Four Years of Therapy, Three Facebook Status Updates, Two Blog Posts, and Forty Holes Later

This is the reason that this happened.

Part-Time Position Available

Help Wanted: Part-time. Applicant must enjoy word problems and be able to provide moral and technical support for a sleep-deprived mother with her child’s 5th Grade science project presentation board layout. The ability to bake delicious red velvet cupcakes considered a plus.

My daughter finished her science report and presentation board last night except for some holes that needed to be punched around the edges with a sharp object. Don’t ask why. If I tell you, you’ll have more facts with which to come up with a diagnosis that has been eluding my shrink for years. Or maybe my shrink actually has a diagnosis, but for some reason won’t tell me. (No, I’m not paranoid.) (WHAT?) Seriously, he knows exactly what’s wrong with me. He’s awesome. I just forget a lot of what he tells me. But I digress. (Yes, my tendency to forget and digress is part of the diagnosis. I already knew that part. Thank you.)

Back to the holes. I told Laura that I would punch the holes for her. Stupidly. Because those holes? NEEDED TO BE EVENLY PLACED AROUND THE EDGES. And I? Apparently don't know how to do things that are evenly even around the edges. And my husband with his undergraduate degree in Engineering was blah blah blah in a meeting. And Laura with her math brain the totality of which obviously came from her father's half of the DNA was blah blah blah at school. I didn’t want to wait. (WHAT?) (Add compulsive to the above-not-mentioned diagnosis, if you really must.)

I started off eyeballing the poster and putting 40 little Post-its where the holes were supposed to be punched. WHAT? In my 20s, 30s, and 40s, I would have started off by punching holes first.

So, I think we can agree that I have grown as a person.

Then after moving each Post-it 500 times, I started trying to measure and do Algebra and maybe Geometry and calling a banker friend (because bankers are supposed to be good at math, right?) and updating my Facebook status. And even with graph paper and a ruler and an actual pencil and starting in the middle and working my way around the sides and several Facebook status updates and comments later, I could not figure out how to put 40 holes around a 48” x 36” board in an evenly even manner. I kept trying though. It became a gosh-darned quest. (See compulsive above.)

So, I think we can agree that I have not grown as a person.

Then my friend Trish emailed me four words, in lowercase letters, which caused me to conclude that if she wasn’t taking it seriously enough to bother with the shift key, why should I? Trish’s email said: "eyeball it. screw measuring."

I went back to eyeballing and then proceeded to hole punching with a renewed spirit.

So, I think we can agree that I've grown as a person.

And while I was typing “40 holes around a 48” x 36” board” up there just above right here, this popped into my head without an invitation:

"Divide the number of holes by the total number of inches! Duh."

Yes, "duh" really did pop into my head, too. So, then . . .

40 holes divided by 168 inches means 4.2 inches between each hole.

I think. But I don't even care if that's wrong because I already punched the dang holes AND I didn't measure in between a single one of them. I'm not sure if that means that I have grown as a person or that I'm shrinking AND/OR that I'm really bad at math or really good at math, but as long as I don't care, then . . . I don't care.

Also, moving 40 Post-its 500 times equals 20,000 Post-it moves. I did that word problem in my head. Booyah.

Finally, I'm still looking for someone to make me some delicious red velvet cupcakes on a part-time basis. Interested applicants should submit a baking sample. STAT.

Einstein Has Left the Building

This morning:

Me: "Laura, hurry up!"

Laura: "I'm coming!"

Me: "You're going to be late for school."

Laura: "I don't care if I'm late."

Me: "Laura, it's my job to make sure you care if you're late."

Laura: "Mom, Einstein was always late for meetings."

Me: "He was? I didn't know that. How do you know that?"

Laura: "I don't. I just made that up."

(Photo Credit: Einstein photo was totally, flagrantly, possibly infringing on someone's legal rights, and without any sense of artistic integrity on my part, jacked from Google Images.)

It's a Good Thing Blognut Won't Read This*

We have really nice next-door neighbors and I am so sad that they put their house up for sale this week. And being interested in the asking price because as a homeowner it is always nice to be abreast of market trends and whatnot, and not at all because I am nosy, I went to the real estate agent's website to take a look. There I found a YouTube tour of the inside of the house, and can I just tell you that I'm ready to strike a match over on this side of the fence and move right in over on that side of the fence? It's beyond lovely. Every room looks like a page from a Pottery Barn catalog. Tasteful, aesthetically pleasing, and spotless.

So I ran into my neighbor out in front today. We chatted about the holidays, where they are moving, why they are moving, etc. And our conversation concluded as follows:

Me: "Your house is so lovely, who staged it for you?"

Neighbor: "Um. Nobody. That's our stuff."

Me: [Suddenly mute for the first time in my life. Well, except for the time that Adam Lambert put his hand on my shoulder.]

Neighbor: "Really, we live that way."

Me: "Uh, ahem, yes, of course. Well, yes, um, really, your home is so lovely. It will obviously show well and sell quickly."

I was wondering if I gave myself away. Surely he would be able to tell by my stupid "Who staged it for you?" question that we don't live that way. Quickly I talked myself into a comfy state of denial that I was sure I could make stick. No, this neighbor has no clue about my cluttered closets, cabinets, drawers, and, shut up, I'm not even going to mention what's under the daybed in my office. Because the outside of my house looks okay. It's not at all cluttered with unwanted and unnecessary things.

Just then he looked up and reached over my right shoulder into a tree at the side of my front walkway. I watched him pluck a large black spider and a strong black web off of one of the limbs. I was about to jump sky high when I realized it was a forgotten Halloween decoration still hanging in the tree.




*In case you didn't know, Blognuts hate spiders.

Some of Us Are Destined for Greatness. Some of Us Not So Much.

Monk Seal photo by Cheri
Poipu Beach, Kauai, December 29, 2010

Laura and I came across this monk seal sunning itself on Poipu Beach. The monk seal is an endangered species. It was pretty awesome to see one up close. So I decided to catch it on video just as it started moving around. It sort of sat up, shifted position, moved its little flipper-y arms around, and then it started to urinate. There was a lady in the background screaming, "IT'S PEEING! OH! LOOK! IT'S PEEEEEEEING!" She was making the whole thing a sort of double rainbow moment. I began to visualize getting rich from the about-to-go-viral video that I would later post on YouTube. And that's when I realized I'd turned the camera off, not on.

Laura, riding a horse into a volcano
Haleakala, Maui, December 21, 2010

There is more capability in each of us than the human mind typically comprehends. Think of yogis who are able to sleep on a bed of nails or walk over hot coals. To get there, even part way there, we first must believe that something is possible. And then we have to take action. Developing a practice can be a way to start. Or turning on the camera. Either way.

Rainbow photo by Adam (@clunkclunk)
Santa Cruz, January 2, 2010

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou