’s wife with five stair-step children, gladly would have enjoyed a few uninterrupted minutes to do nothing but water petunias and breathe. But with little time to do either, she elected me.

I almost preferred babysitting my brothers. At least, they did exciting things like setting the sofa afire. Still, I created excitement when the little creeps ventured too close, spraying them into the stratosphere.

Mostly, though, I considered watering in the same class as listening to my dad preach. Both were good things I should do, but the tasks seemed to go on forever and ever, amen.

With young adulthood, watering ended. Watering fairies in apartment complexes waved magic hoses, keeping grass and flowers bright and pretty as a box of Crayolas. However, when Hubby and I rented our first house, we found, to our shock, that the watering fairies hadn’t jumped onto the moving truck.

When we built our first house, I served as Mommy to the new lawn, as well as to three children. The Goddess of Liquid, supervising input and output, all I did was nurse babies, diaper babies and water grass.

Though the job description has narrowed, I still spend hours and dollars every summer hydrating our arid property. Spending less money and effort, I could buy veggies and flowers at the grocery. But even beyond the scrumptiousness of homegrown stuff, watering presents other positives.

For me, it fills the place that being a soccer mom once held. Then, I could justify a chaotic house and a car resembling a McDonald’s dumpster on wheels in the name of supporting my children. Privately, though, other soccer moms and I considered our noble pastime legalized loafing.

But my children grew up. So, I’ve created a whole new concept.

If I water the flower bed near the street, half of Upland’s population walks/bikes/ Rollerblades past. Cute babies wave from strollers. Drivers stop dead in the middle of the street for conversation. I connect with neighbors, also looking noble as they water. And why not? We are greening the earth, as well as nurturing our inner loafers.

Actually, I keep quite busy while I water. Mentally scanning cabinets and fridge, I formulate grocery lists. I ponder my position on abortion. I review knock-knock jokes for our grandson. I pray for our sick neighbor. I count fireflies. I watch a dead-end street baseball game. I decide how to kill off the victim in my next novel. …

Who says watering isn’t exciting?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you the watering fairy in your family?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Retired?!

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  • Hubby in July 1976
  • Retirement from medicine, July 1, 2019

O my God, You know that early on, patients sometimes kicked my husband and his plaid bellbottoms out of exam rooms: “Too young to be a doctor!” Fast forward 40-plus years — as of today, he’s retired! Lord, neither of us worry about looking too young now. And plaid bellbottoms? No. Way. Still, OMG, walking together with You, we know future days will be groovy.